Tag Archives: Bowl – refinishing

Restoring an Old Amphora X-tra 509 Pot

Blog by Steve Laug

This is the last of the lot I found while on a recent trip in Northern Alberta, Canada. It is stamped Amphora X-tra 509 on the left side of the shank and on the right side it is stamped Genuine Briar over Made in Holland. The stem has an AA in a circle stamped on it (not a stamping for Amphora pipes I was familiar with). The pipe was in good shape. The rim was dirty and had a slight bit of build up on the surface. The bowl had a thin cake that was crumbly. The outside of the bowl was soiled and had some white paint on the surface. The stem was dirty and very slightly oxidized. There were no teeth marks on it so it was just dirty. The insides were also dirty. The inside of the shank and the stem were caked with a tarry buildup. There was an inner tube inserted in the tenon that extended into the shank almost as far as the airway at the bottom of the bowl.

I used a PipNet reamer and started with the smallest cutting head and took back the cake. I followed that with the next size of cutting head and took the cake back to the bare wood in the bowl. The bottom of the bowl had some gouges in it and looked like someone had done a reaming with a knife.

I removed the stem and dropped the bowl into an alcohol bath to soak overnight.

I mixed a batch of Oxyclean and put the stem together with others I was working on into the bath of Oxy clean to soak at the same time.

In the morning I took out the bowl and dried it off with a soft cloth. The finish was clean and the surface of the bowl free of the paint and grime that was present when I placed them in the bath. I took the stems out of the bath of Oxyclean and dried them off as well. The oxidation on the stem was softened and the stem was dark (it is the top stem in the second photo below).

I wiped down the bowl with acetone on a cotton pad to clean off the remaining finish. In the photo above of the bowl it appeared to have a fill on the bowl side. As I scrubbed it the surface cleaned up and the area was not a fill. The piece of briar has some great birdseye grain and a some cross grain on the front right side and the top of the bowl and shank. I also cleaned out the shank and the stem with pipe cleaners and Everclear. I scrubbed the rim to remove the tars and buildup.

I wanted to highlight the grain on this one so I decided to stain it using some Cherry Danish Oil which is Linseed oil and stain. I rubbed on the stain, rubbed it off and rubbed it on a second time. I set it aside to dry. Once it was dry I buffed it with White Diamond.

While it was drying I used micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit to work on the stem. I worked around the double AA on the stem logo. It is faint but still visible. Once I had finished sanding I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil and let it dry. When it was dry I rubbed it with a soft cloth to buff it by hand.

I polished the aluminum inner tube with 0000 steel wool to remove all grime that was remaining on the aluminum. I gave it a coat of wax and polished it off with a clean soft cloth.

I buffed the pipe and stem with White Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and then with a soft flannel buff to give it a shine. The final photos below show the finished pipe.

When I saw it I thought it was a Sasieni one dot billiard

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I came across this little billiard in an antique shop last weekend and when I saw the blue dot on the stem and saw the classic English shape of the bowl I truly thought I had found an elusive Sasieni one dot pipe. Lots of things about it seemed to signal that is what I had. The stamping was hard to see under the grime but there were i’s and an e. I was hopeful and I guess also wishful in my thinking. The pipe was dirty as can be seen below. The stem had obviously been damaged and cut off by the previous owner and a new button filed into the stem. The bowl was badly caked and the rim was damaged with dents and chips. I took the picture below while I was relaxing in a pub near the shop and looking over the finds of the afternoon.

When I got home I took it to the basement and wiped down the bowl with acetone on a cotton pad to remove some of the grime. Once the outside was wiped down I tried to read the stamping with a magnifying lens. I could not make out the stamping – it was too faint. There was no stamping on the right side of the shank. On the underside it appeared that there had been stamping but it was no longer visible. The next three photos give a good idea of what the pipe looked like before I did a cleanup on the bowl and stem.

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and took it back to bare wood. I picked at the inside of the bowl to check out the solidity of the walls and to check for potential burns. Everything looked and felt like it was solid so I dropped the bowl in an alcohol bath to soak over night.

The next day I took it out of the bath and dried it off. The bath had removed the old finish for the most part. I finished by once again wiping it down with acetone on a cotton pad. After soaking part of the stamping had become visible. I was disappointed that it appeared that the pipe was not a Sasieni. The stamping that showed up after it was dry read Genuine Briar, which seemed to point to an American made pipe post WW2. I believe it is post war as that is when it became necessary to identify genuine imported briar in contrast to the Manzanita and other alternatives used by American manufacturers during the war years due to a shortage in briar. The briar was a nice piece – birdseye on one side, nice grain on other parts of the pipe and a clean shape to the bowl. I knew it would clean up nicely.

I topped the bowl using my normal method of anchoring a piece of sandpaper on a flat board and twisting the top of the bowl into the sandpaper until the top is smooth. I started with 220 grit sandpaper and then used a medium and fine grit sanding block to smooth out the rim.

When I had finished topping the bowl I wiped it down with acetone and a soft cotton pad to remove the sanding dust and the grime from the topping process.

The stem had a poorly cut button on the end and the button as well as the taper on the stem needed to be reworked. I used a rasp and file to shape the taper on the stem and to take out the pinched look of the angle to the 90 degree cut on the button. The button was also not straight and not squarely cut so I also straightened out the flat edge of the button while I worked with the rasp and files. The next three photos show only the initial work on the stem and not the finished work. I removed quite a bit of the material and smooth out the slope of the taper so that it flowed evenly into the button on both the top and the bottom of the stem.

I sanded the newly shaped stem with 220 grit sandpaper and a medium grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches left by the rasp and files. Once I had the basic shape in place I decided to restain the bowl. I warmed the briar and then gave it several coats of a dark brown aniline stain thinned 1:1 with isopropyl alcohol. I flamed it between each coats to set the stain. The rim took extra coats to match the colour of the rest of the bowl.

I buffed the newly stained bowl lightly with White Diamond and then gave it a coat of a light cherry coloured Danish Oil. Once dry I buffed it by hand and then also gave it a light buff with White Diamond to polish it.

I then removed the stem and worked on the slot in the button. When the end of the stem had been cut off some of the flair of the original airway remained leaving the end of the button with a small rectangular opening. I used needle files to open the flair and widen the slot into more of an oval that extended the width and height of the button end.

Once I had the slot opened the way I like it I sanded the inner edges with a folded piece of sandpaper to smooth it out. I also did some more shaping with files to the taper of the stems. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper until I had the slope well-defined from the tenon back to the button. I also shaped the externals of the button to clean up the angle at the point the button and stem taper met. I also sanded it with a medium grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches left behind and to also remove the oxidation at the stem shank junction.

When I had the scratches removed as far as possible with the sanding sponge I went on to sand the stem with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded the stem with 1500, 1800 and 2400 grit sanding pads and the dry sanded with the remaining grits.

I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and rubbed it into the surface of the vulcanite. I took it to the buffer and buffed the stem with White Diamond. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and polished the pipe with a clean flannel buff to bring up the shine. The finished pipe is pictured below. I still wish I knew what the stamping says in full. That blue dot certainly is a symbol of some unknown to me brand of pipe. The mystery remains but in the mean time I have a great little billiard to enjoy.

A Handmade Denmark Dublin Reborn

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Blog by Greg Wolford

A week or so ago I went into a local antique shop that houses a variety of vendors. In the past I have found a few decent pipes here so I always have high hopes when I go there. This trip yielded a nice little haul of four pipes which I plan to restore over the next few weeks as i have time. The first two have already been started one: one completed and one still in the process. This post will mainly focus on a Dublin shape that is stamped on the shank Handmade over Denmark, with no other information on the pipe or stem. This is the pipe as it looked when I got it home:

As you can see, it was heavily caked and had what I thought were some deep scratches on it, the rim was charred and damaged from knocking out the dottle, the finish was gone, and the stem was oxidized but had little chatter on it. I decided to start with reaming the back the cake. This bowl is a tapered one, as many Dublins are, and required the use of all four of the bits on my Castleford reamer. After reaming the cake back considerably, to an even, thin layer, I decided to sanitize it with my retort. And since one of the other of the lot I picked up needed very little work other than cleaning (or so I thought at the time) I decided to go ahead and retort it (no reaming needed on this one) while I had the equipment out and also do both stems at this time, too. The Dublin took several “runs” with the retort to produce a clean tube of alcohol at the end; the cherrywood that I was also doing only took two tubes, but I knew it hadn’t been used much and wouldn’t be very dirty.

After I finished the work with the retort I dropped the stems in a OxyClean bath and left them to soak while I cleaned the shanks out. The retort had done a nice job of taking out most of the gunk in the shank of the Dublin; it took comparatively fewer pipe cleaners and cotton swabs than most restorations. I expected the shank from the cherrywood to be all but clean with one or two passes and it sort of was; instead of tar I found the alcohol had “raised” a mahogany-like stain inside the shank – and a lot of it. I then noticed that there was some of this same color on the outside, bottom edge of the shank. The pipe itself wasn’t a reddish color but a more maple, orange-ish one and I hadn’t planned on refinishing it since the color was nice and I didn’t really see a need – until now. Once I noticed the red color it had to come off the outside and out of the shank. Now the entire finish was going to have to be removed so both pipes got wiped down several time with acetone and then put into the alcohol bath overnight.

Several hours later I removed the stems from their soak to begin to make them look new again. I was disappointed to see that the thin layer of petroleum jelly I’d put over the logo on the cherrywood’s stem had washed away and the “white” which had been there was now gone; the stem logo had only been about 60% colored and I’d have had to apply more white anyway so I suppose it wasn’t that big of a deal. I washed the stem well with dish soap and then sprayed them with some liquid Bar Keeper’s Friend, a new product to me (I’ve tried the powdered form before but not the spray). I scrubbed them off with a Miracle Eraser hoping for the good results I had gotten last time I used the eraser but they weren’t as good, though a lot of the oxidation had softened and been removed.

I now moved onto using the micro mesh pads, wet sanding them with 1500 & 1800 grit. At this point I noticed there was some oxidation that hadn’t come out well so I took some 400 grit wet/dry paper to the stems, then “painted” them with a Bic lighter, and then back to the 400 grit paper until the oxidation spots were gone. I then went back to wet sanding with the micro mesh 1500-3200 grits. After the 3200 grit I polished the stems with plastic polish and then dry sanded with the remaining grits through 12,000. Here are a few photos of the shine progression:

I now set the stems aside until the next day when the stummels would come out of their bath.

After removing the stummels from the alcohol bath I wiped them down and them dry a bit. Then I began cleaning the shanks again to make sure all the tar, gunk, and stain were gone. I also cleaned as much gunk off the rims as I could so I could see what their condition really was; fair on the cherrywood and poor on the Dublin. I decided to top the bowl of the Dublin and set the cherrywood aside to finish later. This what the Dublin looked like at this point:

You can see much better the condition of the rim here. You can also see that the “scratches” I referred to earlier are in reality fills that have fallen out; I scraped them with my dental pick to be 100% certain. These would have to be dealt with after I topped the bowl.

I used 400 girt wet.dry paper to top the bowl, checking it often to see how it progressed. The char marks wouldn’t come out completely but were reduced substantially. And the dings in the rim were nearly sanded out, in good enough shape that I was happy with them; the one on the outside edge would require me to sand at least another 1/16″ off the entire bowl and I didn’t want to remove anymore material than I already had.

Now I turned my attention back to the fills. Taking the dental pick, I picked out the remaining fill material. I recently picked up a new product that I wanted to try on fills made by DAP and I thought this would be a good opportunity.

These sticks are a wax-like substance that softens with heat/friction. I chose the darkest of the four sticks and rubbed it into the two largest fill areas. The sticks worked easily into the areas that needed filled:

I buffed the excess off lightly with an old cotton rag, getting it into the fill well and just below the surface. I then put a bit of super glue over the new fills and let it dry. After it dried I sanded the fills back down to flush. There were also some areas that needed small scratches/marks sanded out on the bottom of the stummel so I did that at this time, too.

I avoided sanding around the nomenclature and the shank in general. As you can see, the spot sanding left some obvious differences in the finish. But I didn’t want to sand any more than I needed to and knew that as it was I’d have to blend the stain. I decided to use the new-to-me wood stain markers for this job as well as the bowl’s rim. I applied the stain from the marker in small sections and blended it immediately with my finger after I put it on; I did this with all of the fills, spot sanding and the rim. The stain from the markers is very easy to apply in just the area you want it and blending by “finger” was very smooth and didn’t take long at all. I think that the pens did a great job and they have earned a permanent place in my restoration arsenal!

I know took the entire pipe to the buffer and buffed the stummel with Tripoli and then the pipe with white diamond and carnauba wax, finishing with a few passes on a clean soft buff. This is the finished pipe:

The DAP fill sticks did a pretty good job I think. In retrospect, I should have, perhaps, used a lighter color; the fills were so near the grain I thought darker would be better. I do think that they are something that I will explore using further and believe they have potential for some good results.

Reworking a Unique Nylon “Vikingish” Pipe

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Blog by Steve Laug

When I saw this old pipe in the rack at the antique mall I wanted it because of its uniqueness. The price was also good – $9.95. I figured at that price it was like buying a corn cob pipe and certainly would function in the same capacity for me. This one had a nylon base and stem with a briar bowl that screwed into the base. Dr. Grabow bowls fit this pipe base perfectly but Falcon bowls do not fit. The only stamping on the pipe is on the bottom of the base where it reads Nylon. In researching this pipe on the net I was unable to find any pertinent information. When I posted it on Pipe Smoker Unlimited Forums I got a suggestion and a link to the Smoking Metals site. Low and behold the link took me to the exact pipe base as the one I had found. Here is the link: http://www.smokingmetal.co.uk/pipe.php?page=60 The pipe pictured has a far better bowl than the one that I found. What I found interesting was the information that was on the site regarding this pipe. I am copying it verbatim:

“No makers name, simply the word ‘NYLON’ on the base of the stem under the bowl. The briar bowl is Viking style, accepting all Dr Grabow Viking and Koolsmoke bowls. The bit can be varying colours and not always vulcanite so often severely damaged. The stems can be silvered or in gilt, or even painted, but it is not known if this is how they left the manufacturer. Among names sold under is Forecaster Superline. US Patent# 179,373 Inventor Berenson would seem to apply.”

This pipe was in good shape. The stem is attached and not removable. It had some tooth chatter but no tooth marks or bites. It was made of nylon and not vulcanite even though it is black. The base itself is an opalescent white colour and showed tobacco stains in the base and the shank. The bowl was unfinished and showed tooling marks from the turning on the lathe. There was a slight uneven ridge on one side where the top of the bowl curved upward. There were rough spots all around the bowl and the finish was unsanded. The wood is not briar and seems more like the maple or hickory bowls that come from Missouri Meerschaum. The inside of the bowl has a slight uneven carbon build up in the top of the bowl and dried and hardened pieces of dottle stuck to the sides in the bottom half of the bowl. The reservoir in the base also had a buildup of tars and shreds of tobacco stuck to the base. The first photo below was taken the day I found the pipe. Photos two through five show the bowl when I began working on it at my work table.

I unscrewed the bowl from the base and set it aside while I worked on the base to begin with. I cleaned out the stained reservoir with cotton swabs dipped in Everclear and used bristle and fluffy pipe cleaners on the inside of the stem and the shank. The dried tobacco shreds were stuck to the base so it took some scrubbing to remove the dried materials. The next three photos give an idea of the state of the reservoir and the slight tooth chatter on the stem. The fourth photo shows the cleaned but stained base of nylon.

Once the base was clean and the tars and buildup removed I worked on the finish of the bowl. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the marks from the lathe and the rough spots. I wanted to remove as much of the marking on the bowl as possible without changing the shape. As I sanded it I was impressed by the grain on the particular piece. I sanded the stem at the same time with the 220 grit sandpaper to remove the tooth chatter. Interestingly the nylon stem sanded out greyish white. The sanding dust was light grey in colour.

The next step in the sanding process was to use a medium grit sanding sponge and also with a fine grit sanding block to remove the marks and scratches left behind by the 220 grit sandpaper on both the bowl and the stem. I followed that by wet sanding the bowl and the stem with 1500, 1800 and 2400 grit micromesh sanding pads.

I then dry sanded with the remaining grits of micromesh sanding pads from 3200-12,000 grit. I used the micromesh pads on both the bowl and the stem. I did not include pictures of all of the sanding process but chose the one below as representative.

When I had finished sanding the stem and the bowl I buffed them lightly with White Diamond and then gave both a coat of carnauba wax. I chose for this bowl to not stain it but leave it natural as I like the look of the grain in the wood. The photos below show the finished pipe. Any ideas on what the wood might be?

I had no idea Douwe Egberts made pipes

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Blog by Steve Laug

When I posted the find of this pipe on Twitter, I received an email from Al Jones (upshallfan) that pretty well summarized my thinking. I post a bit of that email here: Douwe Egberts pipe??? We used them for our restaurant coffee program for many years (they provide the on-demand brewers used by Burger Kings as well). They are now owned by Sara-Lee. Who knew they made pipes! I’ll look forward to that restore and history lesson… If I had thought a bit more about it I would have remembered that Amphora tobacco was once made by Douwe Egberts but I did not remember that.

The one I picked up is a nice rusticated briar billiard. It is stamped Douwe Egberts X-tra 819. The stem also has a logo – an upward pointing white arrow-head. The bowl had a thick cake and the rim had a buildup of cake and tars. The bowl had what appears to be a combination of sandblasted and rusticated finish. The shank is sandblasted and it appears that the bowl was rusticated first and then sandblasted afterwards. The rustication has a rough edge appearance to it like it was blasted after the patterns were cut. The finish was dirty and worn and the stem had hints of oxidation under the grit and grime. There was minor tooth chatter on the top and bottom of the stem near the button. In the photo below, taken on my iPhone the pipe I am speaking about is the second one down from the top of the photo. (I apologize for the blurriness of the photo.)

Wikipedia states that Douwe Egberts (often abbreviated as DE) is a Dutch corporation that processes and trades coffee, tea, and other groceries. Its full name is Douwe Egberts Koninklijke Tabaksfabriek-Koffiebranderijen-Theehandel NV, which translates as “Douwe Egberts Royal Tobacco Factory – Coffee Roasters – Tea Traders, Plc.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douwe_Egberts

The late Bob Runowski (Morelysson) had this to say about the brand: Douwe Egbert was a conglomerate which used to manufacture Amphora. I don’t recall if the conglomerate ever owned pipe manufacturing. DE offered pipes as a premium for coupons in Amphora Pipe Tobacco, I think in the ’60s. Strange to me, though, because their Amphora pipes were always stamped “Amphora”. I did smoke a fair amount of Amphora Brown in my time. It was quite common for most tobacco firms to offer some inducement for the smoker to continue to buy their products. One of the better known was the Reynolds offerings for PA and CH users. H&H used to include a pipe tool (tamper/knife).

As Bob spoke of above, I have seen DE offering pipes with Amphora coupons. But those pipes were consistently stamped Amphora –and sometimes X-tra as the DE one I have is stamped. Generally they also bore the Made in Holland stamp as well. This pipe is not stamped with any other than the Douwe Egberts stamp.

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer to remove the cake, taking it back to bare wood. This pipe had a heavy aromatic smell so I decided to go back to the beginning and clean it out. Once I had reamed it I dropped it in an alcohol bath to soak for several hours.

I dropped the stem in a Oxyclean bath while the bowl was soaking. The Oxyclean softens the oxidation and makes it much easier to remove.

After a two hour soak, I took the bowl and the stem out of their respective baths and dried them off. In the first photo below you can see the oxidation has all risen to the surface of the DE stem. It is the third stem from the top in the photo.

I pushed the stem back into the shank once the shank had dried out and took some pictures to show the state of the pipe after the soaks.

I scrubbed the exterior bowl and shank down with a soft bristle tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime and build up in the grooves of the finish. I also scrubbed top of the rim with the tooth brush and used a dental pick to remove the buildup from the grooves of the finish. Once I had scrubbed the bowl I rinsed it with warm water under the tap. I scrubbed it with the warm water to remove the soap and then dried it with a soft cloth.

I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to clean off the remainder of the finish on the pipe. I worked on the rim until it was clean and free of the buildup that was deep in the grooves.

I restained the bowl and shank with a dark brown aniline stain, flamed it and then gave it a coat of Linseed oil with a light cherry stain.

This time around in the cleaning process I had gotten ahead of myself and stained the pipe before I had thoroughly cleaned out the interior of the pipe. IT WAS AN ERROR. Normally I clean and scrub the interior the same time I do the outside. It makes the cleaning with Everclear much easier and if the alcohol drips on the surface no harm is done. Doing it after the staining made the cleaner process fussy and I had to be careful not to harm the finish of the newly stained bowl and shank.

Once the interior was cleaned I set the bowl aside and worked on the stem. I sanded the stem with a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the surface oxidation. The Oxyclean had done a great job in bringing it all to the surface.

I put the stem back in the shank and did some work on the tooth marks on the top and bottom of the stem. I flamed them with a Bic lighter to lift them as much as possible. On the top side the marks disappeared altogether between the light sanding and the flame of the lighter. On the underside one deeper bite mark remained. I continued to flame it and sand until I had minimized its appearance on the stem.

I dry sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit. Each successive grit removed more of the scratches on the vulcanite and brought a deeper shine to the stem.

I rubbed down the stem with Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry and soak into the stem and buffed it by hand.

I took it to the buffer and buffed it with White Diamond and then with carnauba wax. I gave it multiple coats of wax and then buffed the pipe with a soft flannel buffing pad to give it a shine. The finished pipe is pictured below.

Reworking an Old Pal Pencil Shank Pot

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I just finished cleaning up another of the old pipes I found on my trip. It is a petite pot shaped pipe with a pencil shank. The overall length is barely over 5 inches and the weight is negligible. It is stamped on the left side of the shank in arc – Old Pal, over an Eagle with spread wings and then underneath Made in France.

On the right side of the shank it is stamped 5 which I assume is the shape number. The stem is also stamped with the words OLD PAL on the left side of the saddle portion. On this particular pipe it is faint. In checking on the background information on “Who Made That Pipe” I found that it had two French makers for Old Pal listed. The first of those is Marechal Ruchon and Cie. (Incidentally it is the company that owned the GBD brand). The second maker listed is Rubinovich & Haskell Ltd. The bird emblem is probably the key, but I can find no reference to it. My own thinking is that the brand was made by Marechal Ruchon & Cie. I was able to dig up this brief summary of the MR&C brand. Ganeval, Bondier and Donninger began making pipes in 1850 and rapidly gained prominence in briar pipe making. Of the three, Bondier survived the others by 30 years, but new partners took their places. The name of the company changed to Bondier Ulrich & Cie, then Bine Marechal & Cie and finally to A Marechal, Ruchon & Cie. August Marechal and Ferdinand Ruchon saw the firm into the 20th century, their names being used for the company for well over 50 years.

Prior to 1899, Marechal, Ruchon & Co. became A. Oppenhiemer’s sole agent for cigarette papers but still remained in the pipe making business. Then in 1902, Marechal, Ruchon & Co.. owners of GBD and referred to as French pipe makers, merged with A. Oppenhiemer. In the 1915 London Directory of briar pipe makers one will find: “”Marechal, Ruchon & Co. – 38 Finsbury Sq. E.C.; London works, 15 & 16 Featherstone St. E.C. and Oppenhiemer, A. & Co. – 38 Finsbury Sq. E.C. listed separately.

With that background information I worked on this old pipe to clean it up and restore it. When I picked it up the bowl was badly caked and packed full. The rim was dirty and tarred with what appeared to be a fill on the top of the rim right side. The entire right side of the pipe was full of fills of various sizes and shaped. There was one fill on the left side as well. The grain on the bowl was mixed and the finish was pretty beat up. The fills were shrunken and they left small pits in the surface of the pipe. The stem was oxidized and had tooth chatter on both sides near the button. The shank and airway were dirty and tarry. When the stem was removed there was an interesting flared tube that extended into the shank from the end of the tenon. The end looked like the bell of a horn. This was badly tarred and the inside of the tube was packed with debris.

I separated the stem and the bowl. The bowl was reamed with a PipNet pipe reamer back to a thin cake. Then I dropped the bowl in an alcohol bath to soak away the grime and to soften the fills. I drop the stem in an Oxyclean bath to raise the oxidation and soften it. I scrubbed both while in their respective baths to loosen the grime and buildup on the surfaces. I removed the bowl from the alcohol bath after two hours of soaking. I cleaned out the inside of the shank and the bowl as well as the inside of the stem. The trumpet like tube came out of the tenon and I cleaned it inside and out and reset it in the tenon. It is an interesting contraption as it is flared and the flared end rests against the end of the mortise directing the smoke directly into the mouthpiece. I have not seen that design before (see the photo below after the stem cleanup paragraph).

I used a dental pick to dig out the fills that had softened in the bowl. My objective was to remove them altogether and replace them with a briar dust and superglue fill that turns black and gives a different look than the red putty fills.

After removing the fills I wiped down the bowl with acetone on a cotton pad to remove the finish from the bowl and to remove extraneous dust from the holes where the fills used to be. I repeated this process until the bowl was clean. Once finished I used a drop of superglue in each pit and then pressed briar dust into the holes using a dental pick. I repeated the process until the fills were repaired. I then sanded the bowl to remove the excess briar and superglue fill material with 220 grit sandpaper, medium grit sanding sponges and a fine grit sanding block.

The black marks on the right side of the bowl highlight the fills in the bowl. I have often used a permanent black marker to blend in the fills to the grain. I decided to try that with this pipe as well.

I gave the bowl several coats of dark brown aniline stain mixed 1:1 with alcohol. I applied the stain, flamed the bowl, reapplied and reflamed until the colour was even over the entire surface. I then took it to the buffer and buffed the bowl with red Tripoli and White Diamond to polish the stain. I also wanted to see how well the fill material was working. I have found that as it dries it can still shrink.

I brought it back to the work table and gave it a coat of linseed oil.

The fills had shrunk and left divots in several spots so I reapplied the superglue and briar dust (less this time around). I sanded the bowl with a sanding sponge and a fine grit sanding block to smooth out the surface. I reapplied the stain and the linseed oil and then buffed the bowl.

I took the stem out of the bath and wiped it down. The majority of the oxidation wiped off with a damp cloth and then I polished it with Meguiar’s Scratch X2.0 and wiped it off the stem. I wiped the stem down with a polishing cloth and buffed it with White Diamond.

I applied a coat of Obsidian Oil and when dry rubbed it off. I reinserted the stem and buffed the stem with multiple coats of carnauba wax. I took the pipe to the buffer and buffed the entirety with carnauba wax and a soft flannel buff to a shine. The following pictures show the finished pipe.

In the bright flash of the camera the fills on the right side of the bowl appear to stand out more than they do in the natural light. They tend to look dark spots in the birdseye of the grain. They do not stick out as badly as they appear in the photo below.

The final picture I have included is one of the Old Pal pipe with a package of Old Pal Pipe Cleaners that I picked up at an antique shop in Edmonton. The two form a nice complement to one another.

Louis Blumfeld 1901 BBB Bent Billiard – by James Gilliam of jsecpipes.com

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When James posted his work on this pipe on the pipe forums I was amazed at how beautiful it looked. Wow a 1901 BBB – one of my favourite pipe makes and one of the old ones as well. Imagine the surprise when I got an email at the same time asking if I would like a write up and photos of the restemming for the blog. I did not have to think twice to answer that email. I quickly fired back an affirmative and what you have below is the story from James. Thanks again James for taking the time to document your work on this old timer. Enjoy smoking that great piece of pipe history. Below is his tale.

Every story has a beginning and this one even has a pre-story. The excerpt below was posted on several forums I’m a member of so I thought I would repeat it just for those that haven’t seen the posts.

“As some of you know I attend the 100km van Ieper in Belgium nearly every year since 2002. It’s a walk around the WWI Battlefields that consumed Ieper. I’ve been bitten by the pipe making bug, and how and along the way dabbled in restorations just because, but my search for a pre-WWI era pipe is finally over. I ended up getting this piece of history from Alan at Reborn Briar. Now he did the pipe restoration.. and a brilliant job he did, the only thing the pipe was missing was a stem.. well I can do that… I decided not to bore out the mortise and left it threaded, made a threaded tenon out of horn, since I don’t have any workable bone, and decided against using Ivory…… and went with Cumberland for my stem material.. I’m happy…Happy Columbus Day everybody”

Now for the rest of the story. What sticks around in usable condition for over 100 years… not too much, but since I’m kinda into this pipe thing, tobacco related history rates up there for my interest factor. This past July I was able to attend the Newark (UK) Pipe show, set up a table and sell some pipes. You never really sale (or at least I don’t) all the pipes you want to sale, but you do get to meet a lot of really interesting people, and the next table over was Alan Chestnutt from Reborn Briar. I’m always amazed at the folks like Steve and Alan that get into the restoration business. I’ve done a few, even wrote an article about it, but creation is where my passion lies.

Anyway, talking with Alan pre-World War I pipes came up, and fast forward to September he had one that he was going to restore but without a stem. As I mentioned above, stems are no problem…. that’s the making/creating/using machinery aspect I like. When the pipe arrived I was amazed at how well it looked. I mean wow, 1901, and all that.

The only real thing that threw me was the threaded mortise. Looking around the shop I pickup up a few of my mistake mouthpieces and tried fitting a few. The 7mm tenon fit without a problem, as it just slid into the mortise. But later that night while sitting around thinking about the mouthpiece I figured I’d make it as close to the original as I could. The stems profile was already in the leather case. So what do we know at this point.. 1900’s meant ivory, bone, or the like type of tenon. I don’t have any bone to use and didn’t really want to use ivory……but being a pipe maker I do have horn. I usually end up keeping the horn points after using the remainder of the material for a shank extension.

So horn it was to be. I shaped the tenon, drilled and set out to thread the tenon. I’m sitting with a 8mm tenon drilled to 4mm for the airway and went about threading the horn. Unfortunately it crushed under the pressure of my die, but I guess it only made sense… so I made another, except this time I threaded it first and then drilled it… And here is where the pictures come into play.

Threaded tenon, prior to drilling

And it fits just like it is supposed to. Looking right above the pipe you can see my trial delrin tenon with new threads.

Mouthpiece rough cut and drilled. The mortise is also threaded. I cleaned up the junction end before the next steps, so the fit would be flush

Epoxy’d and left to rest a while.

And it fits. So at least the scary parts are now done.

Drawing on the Cumberland to get my bearings at to decide where I want the saddle to sit. The line closest to the junction was chosen.

Time to sand a bit with a machine.

And done

Now it’s file time.

Now it’s sandpaper time.

And more sandpaper… I probably left a step or two out here…just to save the pictures, but my process is machine, medium cut file, fine cut file, another fine cut file, nail files, 180, 220, 320, 400, 600, 800, 1200 sandpaper, buffing paste, more sanding, high glass paste (Sometimes more sanding to remove scratches I missed) and a final buff. Here you can see the stem is bent to its final form.

And now it’s all shiny.

And here are the final pictures. Alan did the bowl, I did the stem and I have a pipe that is twice my age… gotta love it. Hope you enjoyed my story.

Cleaning a Bristol Mat Geante – by AJ Verstraten (AKA Bananabox-Ninja)

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This post has been written by a Dutch reader of the blog, AJ Verstraten who contacted me a few weeks ago. Several emails later and we had exchanged a lot of ideas and tips. I thought it would be of interest for others here to read about AJ’s ultrasonic cleaner addition to the process. It was one I had not heard of before so I asked him to write up a piece on it with pictures of a pipe that he put through his process. AJ was graciously willing to write it up and submit it for posting here. Thanks AJ for your willingness to do this. It is great to hear from others about the methods they are using and how they work. The photos are well done and the words well written. Without further ado here is AJ’s article.

Greetings, my name is AJ and I hail from the Dutch city of Dordrecht. I go by the internet name of ‘Bananabox-Ninja’ and I am more easily found under that name then under AJ.

A few weeks ago I broke my knee in a motorcycle accident and it was put in a plaster cast with the instruction to let it rest and heal up. In this time I stumbled upon Steve’s website through ‘Het Pijprokersforum’ a forum of Dutch and Belgium pipe smokers.

As I like to refurbish pipes myself and I had time to kill I went through his whole website and learned many, many new things. In the weeks that followed I tried to get a hold of the things Steve used and tried them myself, like the black superglue and the grinding pads for example. Blown away by how well some things worked out I sent an email thanking Steve for all the tips and asking if he had ever used an ultrasonic cleaner. He replied that he had not but that he was interested to know in the workings and would I like to write about it?

So this weekend I cleaned a pipe from my ‘project-box’ and snapped pictures from beginning to end including the ultrasonic cleaning method I currently use. (The numerical key below the photo identifies the tools in the photo.)

These are the tools I tend to use in the cleaning/refurbishing of a pipe, currently I have some tools on order and they have not come in yet.

1 – Polishing wheels and waxes
2 – Sanding paper (600 & 1000), sanding pads (1500 to 12000) and modeling files.
3 – Ultrasonic cleaner
4 – Old socks (but clean)
5 – Vaseline and 96% alcohol
6 – Hard and soft bristled pipe cleaners
7 – Q-tips (cotton swabs)
8 – Pliers
9 – Assortment of drills
10 – Senior pipe reamer
11 – Games Workshop paint
12 – Electric motor (0-2000 RPM) with grinding wheel (1500)
13 – Toothpicks

The pipe I chose to work on and record is a nice straight, big chambered Bristol Mat Geante, I presume the Geante is for its size as the chamber is rather big or as we say in Dutch a ‘Speciekuip’ (mortar trough). As far as I can tell Bristol a B-brand from France but I am unable to pinpoint exactly. I personally like the bird’s-eyes all over the left and right side of the bowl.

As you can see the stem has oxidation all over and the bowl itself is rather dull. Not visible on this photo are the 2 bite marks on the stem.

First I cleaned the pipe on the inside with alcohol and pipe cleaners until they came out almost white. If there is a thick layer of tar in the air canal I use the drills to scrape the inside out lightly using drills of various diameters. Tar will give way far more easily than the ebonite or acrylic it is in.

In this case it was not needed as the pipe’s previous owner was very tidy or had not smoked it much.

Then with just water and the grinding wheel I removed the heavy oxidation from the stem, careful not to create a round shoulder or to grind off too much for it to create a ridge.

Using the sanding paper wrapped around a file I removed the hard to reach oxidation on the mouth bit.

And afterwards to fill the bite marks using the superglue, q-tips and toothpick.

Now the stem was ready for the ultrasonic bath. This is a new method I have only recently started using and so far I am positive on the results. Using a mixture of 50-50 water and alcohol with a teaspoon of disinfection agent, place the stem in the liquid and let the bath go at it for 8 minutes.

This bath can also heat up to 40 degrees but seeing as ebonite tends to bend back to it’s original shape if heated too much I leave that feature off.

You’ll notice in the last picture that the stem looks almost the same as it went in, however when you pull a pipe cleaner through it, there will be some mild discoloration coming out of the stem.

This method of cleaning is a good way to get the last remaining specks of dirt out of those hard to reach places, I myself was skeptical at first but I was swayed when I pulled the pipe cleaner through it after the bath I found that it did do its job.

It does not however remove oxidation completely, I tried with an unprepared stem and it came out browner than going in.

So as an extra step I find it a great addition to my cleaning process.

In the mean time I cleaned some of the soot from the top of the bowl with some spit and the old sock. Especially the part of the sock that fits over your ankle is rather coarse and excellent for this process. The chamber had a nice smooth coal layer in it so I left it in there.

After the bath I gave the inside of the stem few more scrubs with the pipe cleaner and the outside another run with the grinding wheel.

Then I started polishing with the wheels and the waxes.

First a pre-polish with brown, followed by white, a coat of carnauba wax and a final buff.

The end result as you can see below:

Refurbed a Tanganyika Meerschaum Prince

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Blog by Steve Laug

This morning I got around to cleaning up another one of the pipes I found on my trip – a little Tanganyika Meerschaum prince. The stampings on the pipe were simple, only a shape number that looked like a 27 on the underside of the shank and the block letters Tanganyika on the underside of the stem. The star logo on the left side of the stem is different from the typical elephant, giraffe or running man, which have come to be associated with Tanganyika Meerschaums. I wanted to see what I could find out about the little pipe so I did a search on Pipedia and was able to find some information on the pipes made from Meerschaum that was mined there. The following is a synopsis of the article found there.

Kiko, meaning “pipe” in Swahili-Kiswahili to English translation, is probably the best known of the various brands of meerschaum pipes from there. In East Africa Meerschaum is found in Tanganyika, once known as German East Africa, and since 1964 part of the United Republic of Tanzania. The main deposit comes from the Amboseli basin surrounding the Lake Amboseli. Tanganyika Meerschaum is normally stained in shades of brown, black and yellow, and is considered to be inferior to Meerschaum from Turkey. Even though, the raw material is mined by the Tanganyika Meerschaum Corporation and to a large extent used for pipe making. Uncounted pipe makers throughout the world were supplied with Amboseli Meerschaum, preferentially used for Meerschaum lined briars or leather-clad pipes. In Tanganyika the Kilimanjaro Pipe Company Ltd. produced the following brands: Caveman, Countryman (Elephant logo), Kiko (Elephant logo), Kikob (Elephant logo), Kilimanjaro (Rhinoceros logo), Kudu (Giraffe Logo), Makonde (Rhinoceros logo), Merlin (Flying bird or Antelope logo), Sportsman (Elephant logo), Tembo, Townsman, Twiga (Giraffe Logo), White elephant (Elephant logo)

This little prince I had was dirty and there was a screen contraption in the bottom of the bowl. It did not smell of anything other than strong Lakeland style tobacco so I am guessing this was a contraption to keep the bowl from getting moist in the bottom. Not sure about that however. The exterior was dirty and had sticky gum on it from the sales label. The rim top and down the top edges of the bowl had been darkened prior to smoking to give it a classic aged look like the pictures below.

The top of the rim was darkened as were the edges when it left the factory. In this case they were spotty and uneven. The bowl had a slight build up of cake. The shank was dirty with tars but smelled strongly of tobacco. The stem was slightly oxidized and also very dirty inside and out. The metal screw in tenon was dirty and had tarry buildup on the threads. The stem was slightly overturned.

I used a dental pick to pry the screen ball from the bottom of the bowl. It had been squashed into shape and the top indented to mirror the bottom of the bowl. The side of the screen had been opened toward the airway in the bowl bottom as well to facilitate smoke getting through. I wiped down the exterior of the bowl with alcohol dampened cotton pad to remove the grime and the buildup of gum on the stem and the bowl.

I sanded the meerschaum bowl with 1500 and 1800 grit micromesh sanding pads and then buffed the bowl with Tripoli and White Diamond to get a shine on the meerschaum.

I cleaned out the shank and the bowl as well as the stem with pipe cleaners and cotton swabs dipped in Everclear. I kept cleaning until the pipe cleaners came out clean and unstained.

Once finished with the inside I sanded the outside of the stem with a medium grit sanding sponge and then wipe it down with Meguair’s Scratch X2.0 on a cotton pad. Then I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads from 1500 – 12,000 grit. I wet sanded the stem with the 1500-2400 grits and then dry sanded with the remaining grits.

I then buffed the stem and bowl with White Diamond on the buffing wheel. The four pictures below show the finished pipe. In the fifth picture, I decided to sand the rim down some more before finishing and then stained it with a dark brown aniline stain to get the darkened look back to the pipe edges and rim. When I had finished that I flamed it and restained until it was as dark as I could get it and then I buffed it again with White Diamond and coated the stem with carnauba wax and the bowl with a beeswax mixture.

Restemming a Gift Pipe – a Savinelli Autograph 5

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On a recent work trip to Alberta I stopped by and visited Todd Bannard (aka Sasquatch) in his workshop. He did a bit of work on a Delrin sleeve for me and we smoked some bowls together. I left a couple of refurbished pipes with Todd and he gave me a Savinelli Autograph 5 bowl that needed to be restemmed. This afternoon I got around to fitting a stem to the pipe. The briar is a beautiful piece with a lot of gorgeous grain. The bottom of the bowl and the shank are sandblasted. The bowl has a plateau top and the shank took a flush fit stem. It had been barely smoked and certainly was not broken in. If it had been smoked one or two times that may be saying more than is true as the grain in the interior of the bowl is still quite visible. Below are some pictures of the bowl before I restemmed it.

I did research on the Savinelli Autographs to see what kind of stems they had and found a variety of them in pictures. About half of the photos showed a saddle stem with much the same proportions as the one that I chose to use. I went through my box of stems and found one that would approximate the look of the pipes online. I also wanted one that would fit after I turned the tenon. It would also take some minimal adjustment to the diameter of the saddle in order to align with the shank. I drilled open the airway to hold the guide pin on the Pimo tenon turner. I put it in the cordless drill and slowly cut away the diameter of the tenon until it was close to fitting in the shank.

I used a Dremel with a sanding drum to take down the tenon until it fit the shank. The next two photos show the newly cut tenon before I sanded it down to smooth out the marks left by the Dremel.

I sanded the tenon with 220 grit sandpaper and then with 1500 and 1800 micromesh sanding pads to smooth out the tenon. Once that was done the stem fit in the shank snuggly. In the four photos below the fit of the stem can be seen and the excess of vulcanite that needed to be trimmed away from the diameter is also visible.

I sanded the diameter with a Dremel and a sanding drum. I took off the casting marks left along the edges of the blade and on the sides of the saddle portion of the stem. I also used the Dremel to take off the excess diameter of the stem. I worked carefully and slowly along the joint of the stem and the shank so that I did not damage the briar with the sander. I was able to remove the majority of the overage with the Dremel and finished with sandpaper.

I sanded the Dremel marks out and further reduced the diameter with medium grit emery cloth. I sanded it until the fit was almost perfect. I would finish the fit with finer grits of sandpaper and the micromesh sanding pads later.

I set up a heat gun and the rolling pin I use to bend the stems next to it. I heated the stem with the heat gun set on the lower of the two settings. I held it over the heat until the vulcanite was flexible. At that point I bent the stem over the rolling pin in order to get an even bend in the vulcanite. Once it was bent to the angle I wanted I held it under the cold water tap in the sink to set the bend. The next four photos show the process and the resultant bend in the stem.

I took the newly bent stem back to the work table and did some more sanding on the diameter of the saddle to further match the shank. I used 220 grit sandpaper and a medium grit sanding sponge to clean up the stem and remove the scratch marks left behind by the emery paper. I scrubbed the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a soft bristle tooth brush to remove the dust and grit left in the sandblast portion and the plateau on the top of the bowl. I rinsed the bowl under warm tap water and dried it with a soft cotton cloth. I gave the bowl several coats of carnauba wax on the buffer before inserting the stem and giving it a light buff with red Tripoli. The next four photos show the status of the pipe and the new stem after the polishing on the buffer.

Next I sanded the stem with the micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded it with 1500, 1800 and 2400 grit micromesh and then dry sanded with the remaining grits 3200-12,000.

When I had finished with the micromesh pads I gave the stem a coat of Obsidian Oil and rubbed it into the vulcanite. Once it was dry I buffed the stem and the bowl on the buffer lightly with White Diamond and then gave the pipe several coats of carnauba and buffed to a shine with a clean soft flannel buff. The pictures below show the finished pipe. It is now ready for the pleasure of breaking it in. I still have not decided what tobacco to use with it but there are several options on the table. I want to thank Todd for the great looking bowl to be restemmed and I will enjoy it and remember the visit to his shop.

rebornpipes

reclaiming old and worn estate pipes

Tag Archives: Bowl – refinishing

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Reworking an Old Pal Pencil Shank Pot

Louis Blumfeld 1901 BBB Bent Billiard – by James Gilliam of jsecpipes.com

Cleaning a Bristol Mat Geante – by AJ Verstraten (AKA Bananabox-Ninja)

Refurbed a Tanganyika Meerschaum Prince

Restemming a Gift Pipe – a Savinelli Autograph 5

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