Tag Archives: Bowl – refinishing

A Little Czech System Pipe Reborn

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I had this little Czechoslovakian rusticated bowl in my box. I decided it was the day to work on it so I took it from the box and gave it the once over to see what needed to be done. The finish was a bit spotty, and the shiny varnish on it was peeling so I dropped it in an alcohol bath to try to break down the finish. The next three photos show the bowl after I had taken it out of the bath. While it was still wet I used a wire brush and some Everclear to scrub the surface of the bowl to remove the flaking finish and the varnish coat. I also topped the bowl to remove the damage that had been done to it from tapping it out. The fourth picture below shows the topped bowl

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I went through my can of stems to find one that would fit. I had a nice p-lip style stem stamped WDC Wellington that came from a pipe of similar size and shape. I was able to sand it a little to make a good fit tight fit to the shank. I cleaned up the stem with micromesh sanding pads 1500-12,000 and then gave the stem a polish with Maguiar’s. I sanded it a final time with the 12,000 grit micromesh before wiping it down with Obsidian Oil. The two photos below show the finished stem.

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I restained the bowl with dark brown aniline stain, flamed it, restained and flamed it a second time. The restained pipe is shown in the next two photos. Once it was dry I took it to the buffer and buffed the stem and the bowl with White Diamond.

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I brought the pipe back to the work table and gave it multiple coats of the Halcyon II wax as I find it does a great job giving rusticated pipes a nice sheen. I also coated the stem with carnauba wax and hand buffed the entire pipe with a shoe shine brush. The hand buffing brought out a nice shine on the pipe.

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Reviving a Genod Shaped like a 9242 GBD

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Blog by Steve Laug

When I saw this one on EBay I immediately put in a bid that would make it mine. When it arrived this is what it looked like. The bowl was relatively clean and easy to work on. The rim had a pretty serious burn on the inside and the outside edge of the bowl on the right side. It is visible in the second photo below. The bowl was also slightly out of round due to reaming with a sharp blade. The stem was oxidized and was an uneven brown tone. There were two small tooth marks on the stem one on top near the button with a match on the underside near the button. The first picture is a bit blurry but I include it as it gives an idea of the shape of the pipe and why I compared it to a GBD 9242. This one is stamped Genod on the left side of the shank and on the right side Iwan Ries & Co (in script) over the shape 271. 
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I cleaned the bowl and reamed it carefully to remove the carbon build up and uneven cake. I then used sand paper to smooth the inner edges of the bowl and bring it back as closely as possible to round. I topped the bowl minimally to remove the burn damage on the flat surface and minimize it on the outer edge of the bowl. For the most part it came out but left a little darkening on the surface of the rim. The right edge also has some remaining darkening and a small divot out of the edge.  I cleaned the shank with isopropyl alcohol and many pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and a shank brush. I then place the bowl in an alcohol bath to soak while I worked on the stem.

The stem is very hard vulcanite. The tooth dents are more cuts than dents and one day I may fill them with super glue but decided to leave them at this point. I sanded the stem with 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper and water to remove the oxidation. It was not terribly deep so it came off very easily. I then used micromesh sanding pads from 1500-6000 grit to polish the stem. When it was finished I rubbed it down with some Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry.

I took the bowl out of the alcohol bath and dried it off. I used some medium brown aniline stain mixed 50/50 with isopropyl alcohol to lighten and thin it. I rubbed it on with the dauber and then flamed it and buffed it. I put the stem on it before buffing and gave the entirety a buff with Tripoli and White Diamond. Once it was finished it was given multiple coats of carnauba wax.
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Reworking an Imperial Treble Zulu – Stainless Steel Tenon

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I picked up this older Imperial Tobacco Co pipe – a Zulu shape number 354. The shape number makes me wonder if the pipe was made by Comoy’s. Maybe someone here knows for sure. The number is missing on the Comoy’s shape number chart on Pipedia. The pipe is interesting to me for several reasons. It is the third in a group of three pipes by Imperial that came to me in an EBay lot. The first two were Two-Points and this one a Treble. I had not heard or seen this line before these came my way. The other reason is that several pipes in this lot had stainless steel tenons! The Treble has one and at first I thought it was original – the stem did not fit well as the tenon was stuck in the bowl and the stem would not seat all the way to the shank. The bowl was in pretty nasty shape. With lots of darkening and the grain virtually obscured under dirt. The rim was caked and tarred. The bowl was full of broken cake and cobwebs. The stem was gnawed with deep bite marks, the button destroyed and the tenon stuck in the shank.

I was able to remove the tenon from shank with a big pair of channel locks and some serious twisting and turning. I filed the end of the tenon and cut grooves in it so that the epoxy would have something to bite into when I pushed it into the stem. I then slid a pipe cleaner into the stem and threaded the tenon on the cleaner. When I got down to the stem I mixed some epoxy (two part mix) and painted it on the tenon. I let it set for a few moments and then pushed it into the stem. I wiped off the excess around the stem and tenon junction. I set it aside and worked on the bowl. ImageImage

I reamed the bowl and cleaned both it and the shank. Then I used a fine grit sanding pad that I have here to work on the lava on the top of the bowl. Once that was done I wiped down the bowl with isopropyl alcohol to remove the grime and the finish. The next photos show the bowl after the initial cleanup. From there I put it in the alcohol bath and went back to work on the stem. ImageImageImage

The next series of two photos show the bite marks on the stem and the state of the button. The bite marks were very deep and some were actually cuts in the stem material rather than just dents. I used my heat gun to raise the dents as much as possible but honestly they did not come up very much at all. This one would be a bit of a challenge. I used sanded the stem around the button and the dents with 240 grit sandpaper to get the oxidation off that area. I was going to use the superglue to repair these bite marks and needed a clean surface to work with. Once I had sanded the area clean I used a dental pick to pick away the brown left in the dents. I wanted to clean out the dents as much as possible and roughen the surface in the dent for a good bond with the glue. The first picture shows the top of the stem, the second shows the bottom. ImageImage

Once they were clean and ready I washed the area down with some isopropyl alcohol to remove any remaining sanding dust. Then I put drops of superglue in the holes on the underside of the stem first. Once they were dry I did the same with the dents on the top side of the stem. The three photos below show the glue in place – they appear as shiny black spots in the photos.ImageImageImage

I set the pipe stem aside to thoroughly dry and took the bowl out of the alcohol bath. I dried it off and then sanded the top of the bowl with the fine grit sanding pads that I have. The top is showing some nice grain and the tars are coming off nicely. ImageImageImage

I wiped down the bowl and rim with acetone (fingernail polish remover) to remove the remaining finish and grime. The white cotton pads in the background of the next three photos show what still remained on the bowl after the alcohol wash. I wanted to get the bowl down to bare briar so that I could refinish it and then give it a new coat of stain. My goal was to highlight the beautiful grain on this one. ImageImageImage

I guess I must get a bit bored doing the same thing or something, because I went back to the stem to sand the patches that I had made. I used emery cloth to get the patches even with the surface of the stem. The next series of three photos show the progress on cleaning up the stem and evening out the stem surface. The patches are beginning to fade and blend into the stem. ImageImageImage

After sanding the stem I cleaned out the stem and the shank. It was a dirty process. The first picture below shows just a few of the many pipe cleaners and cotton swabs. I dip them in the cap filled with isopropyl that is pictured in the photos and swab out the stem and shank with them. ImageImage

I reinserted the stem in the shank and wiped the entirety down with an alcohol soaked cotton pad. I wanted to see where I was at with the stem and the bowl. You will notice the addition of a band in the photos below. Once I refit the stem I could see that the stainless tenon was indeed a replacement and that it was misdrilled – it was set in the stem too high making the match at the tenon impossible. I decided to work on the shank rather than pull the tenon, redrill the hole in the stem and reinsert a bigger tenon. I could still do that should I desire. I sanded the shank a little to reduce the gap between the stem and shank. Then I pressure fit a band on it to guide the stem to the proper fit. It worked well actually and the stem lines up nicely now. ImageImageImageImage

I took the next two photos to show the state of the stem patches at this point in the repair process. You can see that they are virtually invisible on the top of the stem and just slightly visible on the underside. At this point I continued to sand the stem and work at the area around the button to redefine it and to blend in the patches. I used a fine grit sanding pad and an extra fine grit pad to remove the scratches and to make the button area more defined. I then worked over the stem with the usual list of micromesh pads from 1500-6000 grit. ImageImage

I restained the bowl with an oxblood stain and buffed the entirety with White Diamond and then gave the pipe several coats of carnauba wax and buffed with a soft flannel buff to bring out the shine to the pipe. You can see from the profile shots that the button is more clearly defined and the flow of the stem looks correct from the bowl to the button. The patches on the stem have blended quite well and though still visible if you look closely are smooth and black. ImageImageImageImage

Using steam to lift dents in briar

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ImageIn the early days of our marriage, my wife and I bought a lot of used furniture. Today many would call them antiques but then they were just used furniture and were quite inexpensive. I bought a book on working with furniture called the Furniture Doctor by George Grotz in which he gave all kinds of helpful tips on restoring wood furniture. One of the tips that I used for years was a simple procedure for raising dents in wood. He explained a process of steaming the wood to lift the dents. I can’t remember his exact method any more as I have modified it and made it mine over the years so I don’t know where George leaves off and Steve takes off. It seems to me that it was a simple procedure of place a damp cloth on the dent and applying heat to the surface to make steam. I always used a steam iron from the laundry closet to do this. I would wet a cloth and place it on the dent and then apply the hot steam iron to it. There would be a resultant hiss and steam released. I would repeat the procedure until the dent was gone. Then I would refinish the piece with sand paper and stain it again to match.

When I got into refurbishing pipes I decided to try the same thing. I had not read about it anywhere, though since I have seen others speak of it. I tried the cloth and steam iron but found it too cumbersome to use the big iron on a small dent on a smaller pipe. The iron just over shadowed the pipe. I tried using just the tip of the iron and it worked quite well but I wanted a bit more of a vantage point when I was doing the steaming. I wanted to see that I was actually placing the heat on the dent. So I tried a few methods from the tip of a soldering iron to a lighter to try to accomplish the same thing.

Then one day I was frying a couple of eggs on our gas stove and the lights came on. I laid aside the frying pan and ran down to my work bench for a pipe I was working on to put my idea to the test. I wet a dish cloth (shhh don’t tell my wife!) and then took one of the butter knives from the cutlery drawer. I heated the tip of the blade over the gas flame for a few seconds and then applied it to the wet cloth on the dent in the pipe. Viola! It worked exceptionally well. I repeated it several times on the dents on the rim and around the sides of the bowl and was amazed at how I could put just a bit of the wet cloth and the hot tip of the knife exactly on the spot. It really left little to work out once I was finished. The wet spot under the towel quickly dried and the finish was only left with a matte look to it. I took it to the buffer and within moments the matte area was polished and the pipe was as good as new.

Over the years now I have used this method on lifting dents in the shank area of pipes, on the sides of bowls and on the rims with great success. I have refined it a bit from those early days of experimentation so now I use a small piece of cotton cloth and a “not so new” butter knife that I requisitioned from the kitchen cutlery drawer. I love the control you have over the field of repair. To be able to directly target the spot of the dent and not put the wet cloth on the entire side of the bowl is amazing. I keep using it and reworking it to find other ways to do the work but I come back again and again to the kitchen stove, fire up the gas burners and work on the dents. I have learned, by and large, to do this when the kitchen is not occupied by my wife or daughters as they go about their preparations for dinner – you see, you can teach the old dog new tricks!

Give the trick a try, experiment with it and post here to let us know how it works for you.

Refurbished Mastercraft Bulldog

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Another old timer, a Mastercraft Bulldog was in my box of bowls without stems. The squat shape of this little bulldog caught my eye.

The bowl pretty rough looking. The finish was gone and the top had been used as a hammer so it was badly dented and the roughening of the wood left a lot of splintering edges. It was also badly caked and still had a remnant of tobacco left in the bowl. Since it was missing its stem I have no idea when the bowl and tobacco got separated from the stem. I have a coffee can in which I keep a wide range of stems that I have picked up and another can of stem blanks that need to be shaped and fit to the new pipe. For this pipe I found an old stem in the can that was a perfect fit once I removed the old stinger type insert. The stem was badly oxidized virtually brown. There were no tooth marks on the stem and no dents that needed to be repaired.

I reamed and cleaned the bowl and shank until the pipe cleaners came white. I use 99% isopropyl alcohol for doing this as I find that it works well and evaporates quickly leaving no residual tastse. The top had been hammered so much that the bowl had to be topped so that it would be smooth again. The trick with this one was not to remove too much of the top and thus change the angles of the bulldog shape. So I removed enough to give me a smooth surface to work with but not enough to change the shape. Once it was topped and sanded I put it in the alcohol bath and left it while I worked on cleaning up the stem.

I had soaked the stem in a mixture of Oxyclean to soften the oxidation and prepare it for the sanding that would be necessary to clean it. Once I remove it from the soak I buffed it with Tripoli to remove the oxidation that had softened and then sanded it with 240 grit sandpaper. Once I had removed the brown surface I used 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper to continue the smoothing and polishing process. I finished the stem with the micromesh pads from 1500 – 6000 grit. Then I set it aside to wait until I had finished bowl and polish the entirety on the buffer.

I took the bowl out of the alcohol bath and sanded it with the micromesh pads to remove the surface scratches and remaining marks in the bowl surface. I steamed out the dents with a damp cloth and a hot knife and then sanded them smooth again. I restained this bowl with a Medium Brown stain. I flamed it to set the stain, inserted the stem and then took it to the buffer and buffed it with White Diamond to polish it. The entirety was then given several coats of carnauba wax. This one found a new home with someone who loved the shape and it is providing a great smoke for them. ImageImageImage

Refurbished and Restemmed this interestingly shaped no name pipe

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I refurbished this interestingly shaped no name pot/rhodesian/bulldog (?) or you name it shape. I was drawn to it and liked the look of it when I found it in my box of pipes and bowls that I have gathered for refurbishing. It is a box I have that at one point held over 300 pipes that needed work but is slowly shrinking even though I add to it each time I go scavenging. I am pretty much incorrigible about picking up estate pipes and hunting for them. I am getting more picky over the years as to what I want to work on but I pick up ones that will be a challenge to me or that I like the brand or the shape.

This one was truly a mess. I forgot to take pictures of what it looked like when I took it out of the box but I will describe it to you. In many ways it was no different than most of the others that I work on. The bowl was caked to the point of barely holding any tobacco any longer. It was a tarry mess on the rim and running down the sides of the bowl. There were dents and deep “wounds” in the briar of the rim. It also was without a stem. The silver band on the shank was badly beat up and to be honest the pipe was downright ugly. But in its ugliness I saw something that drew me to pick it up and see what I could do with it. So I took it to my work table and it became a project that took me two days.

I did what I call field dressing the pipe the first day. That includes reaming the bowl and cleaning out the grit and grime from the shank and bowl. I washed the bowl down with acetone to remove the overflow from the bowl and rim on the outside of the bowl. I also removed the dirt and grease marking on the bowl. Once it was clean I fit a stem for it. It has a diamond shank, and those have always been a challenge for me to make a proper fit. I find that on these old timers what appears to be a diamond with equal sides never truly is equal. Each side on this one had a different measurement. I used a blank that I had here and shaped it to fit. It is difficult to get each side correct and maintain the shape to fit the shank. I cut the tenon with my Pimo tenon turner and worked the shape for a long time to make it flow with the shank. It took a long time because I would get one side perfect only to lose a bit of the angle on the next side. I finally was able to get the angles right and fit the stem to the shank well. In the finished photos you can get a bit of an idea of the work involved in that.

I then removed the silver band and put the bowl in the alcohol bath while I tried to straighten and smooth out the silver band. I got a lot of the wrinkles and dents out of it but a few still remained even after my work.  I set it aside to reinstall on the shank once it was restained and turned my attention to sanding and polishing the stem. I used 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper as usual to remove the scratches and marks left by the shaping. I then use my normal regimen of 1500-6000 grit micromesh to bring a shine to the stem. When I had it finished and ready for the buffer I put it aside and went back to the bowl.

I removed the bowl from the bath and sanded it with the usual variety of sand papers and micromesh pads. Then I restained it with a cherry stain that I use on some of the older pipes as I have found that it brings out the old colours from the briar and really looks good. I then sanded again with micromesh and put the stem on it before taking it to the buffer to polish it with White Diamond. Once that was finished I gave the bowl and stem several coats of carnauba wax.

There are no stamping or marking on it all. But the unusual shape continues to attract me in an odd way. It is 6 inches long, bowl height is 2 inches. The chamber diameter is 1 inch and the chamber depth is1 1/4 inches. The rim is chamfered and clean. Anyone have a name for the shape??
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Refurb on the Weingott Billiard

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I finished up refurbishing this large Weingott Billiard that was a part of the threesome I picked up on EBay. All three were huge pipes and were ones that I would definitely recycle to someone else once they were refurbished. The Weingott is a BIG piece of briar – the pipe has a length of 8 inches, height 2 1/2 inches, the bowl inside diameter is 7/8 inches, outside diameter 1 1/2 inches. I took a picture of it next to a Dunhill group 4 to show the size of this big fellow in a picture.

The overall condition of this pipe was poor. Obviously it was a much loved pipe as it had been smoked hard. I had to ream and clean it – the bowl was very caked and the shank and stem almost clogged with a goopy tar substance. The finish was blackened on both sides of the bowl and the rim was caked and dented. The dents and scratches were deep and the surface was rough from knocking the pipe out on something hard. The stem had a very deep oxidation and was greenish brown. There were not tooth marks on the stem – at least the pipe had that going for it.

I reamed the bowl and cleaned out the shank. That took some work to unclog the airway. I ended up using a piece of wire to break through the accumulated tars and residue. I then used a drill bit and turned it into the shank until the airway was clean and open. Then I used a shank brush and many pipe cleaners and isopropyl alcohol to clean out the remaining residue. I packed the bowl with cotton bolls and used an ear syringe to fill the bowl with alcohol so that I could leach out the tars and oils in the bowl. I put a cork in the shank and set the pipe aside overnight.

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The oxidation on the stem took a lot of work as it was deep. I quickly buffed the stem with Tripoli to remove the surface oxidation and see how deep it went. The first coat of greenish brown seemed to be untouched by the Tripoli. It was hard and it smelled bad! I then sanded it with emery clot (fine grit) to break the surface of the oxidation. From there I sanded with 240 grit for a long time until I finally got the stem to the point that it was just a brown haze in the stem. I then put the stem in a soak of Oxyclean overnight to let it soften and draw out the remaining oxidation.

In the morning I took the cotton bolls out of the bowl and dumped them in the rubbish bin. They were dark brown and in places almost black. I let the bowl dry out and had a coffee. Then I topped the bowl to remove the damage that was on it. Once it was smooth and clean I put it in the alcohol bath to soak in order to remove the finish and the grime on the surface. It sat for about an hour and ½ before I took it out of the bath and dried it off. I sanded it with micromesh pads 2400-6000 grit and then restained it with a cherry stain.

I removed the stem from the Oxyclean soak and dried it off. I buffed it again with Tripoli and then sanded it with 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper. Then I polished it with micromesh pads 1500-6000 grit to bring the stem back to black. Once finished I put it back on the pipe and buffed the whole pipe with White Diamond and several coats of carnauba. The pipe is now finished and ready for the new owner!

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Refurbished a Peterson’s Deluxe Zulu

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In one of my EBay purchases was this little Peterson’s Deluxe Zulu shape #268. To me this pipe epitomizes the Zulu shape – in other words, when I think Zulu I think of a pipe that is shaped like this. When the pipe arrived the bowl was dirty and caked (two things that I almost forget to say as they are to be expected in estate pipes and I am surprised when I find one that is not). The finish was mottled with light and dark spots where the stain had worn off. It also had some flecks of paint on the surface that are not clearly visible in the photos below. The rim was very caked and covered with tars. Fortunately there was no charring that was visible as I looked it over. The stem also had paint flecks on it and was slightly oxidized. There were tooth marks on the top and bottom of the stem that would need to be repaired.ImageImage

I reamed and cleaned the bowl and the rim of the pipe. The shank took some work with isopropyl alcohol and many pipe cleaners and a shank brush before it was clean. I wiped down the surface of the bowl with acetone to clean off the remaining finish and the paint spots. I use cotton makeup removal pads that I picked up at the store. They work great and are easier to use than just cotton bolls. Once the finish was cleaned I dropped the bowl in the alcohol bath to soak while I turned my attention to the stem.

I buffed the stem to remove the oxidation and the paint spots. I was careful to avoid the area where the stem and shank meet so as not to round the sharp edges and ruin the great fit of the two. I heated the tooth marks that needed to be lifted with my heat gun and when they had come back as far as possible I sanded the stem with 240 grit sandpaper to remove what remained. I sharpened up the edge of the button with my needle files to give it a good crisp edge. I then sanded the whole stem with 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper and water. I finished the sanding and polishing process with micromesh pads from 1500 to 6000 grit. Once that was finished I laid the stem aside with a coat of Obsidian Oil and turned back to the bowl.

I took the bowl out of the alcohol bath and restained it with a medium brown aniline stain. I flamed it, let it dry and then took it to the buffer and buffed it with White Diamond. This was done and the entirety buffed and polished with carnauba wax to give it several layers of wax. The cross grain, birdseye and straight grain on this beauty are well laid out. ImageImageImageImage

Refurb – Barling Garnet Grain Lovat

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One of the classic shapes that I refurbished lately was this little Barling Lovat. It is stamped Barling in script (Post Trans I believe) then London England in block text under that and a third line – Garnet Grain. The bottom of the shank is stamped with the four digit shape number – 4189. The classic lines of this little pipe, to me show what Barling could do with these shapes. The reddish stain on the Garnet Grain pipes is one of the attractive features of this line of Barlings.

This one came to me in a lot of pipes I picked up along the way and it had obviously been sitting for a long time. The bowl had cobwebs deep inside and a musty smell to it. There was a crumbling cake though it was not thick, just soft. I reamed the bowl and cleaned out the bowl and shank with the usual pile of pipe cleaners and a shank brush with lots of Isopropyl alcohol. The outside of the bowl was spattered with white paint all around and some especially ground in along the shank so I scrubbed it with an alcohol cloth and put it in the alcohol bath.

While the bowl was soaking I worked on the stem. It had tooth chatter and a few light tooth marks that needed to be lifted and sanded out. The stem was badly oxidized and also smelled musty like the bowl. I scrubbed the interior with a lot of pipe cleaners and alcohol until they came out clean. I then tacked the bite marks and chatter with 240 grit sandpaper to smooth them out and followed that with 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper and water. I finished sanding the stem with my usual regimen of micromesh pads from 1500-6000 grit. Each progressively higher  grit polished the stem more. I then took it to the buffer and buffed it with Tripoli and White Diamond being careful around the area that it meets the shank. I would give it a more thorough buffing and polishing with carnauba wax once I put it back on the finished bowl.

After I finished the stem I took the bowl out of the bath and dried it off. I sanded it with micromesh 2400 to 6000 grit to polish and remove any scratching and then restained it with an oxblood aniline stain that matched the colour that it had before. Once dry I put the stem on it and took it to the buffer and gave it a light buff with White Diamond and then multiple coats of carnauba wax. It is a perfect sized little Lovat in my opinion and spots a classic shape and look. Here are some pictures of the pipe after cleaning. I forgot to take pictures before I started cleaning it. Sometimes I get into a space and just work at them before I suddenly stop and remember that I did not take photos before starting.ImageImageImage

 

Restemming a little nosewarmer

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Last evening I finished restemming this little nosewarmer. It is stamped Bounty over Real Briar on the bottom of the shank. It has a nice sand blast finish and is stained black over a red undercoat. It length is 4 ½ inches, height is 1 ½ inches, outer diameter of the bowl is 1 ¼ inches and the chamber diameter is 5/8 inches.

The bowl was in great shape when I got it in a box of stummels needing restemming. When I restemmed the one that I carved I set aside the old stem and yesterday was looking at it and thought it would fit this bowl. I took the bowl out and the stem fit. The tenon was perfect but the diameter of the stem was too big. I used my Dremel and sanding drum to take it down close. The series of four photos below show it when I had finished the first work with the Dremel.ImageImageImageImage

The next series of four photos show the stem fit after sanding with 240 grit sandpaper to remove the remaining vulcanite and bring the stem to a proper fit. This took several trips back to the Dremel for more sanding with the drum and then back to the sandpaper to smooth out the scratches. The photos were taken just at the point I had moved on to sand with the micromesh pads. I started with 1500 and 1800 grits to really work on the scratches and shaping. I use these wet as I find that they work better wet. From there I moved through the micromesh pads from 2400 to 6000 grit with each one polishing the stem more deeply.ImageImageImageImage

The last series of photos show the finished pipe. The stem has a deep shine. I used some 8000 and 12000 grit micromesh for the first time on this one and I have to tell you the difference between the 6000 and the 8000 grit was noticeable in the finish. This morning I buffed the pipe with carnauba wax and it is ready for a smoke!

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