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Midterm Exam #4: Re-Refurbishing an Unknown Bulldog

Blog by Anthony Cook

It’s time for the fourth and final midterm exam! This one is an “unknown” bent bulldog that I picked up from eBay. I snagged it because I liked the shape and it was cheap. What I didn’t know at the time, but became immediately apparent when the pipe arrived, was that the end of the shank had been shattered into at least three pieces and glued back together. There was no stamping on the pipe, but I don’t think that was always the case. It was likely sacrificed during the shank repair. The repair is fairly obvious in my photos below, but I assure you that it was not nearly so in the seller’s. The right combination of lighting and angles can cover up a multitude of sins, folks. Caveat emptor.

The exposed cracks weren’t the worst part of the story though. The repair did as much damage to the pipe as the crack did. An alarming amount of material had been taken off while sanding out the excess glue. It’s difficult to see in the photos, because from any one angle everything looked correct. However, if you held the pipe in hand and rolled it around you would notice that no two faces on the shank were equal. The shank was no longer a diamond shape; it was a trapezium. The repairman hadn’t paid much attention to keeping the surfaces level either. So, there was a subtle undulation to the line of the shank as it went from thick to thin and back again several times along its length. There was also very little effort made to blend the repaired area into the rest of the pipe, and several shallow “steps” were visible where the two surfaces met. There was at least an attempt to match up the stem to the shank, but that only gave the stem the same odd angles and even they didn’t quite match up to the ones on the shank. All in all, it was a bit of a travesty. Here are a few photos taken just after it arrived.

That was all far more than my tender, noobie hands could handle at the time. So, I cleaned the internals of the pipe and put it away for later, but not before adding a bit of bend to the stem that it seemed to have lost over time.
I’ve finished up work on all the rest of the pipes in that first batch. So, this week it was time to put a collar on that dog and turn in my final midterm.

I started (or restarted I should say) by dropping the stummel into an alcohol bath for a couple of hours to soften any coating that might be on the pipe. I had quite a surprise when I removed it later on. It looked fine when it was fresh from the bath, but a hazy, white glaze began to form on the surface as it dried. I hadn’t seen anything like this before and I’ll admit to a brief moment of panic. I assumed that this was probably the result of some type of coating reacting to the alcohol. So, I wiped the stummel down with acetone taking extra care around the shank repair, since acetone will break down superglue. That did the trick and the stummel cleaned up nicely. I set up the retort to see if I could remove any more tar buildup from the pipe. I flushed the shank about 10 times with boiling alcohol before allowing the pipe to cool. I noticed that the vial appeared to be losing a lot of liquid during the retort. The cotton wasn’t discolored. So, it wasn’t gassing out through the bowl. It really had me scratching my head until I saw a spot of moisture on the shank when I was removing the retort. For some reason, it wasn’t sealing well at the mortise and I’d need to look into that before I went much further. I gave the pipe a post-retort scrub of the stem and shank, and then inspected the crack repair for gaps. The surface of the glue joints looked airtight, but I noticed that the glue hadn’t penetrated very deep. The joints left shallow fissures inside the mortise and along the shank face. I used a small pushpin to place a little super-thin CA glue directly into the fissures, and then used a toothpick to apply a thin layer of the CA around the end of the mortise to create a seal inside as well as out.

When the glue was dry, I sanded out the interior patches with sanding needles and a piece of 400-grit sandpaper wrapped around a small dowel. I refaced the shank on my topping surface in a manner similar to how I would top a bowl (pressing lightly into the paper and using a circular motion). The following pictures show the patches when fresh and after they had been sanded out. You can also get some idea of the irregularities in the shank by comparing the differences in the face angles and wall thickness around the mortise. After that, I reattached the stem and ran a retort through it again to test for leaks. The outside of the stem and shank stayed dry as a bone through the whole process. So, I began addressing the pipe’s cosmetic issues.

I lightly topped the bowl and chamfered the inner rim to remove the scratches and dings. Then, I steamed a few dents out of the finish by pressing a screwdriver that had been heated over a tea candle into a wet cloth placed over the dents. Finally, I used CA glue and briar dust to patch a few, small gouges and missing fills and sanded them out with 220-grit and 320-grit sandpaper. While I worked on the stummel, the stem had been soaking in an Oxyclean bath. I removed it and scrubbed it down with a Magic Eraser to remove any oxidation. I used black CA glue to fill the tooth dents on the top and bottom of the stem. Once that had dried I sanded it down with 220-grit paper. The stem button needed to be rebuilt since it was worn and dented. I wrapped several layers of clear tape around the stem just below the button to create a form to make a crisp edge and also inserted a Vaseline smeared wedge of cardboard into the slot to seal it. Then, I applied thick, black CA glue in several layers to the end of the stem to begin building the new button. It wasn’t a pretty thing to look at when I removed the tape, but the edge was sharp and there was enough material to work with. I trimmed away the glue artifacts created by the tape molding with an X-Acto blade and rough-shaped the new button with 220-grit paper. Once the button started taking shape, it was time to do something about the other end of the stem and also the deformity of the shank. This was the part of the exam that I had not been looking forward to. Up to this point, everything had been the equivalent to multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank questions. There were a couple of challenges, but nothing too rough. The next part was more like the essay section.

After a lot of thought, I finally decided that there just wasn’t enough material left around the stem to square everything back up. So, I thought I’d try some trickery of my own. If I couldn’t make everything right, maybe I could use a little more finesse and subtlety than the original repairman did to make it at least look “righter”. If ya can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

I used 220-grit sandpaper to start carefully nudging the edges of the shank and stem saddle this way and that to give them an appearance of alignment. All the while I paid special attention to keep the faces as level and even as I could. There was very little technical skill involved. I was basically just freehanding. Once I had corrected the lines as much as I could, I began blending the reworked areas into the rest of the pipe with 320-grit. The photo below shows the progress somewhere early in the reshaping phase. Honestly, I was at this for a while and kind of lost myself in the middle of it. So, I didn’t get many photos. When I was as satisfied as I was likely to be with the shape of the shank and saddle, I went back to work on the rest of the stem to finish it up. I continued shaping the button with 320-grit and 400-grit paper. Then, I smoothed the entire surface by lightly sanding with 600-grit and 1200-grit paper. Finally, I polished the stem with micro-mesh pads 1500-12000. The stem work was wrapped up. So, it was time to do the same for the stummel. The off-kilter shape of the shank made it difficult to find a band that would fit well. It took three attempts before I found one that would work. I used a method for shaping a round band for the diamond shank similar to what Steve has previously written about here, but it took quite a bit of reworking to get it to conform to the now strange dimensions of the shank. I’m still not quite happy with how it fits, but I’m not sure what I could have done differently. There was nothing left to do at that point but to address the finish of the stummel. I wanted the final color to be close to the original but a little darker to help hide the bit of crack repair that was still visible. I heated the stummel over the heat gun to open the grain and then applied Fiebing’s black dye to the stummel. I then sanded down the surface with 400-grit paper to remove the remaining scratches and most of the black stain, except for what had set in the grain and recesses of the rings. Next, I applied a mahogany stain before sanding with 600-grit and 1200-grit paper. I took the stummel to the buffer and gave it a quick Tripoli buff, and then applied a final stain of British Tan.

The stummel was polished with micro-mesh pads starting with 3600-grit and working through to 12000-grit. I then buffed the entire pipe with white diamond compound and gave it several coats of carnauba wax to finish it up.

I leaned back in my chair and checked the clock on the wall. There were only minutes to go and most of the other seats were already empty. I had to admit that this was really as good as it was going to get. So, with a sigh, I stood up from my chair, gathered my exam materials, and delivered them to the desk at the front of the room…

Kaywoodie Fine Line

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Blog by Aaron Henson

I was in the neighborhood of our second-hand stores a couple of months back so I thought I would stop into one that typically has estate pipes. While browsing the shelves I found three Kaywoodie pipes together in an old coffee cup. None of them were particularly eye-catching: a straight bulldog, a medium pot and this large apple – Fine Line carved. I didn’t have any Kaywoodie pipes in my collection and priced as they were ($11 for the three), I could not pass them up. Besides, I needed some more restoration practice.

The first of the three that I took on was the Fine Line. It reminded me of the Dr. Grabow Wire Carved pipes I had seen, just not as rustic – if you like that sort of thing. The flat bottom of the shank was stamped with: “Kaywoodie” over “Fine Line ®” and the left hand side of the stem had the black clover in a white dot. The stem was in great shape. There was some mild oxidation, a little build up of crud and just a minor amount of chatter around the button. The stinger was also in good shape with the expected build up of tars. The stem was over clocked by about 10 degrees and after a little research I came to understand that this is a common problem with Kaywoodie pipes. Fortunately, it is an easy problem to correct. It looked like someone had been rolling out paint on a wall or ceiling near the pipe because there were small droplets of white paint all over the stem and stummel (perhaps they were smoking while painting?). The stummel was dirty but there was no damage that I could see. A thick cake lined the bowl and the lines in the rim where full of char and other gunk, but otherwise it too was in good condition. I began by soaking the stem in an alcohol bath to loosen the tars inside and to help lift the crud and paint from the surface. While the stem soaked, I went to work on the stummel with Murphy’s Wood Soap and a soft bristled tooth brush. The dirt and grime came off easily as did most of the paint droplets. I had to employ a soft wood tooth pick to remove more stubborn droplets that were caught in the grooves of the carving.

After rinsing the stummel with fresh water – being careful to keep the water out of the bowl and shank – I started reaming out the bowl. Not having a reamer, I use a ½” dowel with a rounded tip wrapped in 40 grit sand paper. This method has worked reasonable well for me on several pipes, even with thick caking.

Next, I cleaned the inside of the shank with cotton swaps and isopropyl alcohol. This was a laborious process. The metal sleeve that receives the stinger prevents good access to the inside of the shank. I wanted to preserve as much of the original stain as I could so I choose not to soak the whole stummel in an alcohol bath. So, in an effort to loosen the tar build up, I dripped alcohol into the shank between bouts of swabbing. Eventually the swabs started coming out clean.

The char around the rim of the bowl was not cleaning up well. I had hoped that I could keep the carved lines on the rim but I made the decision to top the bowl and finish the pipe with a smooth clean rim. I freshened up the stain with a coat of light brown Feibing’s leather stain and flamed the stain to set the color.

Returning to the stem, I found that the alcohol bath succeed in loosening the tars inside and few passes with pipe cleaners got it clean. I was able to pass a cleaner from the hole in the stinger and out through the button without and troubles. I lightly hit the outside of the stem with 220 grit sand paper to remove the remaining foreign material and then cleaned the stinger with 0000 steel wool. I addressed the minor tooth marks by lightly flaming them with a lighter to raise the vulcanite then finished them off with the 220 grit paper.

Everything was going quite smoothly up to this point. Little did I know that I was about to get a refresher course in chemistry. Wanting to clean up the oxidation I dropped the stem into a bath of 50/50 bleach and water. Fortunately, I had cause to check on the stem in about 30 minutes and I realized my error. Chlorine (Cl) and aluminum (Al) react to form aluminum chloride (AlCl3). I found a large growth of aluminum chloride crystals on the stinger.

I wish I had had the forethought to document the mistake with a picture or two. But in truth, I was so caught up in cleaning the bleach off the stem and removing the crystals that photos were very far from my mind. All in all there was no real harm done. The aluminum chloride cleaned up easily but left the stinger rough to the touch and it needed to be polished again. Heating up the stinger with a butane lighter melted any of the aluminum chloride that built up inside and it drained out of the stinger holes.

While I had the butane lighter out heating up the stinger, I thought I would take care of the over clocked stem. I wrapped the stem with some cloth tape and made a couple of reference marks to indicate which direction and how much to twist the stinger. I waited until the heat loosened the glue between the stinger and stem and then twisted the stinger with a pair of soft jawed pliers to align it with the stummel. Before I finished the stem and polished everything I thought I would run the pipe through the alcohol retort. I was not confident that I had thoroughly cleaned the inside of the shank and after the aluminum chloride incident, I thought that some hot alcohol vapor though the stinger would hurt. I use 95% isopropyl alcohol for my initial cleaning and soaking but I prefer using Everclear for final rinsing and retort. In my limited experience it seems that the Everclear leaves fewer ghosts in the finished pipe.

The remainder of the restoration was uneventful. I followed the typically stem polishing practices, wet sanding the stem with 400-4000 grit paper, stopping every few sets of paper to lightly coated the stem with mineral oil. I dry polished with 6000 and 12000 grit paper then took the pipe to the buffing wheel, applying red diamond compound, working the buffer with the carved lines of the pipe. I finished with 3 coats of carnauba wax buffing between each coat. I had to take a tooth pick to some of the wax that built up in the lines but the final product was a vast improvement from where I had started.

Bringing a Dunhill Bruyere Bent Rhodesian 08 Back From the Brink

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Blog by Steve Laug

This Dunhill Bruyere was part of the gift lot for sale for Nepal. It was in very rough shape and one that would never be fit enough to grace a collection. The Dunhill stamping is only visible under bright light with a lens. The stamping on the left side of the shank is Dunhill over Bruyere. On the right side it is stamped with 4 in a circle and an A. The rest of the stamping is very faint and reads Made in London England (At least that is what it looks like). The shape number 08 is gone except for the 0. The finish was gone. The double ring around the bowl was virtually ruined and the bowl itself was in very rough shape. The rim was beat up and out of round. There were burn marks on the rim, the left side and bottom of the bowl and on the left side of the shank. To me it looks like the pipe was laid in an ashtray and the cigarette burned the bowl. It was in very rough shape. The stem was badly oxidized and upon examination there was a small split in the button on the underside and the stem was thin and the edges of the button were rounded down.

I took some close up photos of the bowl to give a better picture of what I had to work with on this one. You can see from the photos the issues that I pointed out above. The ring was badly damaged and rough. The bowl was out of round and the rim was damaged. The finish was spotty and grimy.

I have one newer Bruyere in my rack so I kind of knew the colour this pipe should have been and it was not even close any more. I did a bit of searching on the web to see if I could find a finish chart and also one that would confirm the shape number that I was “speculating” on. I have included the next two charts for the information that I gleaned from them. The Bruyere was more dark/reddish coloured than this one was and the faint number was indeed 08 which was called a Bent Rhodesian.

The next two photos show the stem in some closeup photos. I wanted to show the oxidation and the split in the button on the bottom side of the stem. The fit in the shank was also worn. The tenon was sloppy fitting and could be wobbled side to side and up and down.

I put off working on this one for a long time, choosing rather to work on pipes that I had some sense of what the finished product would look like. I had no idea if I could restore this one to any semblance of its original state let alone bringing back to “BEST QUALITY” which the Dunhill catalogue above said that Bruyere pipes stamped with the large “A” were supposed to be. This one was a challenge and I really drug my feet and postponed the test as long as possible. After looking at the photos above I hope that I have communicated the state of the pipe I was going to deal with. I have made no mention at all of the state of the inside of the shank and the stem. It was a mess as well – a thick black crud covered the inside of the airway in the stem and the shank and the mortise was almost clogged with the almost petrified tars of years of neglect.

So, yesterday I decided was the day to tackle this pipe. I had mowed the yard and done my weekend chores and needed some down time to relax. I suppose many of you would not call this relaxing but I still am under the illusion that it is restful…. Shhh don’t change my illusion please. I began with cleaning out the rings around the bowl. They were rough but they were also clogged with all kinds of debris. I used a sharp, thin blade pen knife that I have and use for this kind of thing. It works wonders and within a short time I had cleaned out the grime and the original red stain was showing in the bottom of the grooves.

I scrubbed the bowl with cotton pads and acetone to remove the grime and the damaged finish. I also wanted to see the extent of the burn marks on the bowl, rim and shank. I wanted to see if they went deeper than the surface. Knowing that would help me decided what to do to address them.

With the grime cleaned off the rim I could see what I had to work with. The bowl was in rough shape. It was out of round but the inner edges did not have any char or burn. The rim had lots of dents and dings from someone using it as a hammer. I decided to top the bowl to flatten out the rim and clean up as much of the damage as possible. I would then have to work on sanding the inner edge of the rim to smooth it out. I used the topping board with 220 grit sandpaper.

With the rim flattened out once more and the outer edge more evenly set on the bowl top it was time to address the inner edge of the rim. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the edge. I was able to greatly improve the “roundness” of the inner edge. While it was not perfect it was far better than when I started. I cleaned out the shank and the airways with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. I scrubbed and scoured and scraped the airways clean of the “fossilized” tars until the pipe cleaners and cotton swabs came back white. Since I was probably going to smoke this one myself I decided to not use the retort at this point. If it smoked rough I could always set up the retort and let it do its magic. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper, repaired the small split in the button on the bottom side and then sanded the stem with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. I rubbed it down with some Obsidian Oil and put the pipe back together. I took a few photos of the cleaned up look. If you are getting the idea that I was postponing working on the double ring and the heavy damage there you are correct in your assumption. I was not sure I would be able to work any redemption on that area of the bowl. Time would tell.

I could not postpone dealing with the ring damage any longer if I was going to finish the pipe. I had read with interest Mark Domingues write up on restoring the rings on the Peterson 80 that he posted here recently. I spent time looking at how he rebuilt the centre briar ring between the two lines. I was ready to start. I cut a piece of note card the width of the back of the bowl and decided to address that damage first. I pressed briar dust into the damaged area of the ring and tamped it in with dental pick. When it was full I put some drops of clear super glue onto the briar dust. I did the same all around the bowl until I had a real mess on my hands. I was careful not to put the glue or dust on the places where the rings were in good shape. I would use these as guides to recut the lines later.

I used a flat, thin blade knife edge needle file to recut the grooves in the bowl. It took a lot of work to slowly and carefully recut them but it worked as the photos below show.

After the initial cutting of the grooves with the needle file I continued to use it to smooth out the grooves and the edges on the top and bottom. They took a lot of work to smooth things out. I also folded 220 grit sandpaper and ran it through the grooves on the bowl. Once they were smooth and cleaner looking than before it was time to clean off the bowl and then restain it with the first coat of stain. I wiped the bowl down with alcohol on cotton pads to remove the excess briar dust and any remaining glue. I sanded the burn marks on the bowl and rim with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to minimize them. I sanded them again with 1500-2400 grit micromesh pads to smooth out the scratches. I then gave it a coat of oxblood aniline stain, flamed it and set it aside to dry.

The burn marks still showed with this first coat of stain and it was a little too red to my liking. I buffed it with White Diamond and then brought it back to the table to do some more work. I took some photos of the pipe after the buffing. I find that a couple pics help me focus on what needs some more work. In this case I could see that a little dark brown stain would work to tone down the red and also blend the dark spots in a bit more.

I used a dark brown stain pen to give it a top coat of stain. In the photos it looks streaky but I don’t worry too much about that as a buff once it is dry will take care of that. I buffed the bowl with White Diamond and a light touch. It is looking better. The rings on the left side are better but are still a little rough. The rest of the way around the bowl they are looking really good. The dark brown stain did a better job of blending in the dark spots and toning down the red. I liked the colour and it seemed to match the chart photos of the Bruyere that I had found.

At this point it was time for a break. I put the stem on the bowl and loaded a bowl of Boswell’s North Woods and went to church with my daughters. I smoked a bowl as I walked with them and loaded another bowl on the way home. I sat on the porch and fired up a third bowl filled with Malthouse Reserve 12. This pipe really sang with English tobaccos. Even if it was still a bit ugly it smoked well!

When I finally went back to the shop I worked on polishing the stem. I put the plastic spacer/washer between the shank and the stem and worked on it with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and then rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads and rubbed it down again with the oil. I dry sanded with 6000-12,000 grit pads and then gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil. I set it aside to dry.

The stem was looking really good. There was a rich glow to the vulcanite. These older Dunhill pipe stems really shine like glass when they are polished. I set the stem aside and did a bit more work on the bowl. I used a very small oval needle file to work on the rings on the left side and front of the bowl. I wanted to clean up the edges and sharpen the overall look of the rings.

I followed the oval file with a flat rectangular blade needle file and cleaned up the edges of the rings some more. When I had finished with the flat file the rings looked far better than they were when I started.

I gave the bowl another coat of stain with the dark brown stain pen and then buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond Plastic polish. I gave them both multiple coats of carnauba wax. Then I buffed the pipe with a clean flannel buff and polished it. The finished pipe is shown below. I think this one will stay with me as the nomenclature is almost illegible and the dark marks all over the bowl still show. The pipe smokes well so it will be a work horse pipe for me. It was well worth the time to clean up and I learned much in the process of reworking the rings.

Thanks for looking.

Midterm Exam #3: Restemming a Thermofilter Billiard

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Blog by Anthony Cook

I’m turning in my third midterm exam today. This one is based on an old Thermofilter pipe. I’ve made plenty of mistakes while fumbling my way through the learning process of pipe restoration, but one of my biggest and earliest blunders was inflicted on this poor pipe.

Thermofilter seems to be one of those nearly forgotten brands that nevertheless still pops up on eBay on a fairly frequent basis. The best information that I can dig up on it comes from a comment that “emo” posted on the Dr. Grabow Collector’s Forum:

Thermofilter was made in Italy by Fratelli Rossi in Varese. Started about 1964 and continued till about 73/74. It was imported and sold by Mastercraft…. to, best I recall, Whitehall Products Co. in Wheeling WV… Division of CULBRO.

We had several “left over” and closed them out for $3.98 over a year or two… not as Thermofilter, but simply as a filter pipe, even though they were stamped Thermofilter. Pretty cheap stuff…

The pipe in my possession is a small billiard with carved rustication. The center letters of the stamping are very worn and faint, but there’s enough there to make out “THERMOFILTER” over “IMPORTED BRIAR” on the left side of the shank. The stem did not have any markings and the bit end had been hacked off. Below are some photos of the pipe that I took shortly after its arrival.

You may have noticed that I used past tense when mentioning the stem above. That’s because I dissolved the original, plastic stem from the inside out. Yes, you read that right. When I was running alcohol dampened pipe cleaners through the stem to clean it out, the first couple came out covered with the thickest, blackest, and stickiest goo that I had ever encountered and I surmised that I was working on some serious tar build-up. I was surprised to find that the amount goo wasn’t diminishing as I worked, but actually appeared to be increasing. Eventually, I noticed that the bore of the airway seemed larger than I had originally thought it was. That’s when I realized the horrible truth. The alcohol on the cleaners was causing the cheap, plastic material of the stem to break down and it was disintegrating from the inside out. You can see for yourself in the comparison photos below. You’d think that I would have noticed it earlier, but I honestly wasn’t paying attention to the diameter of the airway. I mean, who thinks that their stem is just going to dissolve, right?

In any case, I didn’t have any extra stems to replace the original with. So, I tossed the poor, mutilated stem into the trash and dropped the stummel back into the box. It’s been wasting away in there for the past several months. For my third midterm exam, I decided to pull it out to see if I could do right by this old pipe, try some new things, and correct my past mistakes.

I started by giving the stummel an alcohol bath and wiping it down with acetone. This removed the lacquer coat and much of the old stain. It also revealed some really nice grain between the areas of carved rustication. Then, I topped the bowl with 220-grit and 320-grit papers. I used the same grits to rough out a chamfer around the rim to remove the gouges along the edge. Even though the pipe had been hand cleaned before being boxed up, I wanted to do a retort since I didn’t have one at the time. So, I placed the original, aluminum tenon into the mortise and attached the retort tube directly to that. I flushed the boiling alcohol through the shank 8-10 times before setting the pipe aside to cool, and then I dumped the amber-colored alcohol and repeated the process. After the second flush, the alcohol remained nearly clear and I was satisfied that the retort had done all that it could do. I gave the shank a final scrub using a few pipe cleaners, cotton swabs, and a shank brush and considered the pipe to be clean as it was going to get. The stummel had a few fills that needed to be dealt with. It also had a small, surface crack at the end of the shank that did not penetrate into the mortise. I had wondered about using black CA glue for fills for a while. When I saw Al’s work on the Chelsea pipe I knew that I had to give it a try. After picking the fill material out, I applied a bit of glue into the pits and crack with a round toothpick, and then packed in a little pre-stained briar dust that I had left over the Rogers pipe that I posted earlier. I repeated this until I had a good patch built up above the surface. When the glue was dry, I sanded it down with 220 and 320-grit paper. I also used a round, tapered needle file and 240/320-grit sanding needles to smooth and shape a patch inside the carved rustication. Once the fills and crack were repaired, it was time to do something about the stem. I had picked up a grab-bag batch of pre-made stems a short while earlier. I sifted through them until I found a decent match. I decided to trim the tenon rather refitting the old, aluminum one. So, I cut off the stepped end of the tenon with a Dremel, and then trimmed the tenon with the tenon turning tool chucked into the drill press. The tool was new to me and the first image in the picture below shows the result of my first cut. My speed was off and I didn’t take it up far enough to face it properly. No worries though, because it was still too large and the subsequent trims went much better. After each turn of the tenon, I tested the fit by inserting it partially into the shank. When I thought I was getting very close, I attempted to insert the stem a bit farther and heard a sharp “snap”. It was the unmistakable sound of the shank cracking. It seems that the surface crack that I had thought was insignificant had suddenly become significant.

To repair the crack, I smeared petroleum jelly over the tenon and inserted it into the mortise to spread the crack open. Then, I applied CA glue (clear, not black this time) into the crack and removed the stem to allow the crack to close. I squeezed the shank tightly together with my fingers for a couple of minutes until the glue had set. I wasn’t going to do anything more with the stem until I added some support to the shank. I considered trimming down the original, aluminum tenon to use an internal splint, but decided against it. Since the new crack had run longer than the length of the tenon. So, I decided to band the shank.

I had some trouble finding a band that would fit properly. A 13mm would slide most of the way up the shank easily, but a 12.5mm band wouldn’t even start over the end. So, using the 13mm as a guide, I marked off an area that was the width of the band and sanded it down until the 12.5mm band would just barely slide onto the shank. Then I held the band attached to the stummel over a heat gun to expand it. In less than a minute it had expanded enough that I could push the band the remaining distance up the shank by pressing the end into a soft cloth on a hard surface. With the band in place, I could continue working on the tenon. I continued to slightly reduce the diameter of the tenon with 220-grit, 320-grit, and 400-grit paper until the stem was held tightly in place but easily removed.

The stem was already a pretty close match to the width of the stummel but it needed some refinement and the artifacts from the mold needed to be removed. I kept the stem attached to the stummel and wrapped a strip of painters tape around the band to keep from dragging fine metal shavings into the vulcanite (which dulls it). Then, I began shaping the stem and removing the extra material with sandpaper and sanding sticks. I began roughing it with 220-grit and 320-grit (results in first picture below) and refined it with 400-grit and 600-grit (results in second picture below). I used a set of needle files and sanding needles to open the slot and funnel it. This was my first time trying my hand at this and I’m going to need some more practice because the results were rough. I also funneled the tenon to remove the whistle when the stem was drawn on. Finally, I lightly sanded the entire stem with 1200-grit paper before polishing with micro-mesh pads 1500-12000. The final stem, along with a whole lot of lint, can be seen in the bottom image below. Between the large areas of carved rustication (blech!) on the stummel there was some really nice grain. I can appreciate straight grain for its rarity, but I love a good bird’s eye. When it’s stained well, it has a depth that’s almost like looking at an x-ray of the briar. So, I wanted to do everything that I could to accent that grain and take your eyes away from the ugly, carved, tobacco leaf swirls.

Three main stains were used to achieve the final look of the pipe; black to accent the grain, mahogany to give the overall tone, and ox blood at the end to add a bit of vibrancy. The first two colors were mixed at a 3:1 ratio of isopropyl alcohol to stain. The final color was mixed as a thin wash that I just eyeballed. The stummel was sanded between each staining; starting with 400-grit after black, 600-grit after mahogany, and 1200-grit after the ox blood wash, and then a micro-mesh polish 1500-12000. I also did a lot of grain massaging between each stain using a variety of tools including liner brushes and markers and inks and dyes of a few different colors. You can see how the staining progressed from start to finish in the pictures below. When the staining was complete, I reattached the stem and buffed the entire pipe with White Diamond, gave it several layers of carnauba wax, and added a bowl coating to the well worn chamber. Here’s the pipe that I’m turning in for my third exam.

Thanks for looking!

A Possible Peterson Croydon That Could Be the Twin of another Reborn Pipe; or, Two Minds with Almost a Single Thought

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Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.naspc.org
http://www.roadrunnerpipes.com
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

“There comes a time in every rightly-constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.”
― Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain, 1835-1910), U.S. author and humorist, in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” [1876]

INTRODUCTION
I often wonder what my life would be like today had my mother married the man she loved – a well-known Apollo Program astronaut who later even tried to convince her to leave my dad. But she chose the space research and development nerd in the Brooks Brothers suits instead of the man in the dark blue uniform – which he sometimes traded for a big, bulky, white one with a sealed helmet to protect him from the void of space – who had the Right Stuff. By the time he called again, I was about 10, living in the well-to-do Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, and Tricky Dick had somehow just been re-elected President. Even I knew what a mistake that was. I got out of bed late one night during one of my parents’ Gatsby-like parties to answer the phone upstairs in the hallway. A hushed voice, halting in surprise, asked, “Is Kit – your mother – there?”

I told him she was at the party downstairs and said I could go and get her, but he quickly said no, asking me to have her call him and giving me his nickname. He must have thought I wouldn’t know who he was, but meeting him when I was just a toddler was something I never forgot. “Yes, sir, I’ll tell her, Colonel So-and-So [not his real name],” I replied, and can still hear him almost choke up over the long-distance phone line 43 years ago. Speechless for a moment, he at last suggested I just tell my mother in the morning, and I said, like a good little soldier on a mission, “Okay, sir. I understand.” And somehow I did.

Some events seem probable had my mother not married the man in the Brooks Brothers suits: I likely would have followed the astronaut to the Air Force Academy, and he would have been proud of me until he died some years back, unless I beat him to it in the service of my country. But the rest is blurry, except that I am still fatherless although my dad is alive and well.

Oh, and one more thing. I would not be here in beautiful Albuquerque, searching for treasures in pipe lots and one at a time and all the other right places.

RESTORATION
Looking online last week for background information on Croydon, I found links to various sites showing versions said to be made in London and Surrey, England as well as Spain, but without photos showing the nomenclature. Then I found a site for a definite Croydon brand from a Dutch carver named Lex Brouwer. There were also several sites for other brands, including Hilson and Peterson’s, with Croydon lines. I felt safe ruling out Hilson, which is known for its meerschaum lined chambers and mostly glazed clay bowls and shanks. Imagine my surprise to find an old Reborn Pipes blog by our host himself, from three years ago (June 20, 2012), about a ruined Croydon he believed was an old Peterson and of course re-made it to look perhaps better than new! Here are, top to bottom, his Croydon before restore and mine:

Clearly, the similarity of the two pipes, other than the identical stampings of CROYDON over BENT, is not in these two before shots. What is amazing is how alike our vision of the finished pipe should be. (No fair skipping ahead to see what I mean! Bad habit!) Maybe even scarier is the fact that Steve’s modifications were made by necessity, about which you can read at https://rebornpipes.com/2012/06/20/old-croydon-reborn-3/, while mine were just for the sake of personal preference and nothing else. I might just as well have reamed and sanded the chamber, scrubbed and retorted the insides, lightly micro-meshed the bit below the lip and given the whole thing a nice new buffing.

But I’m just sick and tired of all the rusticated pipes that are finished with black stain! Enough is enough, I say! At least for this restoration, which I can only call that because of the initial stripping of the insidious stain, starting with 300-grit sandpaper followed by 400 and micromesh every grade from 1500-4000.

I wanted to remove as much of the black from the crooks and crevices of the rustication as possible. Yes, my goal was to eradicate it if possible, which proved impossible with my knowledge – short of soaking only the wood in Everclear, which was problematic what with having to plug both ends of the draught hole and keeping the metal tilted up and out of the 95% alcohol. I suspect the alcohol would have eaten its way past any stoppers I might have devised anyway, and besides, I have had enough experience stripping pipes this way to have learned that less, in most cases, is better. Of course, in the case of Steve’s Croydon, he had absolutely no choice but to do a total makeover, even to the point of considering the idea of re-Christening the completed work a “Croydon-Reborn.” Reading his blog, I was touched by the apparently sincere struggle he had with the entire process he has many times since performed with ever-increasing brilliance.

At any rate, I chose the kinder, gentler approach of going over the wood again, but with super fine 0000 steel wool and focusing my tiring hand-work on the celestial but microcosmic canals and pocks. Then I did the full range of micromesh again from 1500-4000.

As is apparent, my efforts to remove even a little more of the blackness were fruitless. I should have known better than to try, but still not refrained from using the steel wool and another thorough micromesh progression for its fine effect on smoothing the wood and making it glow.

It was time, if not overdue, for retorting, which took a surprisingly low number of Pyrex test tubes of boiled Everclear shot through the stem and shank into the chamber filled with cotton that came out with any brown, and another to boil up and drain out several more times to confirm the job was done right.

Now, for the point of all this technically unnecessary work obliterating the certainly OK original black stain. What I was looking for was something closer to the briar’s true color but dark enough to cover the grain and fill in the grooves. I decided on Lincoln Marine Cordovan (Burgundy red) boot stain, knowing that except with the lightest shades of briar, it leaves only a subtle redness. Here it is, first stained and flamed, then gently buffed with 3200 micromesh and then after being hand-coated with Halcyon II to sit a while before buffing on the clean wheel.

Everything so far had worked out just right to do the minor clean up needed on the upper top and bottom of the bit, and including the lip, while the wax on the briar dried a little and worked into the wood. I micro-meshed the bit with 1500, 2400, 3200 and 3600 before buffing with red and white diamond, using the clean wheel and a soft cotton rag after both. Below are two shots before and one after, as both sides ended up the same.

The last part of the job was to put the briar to the clean buffer with a light touch, re-join the two separated parts of the pipe and again wipe the whole thing with a cotton cloth.

I caught the slight smudge on the top of the stem in the photos above after taking them and fixed the problem. Now for the final, left view photos of Steve’s finished Croydon and mine side-by-side. CONCLUSION
This was, of course, no competition, if only because of the fact that Steve’s was done three years ago, a few months before we ever “met” online. But had they both taken place at the same time, his would, hands-down, be the winner. Being able to take a pipe in the abominable condition in which Steve found his and clean it, rusticate the bowl and shank himself and replace not only the stem but, it appears, the band using the exact types with which an original is created astounds me…and inspires me.

If I still drank, Steve, I’d have two, one for me and one for you. But I wouldn’t stop there, so I guess I’ll have to settle for a Monster!

NEPAL PROJECT PIPE SALE 5 – Restoring an Orlik De Luxe L206 – an Inclined Bevelled Egg

4 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

This is the fifth pipe from the box of pipes that I was gifted by a good friend of mine with the instructed purpose of cleaning them up and selling them with all of the proceeds going to the aid of earthquake victims in Nepal. Once again all funds raised will all go to the SA Foundation, and organization that has worked in Nepal for over 15 years helping provide recovery, housing and job training for women who are victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking. The ongoing earthquakes (over 300) that continue to shake Nepal have left much in ruins. The SA Foundation Project there was able to find new housing for the women and help with staff as well. Every dollar raised from the sale of these pipes will go to the work in Nepal. It is stamped on the left side of the shank, Orlik De Luxe over London Made and on the right side of the shank it is stamped with the shape number L206. According to the page from the Orlik shape chart below, the L206 (the bottom pipe on the page) was called an Inclined Bevelled Egg. The next four photos show the condition of the pipe when I brought it to the worktable to clean it up. The finish was in very decent shape though soiled and would clean up very nicely. The stamping was clear, though toward the back of the shank it was stamped more lightly than the front half of the shank.

The next photos are close-up pictures of the outer edge of the rim. The outer edge was damaged around over half of the bowl. Someone along the path this pipe took during its life time had smoothed out the damage and in so doing had rounded the outer edge of the bowl.

From the Orlik shape chart and photos on the web I could see that the edge was supposed to be sharp and smooth rather than rounded. The rounding also hid some rough spots in the briar caused by knocking out the pipe against something hard. I decided to top the bowl with a topping board. I used 220 grit sandpaper on the board and sanded the top in a circular motion while pressing it into the sandpaper. I took it down until the damaged sections were gone and the outer edge was sharp once again.

I sanded the rim with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratching. I sanded it with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads to further smooth it out. I buffed the bowl and rim with White Diamond. I used a light and a medium brown stain touch up pen mixed together to match the stain with the rest of the bowl. I used a sharp knife to ream cake the bowl, remove the crumbling cake from the bottom portion of the bowl and leave a thin cake on the walls of the bowl. My purpose was to facilitate forming a new cake on the walls.

I cleaned out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol until the cleaners came out white. With the inside clean I put the stem back in place with a plastic washer on the tenon so that when it was pushed in place it sat between the shank and the stem. This allows me to sand the stem and remove the oxidation without rounding the shoulders or damaging the stain and finish on the shank. I sanded it with a worn piece of 220 grit sandpaper and then with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge.

With the oxidation removed from the stem I went on to sand it with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed down the stem with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads and then when I had finished the third set I did it again and set it aside to let the oil dry.

After the oil dried I buffed the pipe and the stem with Blue Diamond Plastic Polish on the wheel while carefully avoiding the stamping. I gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a soft, flannel buff to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown below. It merely waits for the right person to add it to their rack and enjoy a flavourful smoke in a very light weight pipe.

This beautifully shaped Danish looking Orlik L206 Inclined Bevelled Egg should make someone a great addition. If you are interested in this pipe email me with an offer at slaug@uniserve.com and we can discuss it. The entirety of the sale price will go to the Nepal project. I will pay the postage so that does not get taken off the proceeds. If you are interested in reading about the SA Foundation you can look at their website at http://www.safoundation.com.

Thanks for looking.

NEPAL PROJECT PIPE SALE 3 – Cleaning up and Restoring a GBD Bronze Velvet 548 Bulldog

3 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

This is the third pipe from the box of pipes that I was gifted by a good friend of mine with the instructed purpose of cleaning them up and selling them with all of the proceeds going to the aid of earthquake victims in Nepal. The funds raised will all go to the SA Foundation, and organization that has worked in Nepal for over 15 years helping provide recovery, housing and job training for women who are victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking. The ongoing earthquakes (over 300) that continue to shake Nepal have left much in ruins. The SA Foundation Project there was able to find new housing for the women and help with staff as well. Every dollar raised from the sale of these pipes will go to the work in Nepal.

The third pipe I decided to clean up from the box of donated pipes is an interesting GBD Shape 548 – a shape I call an elongated bulldog. It is a unique shape that GBD made for quite a number of years. It is stamped GBD in an oval over Bronze Velvet on the left side of the shank. On the right side it is stamped with the shape number 548 and London over England. When it was introduced it had a natural finish and a swirled bronze acrylic bit. In a 1976 Catalogue it was billed by GBD as, “Our ultimate GBD! Only the choicest natural bowls are selected for this premium newcomer. The crowning touch is the handcut mottled Bronze Velvet mouthpiece blending in complementary contrast to the bowl.”

This one will also be sold and all the proceeds will go to the project in Kathmandu. It is a great looking piece of briar with no visible fills in the briar.

I examined the pipe before I went to work on cleaning it up and restoring it. The briar was very dirty and had sticky spots on the bowl and diamond shank sides. The double ring around the bowl was in excellent shape but had debris in the grooves. The rim was in rough shape. Not only was it caked with a lot of tars and oils but it had been knocked out on the front edge of the rim and there was roughening and damage to the front and the top of the rim. There were also notches in the top outer edge of the rim all the way around the rim. The inner bevel on the rim was also caked and hardly visible but appeared to be in pretty decent shape under the grime.

The stem was a marbled bronze as suggested in the catalogue. The sharp edge of the button had been worn down so that the button merely sloped into the end of the stem. The top side was clean and the underside had a well done repair to a bite through. It appeared to be made out of epoxy and was rock hard. There were slight dents in the surface of the repair but it was still solid.

I decided to work on the stem first. I used a flat edge needle file to sharpen the edge of the button and give it more definition from the rest of the stem surface. I worked on both sides of the stem to give it shape. I also used the file to scrape away some of the stem material in front of the edge to give depth to the button.

Once the button was cleaned up and defined I worked on the inside of the stem. I scrubbed the interior of the stem with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs. I was surprised to find that the tenon had a metal tube that ran from the end into the stem to give the Lucite tenon more strength in an area where I have seen many of them snap off.

I also wiped down the surface of the stem and used a dental pick to clean up the epoxy repair on the underside. When I had the area cleaned up I used some clear super glue to fill the marks and dents in the epoxy repair and then sanded the stem in that area with 220 grit sandpaper and a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to blend it into the surface of the stem and smooth it out. Once that was done I set the stem aside and worked on the bowl.
I used the PipNet reamer to clean up the bowl and remove the bits of carbon that were left behind. I also cleaned the airway and the mortise with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol until they came out clean.

The damage to the rim needed to be addressed so I topped the bowl with the topping board and 220 grit sandpaper until the damaged portion was gone. I did the topping in several steps. I took the top down until the major damage was gone and then did a little more to minimize the damage on the front of the bowl.

I reworked the beveled inner edge with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper until it was the same angles it was before I topped it. When that was sanding was complete I worked on the damage to the outer rim with the same sandpaper and then sanded the entire rim with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. I wiped the bowl and the rim down with alcohol on a cotton pad. When I had finished the bowl looked as it is shown in the next photo.

The next two photos show the bowl after I had scrubbed the surface of the briar with alcohol on a cotton pad. The natural briar looks clean and bears a slight patina of age. But is looking pretty decent at this point in the process – and I had not even buffed it yet.

I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads. When I finished I gave it a light buff with White Diamond.

I buffed the entire pipe with Blue Diamond Plastic polish on the wheel and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I finished by buffing the pipe with a clean, soft flannel buff to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It is ready for its next pipeman to bring it home and bring it back into rotation.

This GBD Bronze Velvet should make someone a great addition. If you are interested in this pipe email me at slaug@uniserve.com and we can discuss it. The entirety of the sale price will go to the Nepal project. I will pay the postage so that does not get taken off the proceeds. If you are interested in reading about the SA Foundation you can look at their website at http://www.safoundation.com.

Thanks for looking.

Bringing a Comoy’s Grand Slam 5 Straight Bulldog Back to Life

2 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on my worktable was a Comoy’s Bulldog. Personally, I think Comoy’s nailed the straight bulldog shape better than most others. It is a perfect bulldog shape and it is a pleasure to hold and smoke. The stamping on the left side of the shank reads Comoy’s over Grand Slam over Pipe. On the left underside of the shank next to the stem it is stamped X7. On the right topside it is stamped in the classic circle reading Made in London with the “in” in the centre of the circle. Underneath the circle it reads England. Further up that side of the shank is a number 5 stamped almost next to the bowl. I examined the C-inlay on the stem to see how it was made. I have learned over time and through research on these pipes that if it’s been applied in three steps, then it was made pre-1980. This one was indeed a three-step C-inlay. Thus I knew it was made earlier than 1980.

Like all of the pipes I work on, I took a moment to give the pipe a quick assessment. Before I even start the clean up and restoration I take time to look it over to make sure I see what I have to deal with on a particular pipe. The examination helps me to plan how I am going to address the issues on this particular pipe. The Comoy’s pipe was definitely in need of some TLC. The original finish on the Grand Slam Pipe line was rich and full of life. The contrast of dark stain that highlights the grain and the top coat of stain that varies from a rich red to a dark golden combine together to give a very beautiful finish. There were no major dents in the briar that needed to be addressed, though there was a small one in the shank near the stem junction on the sharp edge on the right side that could not be repaired. The briar itself was lifeless and faded looking dull and flat. There was some dirt and grime on it and particularly at the bowl shank junction. The rim had a thick coating of tars on top and some minimal damage to the inner bevel. The bowl had a light cake and seemed to have been reamed recently. It would need to be tidied up.

The stem was badly oxidized and had tooth marks on the top side and the underside near the button. The slot was partially plugged and would need to be opened.

I cleaned up the bowl with a wipe down of alcohol on a cotton pad to remove the dirt and grime and begin to soften the tars on the rim. I gave it a light sanding with 1500 grit micromesh sanding pads. Then I wiped it down once more with the alcohol and cotton pads. The buildup was just about gone. Just a little more scrubbing and the rim was finished. I lightly sanded the stem with a medium grit sanding sponge to loosen the oxidation and then dropped it in a bath of Oxyclean to soak overnight. In the photo below you can see the oxidation begin to run off the stem into the white bubbles of the Oxyclean mixture. The next morning when I took it out of the bath the mixture was yellow with the oxidation. I dried off the stem with a coarse cotton towel to remove the softened oxidation. The stem was much cleaner and black of the vulcanite was beginning to show. I put the stem on the shank and sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper followed by a medium grit sanding sponge to remove the oxidation that had come to the surface after the soak.

I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil and then took the following photos of the stem to show the progress so far.

I cleaned out the deep tooth mark on the underside of the stem with a dental pick and then a cotton pad and alcohol. Once it was clean I used clear super glue to make a patch on the marks. I over filled the repair so that it would dry and not shrink too much requiring a second coat. I set the repaired stem aside to dry for the day while I was at work. After work I sanded it smooth with 220 grit sandpaper and then with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. When the surface of the repair matched the stem material the sanding was finished. I then used a flat blade screw driver to unscrew the end of the stinger in the tenon. The cap on the end held a replaceable leather washer in place. Once the cap was off I was able to remove the washer. I then used a pair of needle nose pliers on which I have covered then ends with a thick wrapping of scotch tape. This provides a cushion when grabbing onto metal. The stingers in the Grand Slam were threaded and I heated the metal tenon until the goop holding it tight was loose. I turned it with the pliers until it was free of the tenon. With all of the parts removed from the stinger I cleaned it with a soft bristle brass tire brush to clean off the tars. I cleaned out the interior of the stinger with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. I used the brass brush to also clean the threads on both ends of the stinger. When I had them cleaned I used coated the threads on the front of the stinger with a light coat of Vaseline to protect it and lubricate them when I turned the cap onto the end. I had cleaned it with some soap and warm water and then used the Vaseline to give it some life. With it all cleaned and lubricated I put it back together and set it aside while I cleaned the shank and the stem. I used the drill bit on the KleenReem pipe reamer to clean out the airway from the end of the mortise to the bottom of the bowl. It had almost closed off with the tars. The draught on the shank was very constricted. Once I had run the bit through it several time cleaning out the buildup the draught was open and unrestricted. I cleaned out the shank and airway with alcohol on cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. Once they came out clean the shank was finished and ready for the stem.

I cleaned out the stem with pipe cleaners and cotton swabs while I had the stinger out. I was able to remove all of the buildup in the stem and then put it all back together again. The stinger end was lubricated and then threaded back into the tenon. It sits quite deep in the tenon and has a small flange that sits against the tenon end. Here are some photos of the stinger in place in the stem.

I used a 1500 grit micromesh pad to further polish the aluminum of the stinger. I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-4000 grit pads. Between the first set of three pads and after the second set I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. When it dried I buffed the stem with White Diamond on the wheel to polish the vulcanite. I brought it back to the worktable and gave it a further coat of Obsidian Oil.

I finished dry sanding with 6000-12,000 grit micromesh sanding pads. I rubbed the stem down a final time with Obsidian Oil and buffed it with Blue Diamond Plastic Polish on the buffing wheel. I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. Between each coat of wax I buffed it with a clean, soft flannel buffing pad to raise the shine. The photos below show the finished pipe. It is cleaned, polished and ready for that next inaugural smoke.

Thanks for looking.

Midterm Exam #1: Repairing a Cracked Bowl on a Pre-1956 Medico Billiard

12 Replies

Blog by Anthony Cook

The photo above represents the start of my first semester at the University of Reborn Pipes (by the way, Steve, we need T-shirts, a mascot, and a fight song). It was taken several months ago and it shows the first batch of pipes that I had collected for restoration practice. It’s a motley crew to be sure, but I have a special fondness for each of them. You never forget your first, as they say.

I’ve completed the restoration of the majority of these since the photo was taken (sadly, I failed the cob test, but it was rigged I tell you), but four of them were placed back into the box after cleaning and have remained there. Those four had issues that required either tools, materials, or experience that I just didn’t have at that point. Over time, other pipes attracted more of my attention and those remainders continued to linger in the dark and gather dust once again.

Now that I’ve acquired a few credit hours, I thought it might be time to drag them back out into the light; sort of as midterm exams to see if I’ve learned anything. The pipe that is second from the right in the group photo above is the one that I selected for my first exam. It’s an unnamed Medico billiard. The stamping on the shank reads simply “MEDICO” over “IMPORTED BRIAR” and the stem bears the “F” stamp found on some older Medicos. I learned from Dave Whitney, author of Old Briar, that the “F” stamp was probably discontinued in 1955, which gave me some idea of the pipe’s age.

The main reason that this one was shuffled back into the box was because of the extensive damage to the bowl. There were large fills within the carved rustication on the right side and several cracks had developed in the area both outside and inside the bowl. I discovered during cleaning that at least one of them penetrated completely into the chamber.

Below, you can see more of the original pictures that I took of the pipe shortly after it arrived. I had not done anything with it other than ream the bowl at the time these photos were taken.

As I mentioned, I had already cleaned the internals of the pipe before dropping it back in the box. So, I started work by dropping the stummel into a jar of alcohol to soften the lacquer finish. The metal ferrule at the end of the shank was loose enough to fall off. So, it was removed it and set aside. After a couple of hours, I removed the stummel from the bath and wiped it down with a cotton cloth. Then, I used acetone and #0000 steel wool to remove the lacquer coating. I also picked out the pinkish-orange putty from the fills, and then used the pick to scrape any loose or charred wood from the cracks. A lot of scratches and gouges were revealed once the rim was clean. So, I set up my topping surface and lightly sanded the majority of the blemishes away using 220-grit and 320-grit sandpaper. I mixed together powdered pumice, activated charcoal, and sodium silicate to make a bowl patch. After protecting the airway with a pipe cleaner, I applied a small amount of the patch mix directly to the cracks with a flat toothpick and firmly tamped to push it into the cracks. Then, I used the scoop on my pipe tool to apply a thin layer across the entire area for protection. Next, I addressed the cracks and pits on the outside of the bowl by filling them with a few layers of briar dust and CA glue. I applied the glue with the end of a toothpick to avoid getting glue into the carved areas as much as I could. After the patches had dried, I sanded them down with 220-grit and 320-grit sandpaper. The same progression of grits was used to put a slight chamfer on the outside of the rim to remove the gouges that remained there. While I was working the bowl, I also sanded the chamber patch smooth with 400-grit paper. I sat the stummel aside for a time to pay some attention to the stem. There was a lot of chatter near the button and tooth dents on both sides of the stem. I applied black CA glue (medium thickness) to the dents with a toothpick and dripped a couple of drops of activator over it to set it up quickly. When it was completely dry, I sanded out the glue patch and leveled the chatter with 220-grit paper. The two photos below show the patch before and after rough sanding. While I was working, I decided that I didn’t like how worn and rounded the edge of the button had become. So, I decided to build a new, sharper edge. I wrapped clear packing tape around the stem to mask it just below the button. I built up the layers until it was the depth that I wanted my new button to be. Then, I used a flat toothpick to “paint” black CA glue (thick) along the edge of the mask and dripped activator over it when I was satisfied with the coverage. Before the glue could completely set up, I quickly peeled the tape away to reveal my new (although rough at this point) button edge. I used 220-grit paper and a sanding file to start shaping the button, and then 320-grit and 400-grit to refine the button shape and further blend the patch area. I also used 400-grit paper to remove the unsightly (to my eyes) molding seams along the sides of the stem. I placed a rubber washer over the tenon to preserve the sharp edge of the stem face and lightly sanded the entire stem with 600-grit and 1200-grit paper. The stem logo was in fair condition, but the paint was cracked and discolored. So, I filled it in using a grout pen and carefully sanded off the excess with 1200-grit paper. The grout paint left a slight, white residue smeared around the logo, but that would be removed with further polishing. Before polishing the stem, I rubbed it down with a drop of mineral oil, let it sit for a couple of minutes, and wiped it away. I hoped that this would moisturize the surface a bit and maybe prevent some of the nylon fiber splintering that always seemed to leave behind fine scratches in the finished stem. Then, I polished with micro-mesh pads 1500-grit to 12000-grit. I added a second and third drop of oil between 2400/3200 and 4000/6000 pads. I was pretty pleased with the results. The final stem was much more blemish-free that the previous nylon stems I’ve worked on.

With the stem finished up, I returned to the metal ferrule that I had set aside earlier. I gave it a once over with #0000 steel wool, and then polished it with Semichrome polishing paste and a soft cloth. I buffed of the excess with my Dremel and a small buffing wheel to give it a nice shine. Back to the stummel, I applied a 3:1 mixture of isopropyl alcohol and Fiebing’s black dye, hand-buffed the stummel with a soft rag to remove the excess, and then used 600-grit paper to remove the scratches and most of the dark stain except for inside of the carved rustications and what had set into the grain. I also made small adjustments to the width and angle of the rim chamfer with the sandpaper to make sure that it was even all the way around.

Next, I applied a 3:1 stain solution of isopropyl alcohol and Fiebing’s dark brown, buffed off the excess by hand, and lightly sanded the entire stummel with 1200-grit sandpaper to smooth the surface and soften the edges of the rim. Then, I applied a 3:1 solution of ox blood stained and hand buffed again.

Finally, I polished the stummel with micro-mesh pads 1500-2400 before applying a 4:1 mahogany dye mix. I wiped the stummel down with an alcohol dampened cloth until I achieved a dark copper color and finished up by polishing with the remaining micro-mesh grits. Then it was time to put all of the pieces back together and give the pipe the final touches. I reattached the ferrule to the stummel with some 5-minute epoxy. When that had set, I applied a bowl coating mix of sour cream and activated charcoal to help promote the cake formation in the repaired chamber. I let that dry for about two hours before reattaching the stem and taking the pipe to the buffer. I buffed the stummel and stem with White Diamond, and then I gave the pipe several coats of carnauba wax.

With all of that done, I turned in my first exam. I’m feeling pretty good about it, but I never really know how I’ve done on these things until the grades finally come back. I’m not going to worry about it now, though. I still need to cram for the second exam. It’s going to be a long night.

Cleaning and Restoring a Blatter of Montreal Bent Egg

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Blog by Steve Laug

When I received this Blatter of Montreal Egg pipe I sat down and looked it over carefully to assess what would need to be done to restore it. The finish was very dirty and worn but underneath the dirt and oils there was some amazing grain. On the right side of the bowl, near the top there was a fill that had popped out and left a large divot in the briar. The size of the missing fill distracted from really seeing the beauty of the pipe. Looking at the top of the bowl I could see that the inner edge of the rim was slightly out of round and the rim had been previously topped. Both the stain and the topping were not even. The outer edge of the rim had been rounded from sanding and was no longer a clean sharp edge. Sometime ago the bowl had been reamed and a broken uneven cake left on the sides of the bowl. The airway at the bottom of the bowl had a groove carved from the opening across the bowl bottom that appeared to come from using too heavy a hand with a pipe cleaner over the years.

The stem was in good shape in terms of not having any tooth damage or chatter. The button was still quite sharp and distinct like the other Blatter pipes that I have cleaned. It was oxidized and somewhere along the way someone had sanded or buffed the stem with it removed from the pipe. The edges of the stem at the shank junction had rounded shoulders and because of that the fit against the shank was not perfect. The diameter of the shank was slightly larger than the stem due to the rounded shoulders. There would need to be some work done on that area to reduce the damage though I am not sure that it can all be removed. I find this kind of rounding of the shoulders on the stem or the shank on pipes that have been overbuffed or worked on by someone new to the refurbishing hobby.

I took the pipe apart to look at the internals of the stem and the shank. The shank has an interesting design. The mortise ends with a slight ridge and then the airway drops into a kind of sump/or chamber to capture the moisture – kind of like the Peterson system pipes. This chamber had the airway drilled toward the top end. It was filled with a lot of black sticky tar and oil. It would take a lot of scrubbing to clean that area. The mortise itself was pretty clean. The end of the tenon was almost clogged with the buildup around the end. The same was true of the slot in the end of the tenon. It was reduced in size by about half. The stem would also take some work to clean out the thick build up inside.

The next photo shows a close up of the area of the missing fill. It is quite large and will need to be repaired. I scrubbed the bowl with cotton pads and isopropyl alcohol to remove the grime and prepare the missing fill for repair. I picked out the loose particles from the area and scrubbed it down again. I filled the hole with larger particles of briar dust and then filled it with superglue. I added more briar particles to the top of the repair. I sanded the repair with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the excess and smooth out the patch. The size of the patch can be seen in the next photo. The larger particles of briar dust worked differently than the fine dust I used in the past. I used a folded piece of sandpaper to bevel the inner edge of the rim to take care of the damage that had made it out of round. Beveling the rim inward took care of the damage and brought the rim back into round. I sanded the rim with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge and also sanded the repaired area on the side of the bowl. Each successive grit of sanding sponge smoothed out the repair and blended it into the bowl. Once the patch was sanded smooth I scrubbed the bowl down with acetone on a cotton pad to remove the rest of the finis and the remaining wax buildup on the bowl. The birdseye briar was stunning on the left side of the bowl.

I also scrubbed the top of the rim with the pads and found that the work on the rim had really cleaned up the look of the pipe from the top. I worked on the rounded shoulders of the stem. First I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper blending the flow of the shank with the stem. The key was to reduce the shoulder rounding without changing the shape of the shank. Once I had the transition as smooth as I could make it I sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. The finished shank/stem transition can be seen in the next series of photos.

With the repair finished on the side of the bowl and the transition smoothed out at the stem/shank junction it was time to give it a coat of stain to blend it in with the rest of the briar. I used a dark brown stain touch up pen to work on those two points on the bowl.

I probably should have done this sooner, but I chose not to. The bowl had already been reamed but I wanted to clean up the reaming job and try to smooth it out. I used a PipNet reamer and chose a cutting head that fit the bowl tightly and removed the odds and ends of broken cake left in the bowl. I then set up the topping board to repair the round outer edges of the rim. It did not take too much topping to make that edge sharp and clean once again instead of rounded. I finished sanding the rim afterward with a medium and a fine grit sanding block to remove the scratches left behind by the 220 grit sandpaper.

I used the same dark brown stain pen to stain the rim. I applied the stain until the coverage was acceptable. I lightly buffed the bowl with White Diamond to smooth out the stained areas and blend them into the rest of the bowl.

With the externals finished on the bowl it was time to address the internals. The airway in the stem and shank and the sump in shank all were filthy. I decided to use a retort on the pipe. I set up the test tube and connector to the stem and then stuffed the bowl with a cotton ball before boiling the alcohol through the bowl and stem.

I boiled the alcohol through the bowl and shank the first time and the alcohol came out a dark brown. I took the retort off the stem and ran pipe cleaners and cotton swabs and alcohol through the shank and stem. While they were definitely cleaner there was still a lot of “sludge” present. I set up the retort and boiled another tube of alcohol through the bowl. This time the alcohol was definitely lighter but still dark. I emptied the tube and boiled a fresh tube through for the third time. While it was definitely getting lighter it was still brown. I ran a fourth tube of alcohol through the stem and shank and finally it came out clear. This was one dirty pipe. I used pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to finish cleaning the shank and stem. I used the dental pick to clean out the edges of the slot on the button. With the internals clean I turned my attention to the stem. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper and then with the medium and fine grit sanding sponges. Using those I was able to remove the oxidation on the surface.

I switched to micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit sanding pads and rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. Afterwards I buffed it with White Diamond to polish the stem and lessen the scratches. I dry sanded the stem with 3200-12,000 grit micromesh sanding pads and rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between the 4000 and 6000 grit pads. I also gave it a final rub down with Obsidian Oil after the 12,000 grit pad.

I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond Plastic Polish and then gave it several coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it to a shine and then used a clean flannel buff to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I have also included a photo of the repaired rim. Note the repaired fill on the right side of the bowl. The pipe is cleaned, polished, repaired and ready to smoke. I think it is a beautiful pipe in one of my favourite shapes.