Tag Archives: bowl topping

A Tale of Three Churchwardens

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Blog by Dal Stanton

The first of the 3 was true born, but of hobbit stature.  He dreamed of walking in the world of men and of wizards – seeing eye to eye but anxious to serve.  The second was bound to the first but he held no claim to royal lineage. He stood proud in the best sense of the word and cherished his Green Land’s heritage and history.  The third of the 3, was free and bound to no man.  He was born into humbler circumstances but found favor in the Maker’s eye and the Maker dubbed him The Wise – a valuable gift to any man.  All 3 strong, bound together in one tale, bring hope to the Daughters of men. 

I am sure that if J.R.R. Tolkien were to write this blog about the restoration and creation of 3 Churchwardens, he might begin the tale something like this.  Every pipe man and pipe women, if they do not have a Churchwarden in their collections, are hoping one day to find one – each looking for that special bond.  Why?  Simply stated, Churchwardens are cool.  I have a Churchwarden that I’ve named, Gandalf – there are probably many Churchwardens out there bearing that name.  Why?  Simply stated, Gandalf the Wizard – first The Grey then The White – is cool.  He smoked a Churchwarden like no one else, packed with ‘Old Toby’ and who doesn’t want to be like Gandalf?

There’s A LOT of information on the internet easily obtained by a simple search of ‘Churchwarden’ and I don’t want to repeat what’s easily found.  The short of it is this – ‘Churchwarden’ is an old shape as far as pipes go.  Of course, they were prevalent throughout Middle Earth.  As the story goes, there were men back in the days when they didn’t lock churches at night, who were employed as ‘wardens’ of the church – whose responsibility was to guard the premises.  To be faithful to their charge, they were not allowed to leave the walls of the church.  That created an unusual dilemma between guarding the holy confines and the desire to enjoy one’s evening smoke.  The moral dilemma was creatively solved by a stem.  The length of the stem enabled the church wardens to tend to their evening bowls as they stood vigilantly inside the church walls while the stems extended through the windows…so the story goes (see Pipedia’s article).

Another very interesting factoid about Churchwardens comes from Bill Burney’s Pipedia description of the Churchwarden that it is unique among all pipes:

I want to include one other interesting link for those of you who are Middle Earth and Churchwarden enthusiast.  The question has always been asked by discerning folk, while Gandalf was smoking his Warden, or Bilbo, Merry and Pippen were puffing on theirs, what exactly was packed in their bowls??  Of course, we all know that the bowls had ‘Old Toby’ packed in them – or simply, ‘Pipeweed’.  This link goes to a fun site that explores the minutia of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth including the story of pipe smoking and the mystery of what exactly inhabited the bowls of Middle Earth!  Enjoy!

The first of the 3 was true born, but of hobbit stature.  He dreamed of walking in the world of men and of wizards – seeing eye to eye but anxious to serve.

My ‘Tolkienesque’ opening, like Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’, holds some truth in the telling.  The ‘Tale of the Three Churchwardens’ started when I received an email from Toby – yes, I’m not making this up!  Gandalf smoked ‘Old Toby’ and a younger Toby from Germany wrote me about commissioning the “Imperial Churchwarden” (the ‘true born’ Churchwarden with royalty) as a birthday gift for a friend which he discovered in my website’s section, For ‘Pipe Dreamers’ Only.  We came to an accord and I put the Imperial Churchwarden from France in the queue to be restored in time for his friend’s birthday celebration. Later, when I found the Imperial in the “Help Me!” Basket, I was a little concerned.  The stem was shorter than I had originally thought – it was more of ‘Hobbit stature’ – a miniature Warden.  The stem was 5 ¾ inches beyond the shank or the total length of the pipe was about 8 ¾ inches or 22 cm – not really the coveted ‘Gandalf’ size.  I wrote to Toby with a proposal of adding some stature to the Imperial with a longer Churchwarden stem I had on hand – it would be more of a ‘Gandalf statured’ Churchwarden as a result.  I sent this picture with the proposed stem giving a total length of 11 inches or 28 ½ cm.  My Gandalf was on top for comparison.  Toby liked the idea and said that his friend was a huge ‘Lord of the Rings’ fan and that an extra 5 cms was a good investment for his friend to have a ‘Gandalf’ pipe.  

The second was bound to the first but he held no claim to royal lineage.  He stood proud in the best sense of the word and cherished his Green Land’s heritage and history.

Then Toby asked if I might have another long warden stem in my stores – he thought it might be good for him to add a Churchwarden to his collection – perhaps that both he and his friend could blow smoke rings into the air in proper wizard fashion on his friend’s day of celebration!  I ordered 3 more 8.5” Churchwarden stems from Tim West at http://www.jhlowe.com and they arrived in Bulgaria from the US with a returning colleague.  At this point I moved from restoring a Churchwarden (true born) to creating a Churchwarden with re-purposed bowls.  I went through my stores to find potential bowls to be wedded to a Warden stem and transformed to a Churchwarden (thank you Bill Burney!).  I sent two options next to the Imperial – a Dublin and a Rhodesian.  Toby chose the Dublin with the canted bowl which to him was more ‘Gandalf-like’.  And so, the Dublin will mast the Churchwarden stem – representing a strong and resilient people proud of their ‘Green’ heritage and history.

The third of the 3, was free and bound to no man.  He was born into humbler circumstances but found favor in the Maker’s eye and the Maker dubbed him ‘The Wise’ – a valuable gift to any man.                     

All 3 strong, bound together in one tale, bring hope to the Daughters of men.

With two Churchwardens bound to Toby – one for his friend and one for himself, I was thinking, while I’m working on restoring and creating these Churchwardens, why not fashion another to put in The Pipe Steward Store for another steward to add to their collection.  I found a small bowl that I really liked – a Yello Bole ‘Air-control’ Imported Briar.  I looked at the Air-Control stem mechanism and my thought was that no one will ever want this Yelo Bole as he is now attached to his ‘high-tech’ stem, but I really liked the Apple shaped bowl.  I think he’ll look great mounted on a long-bent stem – a third Churchwarden, a wise choice for anyone wanting to add a Churchwarden to his collection!  All three Churchwardens will benefit the Daughters of Bulgaria – women and girls, the ‘Daughters of men’ who have been trafficked and sexually exploited.I want to thank Charles Lemon of https://dadspipes.com  up front for his input that led me to add two new tools to my tool box and expanding my ‘restorative reach’ with pipes.  The first is a PIMO Tenon Turning Tool that I ordered at Vermont Freehand after seeing the tool on Charles’ Worktable and Man Cave blog.  Charles’ later restoration, Re-Stemming a Butz-Choquin Marigny Deluxe Hand-Made Calabash was very helpful providing a step by step description of its use in replacing a tenon and the use of the tool.  The other wonderful tool that I coveted reading the same ‘Re-Stemming’ blog was the electronic caliper which Charles uses hand in hand with his many stem repairs.  I hadn’t seen an electronic caliper in Bulgaria, but then, I had never looked for one either!  Joy of joys, I found a German made electronic caliper in the local ‘Bricolage’ – I was a happy camper!  My new toys – that is, tools 😊 pictured next. As I approach the restoration and creation of the 3 Churchwardens, I will try to work in the reverse – starting with the ‘Free Born’ Yello Bole, then the ‘Green Land’ Dublin and finally, the ‘True Born’ French made Imperial.  Why this order?  As I get used to my new tools, I would rather start with the ‘non-commissioned’ pipe first to hone in on the techniques, working toward the most important Churchwarden, the Imperial, destined to be a gift.  To experiment and practice, I have already turned one stem with the PIMO tenon turning tool – a French Jeantet Jumbo which came to me without a matching stem and has been waiting patiently.  Without description, this is what I did last night while watching the World Cup match between Sweden and Mexico (my wife rooted for Mexico where she grew up!).  Sweden prevailed.  The Jeantet Jumbo will be completed sometime in the future – he’s a ‘big boy’ pipe! Turning now to cleaning the stummels of the Churchwardens, I start first by reaming each with the Pipnet Reaming Kit.  Each stummel uses only the smallest of the 4 blade heads available.  I then fine tuning each with the Savinelli Fitsall tool, followed by sanding the chambers with 240 grade paper wrapped around a Sharpie Pen.  Finally, each is cleaned with a cotton pad wetted with isopropyl 95%.  After clearing the light to moderate cake in each bowl getting down to the briar for a fresh start, the chambers look good in each – no problems I can see. Turning now to the external surface I use undiluted Murphy’s Oil soap and cotton pads to scrub each.  The Dublin (center above) has the most lava over the rim, while the other two, not as much.  In addition to cotton pads, I utilize a brass wire brush for the rims and use a knife blade carefully to scrape the Dublin rim.  The Dublin and the Imperial will both need some sanding on the rim to clean them up.  All 3 stummels’ finishes reveal that they are thin and worn.  Murphy’s took much of the finish off but not all with the Yello Bole and Imperial bowls.  The Dublin’s finish is gone.  During the cleaning, I discover that I missed the remains of a broken off tenon in the mortise of the Dublin.  I keep screws of different sizes on hand for just these occasions.  Using a small diameter screw, I screw into the airway hole of the tenon just enough to grab some vulcanite and gently pull out.  I don’t want to insert it too far into the broken tenon to not expand it and crack the shank.  As hoped, a little pressure and thankfully, the tenon comes loose. With the mortise cleared in the Dublin, I proceed to clean the internals of all 3.  I use pipe cleaners and cotton buds dipped in isopropyl 95% to do the dirty work.  Here is a truism: Just because you’re cleaning a smaller stummel doesn’t mean it’s a smaller mess!  Each stummel required boocoos of cotton buds, pipe cleaners – I also scrape the sides with a sharp dental probe as well as hand-turning drill bits down the mortises to excavate the tars and oils.  The pictures show the finish line of sorts – later, before I turn out the lights, I’ll give each a kosher salt/alcohol soak through the night to provide more stealth cleaning.To remove the old finish from the stummels I wipe them down with isopropyl 95% and cotton pads.  The alcohol fully removes the old tired finish off the Imperial and the Dublin, but the Yello Bole’s old finish is persistent.  The first picture below reveals the sheen left on the Yello Bole but the others are dull.  To deal with the ‘Candie Apple’ finish that remains on the Yello Bole stummel I use acetone on a cotton pad.  This does the trick and now we’re down to the briar on all the stummels.With the stummels clean inside and out, the next step is fashioning the Churchwarden stems from the precast stems I acquired for the job.  I start with the Yello Bole by making an outside measurement of the original stem’s tenon which, of course, fits perfectly.  The measurement with the electronic caliper is 6.83mm.  From Charles Lemon’s blog that I noted above, Re-Stemming a Butz-Choquin Marigny Deluxe Hand-Made Calabash, Charles recommended a conservative approach to using the PIMO tenon turning tool which I employed on my first run with the Jeantet Jumbo, to first do a test cut of the tenon at approximately 40mm more than the target measurement.  This allows a more conservative sanding of the tenon to gradually bring it down to a good fit – not too snug and not too loose.  The Pimo tool comes with a drill bit to pre-drill the tenon airway on the precast stem to serve as a guide for the guide pin on the tool.  Adding my margin of error of 40mm to 6.83mm target size leaves me a practice cut of about 7.23mm to aim at for the conservative approach.  The pictures move through the steps. The tenon turning tool is in the drill shock and when powered rotates at high speed. With the cast stem’s airway guided by the guide pin, I push the stem steadily against the revolving blade of the tool and it peels away the vulcanite.  The blade peels the vulcanite in spaghetti-type curls.  My first practice cut is measured, and it is 8.45.  Another 1.20 mm can come off.  With the enclosed allen wrench, I adjust the Pimo tool to remove more vulcanite and the next measurement is 7.34mm.  That is a .51mm difference and places me in the conservative sanding zone.  Now, I complete the cut of the entire tenon – all the way to the face of the stem.  I haven’t figured out how to minimize the vulcanite shavings that spew out everywhere!  I note that the original stem’s tenon is shorter.  I use a sanding drum on the Dremel and take off the excess. The cut looks good and now it’s time to take file and sanding papers to gradually bring the tenon to size. Now, as I watch several episodes of Grimm which I discovered on Netflix here in Bulgaria, I gradually sand the tenon to a snug but not too tight fit.  I use coarse 120 grade paper to start – always sanding around the tenon to maintain proper round.  Then, using a flat needle file and 240 grit paper, I fine tune the tenon sanding – again, maintaining proper round by sanding around the tenon evenly.  I must admit, when the tenon gets down to the target size – when it starts to marginally slide into the mortise, my stress level increases!  I know how easily one can crack a shank by rushing the tenon’s entry into the mortise.  It takes ‘100s’ of sanding cycles followed by testing the fit (carefully!) before the tenon safely and fully engages and finds a new home!  Success!The tenon is snug and secure, and now I take some pictures to show the ridges that need to be removed and tapered through the shank and stem.  Also, the precast stem has casting ridges down the length on both sides and the button is in very rough form.  The entire Churchwarden stem needs to be sanded, smoothed and shaped along with the shank/stem transition.One picture to show the growth in stature this Yello Bole stummel now enjoys before retiring the old stem to the stem bucket.Several episodes of Grimm later, I’m satisfied with the rough sanding and shaping of the stem.  I show the full length and then some closeups of the shank/stem transition and the button shaping.  I like what I see. The next step is to introduce a gentle bend to the stem.  This will aid the future steward of this ‘Free Born’ to know which way the stem is properly positioned – there is an up and down after the custom sanding and fit – there is no standard stem fit – echoing the words of Charles Lemon’s blog!  To give me an idea of where and how much the bend should be, I used my Gandalf as a template on a piece of paper.  I also draw an outline of the original, smaller Imperial stem for comparison.  I mark the stem at the point that Gandalf’s stem’s bend began.  Bends are very subjective, but this gives me an idea what to shoot for.  After I insert pipe cleaners in both ends of the stem to guard the airway integrity during the bending, I heat the target area of the stem with a hot air gun and bend it when it becomes supple.  I take the bend to the faucet with cool tap water to set the curve.  At the start, I found that I was bending too much.  Thankfully, vulcanite is very forgiving – to correct the bend all I do is re-heat the stem and it straightens on its own.  After a few tries, I find a bend I’m happy with – a compromise between Gandalf’s slightly longer stem and the shorter, original Imperial. I put the Yello Bole ‘Free Born’ aside and now turn to the Dublin.   The following pictures are lacking my standard background working mat – it needed to be cleaned!  I start by doing an inside measurement of the mortise – 7.19mm.  That is the target width of the tenon that is shaped.  I use the drill bit provided and drill the airway to receive the PIMO guide pin.  I then bring the blade down to just touching the tenon and cut a test like before and measure – 8.15mm.  That leaves .96mm to the target size.  I make a quarter turn of the wrench, closing the blade that much and take another cut – 7.46.  The quarter turn took .69mm off the tenon.  I now have .27 mm of ‘fat’ left on the tenon.  Again, the pictures show the steps. Now, well within the conservative sanding zone, I use a flat needle file and 240 grit paper and sand the tenon down to fit with appropriate snugness.  I then sand down the stem and button as before with the Yello Bole.  I’m aiming for a fluid transition from shank to stem.  The Dublin shapes up nicely!I use the same template to give the Dublin’s new fitted stem a gentle bend over the hot air gun. Now to the Imperial.  The same methodology is employed as with the former 2.  I fast track describing the process with each picture.I drill the airway to guide the Pimo guide pin.The mortise is measured for the target tenon size – 7.56mm.With the PIMO tool I cut a ‘fat’ initial tenon that measures about 40mm larger than the target – conservative sanding zone. I measure the length of the original Imperial stem tenon and shorten the precast Churchwarden tenon to match using the flat needle file as a saw.After sanding the tenon down to a snug fit, I’m left with filing and sanding the ridge and tapering the warden stem.  I cover the Imperial’s nomenclature with masking tape to protect it from the shank sanding.After some filing with a flat needle file and sanding with 240 grit paper, the transition from the shank to the Warden stem is shaped and the button is shaped from the rough precast stem. As with the other two, I heated the Warden stem with a hot gun and when it became supple I give it a slight, gentle flowing bend and seal the bend under cool tap water.The 3 are looking good and the transformation is taking shape!I then take each of the Warden stems through a wet sanding with 600 grit paper and then used 0000 grade steel wool to continue the sanding but also buffing up the fresh vulcanite.  To hydrate each of the 3 Wardens I wipe the stems and stummels with light paraffin oil (mineral oil in Bulgaria), which serves to give me a sneak peak at the finished Churchwarden pipes.  I like what I see!With my day coming to a close, I utilize the night by allowing the stummels to clean further by using a kosher salt and alcohol soak.  I fashion cotton ‘wicks’ from cotton balls and insert them down the mortises into the airways.  They act to draw the additional tars and oils out of the briar.  I then fill each bowl with kosher salt which leaves no aftertaste as iodized salt does.  I then fill the bowls with isopropyl 95% until the alcohol surfaces over the salt.  I top each stummel off in a few minutes and I turn out the lights.The next morning, I wasn’t disappointed.  The salt in each bowl had darkened and each of the wicks had discolored indicating further extraction of the tars and oils.  The salt went into the waste basket and I cleared the excess salt by wiping the bowls with paper towel and blowing with some force through the mortises.  I also follow with pipe cleaners and cotton buds to make sure all was clean.  Only the Dublin resisted further but soon pipe cleaners and cotton buds were coming out clean.  Stummels are cleaned and ready for their future stewards!  The picture shows the final carnage.Now, turning from the labor-intensive stem work, I look at the stummels.  Starting with the ‘Free Born’ Yello Bole that drew my attention.  The small Apple shape fits well the classic Churchwarden motif.  The grain is active with lateral grain expressing in bird’s eye perspective on the sides.  There are some fills in the stummel – one larger one on the right side of the stummel then a few pocket fills.  The fills all seem solid, but I will keep my eye on them as I sand. The rim is darkened from tobacco lighting and the inner edge of the rim is scorched.  I decide to give the rim a very light topping using 600 grade paper – more of a clean up to reestablish crisp lines and to remove the charring.  I use a kitchen chopping board and put the 600 paper on it for the topping.  It doesn’t take much. To address the normal nicks and dents on the stummel I use micromesh pads 1500 to 2400 and wet sand the stummel.  After the wet sanding I again look at the old fills that caught my attention before to see if they softened.  They remain solid, but I can see very small pockets that might benefit from repair.  I do not dig out the fills but simply painted the fills with a very thin layer of thin CA glue with a tooth pick – like the repair to miniscule air pockets that emerge with a CA glue/charcoal patch on vulcanite stems.  The painting is thin, so it cures very quickly, and I focus sand the spots again starting with the 1500 micromesh pad to the present was sufficient.  There is no impact on the surrounding briar.  I complete the micromesh cycles by dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000.  I keep the Warden stem mounted on the stummel to guard against shouldering the shank face – keeping a nice seamless transition from shank to Warden stem.Here I picture the right side of the stummel to show the results of the ‘paint patching’ the larger fill and a few on the shank.  It blended well. Now, the Dublin is next in line.  This Dublin has ‘Selected Briar’ stamped on the left side of the shank.  It has nice looking briar, but the finish has lost its luster – it’s dull, tired and bored.  The rim is dark and has several dings on the edge.  There is one noticeable fill on the right front of the Dublin stummel.  The canted bowl of a Dublin has always attracted me and when Toby chose the Dublin to mast the Warden stem, I agreed it was a good choice – it will be an impressive looking Churchwarden.  I take a few pictures to get a closer look. I start by taking the Dublin to the topping board using 240 grit paper.  Removing the tired finish and re-establishing the lines of the rim will go a long way in sharpening this stummel.  After turning the inverted stummel on the 240 paper a few revolutions, I switch too 600 grade paper and smooth out the scratches of the 240.  Then, using 120 grit paper I cut an internal bevel on the rim followed by 240 and 600 grade papers.  I also cut a very small bevel on the external edge of the rim with the 240 and 600 papers.  I create the bevels to soften the look of the stummel and to me, it’s a classy touch.Next, I take the stummel through the full micromesh pad cycle by wet sanding with 1500 to 2400, followed by dry sanding using pads 3200 to 4000 and then 6000 to 12000.  The Dublin’s attitude is shaping up nicely! Turning now to the ‘True Born’ Churchwarden, the nomenclature stamped on the left side of the shank is a cursive, ‘Imperial’ over ‘CHURCHWARDEN’ in full block letters.  ‘Algerian Briar’ is stamped on the right.  The COM is France, stamped in very small block letters on the lower shank along the shank face.  These pictures show what I see. It did not take long to match the unique ‘Imperial’ nomenclature found in Pipedia’s very short article about the Imperial Tobacco Co. referencing Lopes:

From Pipes, Artisans and Trademarks, by Jose Manuel Lopés’

The Imerial Tobacco Co. (Imperial Tobacco Ltd.) was founded in 1901 through the merger of several British tobacco companies. In 1902 it went into partnership with the American Tobacco Company to found the British American Tobacco Company.

Brands involved: Comoy’s, Bewlay, Nording, Ogden’s, Salmon & Gluckstein, and Steel’s

This example was provided by the courtesy Doug Valitchka to let me know that I had locked into the right company.Pipedia’s article on Imperial Brands goes into more of the history of the multitude of acquisitions that happened in the early 1900s to maintain competitive edge.  Today, Imperial Brands is an international consortium primarily involved in cigarette sales and is based in the UK.  I found only one reference in the article to a French-based connection referencing the closure of a factory in Nantes, France, in 2016.  The company website, http://www.imperialbrandsplc.com contains an extensive history of the company, but I found no references to pipe productions in France!  In Pipedia and in Pipephil – Imperial, references to Imperial, the country of manufacturing is consistently the UK and no mention of France.  So, the French connection to this True Born will remain shrouded in mystery!

The Imperial stummel has a dulled finish as the Dublin but promises a very nice briar grain beneath.  The bowl and rim have normal wear nicks and dents.  I also detect residue shininess of old finish that didn’t come off when I cleaned with Murphy’s Oil Soap. I quickly dispatch this using a cotton pad wetted with isopropyl 95%.Inspecting the surface I find on the left side of the shank, near the ‘Imperial’ stamping, a chip that needs patching. I mix a small batch of CA glue and briar dust to patch the chip – this will blend well after sanded down.  I put a small mound of briar dust on an index card and place next to it a drop of regular CA glue.  I mix a small bit of the briar dust into the glue and when I find the resulting putty about the consistency of molasses, I apply it to the chip and put the stummel aside to cure. While the patch is curing, the large job of continuing the sanding of the Churchwarden stems jumps to the fore.  I decide to do all 3 Wardens together by first wet sanding using micromesh pads 1500 to 2400.  I follow by dry sanding using pads 3200 to 4000 and then 6000 to 12000.  After each set of three pads, I apply Obsidian Oil to each stem to vitalize the vulcanite.  There’s a LOT of vulcanite real estate to sand with a Churchwarden stem!  It’s also not easy taking pictures of the long Warden stems. Turning again to the bowls, and the Imperial’s cured patch of CA glue and briar dust, I carefully file the mound/excess down toward the briar surface.  I’m careful to stay on the excess patch material so not to damage the nearby briar and nomenclature.  I then switch to 240 paper, rolled tightly and then 600.  The patch looks great. As I take a closer look at the Imperial stummel, the rim is blackened on the internal edge.  I start by giving the bowl a very light topping with 600 grade sanding paper to clean it and to reestablish lines.  I then bevel the internal rim edge enough to clean it up as well as giving the external rim edge a bevel to soften the rim and to ‘class it up’ a bit. I like how it’s shaping up. With the rim restoration complete at this level, I use micromesh pads 1500 to 2400 and wet sand the entire stummel.  I follow with dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000 and finish with 6000 to 12000. I have noticed on the shank a lightened area that was a result of the stem/shank fitting process where more sanding was necessary.  To darken and blend this area, I use an oak Furniture stain stick to do the job and it looks good.  I take a picture.Now, to deepen and enrich the briar of the French made Imperial Churchwarden, I apply Before and After Restoration Balm to the briar surface.  I put some on my fingers and work it into the surface.  The Balm does an amazing job bringing out the richness and the luster of the briar grain that is already beautiful.  After about 20 minutes, I wipe the Balm off the stummel with a clean cotton cloth.  It buffs up nicely.  I take a picture of the stummel with the Balm on it.Next in line is the Dublin bowl.  As with the French Imperial, I take the Dublin through the full 9 micromesh pads, 1500 to 12000.  I show the progress after each set of three pads – the first three wet sanding, the last 6, dry. As with the Imperial, I apply Before and After Restoration Balm to the Dublin bowl.  I put some Balm on my fingers and work it into the briar.  The Balm starts with the texture of light oil then as I rub it into the briar, is thickens into the texture of a thicker wax.  After I work it in I set the stummel aside to absorb the Balm.  After a time, I wipe off the Balm using a cotton cloth – it buffs up as I wipe the stummel.The final stummel is the Free Born Yello Bole.  Since the stummel has already gone through the full micromesh pad sanding process, it is ready to receive the Before and After Restoration Balm to deepen and enrich the nicely emerging briar grain.  As with the others, I apply the Balm with my fingers and after setting is aside for about 20 minutes, I wipe/buff off the Balm.  I take a picture of the Balm on the stummel and afterwards. At this point, using the Dremel mounted with dedicated cotton cloth buffing wheels set at the slowest speed, each of the three bowls I apply Blue Diamond compound and White Diamond compound is applied to the stems.  After the application of the compounds, I buff each Churchwarden with a felt cloth to remove the compound dust before applying wax.  I then mount another cotton cloth wheel on to the Dremel, increase the speed to about 40% full power and apply carnauba wax to stems and stummels.  After applying a few coats of wax, I give each Churchwarden a rigorous hand buffing with a microfiber cloth to raise the shine.

The Tale of the Three Churchwardens is now beginning.  I am pleased with the results.  Each bowl responded well displaying a myriad of grains and patterns.  Each now displays that classic, long, graceful, wise aura of the Churchwarden genre.  It is true, only one of the Churchwardens started has a Churchwarden – the True Born.  He is now no longer of Hobbit stature and will walk with men and wizards.  The other two re-purposed bowls look great – I’m pleased.  Tobias of Germany commissioned the French made Imperial Churchwarden and the Dublin.  He will have the first opportunity to secure these Churchwardens for his friend’s birthday present and for his own collection in The Pipe Steward Store.  As ‘fate’ would have it, the third Churchwarden bound to no man, was claimed also by a person also living in Germany!  A colleague was visiting Bulgaria and saw the 3 Churchwardens on my worktable.  Thankfully, I was able to finish ‘The Wise’ to return with his new steward to Germany.  I declare that Germany receives the Middle Earth Award!  Each of these Churchwardens benefits the Daughters of Bulgaria – a noble cause of helping women and girls who have been trafficked and sexually exploited.  Thank you for joining me in the telling of the Tale of Three Churchwardens!

The first True Born Imperial Churchwarden of France The second was bound to the first, the proud Dublin Green Land Churchwarden The Third ‘Free Born’ Churchwarden

Resurrecting a BIG PIPE Lovat – the first of Anthony’s Dad’s Pipes

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Blog by Steve Laug

A few weeks back I received an email from Anthony, a reader of rebornpipes asking if I would be willing to help him clean up his Dad’s pipes. He wrote; “I have a few pipes (8 or so) that haven’t been smoked in 15 years. They were my dad’s. I would like to get someone to restore them”. We chatted back and forth via email and the long and short of the story is that I have eight of his Dad’s pipes in my shop now to work on. The photo below shows the mixture of pipes that he sent me. There are some interesting shapes and most are very dirty and have very little if any of the original finish left on the briar. All have an overflow of carbon on the rim top and all have damaged stems and buttons. They will need a lot of TLC to bring life back to them but it should be fun to give it a go. I went through the pipes and assessed their condition and contacted him and got the go ahead to proceed on the lot. So I have begun.The first pipe I chose to work on was actually the first one that I removed from the mailing envelope he sent them in. It is shown above in the photo of the lot. It is the top pipe of the left column circled in red. It has a carved rustication around the bowl and a smooth thick shank. It is a large, thick shank, rusticated Lovat. It is stamped on the left side of the shank Imported Briar over BIG PIPE. The rim top has some overflow of lava and darkening. There is a thick cake in the bowl that is flaking and peeling from the walls of the bowl. The stem is heavily chewed and has some damage on both sides around the button. It will need to be reshaped and rebuilt. There is some water damage around the shank at the stem, though it is heavier on the underside of the stem. The finish is worn out and there is a lot of dust and debris in the grooves of the rustication. I took photos of the pipe to show its overall condition when it arrived at my work table. I took some close up photos of the rim top and the stem to show what I was going to be dealing with on this pipe. The rim top had a thick cake of lava overflowing from the bowl over the back half. The inner edge of the rim was damaged with a burn on the right side toward the front of the bowl make the bowl out of round. The outer edge of the rim looked to be in good condition. The stem was in pretty rough condition. There were tooth marks on both sides of the stem and button and some deep chunks out of the sides of the stem at the sharp edge of the button. The fit against the shank had a gap because of the dirtiness of the shank. You can also see the water damage to the briar at the stem/shank joint.I took a close up photo of the stamping on the left side of the shank. It is dirty but it is readable and says Imported Briar over Big Pipe.I like working on clean pipes so I decided to clean up both the inside and outside of the bowl and shank. I reamed it with a PipeNet reamer and took back the cake to bare briar. I started with the third cutting head and worked up to the largest cutting head and cleaned the bowl. I used a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to scrape away the remnants of cake and clean up the walls. I scrubbed the bowl and the stem with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime in the grooves of the rustication and clean off the grime and mess on the smooth portions. I also scrubbed the water damaged areas to remove the marking in those areas. I rinsed the bowl under warm running water to remove the debris and the soap. I scrubbed it with the tooth brush until the surface was clean and debris free. I took photos of the pipe after the cleanup. I scrubbed the lava build up on the rim and was able to remove the majority of it with the soap and brush. I removed the stem from the shank of this pipe and from another of Anthony’s Dad’s pipes and dropped them in the bath of Before & After Pipe Deoxidizer to break up the oxidation on the surface. It was fascinating to note that the tenon on this stem was metal and seemed to have been made for a filter.Once the briar dried there were shiny spots on it where the original finish still clung to the wood. It appeared to be varnish or some shiny substance and it was streaky and uneven so it needed to go. I wiped the bowl and shank down with acetone on cotton pads to remove the remaining varnish finish. Now that the bowl was clean and the stem was soaking it was time to start working on the rim top and the burn damage on the front right inner edge. I topped the bowl on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper to remove some of the burn damage and the nicks and dents in the rim top.I worked over the inner edge of the rim with folded 220 and 240 grit sandpaper to give it a bit of a bevel and remove more of the damage area. The next two photos give a clear picture of how the pipe looked at this point in the process.I polished the rim top with 1500-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the rim down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the debris. There were some red tints in the briar and I wanted to leave the briar light in colour. I used a tan aniline stain to bring out the red tones in the briar. I applied the stain with a dauber, flamed it and repeated the process until all of the grooves and carvings were evenly stained. To make the stain more transparent and spread it evenly around the briar I wiped the briar down with alcohol and cotton pads. Doing this thins the stain and makes the grain shine through more clearly. I let the briar dry and took photos of the pipe at this time in the process. It is starting to look really good and the grain is showing through the rustication pattern. I used an oak stain pen to fill in the rustication patterns and fill in the light spots in the pattern. I wanted to have a bit of contrast between the smooth briar and the rustication and this would provide it without being too much. I removed the stem from the Before & After Deoxidizer after it had been soaking overnight. I rinsed it down with warm water and blew air through it to clean out the mixture from the airway. The oxidation was at the surface and almost like a dust. The next two photos show the oxidation and the tooth marks and areas that needed to be repaired near the button. I wiped down the oxidation, cleaned out the tooth marks and dents with a cotton swab and alcohol. I dried off the stem and filled in the marks on the surface of the button and the tooth marks in the stem ahead of the button.I smoothed out the repairs with 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surface of the stem. I repeated the process with 600 grit sandpaper to further smooth out the scratches.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 and dry sanding with 3200-120000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each pad. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I the polished stem and bowl with Blue Diamond to polish out the remaining small scratches. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This is first of eight pipes that I am restoring from Anthony’s Dad’s collection. I am looking forward to hearing what Anthony thinks once he sees the finished pipe on the blog. Once I have the other seven pipes finished I will pack them up and send them back to him. It will give him opportunity to carrying on the trust from his Dad. The dimensions are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/2 inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 inches. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this pipe from Anthony’s Dad’s collection of pipes. Seven more will follow this restoration. Keep an eye out for them because there are some unique pipes in the lot. 

Rescuing Another L. J. Peretti Oom Paul: An Upside-Down Stem and Other Hurdles!

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Blog by Dal Stanton

As with people, when you look at pipes, the way you look at them can be cursory – like walking down the sidewalk in the city center of Sofia.  You see colors, fashions, groupings of people, a quick intake of information and not much of the information reaches longer term memory in our brains.  I’ve been looking at the Peretti Lot of 10 that has been my focus over the past weeks as I’ve recommissioned each, one by one.  Interestingly though, not until a pipe reaches the status as “the one” on the worktable do you really start seeing it. The difference might be like walking the city sidewalk as I described above and then comparing this to looking at your new granddaughters for the first time just after their births – which I’ve had the pleasure of in the past several months!  Oh my, you look at toes, each one, fingers, how the ears hang and curl…. There is no end to the enjoyment of taking in the fulness of the detail!  When looking at the ‘the one’ close-up – the detail of an estate pipe in need of restoration, the detail will not be tented with the rose-colored glasses affixed when looking at grandchildren!  Here are the pictures I took from the city ‘side walk’ of the next Peretti Oom Paul now on my worktable when I was cataloging the Peretti Lot of 10 when they arrived here in Bulgaria together. After restoring several of these Perettis, all having the same steward, I’ve become familiar with what to expect.  Each Peretti has the former steward’s ‘MO’.  This Peretti falls in line.  It has thick cake in the chamber and thick, crusty lava covering the rim.  The left side of the chamber/rim is scorched and charred from the tobacco lighting habit of excessively pulling the fire over the side and damaging the briar.  Even as I do what I can to correct it, this Peretti will also leave the worktable with the same limp as his 9 brothers and cousins did in different degrees – an imbalanced and out of round rim/chamber.  Additionally, this Peretti Oom Paul’s stem is dented and chewed with almost the same ‘finger prints’ as the others.  These are the issues stemming from the former steward’s pipe smoking practices.  And yet, the stummel shows great potential – like the others, the grain on this large Oom Paul stummel is quite eye catching under the dirt and grime.  I see normal nicks and bumps of being a faithful servant in the rotation – the briar will clean up well, I’m sure of this.

Unfortunately, there’s more to the story.  In my previous write ups of the other Perettis, I had commented that some of the Oom Pauls’ stems were not aligned well with the shanks due to less than ideal drilling precision.  I have never made a pipe and my hat is off to those whose interests and creativity take them in this direction – there are many beautifully done Free Style pipes I see all the time posted by fellow pipe men and women.  I understand that the drilling of a stummel is one of the more complex parts of making pipes – especially when sharp angles require multiple drillings.  When I took a closer look at the pipe my eyes focused on the fact that there was a huge ridge overhanging the shank.  As I turned the pipe over looking at it from different angles, it appeared that somehow the wrong stem was mistakenly joined with this shank!  I looked at the other Oom Paul I have left in the basket to restore, in the queue for a new steward, and it was obvious that the other stem was not matching this stummel.  I came to the sad conclusion that this drilling job simply was shoddy.  Here’s what I see of ‘the one’ on my work table: No matter which angle I chose or how I squinted my eyes it didn’t make what I was looking at any better!  Oh my.  The next thought I had was of Abraham, a Californian and fellow pipe man and member of the Facebook group, ‘The Gentlemen’s Pipe Smoking Society’.  What would he think when he reads this blog after having commissioned this pipe, waiting patiently over the weeks as it slowly moved up in the queue!  Fortunate for him, I AM a man of prayer and this pipe WILL benefit the Daughters of Bulgaria!  I’m already wondering what I will do to rescue this ailing Oom Paul!  I remembered my research on Peretti for my first Peretti restoration a few years ago.  I wondered where the Boston-based L. J. Peretti Co., manufactured their pipes.  I sent an email to the Peretti Tobacconist in Boston and was amazed that I received a response. Here is what I learned:

Hello Dal,

We have been sourcing our proprietary pipes from a number of different manufacturers. That said, it is most likely that Arlington Briars made the pipe you have in your possession. Photos would help us identify the pipe further. I will have to look through some of our old content and see what I can find.

Hope this helps, Tom  LJP

Per Pipedia: Arlington Briar Pipes Corporation was founded in 1919 in Brooklyn, New York, and produced the Arlington, Briarlee, Firethorn, Krona and Olde London brands among dozens of others, primarily acting as a subcontractor making pipes to be sold under other brand names. Among others, in the 1950’s, Arlington turned pipes for the famed Wilke Pipe Shop in New York City. The corporation was dissolved by the State of New York as inactive on December 6, 1978. 

I don’t know for certain that Arlington Briar Pipes produced the Peretti Lot of 10, but when I looked at the Pipedia page, this picture of Arlington’s own brand, this Oom Paul was staring at me.  He looks very familiar!  Well, we won’t know for sure, but the history of L. J. Peretti and the drilling of this Oom Paul interests me!  In the back of my mind as I begin restoring this pipe, is the huge misalignment of the stem and stummel.

The first step in the restoration of this L. J. Peretti Oom Paul is to add the stem to a bath of Before and After Deoxidizer.  After several hours in the bath with other stems, I take out the stem and drain it of Deoxidizer and wipe it down with a cotton pad wetted with light paraffin oil (mineral oil) to remove the oxidation that was raised during the soak. I then use Before and After Fine Polish followed by Extra Fine Polish to further condition the vulcanite and remove oxidation.  I work the polishes in with my fingers and after a time, wipe them with a cotton cloth.Turning to the Oom Paul stummel, I see that there is still tobacco at the floor of the chamber.  I clear that, and I ream the thick cake using the Pipnet Reaming Kit.  I start with the smallest blade and working to the larger blades as the cake is incrementally removed.  I use three of the four blades in the Pipnet Kit.I then turn to the Savinelli Fitsall Tool to fine tune the reaming job.  This is the most painful part for me – carefully removing the charred briar on the rim and watching the rim grow thinner on the damaged side and out of round!  The good news is that the chamber itself looks stellar. To clean the chamber further I use 240 grit paper wrapped around a Sharpie Pen and sand the chamber.  Finally, I wipe the chamber out with a cotton pad wetted with alcohol to remove the carbon dust for all the reaming.  The pictures show the process. With all the other Perettis, the basic cleaning of the external surface and the rim revealed beautiful grain underneath the grime.  I have the same expectations for this Oom Paul stummel.  Using undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a cotton pad I go to work on the briar surface and the lava on the rim.  I also use a brass brush to work at removing the lava on the rim.  To carefully scrape the rim, I utilize the flat sharp edge of the Savinelli Fitsall Tool.  I rinse the stummel with tap water.  The pictures show the progress, before and after.  Quite a difference!  My eye is drawn to a spider web grain pattern on the stummel’s left side – shown in the first two pictures – very nice! I turn now to clean the internals and it doesn’t take too much. I use pipe cleaners, cotton buds and a shank brush to work on the draft hole and mortise.  Even though the internals are cleaning up nicely, I like to utilize a kosher salt and alcohol soak to freshen and clean even more thoroughly preparing the pipe for a new steward.To prepare the soak, I form a wick using a cotton ball.  I stretch and twist it and then push it down the mortise and draft hole. I use a straight piece of an old wire clothes hanger to push and guide the wick. This wick acts to draw out the residual tars and oils as the salt and isopropyl 95% do their job.  I then position the stummel in an egg carton for stability and fill the chamber with kosher salt.  I asked the question when I first saw this method used, why kosher?  The answer I received was that it didn’t leave an aftertaste as does iodized salt.  Sounded reasonable to me.  I then give the stummel a shake with the chamber cupped to displace the salt.  Then, using a large eye dropper I fill the chamber with isopropyl 95% till it surfaces over the salt.  After a few minutes I top it off with a bit more alcohol because it has absorbed into the fresh cotton wick and salt.  I put the stummel aside and let the soak do its thing. The next morning as expected, the darkening of the salt and wick indicate that more tars and oils were pulled out of the internals.  I thump the stummel on my palm releasing the expended salt in the waste.  I wipe the bowl with paper towel, blowing through the mortise to dislodge remaining salt.  I also use a multi-sized shank brush to do this.  Finally, I run another pipe cleaner and cotton bud dipped in isopropyl 95% in the mortise and draft hole to finalize the cleaning.   After reuniting the stem and stummel again, I take another long, hard look at the goblin stem that was lurking in my subconscious!  I have been mulling over the stem/shank junction and what it would take to repair –  counting the cost in sanding and lost briar.  As I fiddled with the stem, twisting it around checking the looseness of the fit, I stumbled onto the solution to the alignment conundrum!  When I reversed the stem, so that it was upside down, the saddle of the stem and the shank lined up almost perfectly!  The old 70s song came to mind, “Oh happy day!” I have absolutely no idea what was going on in the production line of the Arlington Briar Pipes factory that day, if indeed it was there, but there was a breakdown in communication between the drill man and the stem bending man (or women!).  My mind wonders whether they had a few beers over lunch….  I’m scratching my head, but this restoration was just made a little less difficult!  The junction between the end of the shank and saddle stem shows a bit of gap (daylight) but that can be addressed.  My plan: re-bend the upside-down stem, thereby turning the upside-down stem to right-side up!  Did you follow that? The pictures show the discovery! To make sure I retain the same angle of bend, which seems to be on the money, I trace the stem’s angle on a piece of paper which I’ll use as a template for the reversing bend.  I use a narrow-rounded glass bottle to provide the back-board for the bending.  I then insert a pipe cleaner through the draft hole to help to maintain the stem’s integrity during the heating and bending.  Using a heat gun, I gradually heat the stem in the bend area and when the vulcanite becomes pliable I bend it over the glass and size it up on the template.  When I think I have it right, I place the stem under cool tap water to cool the vulcanite and set the bend.  The first time through, I’m not satisfied that I create enough bend.  I repeat the process again.  The second time was the charm.  I like the bend – the fit is now much, much better in the shank. While I’m on the stem adjustment, I now address the gaps or ‘daylight’ I can see between the shank base and the stem saddle.  I start using by 600 grade paper on the topping board and I VERY gently top the shank base primarily to clean and start with a flat surface.  I then use a piece of 600 grade paper, folded over once, inserting it between the shank base and saddle of the stem as a two-side sanding pad.  I work on sanding down the high spots so that the gaps close.  After a while, I’m not making progress too quickly, so I switch to 470 grade paper – a little coarser, and it does the trick.  It takes quite a while sanding and testing repeatedly and making sure the stem stays in proper straight alignment during the sanding. I’m able to sand the high spots and achieve a much better, not perfect(!) union between the stem and shank. Another adjustment is needed with the fit of the tenon and mortise.  The fit now is looser than I prefer.  I will tighten the fit hopefully by heating the tenon while inserting a slight larger drill bit into the tenon’s airway and expanding it.  I heat the tenon with a Bic lighter and gradually work the smooth end of the drill bit down the airway.  I cool the vulcanite with tap water to hold the expansion and withdraw the bit and test in the mortise.  The fit is now snugger and that is good.  That completes the mechanical adjustments to the stem – its working well!  Even after the stem was turned ‘upside down’ to achieve better alignment, the saddle of the stem is enlarged over the shank at different places creating a ridge as I move my finger toward the stem over the junction.  To correct this, I use 240 sanding paper to work on these ridges of vulcanite.  I keep the stem inserted into the shank to do this.  As I sand at the edge, dealing with the ridge, I’m also sanding up the saddle to taper the angle.  I don’t want a mound of vulcanite to circle the saddle, so I blend the angle through the entire saddle – rounding it as well.  The first picture shows the evidence of a ridge with the vulcanite dust collecting.  The rest of the pictures show the stem flush with the shank and the tapering work on the saddle.  Of course, the ‘L. J. Peretti Co.’, stamping on the shank is carefully safe-guarded during the sanding. After the 240 grade paper, I go over the same area with 470 grit paper followed by 600 which goes much faster because the purpose is to erase the scratches of the previous sanding paper.  I am truly amazed at the recovery of this Oom Paul’s shank/stem alignment issues.  The entire structure of the pipe is now tighter and sharper.  The pictures show the completion of this part of the restoration for which I am thankful!  Now I remove the stem from the stummel and flip the stem over to the bit area to repair the tooth chatter and dents.  I take pictures of the upper and lower bit as well as a severe dent on the lower button lip to mark the starting point.  The first step is to employ the heating method. I use a Bic lighter and paint the vulcanite with the flame.  As a rubber composite, the vulcanite expands with the heating and so the dents will rise reclaiming their original place in the whole – or almost.  The dents have been lessened but not removed.  The lower bit’s dents have almost vanished and will probably only need sanding.  The upper bit and the button lip still have quite a bit of damage. I then take 240 grit paper and sand the bit and button to see what is left to patch. While I’m at it I sand the entire stem since it was re-bent in the extreme opposite, I want to remove any residual ripples in the vulcanite.  The lower bit dents sanded out completely.  The upper bit and button need to be patched.  Pictures show the progress – first, upper then lower bit and button after sanding with 240 grit paper. Now I will patch the upper bit using BSI Maxi-Cure Extra Thick CA glue mixed with activated charcoal dust. I will patch the two dents as well as the left side of the button lip.  It needs to be rebuilt.  After I put a small amount of charcoal dust on an index card, I drop a little CA glue next to the activated charcoal dust.  Then, using a tooth pick, I draw charcoal dust into the dollop of glue mixing it as I go.  Gradually, as I draw more charcoal dust into the CA glue it begins to form a thicker putty.  When it reaches the right consistency – like molasses, I use the tooth pick as a trowel and apply the patch putty to both dents and to the left side of the lower button lip to rebuild it.    I put the stem aside to allow the patches to cure.With the stem patches curing, I now look to the rim damage.  I take another close-up to get another look….  It’s amazing how things jump out – when I took the picture of the rim to begin working on cleaning it up, in the picture I notice what I hadn’t seen before – look beyond the rim to the shank….When I first saw it, I thought it might simply be a wet line left over from cleaning the stummel.  But after closer examination with a magnifying glass it confirmed what I was hoping against!  A crack in the shank emanating from the ‘crook’ or where the shank and bowl join.  I had almost the same thing in a previous Peretti Oom Paul restoration (See: Two of Boston’s L. J. Peretti Oom Pauls Recommissioned) – a shank crack that came from the crook and worked up toward the stem but did not reach the shank end.  I closely inspect the mortise for evidence of an internal crack and I see none.  I really don’t know how this crack started – it appears to be trauma created from the inserted tenon pushing forcefully toward the top of the mortise because of a drop which forced the stem down – my guess.  I would think if this were the case, you would expect more trauma on the back of the shank – as a reaction force.  But I see no indication of this.  I take a few close-ups of the crack to see it more clearly.The good news is that the crack is localized in the briar and has not crept all the way to the end of the shank.  As I did before, to block the ‘crack creep’ I drill small holes at both ends of the crack which will arrest its growth.  Drilling in the crook is not easy!  With the aid of a magnifying glass, I mark the ends of the crack with the sharp point of a dental probe.  I use these as a drill guide (first picture below). I then mount a 1mm drill bit into the Dremel and I VERY carefully drill the holes – not an easy feat holding the Dremel free hand!  I wipe off the area with a cotton pad this apply thin CA glue to both holes as well as along the line of the crack.  The thin CA glue will seep more deeply into the crack helping to seal it.  I then sprinkle briar dust on the entire repair area to help blending later when I sand.  I set the stummel aside to let the crack repair cure. While I’m working on the stummel, I also detect two places that have very small gaps in the briar that I want to fill.  I apply a drop of regular CA glue to each gap.  After applying the first drop, I wait an hour or so for the glue to set so that I can flip the stummel and apply the other patch.  After the first patch sets, I apply the drop of glue on the other side and set the stummel aside to allow the CA glue patches to cure. With stummel patches curing I turn again to the stem and the charcoal dust and CA glue patches are ready to be filed and sanded on the bit and to reshape the button.  I start by using a flat needle file to bring the patch mounds down to the vulcanite surface level.  I also shape the new button with the file.  The pictures show the filing progress.  Switching to sanding paper, I first use 240 grit to bring the patch mounds down to the vulcanite surface and to blend, erasing the file scratches.  I continue to shape and blend the button profile.  Then I switch to 600 grade paper and sand the entire stem to erase the scratches left by the 240 grade paper.  Finally, I use 0000 grade steel wool to sand/buff the entire stem to smooth out the scratches left by the 600 grade paper.  I like the results.  The reformed button looks good.  With a closer look at one of the patches, I detect very small air pocket cavities in the patch which is common.  To rectify this, using a tooth pick, I paint both patches, to be on the safe side, with a thin layer of thin CA glue to fill the cavities.  I wait a few hours for the CA glue to cure and I sand the patch again with 600 grade paper and then again with the 0000 steel wool.   I have sanding patch projects on the stummel to address.  I start first with the crack repair on the shank.  Using 240 grit paper I sand down the patch over both holes on each side of the crack as well as the crack itself.  I then follow with 600 grit paper over the entire area.  The repair looks good and will blend well as I finish the pipe.  The main thing was to protect the pipe from a creeping crack – this is done.Turning to the patches on both sides of the stummel, I use a flat needle file, then 240 grit paper followed by 600 on both sides.  As I file/sand, I try to stay on top of the patch mound to minimize impact on surrounding briar. Patches on the stummel are finished.  Now I turn to the rim repair. I feel like I’ve been around the block a few times with the repairs to the stummel and now I’m finally looking at the rim repair.  I take another picture to get a closer look and mark the starting point.  In the picture below, the bottom of the picture is the left side of the rim that has sustained the most damage from burned briar because of the former stewards practice of lighting his tobacco over the side of the rim instead of over the tobacco. I cannot replace the lost briar but what I try to do as I remove the damaged briar is to restore the balance to the rim as much as possible.  I do this through beveling. First, I take the stummel to the topping board which for me is a chopping board covered with 240 grit paper.  After inverting the stummel, I rotate it over the board in an even, circular motion.  I check the progress often to make sure I’m not leaning in the direction of the damaged area.  It is especially a challenge topping an Oom Paul because his shank is extended beyond the plane of the rim.  So, I hang the shank off the side of the board as I top.  I utilize a flat sanding block as well to direct the topping in specific areas.  When I’ve taken enough off in topping, I switch the paper to 600 grit on the topping board to give the rim a quick smoothing by removing the 240 scratches.  You can see in the pictures below how I unintentionally nicked the shank in the process….Next, to remove the internal ring of scorched briar I use a tightly folded piece of coarse 120 grade paper to cut a bevel around the internal edge.  I increase the bevel on the ‘fat’ areas of the rim seeking to balance the roundness a bit – even though nothing will solve it completely!  The goal is to give the appearance of more balance.  After completing the main shaping of the bevel with the coarser 120 paper, I continue using a rolled piece of 240 grit paper.  I take a picture at this point to mark the progress.I take the stummel back to the topping board with 600 grit paper to define the rim lines again.One last step in the rim repair.  The external edge of the rim is sharp because of the topping.  To soften the appearance of the rim and to enhance the overall presentation of the rim, I cut a small, gentle bevel on the external edge.  I do this with 240 grit paper rolled, then follow with 600 grit paper.  I pinch the paper on the edge of the rim with my thumb and move methodically and evenly around the circumference.  We live in a broken world and many people live their lives with a limp – it reminds us of our frailty.  This Peretti Oom Paul will always have a limp of a bowl that is out of round because of the damage he sustained in the past.  Despite this, the rim looks pretty good considering from where we’ve come! Anxious to move the stummel along, I now address the briar surface.  Using micromesh pads 1500 to 2400 I wet sand the stummel.  I follow this with dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000 then 6000 to 12000.  I enjoy watching the briar grain emerge through this process! With the previous Peretti restorations, and with this one, I strive to maintain the original Peretti light, natural grain motif.  I have used Before and After Restoration Balm to deepen and enrichen the natural grain color.  I’ve been more than satisfied with the previous restorations and will apply the Balm to this Peretti Oom Paul as well.  I apply Balm to my finger and then I work it into the briar surface with the ends of my fingers.  The Balm starts with an oily feel then it gradually transforms into a thicker wax-like substance.  After I work it in, I set it on the stand to allow the Balm to work.  I take a picture of this and then after several minutes I wipe/buff the Balm off with a microfiber cloth.  The results look great. With the stummel awaiting a stem to catch up, I turn to the stem.  The CA glue painting of the air pocket cavities in the bit patch is ready for sanding and I use 240 grade paper to sand down to the stem surface.  I then use 600 grade paper followed by 0000 grade steel wool to finish it out.  The bit repair is done, and it looks good.  All the air pockets have been removed.I move on to the micromesh pad cycles.  First, I wet sand using pads 1500 to 2400.  I follow by dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000 then 6000 to 12000.  After each set of 3 pads I apply Obsidian Oil to the stem which rejuvenates the vulcanite.  I love the glassy shine of polished vulcanite! After reuniting stem and stummel, I mount the Dremel with a cotton cloth buffing wheel and apply Blue Diamond compound to the pipe.  I set the Dremel to its slowest speed and apply the compound in a methodical way – not applying too much pressure to the wheel but allowing the speed of the Dremel and abrasiveness of the compound to do the work.  I then wipe the pipe with a felt cloth to remove compound dust.  Then, mounting another cotton cloth buffing wheel to the Dremel, and increasing the speed to about 40% full power, I apply a few coats of carnauba wax to the stem and stummel.  I finish the process by giving the pipe a good hand buffing with a microfiber cloth to raise the shine.

I must admit, I was so occupied with the technical aspects of this restoration that I didn’t fully appreciate the beauty of this pipes color and grain until now.  I especially like the ‘burst’ on the left side of the large Oom Paul stummel.  Earlier I called it a spider web effect – now it looks more like a center of clustered circles, the bird’s eye grain, and sunburst expanding out from it.  Very striking grain showcased on this classic Oom Paul shape. He’s overcome an upside-down stem, a crack in the crook of the shank, a chewed up bit and a burned up rim – I would say he’s looking good now for what he’s been through!  This Peretti was commissioned by Abraham in California and he will have first dips on this L. J. Peretti Oom Paul when he goes into The Pipe Steward Store.  This pipe benefits the work of the Daughters of Bulgaria – helping women and girls (and their children!) who have been trafficked and sexually exploited.  Thank you for joining me!

Working on Paresh’s Grandfather’s Barling’s Make Ye Olde Wood Fossil 271

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Blog by Steve Laug

As I mentioned in my previous blog, Paresh, my friend in India reached out to me over Whatsapp to talk about a few more of his Grandfather’s pipes. He was confident in working on many of them but there were a few that he wanted me to try my hand on. His wife Abha would ream and clean them for me so I would be able to start with a relatively clean pipe. The third pipe was a sandblast Barling’s Make billiard with a vulcanite stem. It was another pipe that was in rough condition when Paresh and Abha started working on it. They reamed the thick hard cake with a KleenReem pipe reamer and clean up the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap. They also cleaned the interior with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. The pipe was in very rough condition. There were cracks in the bowl on the front and the left side. The rim was beat up and out of round. It had been reamed with a knife sometime in its life. The stamping on the underside of the bowl and shank read Barling’s in an arch over Make over Ye Olde Wood. Next to that was the shape number 271. Further down the flattened shank it was stamped with an EL followed by Made In England, Fossil and T.V.F. The stem was lightly oxidized and had some tooth chatter and marks on both sides. It had a faint Barling’s cross logo on the top. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition when it arrived. I took some close up photos of the damage on the bowl to give a better idea of what I was working with on this pipe. The rim top was a real mess with nicks, chips and damage under a coat of tars. The bowl was out of round but workable. There were two cracked areas – one on the front of the bowl from the rim down and one on the left side from the rim down. Paresh and Abha had reamed the bowl for me so the inside was quite clean. The stem was in pretty decent shape with a few tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem near the button and some oxidation. The bowl was a real mess and it would be a challenge. I took photos of the stamping on the underside of the shank. As noted above it reads Barling’s in and arch over Make and the Ye Olde Wood over 271 on the bottom of the bowl. The shank is stamped EL followed by Made in England, Fossil and T.V.F.I decided to clean up the remaining thin cake in the bowl to get back to bare briar. I wanted to see the extent of the damage on the walls of the bowl interior before I addressed the damage on the outside of the bowl. I used a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife to scrape away the remaining cake. Once it was clean, I sanded the inside of the bowl with a piece of dowel wrapped with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the bowl walls and the inner edge of the rim.To clean up the rim top and remove the serious damage on that portion of the pipe I topped it with 220 grit sandpaper on a topping board. I remove the damage portion and flattened the top of the rim. I would need to repair the cracks in the rim top and then rusticated it to match the finish on the bowl.I wiped down the surface of the briar with alcohol on a cotton pad to clean off the grime. I drilled tiny pin holes at the end of each crack on the exterior of the bowl in hopes of stopping the spread of the crack. I filled in the damaged areas around the bowl and on the rim with briar dust and clear super glue. At this point in the process the repairs appear quite crude. Lots of work still remains to blend them into the sandblast finish of the bowl. I used a brass bristle tire brush to work over the repaired areas on the front and side of the bowl. I wanted to clean up the rough edges of the repair and try to blend it into the finish around it. The bristles are stiff enough to remove the edges and I think works well to blend it into the surface of the surrounding sandblast. I lightly topped the bowl again to smooth out the roughness of the repairs on the rim surface.I used some small burrs on my Dremel running at a slow speed of 5 to try to recreate the look of the sandblast on the rim top. It took a bit of doing but I think it gives the rim top a better look than the smooth finish. I blended a walnut and a Maple stain pen to approximate the mottled finish on the rest of the bowl. It worked pretty well I think. I will show full photos shortly. To fill in the cracks on the inside of the bowl and to protect it from burn out or further cracking I mixed up some JB Weld. It dries hard, is heat resistant and when dry is inert and does not gas off or breakdown (according to all I have been able to read). I used a dental spatula to apply it to the inside of the bowl. Once it cures for a day I will sand it out and remove the majority of it other than what will remain in the damaged areas. I wiped off the rim top with a cotton pad and alcohol to remove the small drops of JB Weld that were on the surface and restained the rim top and the repaired areas on the side and front of the bowl. I will still need to buff the bowl and wax it but it is getting very close to the look I am aiming for with this repair. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the grooves and crevices of the sandblast finish with my fingers and a horsehair shoe brush. I want the product to go deep into the finish because it works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. Once I was confident that it was deeply worked into the blast I wiped it off and buffed it with a soft cloth to polish it. The pipe really began to have a rich shine. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. I set the bowl aside and went to work on the stem. I cleaned the inside of the stem with pipe cleaners and alcohol. Once the stem was clean I checked it with a light for more potential problems inside. It was clear and spotless. I sanded the stem surface with worn 220 grit sandpaper to break up the oxidation (carefully avoiding the stamping on the top of the saddle).I filled in the tooth dent on the top of the button on the top side of the stem and the two tooth dents on the underside with clear super glue.Once the glue hardened and cured I filed the repairs flat and reshaped the button with 220 grit sandpaper. I worked over the surface of the stem again with the sandpaper to blend in the repairs.I polished the vulcanite stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I rubbed the stem down with Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to polish out the scratches. I gave it a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry. I avoided the stamping on the top of the saddle. There is still some oxidation there that I left because I did not want to damage the stamp. It is a nice looking stem nonetheless. I carefully polished bowl and the stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the remaining small scratches. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and lightly buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The transparent mixed brown stain worked really well with the black vulcanite stem. The sandblast finish looked really good. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 1/2 inches, Height: 1 3/4 inches, Outer diameter of the bowl: 1 1/4 inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ inches. This is the third of the three of Paresh’s Grandfather’s pipes that he sent me to finish. I will pack the pipes up and send them back to India this week after I give the bowl a bowl coating. I look forward to hearing what he thinks of them once he gets to load them with his favourite tobacco and carry on the pipe man’s legacy of his Grandfather. Thanks for walking through this restoration with me as I worked over this beauty. 

Working on Paresh’s Grandfather’s Linkman’s Zulu

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Blog by Steve Laug

As I mentioned in my previous blog, Paresh, my friend in India reached out to me over Whatsapp to talk about a few more of his Grandfather’s pipes. He was confident in working on many of them but there were a few that he wanted me to try my hand on. His wife Abha would ream and clean them for me so I would be able to start with a relatively clean pipe. The second pipe was a Linkman Zulu with a vulcanite stem. It was in rough condition when Paresh and Abha started working on it. They reamed the thick hard cake with a KleenReem pipe reamer and clean up the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap. They also cleaned the interior with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. The pipe was in very rough condition. The sides of the bowl, the rim top had been beaten up heavily. There were gouges all over the sides and rim top of the bowl. It was a mess and it was very dirty. The stamping on the shank read Linkman’s over Dr Grabow with a silver shield next to the stem/shank junction. On the underside of the shank it was stamped De Luxe over Bruyere with a shape number 9700. On the left side of the shank it was stamped PAT. No. 1896800. The stem was oxidized but in decent condition. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition when it arrived. The tenon is the patented threaded Linkman shovel stinger apparatus. It is a single unit rather than an inserted stinger as in later models. The top of the stem has a Linkman propeller logo.I took some close up photos of the damage on the bowl to give a better idea of what I was working with on this pipe. The rim top was a real mess with nicks, chips and damage under a coat of tars. Paresh and Abha had left the cake in the bowl to me to work on because of the other damage to the pipe. The stem was in pretty decent shape with a few tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem near the button and some oxidation. The bowl was a real mess and it would be a challenge. I took photos of the stamping on the top, bottom and left side of the shank.I checked some of my usual sources to get some information on the brand and how it fit into the Linkman/Grabow hierarchy. The first link I checked was the Pipephil logos and stampings site. I include the link as follows http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-l4.html. I quote as follows.

The M. Linkman and Co. was established by Louis B. Linkman and August Fisher in 1898. The company closed down in the 1950s and the Dr Grabow branch was sold to Henry Leonard and Thomas Inc.

I then went to the Pipedia website to get some more details and information. There was also a photo of Linkman that I thought added a nice touch to the work I was going to do on this pipe. Here is the link from the site if you want to check it out in full. https://pipedia.org/wiki/M._Linkman_%26_Co.

The name is often said to stand for Mary Linkman & Company. Mary Linkman was the mother of Louis B. Linkman, originator of the Dr. Grabow pipe. This Chicago company produced meerschaums and briars both.

BACK IN 1898, two ambitious young men reached the momentous decision to go into business for themselves. They were Louis B. Linkman and August Fisher. From the time they were in knee pants they had worked for a pipe jobber in the mid-west.

Diligently saving a portion of their earnings, they accumulated a few hundred dollars, and in 1898 formed a partnership under the name of M. Linkman & Company. They opened a small shop on Lake Street, Chicago, employed two additional people, and started to manufacture pipes. {The article never mentions what the “M” stood for, or the reason for the name chosen.}

In 1890 {? — 1899, perhaps?} another young man, Anton Burger, who had also been employed by a pipe jobber in the mid-west, approached them and was taken in as a partner. M. Linkman & Company proceeded as a partnership; the business developed rapidly through the untiring efforts of these men in producing quality pipes and rendering good service to their customers.

The business continued to grow, and in 1907 M. Linkman & Company was incorporated with Louis B. Linkman as president, August Fisher, vice-president, and Anton Burger, secretary and treasurer. In 1914, Richard J. Dean, who had joined the firm in 1911 was appointed general sales manager.

The business was growing and expanding rapidly, and the executives soon realized the quarters in the Wells Street Bridge Building were inadequate, so in 1922 Linkman built a modern three-story reinforced concrete building at the corner of Fullerton Avenue and Racine, housing one of the most complete and modern pipe plants in America.

I finished by doing a Google search to find the US Patent Search site so that I could see if there was a patent document on file there for this patent number. http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm. I entered the patent number and found a patent filed by L.B. Linkman for the pipe on April 11, 1932 and granted on February 7, 1933. I include that below. I decided to clean up the bowl interior before I addressed the damage on the outside of the bowl. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer starting with the smallest cutting head and working up to the second head which was the same size as the bowl. I reamed the cake back to bare briar to see if there was any internal damage to the bowl. I sanded the inside of the bowl with a piece of dowel wrapped with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the bowl walls and the inner edge of the rim. I sanded the rim top with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the damage and reshape the inward bevel on the rim. I wiped down the surface of the briar with alcohol on a cotton pad to clean off the grime. I filled in the damaged areas around the bowl and on the rim with briar dust and clear super glue. I sprayed it with an accelerator (that is why it appears white in the following photos). The extent of the damage is very clear in the photos below. I started to sand the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper to begin to smooth out the repairs. It would take a lot of sanding to smooth out the filled areas. The patches were rock hard. The photos that follow show the progress of the sanding. I polished the sanded briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down with a damp cotton pad after each sanding pad. The briar took on a shine and the filled spots though dark were better than all of the damage present before. To help hide the repairs on the bowl I decided to stain it with a dark brown aniline stain. I applied the stain with a folded thick pipe cleaner, flamed it and repeated the process until I was pleased with the coverage on the bowl. The photos below tell the story. Once the stain had dried, I wiped the bowl down with alcohol to make it a bit more transparent without making the repairs stand out. It is a tricky balance to work out as too much transparency reveals all of the blemishes while not enough makes it opaque and lacklustre. Once I polish the pipe I will know if I did enough or too much… time will tell. I forgot to take a photo of the stem before I put it in the Before & After Deoxidizer overnight and forgot about it. Today after lunch I remembered it and took it out of the mix. I wiped off the excess and ran it under warm water to rinse off the mixture. I was unable to run water through the stem so I dried it off to have a look. It looked better but it was absolutely plugged tight. That generally means there is something like a pipe cleaner broken in the stem but I would need to take it apart to tell for sure.I tried several different ways of opening the airway. I tried to push stiff pipe cleaners through the stem from the button. By measuring the length of the pipe cleaner with the stem I could see that the blockage was in the stinger itself. I tried pushing a straightened paper clip through the blockage from both ends – the button and the airway in the stinger. Nothing worked. I heated the stinger and tried again with the paper clip and again no luck. It was time to move forward. I heated the stinger with a lighter to loosen the tars holding it in place. Since it was a 1930 era pipe I figured it would be a threaded end the stem. Sure enough, once it was heated I unscrewed from the stem.

The photo below shows the culprit – a really stinky broken off pipe cleaner jammed in the stinger. The pipe cleaner was almost the length of the stem as well so it was clear that I was merely sliding by the jam with the stinger in place. With a pipe cleaner that old and worn I was worried I would just break off more in the stinger. I heated the stinger with the lighter and then carefully wiggled the pipe cleaner free of the stinger. The second photo shows the culprit freed from the stinger. You can also see that some of the fluff on the cleaner had come off inside the stinger and left it plugged. I could still not blow air through the stinger. (I have circled the ‘fluffless’ pipe cleaner end in the second photo below.)I tried to push through the clog with the paper clip pictured above, twisting it into the threaded end but was not able to break through. That left only one option for me. I chucked a 1/16 inch drill bit in my Dremel, set the speed to 5 and slowly worked my way through the rock hard plug. It took some doing to work it through the plug but I worked it back and forth until the airway was clean and I could blow air through it. I ran pipe cleaners soaked in alcohol back and forth through the stinger and removed all of the grit and tar that had built up around the plug. It was pretty nasty stuff. But after it was said and done I had a clear and clean stinger. I cleaned out the inside of the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. Once the stem was clean I checked it with a light for more potential problems inside. It was clear and spotless.I lightly greased the threads on the stinger and turned it back into the cleaned stem. I aligned it with the mortise in the shank. The stem was getting there. I still needed to work on some oxidation but it looked a lot better and I could blow through it easily. I polished the vulcanite stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. (I polished the metal stinger as well at the same time.) I gave it a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry. After staining the briar and wiping it down with alcohol, I touched up the repaired areas with a Black Sharpie Pen and blended in by rubbing it. I have been using Before & After Restoration Balm after staining to further blend and clean the briar. The product works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I hand rubbed it with my fingers, working it into the exterior of the pipe. I wiped it off and buffed it with a soft cloth to polish it. The pipe really began to have a rich shine. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. I carefully polished bowl with 3200-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads. I polished the stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the remaining small scratches. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and lightly buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The transparent dark brownish red stain worked really well with the black vulcanite stem. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 1 3/4 inches, Outer diameter of the bowl: 1 1/4 inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ inches. This is the second of the three of Paresh’s Grandfather’s pipes that he sent me to finish. I will set it aside and when the others are finished I will pack them up and send them back to India. I look forward to hearing what he thinks of it once he gets to load it with his favourite tobacco and carry on the pipe man’s legacy of his Grandfather. Thanks for walking through this restoration with me as I worked over this beauty. 

Working on another of Paresh’s Grandfather’s pipes

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Blog by Steve Laug

Paresh, my friend in India reached out to me over Whatsapp to talk about a few more of his Grandfather’s pipes. He was confident in working on many of them but there were a few that he wanted me to try my hand on. His wife Abha would ream and clean them for me so I would be able to start with a relatively clean pipe. The first of these was a beautiful older WDC Bulldog with an amber coloured Bakelite stem. It was in rough condition when Paresh and Abha started working on it. They reamed the thick hard cake with a KleenReem pipe reamer and clean up the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap. They also cleaned the interior with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. The rim top had a thick over flow of lava that hid the briar that Paresh topped to smooth out. There was some darkening to the rim top and down the sides of the bowl cap. The briar was very dirty. There was a gold stamped WDC triangle on the left side of the shank and a brass decorative band that was loose. The stem was a mess. There was a large chunk of the Bakelite missing on the underside and deep tooth marks on the top and underside near and on the surface of the button. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition when it arrived.You can see the work that Paresh and Abha had done to the rim top to clean it up and remove the damage. He had also worked over the inner edge of the bowl to smooth out the damage to the edge. You can also see the extensive damage to the stem in these photos.I took some close up photos of the bowl and stem to give a better idea of what I was working with on this pipe. The rim top was clean but there was darkening down the edges of the cap for about a quarter of an inch. The stem was a mess. Paresh had tried to repair the damage and tooth marks with some clear super glue that he picked up in India. He found that it was inferior and did not harden quickly. Once it did the repair tended to fall out. It was very frustrating. He was able to patch the tooth marks on the stem but not the missing chunk at the stem/shank union.The bowl was the easiest part of the restoration on this old pipe so I started there. I worked on the darkening along the top edge of the cap and was able to remove it with micromesh sanding pads. I used 1500-2400 grit pads to remove the damage and then polished it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with a damp cotton pad after each pad to check out the progress. I polished the rim top at the same time. The photos tell the story. With the rim darkening removed and the rim and cap polished it was time to touch up the stain to blend it into the rest of the bowl. I used a Mahogany stain pen and stained the cap and the rim top. The match was a little darker than I wanted and not as transparent either. I wetted a cotton pad with alcohol and wiped down the cap to blend the stain and make it more transparent. This did the trick and I was happy with the finished colour. The photos show the process. I slipped the loose brass shank cap/band off the shank and used a tooth pick to put some all-purpose glue around the shank end. I pressed the band in place on the shank and wiped off the excess glue that squeezed out with a damp cotton pad.The briar was clean but dried out and in need of some deep cleaning. I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm to deep clean the briar bowl and shank. The product works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I hand rubbed it with my fingers, working it into the exterior of the pipe. I wiped it off and buffed it with a soft cloth to polish it. The pipe really began to have a rich shine. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I used a needle file to clean up the edges of the button on both sides. I also used the file to smooth out the repairs that Paresh had made to the tooth marks on the surface of the stem. He had done a good job and now it was time to blend them into the surface of the stem.I sanded the file marks out of the stem surface with 220 grit sandpaper and blended the repairs into the surface of the stem. I filled in the missing chunk of Bakelite with multiple layers of amber super glue. I could have used clear glue but I had the amber around and it is a thicker product so it used it. I use layers so that the repair does not get to thick. It makes the drying time shorter and I think it gives a better bond.I laid the stem aside and went to bed. I touched up the final layer of glue in the morning and went to work. The stem had the entire day to cure. When I returned in the evening I sanded the repaired area with 220 grit sandpaper and reshaped the entire stem surface to make the flow of the taper correct. I would need to add some more glue to the patch but progress was being made. Slowly but surely I was conquering this repair.I touched up the glue repairs and wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I took the next two photos to send on Whatsapp to Paresh and Abha. The stem is looking really good. There is still a lot of polishing to do but it is getting there.I polished the stem with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper to remove the scratches and polish the Bakelite.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I gave it a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry. I carefully polished stem and bowl with Blue Diamond (using a soft touch) to polish out the remaining small scratches. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I gave the stem several coats of Conservator’s Wax and hand buffed it with a soft cloth. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The transparent medium brownish red stain worked really well with the golden/amber Bakelite stem. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 4 3/4 inches, Height: 1 3/4 inches, Outer diameter of the bowl: 1 inch, Chamber diameter: ¾ inches. This is the first of three of Paresh’s Grandfather’s pipes that he sent me to finish. I will set it aside and when the others are finished I will pack them up and send them back to India. I look forward to hearing what he thinks of it once he gets to load it with his favourite tobacco and carry on the pipe man’s legacy of his Grandfather. Thanks for walking through this restoration with me as I worked over this beauty.

Another L. J. Peretti Oom Paul Sitter Recommissioned

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Blog by Dal Stanton

I’m almost finished working through the Peretti Lot of 10 I acquired off the eBay auction block.  I’m amazed at the interest in these pipes since I posted a picture of the Peretti Lot on several of my favorite Facebook pipe groups.  I also enjoy posting on Instagram and Facebook giving updates of the restorations on my worktable here in Sofia, Bulgaria.  One of the best things I enjoy about ‘Pipedom’ and social media are the relationships developed around the world with pipe men and women whose love of pipes – their names and their histories, trust people like me who restore these friends enabling them to be passed on to the next generation of pipe men and women.  That’s why I named my pipe space, The Pipe Steward.  We are stewards when we understand that we don’t own, but we merely take care of something special for a time, add our histories then pass it on.  I met Tim via social media when I posted the picture below.  He was drawn to the Oom Pauls and commissioned one of the Sitters potentially to add to his already large collection – I see the plethora of posts and pipes he has on Instagram!  So, adding this Peretti Oom Paul Sitter to his collection is special and appreciated.  When one of my pipes is commissioned, the final decision to keep it is made after its restored and I publish the write up and a price is set.  So, Tim has first dibs on this Oom Paul Sitter when it goes to The Pipe Steward Store.  As with the other Perettis, this Sitter will benefit the Daughters of Bulgaria – our work here in Bulgaria helping women and girls who have been trafficked and sexually exploited.

Of the Peretti Lot of 10, there are two Oom Pauls yet to be restored that have been commissioned.  Two other pipes above are joining my collection of Perettis when I finally get to restoring them!  The Calabash on the top, left, and the COLOSSUS Billiard on the bottom.  The Oom Paul Sitter before me now is distinctive and stands out even in the picture above – bottom right.  The vertical straight flame grain is distinctive even in its present state.  Here are pictures chronicling the Oom Paul Sitter’s condition and challenges. The condition of this Sitter resembles all his brother Oom Pauls and the cousins.  The former steward of these Perettis seemed to have a scorched earth policy.  All of them, this one included, have thick cake in the chamber and thick, crusty lava flowing over the rim. As with the others, the left side of the rim has taken the brunt of the tobacco lighting and the briar is charcoal where the flame was pulled over the side, burning the rim.  The unfortunate result of this is that when the charred wood is cleaned away, the rim/bowl is thinner on that edge and therefore out of round.  The stummel surface is dirty but will clean up well showing the beautiful vertical grain.  I see no fills in this briar.  The stem carries with it the bites and dents that all the other Perettis received as well.  The stem is moderately oxidized and has a little calcification on the bit.  The one critical observation I have made about the Peretti Oom Pauls is that the drilling of the mortises for the tenon/stem fit hasn’t been the best.  This Sitter’s stem does not sit evenly with the shank.  The shank has a lip over the upper part of the saddle stem and the stem has a lip over the lower shank.  The drilling has left something to be desired!  The tenon fit is also loose. I have plenty of hurdles to address as this Oom Paul Sitter is recommissioned!

Beginning with the stem, it joins 4 other stems in a bath of Before and After Deoxidizer.  The stem soaks for several hours and when I fish it out, I let it drain and then wipe it down with cotton pads and light paraffin oil – this removes the Deoxidizer and the raised oxidation which wipes off as a very nasty brown.  The Deoxidizer has done a good job.Before proceeding further with the stem, I turn to the stummel cleanup.  I start by reaming the thick, crusted cake in the chamber.  Using my Pipnet Reaming Kit, I start with the smallest blade – first laying paper towel down to minimize cleanup!  I use 3 of the 4 blades available in the Pipnet Kit. The cake is hard causing the reaming tool to seize at times and I’m careful not bear down through stops in the turning of the blades but draw out the blades and go at it again.  I follow the Pipnet blades by employing the Savinelli Fitsall Tool which scrapes the walls more closely giving me more control.  I remove more cake on the top rim charring.  The goal is to find solid, healthy briar – which I do, but I can see the narrowing of the rim a bit due to the removal of the damaged wood. I then sand the chamber with 240 paper wrapped around a Sharpie Pen to give leverage.  This process clears the remnants of carbon cake and brings out a freshened briar to allow the new steward to restart a proper cake development – the thickness of an American dime is sufficient and helpful to protect the briar.  Thicker than that and the carbon cake can damage the bowl as the cake heats and expands. Finally, I wipe the chamber with cotton pads wetted with isopropyl 95% – ridding the chamber of the carbon dust.The bottom of the picture below represents the left side of the stummel where the rim damage is greatest.  You can see the narrowing of the rim on the bottom (left) compared to the opposite side.Now to attack the lava flow on the rim and to clean the stummel surface.  I take a few pictures of the stummel grime to show the progress.  I’m looking forward to seeing what Murphy’s will do!  Using undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap, I go to work using cotton pads.  I also use a brass brush on the rim – brass brushes do not scratch the wood.  The hard crust is not easily moved.  I use the Savinelli Fitsall tool’s flat straight edge and carefully scrape the crust off the rim.  After getting the rim and stummel as clean as I can, I rinse the stummel with cool tap water and wow!  I’m not disappointed.  The beauty of this block of briar is shouting from the housetop!  I’m liking this a lot.  The downside is the rim.  As with all the other brothers and cousins, this stummel will be topped to restore fresh briar to the rim.  I love doing ‘before & after’ comparisons.  Who says that a good cleaning doesn’t help!? Now, to clean the internals of the stummel I use pipe cleaners and cotton buds dipped in isopropyl 95%.  I’m amazed that the internals, mortise and draft hole, are not terribly dirty.  With only a few pipe cleaners and cotton buds expended, I turn to the stealth approach.  To freshen the internals even more, I use the kosher salt and alcohol soak.  I fashion a wick using a cotton ball by pulling and twisting it.  I then push it down into the mortise into the draft hole using a straight hard wire.  I fill the bowl with kosher salt which will not leave an aftertaste as iodized salt and I cover the bowl and give the stummel a shake to displace the salt.  I then fill the bowl with isopropyl 95% until it surfaces over the salt.  In a few minutes the alcohol has been absorbed so I top if off again.  I put the stummel aside for the night, I turn out the light and my day is finished.The sun has risen on a new day in Bulgaria and the kosher salt and alcohol soak has done the job.  The salt and wick are discolored showing that the oils and tars were absorbed through the night.  I thump the stummel on my palm to dislodge the salt into the waste and I wipe the chamber out with paper towel as well as blowing through the mortise.  I dislodge any leftover salt crystals.  To make sure all is clean I run a pipe cleaner through the draft hole and a cotton bud in the mortise and all is clean and fresh.  I wonderful thing to behold!Before proceeding any further with stummel or stem restoration, I work on the issue of the junction between the two.  The upper half of the shank is extending over the stem so that when I run my fingers over the area there is an obvious ridge.  I take a close-up to show this.  Also, on the bottom of the shank, the stem extends over the shank – not as much, but I still detect a ridge in the opposite direction with the touch.  The mortise drilling was too low creating the offset.Leaving stem and stummel joined, I carefully sand the higher areas on both shank and stem to form a smooth transition from shank to saddle stem.  Of course, much care is given in the sanding so that I don’t inadvertently erase the ‘TI’ at the end of the L. J. Peretti nomenclature on the shank!  In the immediate picture below, you can see the sanded alignment transitioning into what has yet to be sanded on the top of the shank. The hope is to remove the ridge, but also to taper the sanding down the shank a bit to avoid the ‘stuffed pants’ look – a bulge of briar paralleling the ridge sanding.  The goal is a smooth, tapered transition. I like the results.  The ridges are removed and tapered.  Now, switching to 600 grade paper I erase the scratches left by the 240 sanding. After the 600 grade sanding is completed, I take a look at the junction.  Through the cleaning process, I have noticed that the stem has loosened in the mortise.  I’ll need to address the tenon/mortise junction. …AND IT WAS GOING SO WELL, until it wasn’t.  As I was surveying the stem, my eye caught sight of what looked like a hole on the upper side of the stem, mid-way through the bend.  Oh my!  Well, I first thought my eyes were not seeing what they were obviously seeing.  My initial reaction was, “How did I do that?”  Then, my next inclination was to look at earlier pictures of the stem to see if it was there and if so, how is it possible to have missed something so obvious?!?!  I’m glad you couldn’t hear the conversation floating through my mind at that point!  I found a picture before the restoration began, and yes, it was there.  The pictures reveal the source my current frustrations which is part and parcel of pipe restorations – and life….  I put a dental probe in the hole, and yes, it did go through. I then ran a pipe cleaner through to see how thin the vulcanite was at the stem’s bend where the hole broke through.  It appears thin, but salvageable.  To test the integrity of the surrounding vulcanite I pinch it hard to see if it would break.  It didn’t and that is good. I decide to patch it like a typical hole in a bit scenario but perhaps leave the patch a little ‘fat’ to add some reinforcement to the area.So, the projects are mounting for this stem.  First, to address the stem’s looseness – the tenon/mortise junction. Second, repair to the hole in the bend.  Third, repair the chewed bit and button – upper and lower.  Then, the sanding and preparations for the finishing phase.  I begin with the tenon expansion to tighten the stem’s fit.  I do this first because it’s the easiest and least time consuming.  I find a drill bit just a little larger than the existing tenon draft hole to act as the ‘expander’.  I use a Bic lighter and heat the vulcanite tenon by painting it with the lighter’s flame.  As the vulcanite heats, as a rubber composite, it softens and becomes pliable.  When heated sufficiently, gently I push the smooth end of the bit into the hole and the tenon expands as a result.  It works like a charm.  After heating the tenon, inserting the bit by twisting it, and retracting it, I test the fit.  It is good and snug, but not too tight that one is afraid of cracking the shank – which I’ve had experience in! I decide to do the prep work on the bit next so that at the conclusion, I can apply patch material to the bit area as needed as well as to the bend hole.  Looking at the bit and button first, I take a few more pictures to get a closer look.  I notice that there was something on the side of the draft hole and I began digging with a dental probe.  One hunk of something dislodged like it was hanging on for dear life.  I stuck the probe in deeper…there’s more….  I was incredulous!  How could so much stuff hide in the button draft hole!  I took pictures – it is an event!Addressing the dents first, I paint the dents with the flame of a Bic lighter to expand the vulcanite as it heats.  As it expands, the dents tend to dissipate in their severity.  Often, after flaming dents one is able simply to sand out the remaining damage – or much of it.  I also flame the button hoping to minimize the dents on the lip.  It did help, but sanding is still necessary. With a flat needle file and 240 grade sanding paper, I go to work on the upper and lower bit.  I use the file to refine the button and remove the dents where possible. The sanding removes much except for one dimple on the top and one on the lower bit. The button sanded out nicely.  I also employ a round sharp needle file to sharpen the edges of the draft hole. For the upper and lower dimples, I spot drop Special ‘T’ CA glue which is thicker. First, I clean off the areas with alcohol and cotton pads to clean it. I start with applying glue on the lower dimple and wait for an hour or so for the glue to set, and I flip the stem over and apply glue to the upper bit dimple. Now to the bend hole.  I use 240 grit paper and lightly rough up the area around the hole.  I then wipe it with isopropyl 95% to clean the area.  Instead of applying CA glue, I’ll use a putty created out of mixing CA glue and activated charcoal dust. I believe this will give me more texture for blending if I leave a larger area of patch to reinforce the area.  I don’t know if this will work in the end, but I can start with this intention and if it doesn’t work, I can always sand the excess.  First, I put petroleum jelly on the end of a pipe cleaner and I insert it to where I see it has reached the hole.  The pipe cleaner will hopefully keep the glue/charcoal in place and the petroleum jelly will keep the putty from sticking to the pipe cleaner, so I can pull it out!  Next, I place some charcoal dust on an index card.  I then place a bit of regular super glue next to the charcoal.  I use a tooth pick to draw the charcoal into the glue so that it’s gradually added.  In this way I can judge what the thickness should be – not too thin so it runs – not so thick that it doesn’t penetrate the hole. I mix the activated charcoal and superglue and when it seems to be the right consistency, I apply it to the hole using the toothpick as a trowel.  I tamp the putty down so that it fills the hole and I spread the patch around the surface.  I give a few movement tugs on the pipe cleaner and it is not stuck.  I put the stem aside to allow all the patches to cure. Turning again to the stummel, I focus on the rim repair.  I start by topping the Oom Paul Sitter.  Using 240 grade paper on a chopping board I rotate the inverted stummel on the paper in a circular motion.  I will remove enough on the rim trying to minimize the internal bevel which will remove the remainder of the charred wood.  I’ll have to be careful.  When placing the inverted stummel on the chopping block before putting the 240 paper down, I test how level the top is – the stummel rocks a bit.  This tells me that the rim is not level and most likely the left side, where most of the damaged wood is, has deteriorated.  Charred wood is softer and therefore probably dipped. I start topping and check often to see where things are going.  I also use a sanding block to help direct the topping to areas to try to bring about an evenly rounded rim – a challenge with the charring damage on the left side of the stummel – depicted on the bottom in the pictures below.  The pictures show the process. I’ve removed enough top briar real estate at this point and I will try to bring more balance to the rim as I remove the internal charring as I introduce a bevel.  Using a coarser 120 grade paper, I cut the initial bevel removing the charring.  I follow the 120 beveling using a rolled piece of 240 grade paper which smooths and continues to clean the char.  I then take the stummel back to the topping board again to reestablish the lines of the rim.  I do this a few more times, as I try to create a more balanced looking rim. I then top the stummel again with 600 grade paper and beveling as well.  The pictures show the rim cleaning and balancing process. One last step.  To soften the entire look of the rim, I introduce a gentle bevel on the external rim edge by cutting it with 120, following with 240 then 600 rolled pieces of sanding paper.  Considering from where we’ve come, I’m satisfied with the appearance of the rim!  It’s not perfect and this Peretti will carry the rim imbalance with it the ‘limp’ but he’s moving!Next, to prepare the stummel surface for the finishing phase, I use micromesh pads 1500 to 2400 to wet sand the stummel.  Then I follow this by dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000, then 6000 to 12000. The grain on this Peretti Oom Paul Sitter is exceptional.  I watch it emerge through each micromesh cycle. This is going to be a beautiful pipe. With most of the Peretti Oom Paul restorations I have done (and the Peretti Half Bent Billiard) I was very pleased with the results of applying Before and After Restoration Balm on the stummels.  Keeping the light, natural original motifs of these Perettis has been my goal and the use of the Balm has helped maintain this desire.  I do the same with this Peretti.  I put some Balm on my finger and I work the Balm into the briar surface.  As I work it in, it starts as more liquid – with the consistency of light oil, but then gradually firms up until it is wax-like.  After I work it in thoroughly with my fingers, I set the stummel on the clothespin stand to allow the Balm to do what it does for a while. I take a picture of the Balm on the stummel.  After several minutes, I wipe the Balm off by buffing it out with a clean microfiber cloth.  It looks great – as I was expecting.With the Sitter’s stummel waiting in the wings for the stem to catch up, I pick up the stem.  Having had a night to thoroughly cure, the patches are ready to be filed and sanded down.  Before I forget it, since I had a pipe cleaner with petroleum jelly on it in the stem’s airway, I want to clean the airway so I run a pipe cleaner through the stem dipped with isopropyl 95%. Also, the thought in the back of my mind is the putty in the hole patch, did it push through and harden in the airway and form an obstruction.  Unfortunately, this was the case.  With the pipe cleaner coming from the tenon side, there seems to be a ridge at the patch site just entering the bend.  The pipe cleaner hung up there.  Coming from the button end, there is no problem with an obstruction.  As I test repeatedly, I discover that coming in from the tenon side, if I put a slight downward bend to the end of the pipe cleaner, the pipe cleaner would successfully navigate past the patch down to the button draft hole.  This is not a perfect situation, but it could be much worse with no passage through the airway.  Yet, the bright side of the scenario is that the patch is a bit stronger as a result, though the new steward will need to be aware of this bump in the road.  So, we move on. I begin the filing on the bend hole patch using a flat needle file.  I focus on keeping the file on the patch mound to not impact the vulcanite around the patch.To help me see what the patch would look like if I left it a bit ‘fat’ on the surface, I take a little detour.  My thinking is that it might help strengthen the area to leave the patch fatter on the surface.  To get a preview of the patch area, I ran the patch through the entire sanding process to get a better idea how visible it would be.  It didn’t take long to go from the filing to 240, 600 then 0000 steel wool focusing only on the patch area. Then I ran the patch spot through all the micromesh pads 1500 to 12000, applied Obsidian Oil and I look at the patch area. I take two pictures to show the future.  I decide I didn’t like the future!  Actually, the patch isn’t that bad, but I know it’s there and it seems unfinished….  I decide to continue to blend the patch by sanding.This is the bend patch after continuing with 240 and 600 grade papers.  That’s much better.I move on to the upper and then lower bit.  I use the flat needle file, 240 then 600 on both upper and lower sanding the patches and blending them.I follow by sanding/buffing the entire stem with 0000 steel wool before starting the micromesh pad process.Now to the fine-tuning sanding process.  I wet sand the stem using micromesh pads 1500 to 2400.  I then follow this by dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000 then 6000 to 12000.  After each set of three pads, I apply Obsidian Oil to revitalize the vulcanite.  The Peretti’s stem is looking good even with all the repairs that were done.  I love the glassy pop of the vulcanite!  The patch work blended well. Now the home stretch.  I reunite the Peretti Oom Paul Sitters stem and stummel and mount the felt buffing wheel to the Dremel, set it at the slowest speed and apply Tripoli compound to the stummel.  Tripoli is a coarser compound I apply using a circular pattern over the stummel in a methodical way to cover the entire stummel.  I do not put too much pressure on the wheel, but allow the speed, compound and the felt to do the work.  When the Tripoli is complete, I mount a cotton cloth wheel to the Dremel, remaining at the same speed and I apply Blue Diamond compound to both stummel and stem.  I do it in the same way as the Tripoli. Finally, I change cotton cloth buffing wheels and apply White Diamond compound to the stem alone.  When the compounds are completed, I buff the pipe with a felt cloth to remove the compound dust from the surface of the briar.  I mount yet another cotton cloth buffing wheel to the Dremel, increase the speed to about 40% of full power and I apply a few coats of carnauba wax to stem and stummel.  Finally, I complete the restoration of this Peretti Oom Paul Sitter by giving it a brisk hand buffing using a microfiber cloth.

The vertical flame grain on this large Oom Paul Sitter stummel is striking and it is complemented by bird’s eye on the heel as well as the shank. It is unique in the Peretti Lot of 10 where the pipes showcased mainly horizontal and bird’s eye grain.  This Peretti will provide much visual pleasure to his new steward and with the size of the bowl, he will pack enough favorite blend for a nice long reflective time.  The stem and rim gave some challenges which I think have worked out well.  He carries with him some marks from his former life – as we all do!  Tim lives in Missouri and is the pipe man who commissioned this Oom Paul Sitter and has first dibs on the pipe when I put it in The Pipe Steward Store.  This pipe will benefit the Daughters of Bulgaria – women and girls who have been trafficked and sexually exploited.  Thanks for joining me!

 

Another L.J. Peretti of Boston: A Hefty Half Bent Billiard with a Saddle Stem

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Blog by Dal Stanton

I have been placing several L. J. Peretti pipes in the hands of new stewards which brings me much satisfaction!  The others were all Oom Pauls – classic Oom Paul’s and some slightly modified by Peretti to serve as Oom Paul sitters.  After I was introduced to L. J. Peretti pipes and restored some that I added to my own collection, I started keeping my eyes open for these pipes because I discovered they were pretty good smokers and that the briar used to make them was not bad – actually, was quite good.  When I saw the Peretti Lot of 10 on the eBay auction block with the seller’s location nearby Peretti’s home of Boston, I figured (correctly) that these all came from a Peretti collector who lived in Boston or near enough to know the Peretti story.  The L. J. Peretti Co. is the 2nd oldest Tobacconist shop in the US – where custom blends are still created by hand.  Here is the picture I saw on eBay. The Peretti on my worktable now is the Billiard Half Bent Saddle on the right, center in the picture above.  Two things stood out when I cradled this Billiard in my palm for the first time.  First, the stem has the classy cursive Peretti ‘P’ stamped on it.  Only a few in the Lot of 10 had this stamp.  Only hazarding a guess, but this may indicate a higher-grade line in the Peretti offerings – though I haven’t laid my eyes on anything that could confirm this, catalogues, etc.  It is a classy touch to have the ‘P’ embedded on the stem.  Secondly, this Billiard is a big boy!  Just comparing him to the hefty Oom Pauls in the photograph above shows that this Billiard is not shrinking away in embarrassment! The bowl is full and the shank is long and broad.  His dimensions are Length: 5 7/8 inches, Height: 2 inches, Rim Diameter: 1 5/16 inches, Chamber Diameter: 1 7/8 inches, Bowl depth: 1 3/4 inches.  I also put him on the scale and he weighs 57 grams.

Our cousin, Stephen, who my wife and I visited while we were in the US some months ago, saw the Peretti Lot of 10 when I posted a picture of the 10 offering the Oom Pauls to new stewards to be commissioned.  He responded but he wasn’t interested in an Oom Paul.  He was drawn to the Half Bent Billiard because it reminded him of a pipe he had earlier in life.  I was glad to restore the Billiard for Stephen because I remembered that during our visit to his home in Alabama, he saw my restored L. J. Peretti HUGE Bent Egg in my pipe pouch – also from the Lot of 10 pictured above – center, left and pictured below after being restored (See LINK for restoration), and Stephen tried to barter him away from me!  Who could blame him?!  I held firm and my Peretti Egg and I continue to have regular fellowship here in Bulgaria!  Thank you, Stephen! Since Stephen commissioned this Peretti, he will have first dibs on it when I put it in The Pipe Steward Store.  This pipe benefits our work here in Bulgaria helping trafficked and sexually exploited women and girls (and their children!) – the Daughters of Bulgaria.Bringing the Half Bent Billiard on my worktable here in Sofia, Bulgaria, I take some pictures to take a closer look as well as to assess what this Billiard’s challenges are. As with all his Peretti cousins in the Lot of 10, the L. P. Peretti Co. is stamped on the left side of the shank.  Some of the other Perettis are without the ‘Co.’  As noted above, this Peretti also has the cursive ‘P’ stamped nicely on the stem.  Only a few of the Perettis had this stamp in the Lot.  This Billiard shares with all his cousins the thick cake in the chamber.  It also has very thick lava flow on the rim.  It is also most likely, as with the other Perettis, that there will be scorching damage underneath the lava.  The briar surface is dirty – lots of grime, but this should clean up nicely, as with the other Perettis, this large patch of Billiard briar shows great promise.  The stem is also showing deep oxidation and calcification on the stem – especially on the bit.  As with all his cousins, the bit and button show a good bit of biting, clenching and the subsequent dents, chatter and button damage.

To start the restoration of this hefty Peretti Billiard Half Bent Saddle, I add the stem to a bath of Before and After Deoxidizer.  This was the first time I used the Before and After product and I was testing it to see how it worked.  The Peretti Billiard joined several pipes and their stems in the queue.  After soaking for several hours, I fished out the Billiard’s stem and allowed the Deoxidizer to drain.  I then wiped off the oxidation with a cotton pad wetted with light paraffin oil, Bulgaria’s mineral oil.  One of the attributes of Before and After Deoxidizer is that it is stamp friendly, which proves to be the case with the Peretti ‘P’.   With the stummel now in hand, I use the Pipnet Reaming Kit to remove the very thick cake resident in the chamber.  By removing the cake down to the briar gives it a fresh start and enables me to examine the chamber wall for damage.  After putting down paper towel for easier cleanup, I start with the smallest blade.  I use 3 of the 4 blades available in the Pipnet Kit.  I then fine tune the reaming by using the Savinelli Fitsall Tool to scrape the chamber walls removing more carbon cake left behind.  Wrapping a piece of 240 grit paper around a Sharpie Pen, I sand the chamber.  Finally, I clean the chamber of the carbon dust using cotton pads with isopropyl 95%.  The chamber walls look great – no problems.  The pictures show the steps in the process. Now to the external surface.  I use undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and cotton pads to scrub the grime – and there’s plenty of it.  I also work on the crusty rim surface utilizing a brass brush and scraping with my thumb nail.  I also employ a pin knife to help scrape the crust.  What emerges is beautiful grain on the stummel – large swirling bird’s eye catches my eye. Surprisingly, a nice looking, slightly rounded rim emerges from underneath all the crust!  The briar on the rim reveals that this was a nice-looking pipe at one time – I’m thinking it was on Peretti’s upper scale shelf.  The scorching on the inside of the rim is significant and will need to be addressed. Next, the dirty job.  Using pipe cleaners and cotton buds dipped in isopropyl 95% I attack the internals of the stummel.  I also utilize a dental spatula to scrape the mortise walls.  With a little effort the buds and pipe cleaners started coming clean.  As I usually do with all my restorations, I follow this cleaning with a kosher salt/alcohol soak.  I find that this additionally cleans the internal briar and freshens the internals.  After putting the stummel in an egg carton to keep it upright and stable, I fill the bowl with kosher salt which leaves no aftertaste (as iodized salt does).  I then fashion a ‘wick’ by stretching and twisting a cotton ball which is inserted down into the draft hole and mortise – as far down as I can manage.  I then fill the bowl with isopropyl 95% alcohol until it surfaces over the salt.  After a few minutes, after the alcohol has been absorbed, I will top the alcohol off again.  I put the stummel aside and let it soak through the work day until I return home this evening. Later, when I arrive home from work, I’m always pleased to see the nasty results of the salt/alcohol bath.  The salt has discolored, and the wick has absorbed the grunge.  I thump the old salt into the waste, wipe the bowl with paper towel and blow through the mortise to dislodge any remnants of salt from the soak.  To make sure all was clean, I ran a pipe cleaner through the draft hole and plunged a cotton bud in the mortise – both dipped in isopropyl 95%, and both came out clean.  Done – always a nice place to be.I turn now to the chewed up and dented stem – oh my.  The entire Peretti Lot of 10 I determined came from one steward.  One of the ways I determined this was that all the stems were clenched the same way and therefore reveal the same forensics!  I take a few pictures to show the problems with upper and lower bit and button.  The first step I use is using flame to heat the vulcanite which expands it making the dents less severe and more easily sanded.  I use a Bic lighter and paint the upper and lower bit areas.  I concentrate on the button as well.  After several cycles of ‘painting’ I have come to the point where the vulcanite is no longer expanding.  It has helped but there remains some denting and bite marks.  I pair the before and after ‘flame painting`’ pictures to let you compare. I think the button benefited most. Using 240 sanding paper, I sand both upper and lower bit and the button to see how much of the damage can be sanded out.  The heating technique helped more than I realized – good news.  The upper bit sanded out completely.  The lower bit still shows two dents.  Using the flat needle file, I worked on the button and refreshed the upper and lower button lips.  The draft hole was dented too.  I pull out the topping board with 240 paper on it and ‘top’ the button to flatten it out.  I smooth out the draft hole using a rounded needle file.  I take a picture to show the progress of the 240 paper and file work.  When I look at the stem I see something I didn’t see before.  A hole in the stem on the right at the base of the saddle.  I’ve never seen this before.  I’ll need to patch it as well.  I wipe the stem with alcohol to clean the area where I will apply black CA glue to fill the dents.  After clean, using a toothpick, I spot drop black CA glue on both dents on the lower bit.  The toothpick allows me to control where and how much glue I apply.  I wait an hour or so for the glue to set and then turn over the stem and spot drop glue on the ‘saddle’ hole.  I set the stem aside for the patches to cure for several hours.  With the stem patch curing, I turn again to the stummel and the rim.  The scorched briar needs to be removed and topping the stummel will move in that direction. Like all the Peretti Billiard’s cousins in the Lot of 10, the left side seems to have borne the brunt. I’m hoping I only need to top a small amount and remove the remaining scorched wood on the internal rim edge by introducing a bevel.  That’s the plan.   Placing 240 grit paper on the chopping block, I top by moving the inverted stummel in a circular motion and evenly as possible.I stop to check a number of times how much progress has been made on removing the scorched briar.At this point, I’ve removed enough damaged surface via topping leaving a manageable internal ring of charred material that can be removed without taking more healthy briar.  I use a rolled piece of 120 coarse sanding paper to cut an internal bevel and remove the scorched area.  I also aim at balancing the round of the rim – it is slightly out of round because of the greater damage on the left side of the bowl where the former steward lit his tobacco.  After cutting the bevel with 120, I give another very light topping with 240 grit paper to restate the rim line after the bevel.I follow the 240 topping board and 120 paper beveling by using 240 grade paper to erase the scratches of the 120 beveling.  Then, I use 600 grade both to erase the scratches of the 240 on the bevel, but to top again lightly the stummel with the 600 grade paper to erase 240 scratches and to smooth.Finally, I introduce a very gentle external bevel around the rim using 240 then 600.  I do this to soften the look of the rim and to give it more of a rounded appearance.  I’m pleased with the rim repair.  This Peretti Big Boy Billiard has already come a long way from the caked, scorched condition he arrived in!  He’s looking good.Now to the briar surface – and there’s a lot of briar real estate on this stummel!  I begin by wet sanding with micromesh pads 1500 to 2400.  Then dry sanding, I use 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000.  I take a picture after each set of three. I enjoy watching the grain emerge on the Peretti Billiard through the micromesh pad cycles – it’s an amazing transformation.  Along with most of his Peretti cousins, the briar seems to be a higher grade – no fills and the grain is beautiful. To maintain the rich natural briar look consistent with the Peretti hue template, yet to deepen and make the briar grain richer, I use Before and After Restoration Balm. I apply the Balm to my finger and then spread it over the stummel and work it in to the briar.  The Balm begins as an oily liquid and then gradually grows firmer until it takes on the characteristics of a thick wax.  After I work the Balm in well, I put the stummel on the stand to absorb the Balm for several minutes and take a picture.  I then wipe the stummel with a clean cotton cloth to remove the Balm residue and buff up the surface.  I put the stummel to the side and turn my focus again to the stem.After the black CA glue patches have thoroughly cured, I first use 240 sanding paper to do the initial removal of excess patch and blending. I continue to shape and fine tune the button lips with the 240 as well as remove the patch excess and smooth the saddle hole on the side.  Then, to erase the tracks of the 240, I use 600 grade paper. To erase the scratches of the 600, I buff the entire stem with 0000 grade steel wool which leaves a good evenly prepared surface to begin the micromesh pad cycles.  I like the way the chewed bit came out.Now, using micromesh pads 1500 to 2400 grade, I wet sand the stem.  It was going so well until it wasn’t! After starting the second cycle dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000, I see what I didn’t see before.  As the lower bit was glossing up because of the micromesh sanding, a small dimple remnant of the lower bit dent became visible to me – ugh.  When it comes to restoring pipes (and with many things in life 😊) I’m a stickler for detail and even though I’m well advanced in the stem finishing process, this dimple will not stand!  I wipe the spot with alcohol to assure that it is clean and I spot-drop Special T CA glue on the dent. This glue is extra thick because I want the drop to stop on the spot and not run over the stem as thinner CA glue tends to do.  I’ll spare you all the pictures of starting over filing, sanding, steel wooling and micromeshing pads catching this dimple patch up, so let it suffice to show the before and after, and then we move on.  Starting with the completion of pads 1500 to 2400:The discovery.  Before….And after….Now moving on to dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000.  To revitalize the vulcanite, after each cycle of three I apply Obsidian Oil.  The stem looks great even though I encountered a significant detour along the way.  I love the pop of vulcanite that has been fine-tuned with micromesh pads!The home stretch!  As I reunite the half-bent saddle with the stummel to begin the compound buffing cycle I discover that the union between stem and stummel has loosened.  As sometimes can happen during the cleaning process, the mortise can be opened, and the result is that the tenon is not as snug. To remedy this and to tighten the mortise/tenon union a bit, I use the flat end of a drill bit just a little larger than the diameter of the tenon draft hole.  I heat the vulcanite tenon with a small flame and as it warms the vulcanite it becomes pliable and gradually I insert the drill bit into the airway.  This expands the mortise a bit and hopefully, creates a better fit. The approach works perfectly even though it required two enlarging drill bits to provide a snug union. With stem and stummel reunited with a good fit, I mount a cotton cloth buffing wheel to the Dremel and set the speed to the slowest.  Using Blue Diamond compound, I apply it to the stummel and stem using a slow, methodical, circular approach, not applying too much pressure to the buffing wheel, but allowing the speed of the Dremel and compound to do the work.  With my wife’s assistance, I include a picture showing this below.  After completing the Blue Diamond application, I mount another cotton cloth buffing wheel dedicated to the application of wax.  After increasing the speed to about 40% of full power, I apply the carnauba wax in the same way as the compound.  Afterwards, I use a microfiber cloth and give the pipe a brisk hand buffing to raise the shine.None of the Peretti pipes that I’ve restored thus far have disappointed.  They arrived on my worktable in rough shape with scorching and chewed bits.  This L. J. Peretti Co. Billiard Half Bent Saddle was no exception.  The briar grain showcased in the large bowl reveals swirls of large bird’s eye pattern and horizontal straight grain in a whimsical contrast.  The grain flow reminds me of pictures of Jupiter’s atmosphere intermingling!  The distinctive Peretti “P” stamping stands out nicely imbedded in the glassy shine of the half bent saddle stem.  Cousin Stephen commissioned this hefty Peretti Billiard and will have first dibs on it in The Pipe Steward Store.  This pipe benefits women and girls (and their children) that we work with here in Bulgaria, who have been trafficked and sexually exploited – the Daughters of Bulgaria.  Thank you for joining me!

What an interesting Freehand pipe – a Veeja 900 C6

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Blog by Steve Laug

Earlier this year I took some pipes in trade from a fellow in Alabama. He wanted some pipes that I would be adding to the rebornpipes store and wanted to trade me for some of his own. The first of these that I chose to work on today was one that is an interestingly shaped pipe with a wavy rim top, a long shank split by some exotic wood set off on each side with a thin band of dark wood and red wood. The bowl and shank are briar and the insert of exotic wood actually looks good. The shank flares toward the stem which is an amber acrylic saddle stem. The rim has some darkening and a little damage on the back side of the inner edge of the rim. The bowl had a light cake and smelled of aromatic tobacco. The finish on the pipe was in excellent condition. The acrylic stem had some tooth marks on both the top and bottom of the stem at the button. The slot in the button was missing and the button end appeared to be unfinished. It had the round hold drilled in the acrylic but the slot had not been shaped. Jeff had been able to clean up the rim top and remove much of the light lava on the surface. He had scrubbed the exterior with Murphy’s Oil soap and removed the dust and grime that had accumulated there. He lightly reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and cleaned it up with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He cleaned the interior of the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. The pipe came to me clean and ready to do some light touch ups and polishing. The stem was cleaned but it had minor tooth chatter on the top and underside near the button and on the surface of the button itself. I took close up photos of the rim top and the shank end to show the condition of the plateau. I also took photos of the stem to give a clear picture of what I had when I started.I took a photo of the left side of the shank to show the junction of the exotic wood inserta nd the wood bands on either side of it. It splits the long briar shank and gives the pipe an exotic flair. The photo also shows the stamping on the left side of the shank. It reads Veeja over 900 C6 or Cb.The Veeja brand was unfamiliar to me. I had never heard of it before so I did some searching on Google to see if I could find any information at all. I found a photo of nine Veeja pipes on Worthpoint that were being sold. They have similarities to the one I am working on but were also very different. There was no information on the brand. So other than seeing other pipes by the maker I was no further ahead. Here is the photo and the link to the sale listing on Worthpoint. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/lot-veeja-original-tobacco-pipes-1796762187  

I did some further digging and found a listing on Pipedia for the brand. Here is the link to that information https://pipedia.org/wiki/Veeja. Once again it did not include much information. I include the article in full below.

Veeja Pipes were apparently made in New York, but we have been unable to establish any further details about them.

From that I could determine that the pipe was made in New York. No city is mentioned and no information is given about the pipemaker. I wanted to know more about the pipe so I kept looking. I found a discussion on the pipesmagazine forum and include the comment that started the discussion. http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/veeja-and-appia-stanwell-pipes-1. It was posted in 2014 and there was no response to his question. I quote:

I picked up two pipes… One of them is marked ‘Veeja original 1985’ which I bought in New York sometime around the early 2000s. The only online reference I can find is that this a one line reference to Veeja being a NY hand made pipe maker. Does anyone know anything about the person/company who made this?

I spent some more time digging to find more information but there was nothing else that I could find. Do any of you who are reading this have further information on the brand or the maker? Do you know where in New York it was made? Thanks for any help that you can give me on this.

I called it quits and moved on to start working on the pipe itself. I started with the damage to the rim. I sanded out the damage on the rim top as well as to the inner edge until I had minimized the damage and reshaped edge and the top of the rim.I polished the sanded rim top and edge with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I polished it until the scratches were removed from the briar. I cleaned out the remnants of the cake with the Savinelli Fitsall Knife. I wanted to remove all the reminders of the previous tobacco and give the pipe a new smell. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the inside of the bowl.I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm to deep clean the briar bowl and the rim top as well as the briar shank with the exotic insert. The product works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I hand rubbed it with my fingers, working it into the exterior of the pipe. I wiped it off  and buffed it with a soft cloth to polish it. The pipe really began to have a rich shine. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. I wiped down the rim top so that it was clean. I used an oak coloured stain pen to match the rim top to the rest of the bowl. Once it dried I buffed the piep with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. (I picked a set of these stain pens up at Canadian Tire recently. The assortment of colours really makes them useful as I match them to the colours of the pipes I work on. I included this second photo to show what I am using to stain the pipes.)I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I cleaned up the area around the end of the tenon where it joined the stem. When the tenon had been turned this area had been left a bit rough. I scraped away the excess with a pen knife to leave it smooth. I sanded the tooth marks out of both sides of the stem to smooth out the surface.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust on the acrylic. I decided to finish up the end of the button and cut a slot into the acrylic. I took photos of the process from the original opening to the finished slot. I used needle files, sand paper and sanding sticks to open the slot and polish it.I the polished stem and bowl with Blue Diamond to polish out the remaining small scratches. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This is the first Veeja pipe that I have worked on and judging by the craftsmanship on this one I will keep an eye for more of them in the future. The shape, finish and flow of the pipe and stem are very well done and the joints and fitting of the shank band mid stem were flawless. The dimensions are Length: 7 1/4 inches, Height: 2 1/4 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/2 inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 inches. This one will be added to the rebornpipes store soon. If you are interested in adding it to your collection send me an email to slaug@uniserve.com or send me a message on Facebook. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this great freehand. I have other free hands that I will be working on in a variety of shapes and sizes in upcoming blogs.

Another Athens find: Renewing a Stout Peterson System Standard 313 Republic of Ireland

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Blog by Dal Stanton

Athens, Greece, has been fertile ground for me in landing some nice pipes in the Athenian ‘wild’.  An area very close to the well-known Acropolis summit and near-by Mars Hill, where the Apostle Paul gave his defense of the Christian faith, is the Monastiraki market area. I have found several keepers in this area. I was drawn to one antique shop that spilled out onto the sidewalk of a typically narrow, crowded street.  As I looked over the plethora of paraphernalia in the shop, my eye caught sight of two lonely pipes among statuettes, ash trays, jars and lamps.  Immediately I knew one was a definite possibility – a Pete.  I looked quickly to determine if it was Pre-Republic or Republic of Ireland.  It was a Republic, but seemed to carry some weight of years.  What also caught my attention was that it was on the smaller side as far as I’ve seen of Petersons.  The shape number on the right side of the shank was 313.  The other pipe keeping company with the Pete was a Bewlay London Made ‘Reject’.  Interesting.  I’m always interested in pipes with the mark, ‘Reject’. The shop owner was all business and I wasn’t as happy with the bundled deal as I had wished, but I wanted the Pete and he’s now with me here in Sofia, Bulgaria. This Peterson System Standard 313 has been in my ‘Help Me!’ basket for some time until my brother-in-law, Greg, commissioned it to be restored along with a Comoy’s Pebble Grain Modern Poker.  He and his wife, Sarah, my wife’s sister, were visiting us here in Bulgaria, and Greg trolled through my buckets of pipes until he found these two – he commissioned both when he couldn’t decide!  The Pete and the Comoy’s both benefit the Daughters of Bulgaria, helping women and girls that have been trafficked and sexually exploited.  Thanks, Greg!

With this being the first Peterson System Pipe on my worktable, I’m looking forward to learning what I can.  The first thing I did was to identify the shape number of this Peterson.  Not long-ago Steve posted on rebornpipes a very interesting Peterson of Dublin Pipe Catalogue which he thought was dated about 2010.  I enjoyed looking through it then and tucked it away in my mind for when I would bring a Peterson to the worktable.  I found the shape 313 in the Standard Quality Smooth section of the catalogue which I included below.  It’s on the far right of the first row.  The description of the Standard Quality was helpful.What I also found interesting and helpful was the description of the Peterson System Pipe.  When this design hit the market in the late 1800s it was innovative then and continues to be popular today. Two design innovations were the focus: a trap (or sump) that collected the moisture in the mortise and the well-known ‘P-Lip’ stem, which stands for ‘Peterson’.  This design was supposed to be superior by directing the smoke to the upper part of the mouth rather than burning the tongue.  It is also engineered to compress the air as it moves toward the button.  I’ve included the description and a cutout showing the design from the same catalogue.I love working on vintage pipes – I only wish they could talk and tell their stories while I restore them!  With this Peterson now on my work table, I take some pictures to chronicle his condition and to get a closer look. The nomenclature is clear.  On the left side of the shank is stamped in arched fashion, ‘PETERSON’S’ over ‘SYSTEM’ over ‘STANDARD’ in straight letters.  Above this stamp, on the nickel ferule is ‘K&P PETERSON’S’.  The right side of the shank bears the ‘MADE IN THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND’ placing it in the Republic Era – from 1949 until the present (from the Pipedia article:  A Peterson Dating Guide; A Rule of Thumb, by Mike Leverette).I’ve also been curious about the ‘faux’ hallmarks stamped under the K&P on the ferrule.  From the same helpful Pipedia article I read this:

Before we close this section on silver hallmarks, we must address the marks that many people refer to as hallmarks. Peterson uses three marks on some of their pipes that are not silver hallmarks but are rather another Peterson logo (See Enclosure 4).

These marks are:

  • A Shamrock for the many shamrocks found in Ireland
  • A Prone Fox representing the famous fox hunts in Ireland’s history, and
  • A Stone Tower for the many hundreds of stone towers spotted throughout Ireland

Again, these are not genuine silver hallmarks. I’m indulging in a bit of history to better appreciate the K&P Peterson’s on my worktable.  Another question, “K&P”?  Again, Mike Leverette’s Dating Guide article helps with a concise history along with pictures from Pipedia’s main Peterson article:

The history of Ireland is an old and honorable one; steeped in warfare, family, racial and religious traditions. No other country can compete in comparison. However, the first couple of millennia of Irish history have no relevance to this dating guide. Should you wish to read more on the history of the Irish, I recommend “The Story of the Irish Race” by Seamus MacManus who gives a very vivid, and near as we can tell, an accurate portrayal of their history.

History pertinent to our purposes began in the year 1865; the year Charles Peterson opened a small tobacco shop in Dublin. Later in 1875, Charles Peterson approached the Kapp brothers, Friedrich and Heinrich, with a new pipe design and with this, a very long-lived partnership was formed, Kapp & Peterson. This new pipe design is the now famous Peterson Patented System Smoking Pipe. By 1890, Kapp & Peterson was the most respected pipe and tobacco manufacturer in Ireland and rapidly gaining followers in England and America. In 1898 another of Peterson’s remarkable inventions became available, the Peterson-Lip (P-Lip) mouthpiece, also known as the Steck mouthpiece. So, for the purpose of this dating guide, we will study Irish history, relevant to our pipe dating needs, from 1870s until now.

Before we start with this Peterson dating guide, an observation; the Kapp Brothers originally came from Nuremberg, Germany. They were making pipes at least as early as the 1850s (their Dublin shop opened in 1855) and in many of the shapes we now associate with Peterson since the Kapp Brothers simply took their existing shapes and incorporated Charles Peterson’ s patented design into them. From their inception, Kapp & Peterson’s goal was to make a good smoking pipe that the ordinary, common working man could afford, and we believe they have, very admirably, lived up to this.

With a great admiration for the pioneering businessmen and pipe men, Kapp and Peterson, I now turn to the Peterson System Standard 313 on my table – really a quintessential working man’s pipe. It gives that kind of persona. The chamber is still loaded with the former steward’s tobacco!  Whenever I see this I wonder if this was the last bowl enjoyed on this side of life.  I’ll never know, and the Pete still isn’t talking!  The chamber has moderate cake build-up and the rim has some lava flow and some scorching.  The stummel generally is in good shape with typical marks of wear, but nothing too serious, and it is darkened with grime.  There is one fill I detect on the front, right of the stummel which I record with a picture.  The nickel ferrule has some dark areas on it which will hopefully clean up and shine up.  The System P-Lip stem has a good collection of tooth chatter, but I don’t detect any clench dents.  I begin the restoration of this Peterson by first adding the stem to a soak of Before and After Deoxidizer along with a Peretti and Comoy’s stem that are in the queue along with their respective stummels.  Before I place the stem in the Deoxidizer, I clean the internals of the System Stem P-Lip for the first time, and I now understand some of what I’ve read about the difficulty in cleaning these stems!  They are engineered to narrow down toward the button and the P-Lip draft hole is smaller than usual.  I read from the Pipedia Peterson article above that Falcon pipe cleaners are thinner and can be used well with these stems.  Good to know!  With pipe cleaners dipped in isopropyl 95% I clean the stem and this keeps the Deoxidizer from becoming soiled as quickly. I let the stem soak for several hours.  After removing the stem, I let it drain of the Deoxidizer and then wipe off the raised oxidation using cotton pads wetted with light paraffin oil.  The oxidation wipes off as a nasty brown goo.  The System stem looks good after it is wiped down well.Putting the stem to the side, with the stummel now in hand, I clean the old baccy out of the chamber.  The tobacco still has a sweet aroma to it – I’m not a tobacco blend expert or else I might hazard a guess!  Using the Pipnet Reaming Kit, I start with the smallest blade and ream the chamber removing the carbon cake down to the fresh briar.  Since the bowl diameter is smaller, I only use the first blade.  I then utilize my Savinelli Fitsall Tool, which I find to be very handy. It can remove some carbon at the floor of the chamber missed by the Pipnet blade and it scrapes the walls more closely giving me greater control.  Wrapping a piece of 240 grit sanding paper around the Sharpie Pen, I sand the chamber walls removing even more carbon residue and getting down to the briar for a fresh start. Finally, I use a cotton pad wetted with isopropyl 95% and clean the chamber of the carbon dust.  Looking at the chamber, I see no problems – it looks great. Turning to the externals, I use undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap with cotton pads to scrub the grime off the bowl and rim.  I also use a brass brush on the rim which is dark from some scorching.  After this, I rinse the stummel with tap water.  While I was doing this, I allowed the water to run over the nickel ferrule and rubbed it with cloth to see if this would help clean it up.  There is still what looks like corrosion on the nickel-plated surface.  I’ll do some Google research later to see what the next step might be to clean the nickel safely.  I also am not able to remove the darkened briar on the rim.  I’ll need to give it a gentle topping to remove it.  While I think about these challenges, I clean the internals of the stummel.  Using pipe cleaners, cotton-buds and shank brushes dipped in isopropyl 95%, I go to work.  Well…, some time later, I’m still not 100% satisfied with the cleaning of the Peterson ‘sump’ and draft hole.  The old tar and oil gunk is thick and only after employing many weapons in the arsenal is it starting to shape up.  The sump has collected the moisturized gunk as designed.  Along with pipe cleaners, cotton buds and different sized shank brushes, I also use both a dental spatula and probe to stir up and scrape the mortise and sump walls.  I take a picture to show this frontal attack – it isn’t pretty.  Now, to continue the cleaning I’ll use the kosher salt and alcohol approach.  Using kosher salt, which does not leave a taste as iodized salt does, I fill the chamber with salt, cup the top of the bowl with my palm and give it a shake to displace the salt.  I then set it in an egg crate to keep it stable.  Using a cotton ball, I create a wick to stuff down the mortise to act as a wick drawing more of the oils and tars out of the briar.  I make the wick by stretching and twisting the cotton ball and then guiding the end down into the draft hole as far as I can get it – I use a piece of thin metal coat hanger wire to push the cotton through the draft hole.  I also push the cotton down into the sump.   Once that is done, using a large eye dropper, I fill the bowl with alcohol until it surfaces over the salt.  After a few minutes – after it’s been absorbed, I top it off again.  I set the stummel aside to soak through the night. The next morning, the salt-alcohol soak did the job!  The salt is soiled, and the cotton wick is full of tars and oils.  After dumping the expended salt in the waste basket, I wipe the bowl out with a paper towel and blow through the mortise to loosen and left-over salt.  I run a pipe cleaner and alcohol through the draft hole and a cotton bud as well in the sump and the mortise walls to make sure all is clean and I’m happy to report that it is!  From this cleaning, I think a wise practice for any Pete steward would be to clean your pipe often!  Don’t allow too much gunk to collect in the sump.Turning to the Peterson-Lip stem, I use 240 grit paper to sand focusing on the tooth chatter on P-Lip button and the upper and lower bit.  I also refresh the lines of the button contours using a flat needle file.  To erase the scratches made by the file and 240 paper, I use 470 paper.   I then employ 600 grade paper sanding the entire stem and follow this with 0000 steel wool which begins the buffing up of the vulcanite. Before moving on to using micromesh pads on the stem, I use Before and After Fine and Extra Fine Polish on the stem to enrich the vulcanite.  For each polish successively, I place a bit on my finger and work it into the vulcanite.  I then wait a few minutes and wipe each successive polish off with a cotton cloth which also buffs up the vulcanite gloss.I put the stem aside and look again at the Peterson stummel.  I have two initial challenges to solve.  The rim’s dark ring from it being scorched.  Secondly, the small fill on the right-front quadrant of the stummel.  I use a dental probe and dig at it a bit to see how solid the fill is.  Some of the fill material flaked off and left a small indentation as a result. This needs to be filled again and masked. I will patch it before moving ahead with the stummel surface.  But first, I work on the rim.  I use a chopping board with 240 grade paper on it.  To top the inverted stummel, I use uniform, easy circular motions and I don’t need to take much off – just enough to remove the scorched wood.  Switching the paper on the chopping board to 600 grade paper, I top the stummel a bit more to smooth out the 240 scratches.  I take pictures to show the progress.   I notice that there is still a bit of dark wood on the outer rim lip. I’ll take care of that when I’m sanding the stummel rounding off the edge slightly.  I’ll stain the rim’s bare briar a bit later to match the stummel’s surface. Now, to address the fill. I again use a dental probe to scrape the old fill and to remove what is not solid.  To darken the old, remaining fill, I use a cherry stain stick to darken and color the fill so that it will blend with the briar grain better – I hope!  I then apply a small drop of clear super glue to the hole.  I use a toothpick to guide the super glue to the patch – while I was doing this, the power went out and I had to finish using the sunlight coming into the open window!  I put the stummel aside and wait for the CA glue to cure and the lights and internet to come back on! I decide to work on the stem using the micromesh pads. Starting with pads 1500 to 2400 grade, I wet sand the System stem. Then, using 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000 I dry sand the stem.  Following each set of 3 pads, I apply Obsidian Oil to revitalize the vulcanite.  I never grow tired of watching the pop in the vulcanite when it turns to that glassy gloss!  The Peterson-Lip System stem is looking good.  I put it aside to dry and absorb the Obsidian Oil. I turn back to the stummel.  The CA glue has cured on the patch and I begin the process of removing the patch mound by using a flat needle file.  The most important part of this process is to keep the file on the hardened glue and not slide off and to impact needlessly the neighboring briar.  I want to keep the area needing repair and refinishing as small as possible!  I file the glue mound down until it’s almost at the level of the briar surface.  Then, using a tightly rolled piece of 240 grit paper, I sand the mound further, so it is flush with the briar.  Finally, I use 600 grade paper to smooth the patch out preparing it for dye stick to blend the patch.  I think its going to blend very well with the briar. Now, to the rim.  I use 240 grit paper rolled tightly and I run it around the outer rim edge to give it a slight rounding to remove the remnants of damage on the rim.  I gently pinch the rolled paper over the rim edge with my thumb, so I create the slight bevel.  I also do the same, very lightly, to the inside rim edge.  I follow by doing the same with a rolled piece of 600 grade paper.  Finally, I take the stummel back to the topping board once more on 600 grade paper simply to redefine a crisp line around the rim after the beveling.  I think it looks great and ready for the next step. I’m hoping that I can match the dye stick color correctly!  I read on rebornpipes, Steve was restoring a Peterson System Standard and needed to use a dye stick on the rim.  He used cherry and said that it matched the Peterson schema well.  I’ll do the same and see how it goes!  I apply dye to the both the fill patch and the rim.  I wait a while for the dye to thoroughly dry before proceeding.I then sand the stummel with micromesh pads.  I wet sand using pads 1500 to 2400, and then dry sand with pads 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000. To protect the Peterson’s nomenclature, I stay clear of the until the later pads – and even then, a very light touch. As you can see in the pictures above and the focused one immediately below, the nickel ferule of this Pete needs help dealing with the corrosion – it is an eyesore.  Care must be given because metals can be a bit tricky.  One approach that works for silver might turn another metal black!  After doing some quick ‘How to clean/polish nickel plating’ searching on Google, the approaches I found were helpful.  The general theme is to start conservatively and then to work more aggressively – that is, simply washing the nickel with warm water (every source warned about the need to use warm water with nickel – not hot nor cold) and a mild liquid dish detergent.  I do this to begin, and it does brighten the ferule but does not help with the corrosion.  The next step is to make a paste using baking powder (a mild abrasive and acidic) with water.  This I do next with better results.  At first, I have too much water, but eventually I find the ratio to create a thicker paste.  I then apply the paste with my thumb and work it in around the entire ferule but concentrating on the corrosive spots – the main one being over the ‘Peterson’s’ stamp. Afterwards, I gently rinse the ferule with warm water.  I like the progress, but I return to the paste and this time use a cotton pad dipped a bit into the paste and use it in a circular motion over the spot and then rinse.  I buff the ferule with a cloth and I like the results! The corrosion on the nickel is greatly reduced and the ferule looks shinier – but not pristine, still holding some scuffs from life.  I think this is good because he is an older Pete after all! The Pete is looking great.  Before moving to the final stages using abrasive compounds on the stem and stummel, I apply Before and After Restoration Balm to the stummel which has a way of enriching and deepening the briar. In keeping with the product’s name, I take some before pictures to compare with the after pictures – that always interests me.  I put some on my finger and work the Balm into the briar.  The Balm starts more liquidy and gradually firms up into a thicker, wax-like consistency.  After applying, I prop the stummel on an egg crate and let it sit for some minutes to absorb the Balm.  Then, after about 20 minutes, I wipe the Balm off, buffing up the shine with a cloth.  Then I take the ‘after’ pictures which are below for comparison.  I like the results. Because of the military style stem, I leave the stummel and stem separated as I apply compounds and wax.  I begin by mounting a cotton cloth buffing wheel to the Dremel dedicated to the application of Blue Diamond compound.  With the Dremel set to the slowest speed, I apply the compound to the stummel in a slow, patient, methodical manner.  I use the sheen created on the briar by the overhead lamp to see the compound as I move it and direct it over the surface.  For the System stem, I switch cotton cloth buffing wheels and apply White Diamond, which is a finer abrasive than Blue Diamond.  For both compounds, I don’t apply much pressure to the wheel but allow the speed and the abrasive compounds to do the work.  After the compounds, I wipe stummel and stem with a felt cloth to remove compound dust before applying the wax. Then, again changing to another cotton cloth buffing wheel, and increasing the Dremel to about 40% power, I apply a few coats of carnauba wax to both stummel and stem and complete the process with a rigorous hand buffing with a micromesh cloth to raise the shine.

Oh my! The image that comes to my mind as I look at this Republic of Ireland Peterson, is that of a leprechaun, smoking his newly shined up pipe, doing a jig as he dances down the street!  This is the first Peterson on The Pipe Steward worktable and I’m pleased with the results and appreciate more the history of this well-known, proud Irish pipe name.  The grain of this Peterson System is surprisingly expressive and eye catching for a ‘Standard’ grade – a workingman’s pipe.  The nickel ferule came out great providing a classy transition for the military styled P-Lip System stem.  I’m pleased with the results! Greg commissioned this Peterson System Standard 313 and he will have first dibs on it in The Pipe Steward Store.  This pipe will benefit the work of the Daughters of Bulgaria – women and girls who have been trafficked and sexually exploited.  The pictures start with a before and after! Thanks for joining me!