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Third of Five Peterson’s in for restoration that are in rough condition

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by Steve Laug

Yesterday afternoon I was visited by a pipe man here in Vancouver named Sergey who had five Peterson’s pipes that he wanted me to work on. They are shown in the photo below. In the left column from top to bottom: Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL17, Peterson’s of Dublin Filter 68, Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL16 Rusticated Pipe. In the right column from top to bottom Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL16 and the bottom pipe is a Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL14. All five pipes were all thickly caked and had thick lava on the rim top. The cake is so thick that I could not put my little finger in the bowl it was so heavily caked. My guess was that the bottom of the bowl was lower than the entrance of the airway into the bowl. The Rusticated Kinsale XL17 also had a burn out in the front bottom of the bowl that would take a lot more time than just a simple clean up. I would know more about the condition of each of the bowls once I had reamed and cleaned them. Sergey was travelling in two weeks and he chose at least two of them that he wanted to take with him on his trip so those would be first. My hope is to try to finish four of the five. The third of these that he wanted is the next one I chose to work on. It was the Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL14.I took photos of the Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL14 before I started working on it. The finish is very dirty with oils and dirt ground into the briar. There are some nicks and flaws around the bowl sides and at least one fill. The rim top is thickly covered with tarry lava overflowing from the heavy cake in the bowl. It had some burn damage on the front outer edge of the bowl and the bowl was very out of round on the inner edge. The cake was thick and heavy all the way to the bottom of the bowl. The vulcanite stem is also very dirty. There was oxidation, calcification and tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem ahead of the button and lip edge. The P stamp on the left side of the stem is a gold P that is faint and faded. It also has some damage on the surface around the P. I took closeup photos of the rim top and bowl to give a sense of the dirty condition of the pipe and the thickness of the cake and lava on the bowl top. The damage to the rim top and edges is very clear in the photos as well. I also took photos of the stem to show the top and underside ahead of the button.I took photos of the stamping on the shank sides. It was faint but readable through the grime and debris. It read as noted in the above paragraphs. I also took the stem off the shank and took a photo of the look and proportion of the pipe. I started my work on the pipe by reaming the thick cake in the bowl. I used a PipNet pipe reamer with the first cutting head to take back the cake. I followed that with the second and the third cutting head. I was able to remove all of the cake. The cake in the bottom third of the bowl was incredibly hard and took a repeated reaming of that portion. I used a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to scrape the remainder of the cake out of the bowl and clean up the bottom of the bowl. I sanded the bowl walls with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. With the bowl cleaned out I was able to determine that the bowl bottom was in better condition than the first or second pipe. I would need to build up the bottom of the bowl slightly to the entrance of the airway. It would be further protection for the bottom of the bowl and help it from burning out. The issues with the rim top and inner edge would also need to be addressed. At this point I decided to address the rim top and edge damage. There was serious damage to the inner edge. The front of the rim top had been burned and had a slight dip in it. The outer edge in front of the burned rim top was also damaged. I wanted the top to be smooth once again and also wanted to bring the bowl back to round. I started by topping the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper on a topping board to smooth out the damage on the rim surface and clean up the outer edge damage. I was able to significantly clean up the damage. The Kinsales that I have worked on for Sergey have all had a slightly bevelled inner edge so I would need to do that with this pipe as well. It would also clean up the out of round bowl a bit more.I used a wooden sphere and a piece of 220 grit sandpaper to work on the edge and give it a slight bevel. Once finished it looked much better.I scrubbed out the internals with 99% isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. I worked them through the airway in the shank and stem, the mortise. It took a few cleaners and swabs to really clean it but it is looking and smelling much better.I scrubbed the externals of the bowl and shank with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I rinsed it with warm running water and repeated the scrubbing and rinsing process until the pipe was clean and looked better. I used a Cherry stain pen to touch up the rim top to match the rest of the bowl. I did this before sanding the bowl as I would also sand the top at the same time. I think the match was going to be perfect. We would see.I sanded the bowl with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to remove some of the darkening around the bowl. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding debris. It really began to look very good. I polished the bowl with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. Each pad gave it more of a shine. I wiped the bowl down after each pad with a damp cloth. By the end the bowl looked very good. Once I had I polished the bowl I addressed overly deep bowl bottom. I filled in the bottom with a mix of cigar ash and water to make a pipe mud. I pressed it into place with a tamper to flatten it. I put a pipe cleaner in the airway so that I would only fill it to the bottom of the pipe cleaner. I set it aside to dry and harden. It looks much better. It will take awhile to harden but it should deal with the damage. If it shrinks when it cures I will need to fill it in a bit more. At this point I rubbed the briar down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the briar with my fingertips to work it into the finish. The product works to clean, enliven and preserve the briar. I let it sit for 10 minutes then I buffed it with a cotton cloth to deepen the shine. The briar really comes alive with the balm. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I “painted” the tooth marks on both sides with the flame of a Bic lighter. I filled in the two deeper marks on the underside of the stem that remained with black rubberized CA glue and set it aside to cure. Once it had hardened I sanded the with 220 grit sandpaper and smoothed them out. The P logo on the left side of the stem was so faint and damaged but I tried to touch it up with some Rub’n Buff Antique Gold. I worked it into the remaining stamp with a tooth pick. It worked better than I expected but it was not flawless. I sanded the stem with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to take out the scratching and remaining oxidation. I wiped it down after each pad with some Obsidian Oil. It is looking much better now.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. Once again I wiped it down between each pad with Obsidian Oil. I further polished it with Before and After Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. It looked very good. This Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale X14 Rhodesian with a Taper Stem has a beautiful smooth finish that was slightly worn. The reddish brown finish highlights some great grain around the bowl and shank. It has a classic look of a Peterson’s pipe. The polished black vulcanite taper stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel being careful to not buff the stamping. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Peterson’s of Dublin Kinsale XL14 is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inch, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 2.36 ounces/67 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. I have two more pipes to finish but these three are ready to pick up and Sergey can take them on his travels. The last two I will give back when he returns. Thanks for your time.

Fixing the Unfixable

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by Kenneth Lieblich

Strap yourself in – this is going to be a wild ride! My cousin-in-law likes to send me pipe projects that are a little off the beaten track. They also usually end up being quite tricky and this one is no exception. He sent me two meerschaum-lined pipes that have been badly damaged and require repair. One pipe is a Kiko, from Tanganyika in eastern Africa, and the other is from Ropp, the venerable pipe-maker of St Claude, France. Although the briar exteriors are fine, the meerschaum interiors of the bowls are a complete disaster. The Kiko looks as though it’s probably been dropped at some point. Meerschaum is quite fragile, so no wonder it cracked so badly. The Ropp is equally bad, but I think that’s because it was badly reamed rather than dropped. Who knows and, quite frankly, the answer is of academic interest. They both suffered from having a cake which is not a good idea for meerschaum. I subjected these pipes to my usual cleaning procedures – for both stem and stummel – but I’m going to gloss over those details today. To be clear, both stems were deoxidized, repaired, sanded, and polished. In addition, the briar parts of the stummels were thoroughly cleaned, sanded, and polished too. I also did a thorough, but exceptionally careful, cleaning of the insides. I needed to remove as much filth as possible, but liquids like water, alcohol, etc., don’t do well with meer. As an aside, the Ropp had a substantial crack in the briar and this only added to the complexity of the repairs.In this blog post, I’m skipping writing about the usual stuff in order to focus on the major issue with these pipes – the busted meerschaum lining and how to fix it. In consulting with Steve, he mentioned a post on a blog from a few years ago that talked about repairing this very thing. The blog is called ‘Baccy Pipes’ and the fellow’s name is Troy W. I want to give him full credit for starting me on my research for this job. Here’s the link to his repair: https://baccypipes.wordpress.com/2017/06/10/old-time-meer-lining-repair-method-on-a-1930s-kaywoodie-shellcraft-5651/. The curious thing about this repair was that Troy used a mixture of egg white and chalk to mend the broken meerschaum. As he writes:

I had read and heard from other pipe restores that a old late 19th-early 20th century druggist recipe for fixing broken meerschaum was egg whites and finely ground chalk, so that was what I was going to try and fix the meer lined rim with. It is said to have about the same porous properties of meerschaum and imparts no taste to the tobacco.I was immediately intrigued and my brain began to ruminate on this. In the past, Steve and I have both used plaster of Paris when repairing meer-lined bowls. What about egg and chalk? Putting together the ingredients would be no problem: chalk, that is to say, calcium carbonate is easy to acquire. And then a thought struck me – I wonder if I could do an experiment on the properties of both calcium carbonate and a product that’s much closer to meerschaum in composition. Meerschaum is a type of magnesium silicate – and so is talc. They are not identical substances, but surely closer than chalk. If I could buy some pure, unadulterated talc, that might prove to be a good option. Well, it turns out that getting pure talc with absolutely nothing else in it was not as easy as I thought. I did eventually find a small package for sale on Amazon and it ended up being shipped from Germany (no idea why) to my home on the west coast of Canada. Let’s have a quick look at the insides of the two bowls, because they have different problems and very different sized apertures. The Ropp had the much larger bowl, and its insides were more damaged at the bottom. There was a surprising amount of meerschaum missing at the bottom and it is difficult to convey this in photos. However, the photos do clearly show the large chuck missing from the rim. I suspected that, although the width of the bowl meant it would be easier to access, it would require the most work and be the most difficult to repair satisfactorily. The Kiko had its own set of problems. There were also missing chunks on the rim, but the cracks inside were devastating. The width of the bowl meant that I could get nothing larger than my pinky finger inside. A small piece of broken meerschaum fell out from one of the cracks while I was inspecting it. That didn’t bode well. Now let’s start cracking some egg! Obviously, I took two dishes and mixed up a batch of chalk and egg white in one and talc and egg white in the other. Both materials were powdered, so I had no concerns about overly large particles in either mixture. During mixing, the talc seemed grittier than the chalk, but it was difficult to assess this properly and difficult to know how much to mix into the egg white. I put the two blobs on a piece of cardboard for a couple of days and let them set. Once dry, I conducted my own absurdly unscientific compressive strength test on both materials as a way of determining straight away if one material was clearly superior to the other. There wasn’t any obvious difference – and any differences I may have detected could easily have been a figment of my imagination. Both materials seemed about equal. I opted to try the talc first – for no other reason than it was chemically closer to meerschaum.I took both stummels and wrapped all of the wood in painter’s tape. I had nightmarish visions of what could happen to these pipes if I got the eggy goo on them. Better safe than sorry. I started applying the egg/talc mixture to the Kiko first. I wanted to make sure than the cavernous cracks were completely filled with the stuff. I needed a good bond and I added more than I needed – assuming there would be some shrinkage in the drying process. Similarly, I smooshed the mix on the Ropp too, hoping for the best. There’s no way to sugarcoat this: the whole process was a mess. Really a mess. Once the pipes had dried overnight, I took a look and I wasn’t particularly impressed with my work. But a more detailed examination was needed, so I put on a sanding mask and set about removing the excess material. I used sandpapers of various grits on dowels, sandpapers on my fingers, and sandpapers on my topping board. Hmm. The results were ok, but no better than that – and ‘ok’ just isn’t good enough for me.I hadn’t put enough material inside the Ropp – there were still areas that needed to be built up. I also felt that the material on the rims of both pipes was just too brittle – especially on the Kiko. Perhaps I was wrong to try talc.Round two. This time I repeated the entire process with egg white and chalk. Old boys in days of yore used it, so why not me? I won’t bore you by rewriting the same slathering and sanding process as above, but, the chalk mixture yielded no better results than the talc. The extra layer of goo was good insofar as it added more protection to the walls – but the results may have been the same if I’d added more talc. Sadly, the chalk did not seem to improve the frangibility of the rim.Round three. More slathering and sanding. I added a bit more egg/chalk mixture to bulk up areas that needed it and I hoped that perhaps the rim would somehow magically be improved.Round four – yes round four. This time – a slight change. I opted to return to the material that Steve and I have both used successfully in the past – plaster of Paris. This was not a complete redo, as before, but merely touch ups (in some cases aided by a drop of glue). At this point, I was placated by the plaster and felt that the results were acceptable – not perfect, but acceptable. Once the sanding was done, I could remove the painter’s tape and finish the pipes off. The Kiko needed some colour added to the rim after all the topping. I used my furniture pens to match the colour and it came out very well.Both pipes went on the buffing wheel and they look great. This was a very timing-consuming and enormously frustrating process. In the end, I learned quite a few things about the repair of meerschaum. Just like everything else, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. I think egg/talc or egg/chalk is fine for small repairs, where the cracks are small and not structural. But larger repairs require something different: either grafting on a spare piece of meerschaum (which I have done successfully in the past) or using a more reliably solid goo like plaster of Paris.The Kiko and Ropp are much improved and I hope my cousin will like them. I hope you enjoyed reading the story of these pipes as much I as I did restoring them. If you are interested in more of my work, please follow me here on Steve’s website or email me directly at kenneth@knightsofthepipe.com. Thank you very much for reading and, as always, I welcome and encourage your comments.

Restoring and Restemming a John Crouch Heavyweigh Rhodesian

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By Steve Laug

A while back I received an email reaching out about a pipe that the writer, Anthony had acquired long ago and wanted to know if I had heard of it. He wrote the following email:

Hello, I am just wondering if in all your refurbishings you’ve come across any pipes stamped with the name John Crouch? I would love to send you photos but don’t see a way possible to do that. I’ve had this for 20 years and don’t really remember where I picked it up. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

I wrote him back and asked for photos of the pipe and the stamping so I had something to work with. For me this always helps in the hunt for the identity as generally it gives me a lot of information. Anthony wrote back and sent some photos for me.

Hi Steve, thank you for the quick response!! Here are a few shots I have of this beauty. It’s one of the only bulldogs I’ve seen without the double lines engraved into it. Like I said in my first message. I’ve had it for 20+ years. If I had to guess I picked it up in Colorado when I lived out there. I would love to hear what you think. Thanks again!!! ps. if you need more photos let me know. The third photo he included gave a clear look at the stamping on the left side of the shank. It read John Crouch [over] HEAVYWEIGH [over] Italy. My initial thinking before doing any digging on the brand is that it was a pipe made for a pipe shop by someone like Savinelli (Italy). It is stamped with what I think is the shop name. I think that the “T” is missing on the end of HEAVYWEIGH as the shank is to short for the stamp. But some digging will clear that up.I wrote Anthony back with what I found. I was surprised that Pipedia included the brand but not surprised that it confirmed my suspicions about it being a pipe shop pipe. Here is my email:

The pipe is a beauty Anthony. I did a bit of digging and found this information on https://pipedia.org/wiki/John_Crouch

“John Crouch Tobacconist embodies the essence of Virginia. After all, tobacco is Virginia’s oldest industry. Years ago, tobacco was believed to have medical properties and a tobacconist was consulted in much of the same way that a pharmacist is today. In those days, a tobacconist would create a blend of tobacco products to ease an ailment. John Crouch Tobacconist has been home to the Washington areas’ nicest and largest humidor for over 30 years.” Apparently they also have pipes made for them under their name. I have also included photos from that listing. Hope that helps – Steve

I am including the following photos from Pipedia and the advertising page that Anthony sent as well as they give a clear picture of the manufacturer of the pipe and the shop it was made for. Now I really want to visit this shop! Anthony wrote back and I include that below. I think his idea of calling or emailing them is perfect. He also asked if I would consider working on it if he chose to send it to me.

Hey Steve, Thanks for the info. I, too, found this but didn’t think it was associated with the shop in Virginia!!! I guess I need to give them a call or email them to try to get to the bottom of this. Thanks for the help. Actually, two other things. 1.Is there a reason so few bulldogs lack the double engraved lines around the bowl? 2. If down the line what would a refurbishing run me? Rough estimate, nothing set in stone find of thing. Again. Thanks for your quick responses and your time.

I answered him that I would gladly take on the project for him for the chance to see the pipe up close and personal. I answered his other questions about the lack of rings around the bowl cap. Some time went by and he wrote again.

I also wanted to thank you for helping me figure out my John Crouch Heavyweigh pipe!! I contacted and talked with one of the guys down there in Alexandria, VA. He said, yes, back in the 70’s they in fact imported these Italian pipes then stamped and sold them. I would love to send you this pipe for a restoration. If you could send me your address I’ll send it off in the next few days. I should have ask first if you have time or backed up on restorations? Or when would be a good time to send it to you?

I look forward to seeing what you can do to this amazing pipe. I love how detailed your blog posts and restoration process are!!

Thank you again and hope to hear from you soon.

I answered and Anthony wrote that he had sent the pipe to me. He also included another piece of information that would be important in the restoration and repair.

Hey Steve… I should tell you I did break a chunk of the stem off. I slipped off a step as I was walking down then and unfortunately one of my reactions was to bite down and it broke the mouth piece of the stem. I think I have them still. If I can find the pieces should I send them?

Thank you in advance. I can’t wait to see the transformation and the documentation on the blog. All the best!! Anthony

The pipe arrived yesterday just as I finished the repair on the table that was ahead of it. Great timing! I opened the box and took photos of the pipe as I examined it to get a clear assessment of the work that lay ahead of me. Before I took the photos I removed the Softee Bit from the stem so I could see the damage on the stem top that Anthony had mentioned. I love the shape of the pipe – to me a Rhodesian without the rim cap rings but still the right shape. The pipe is well used and must be a great smoker. There was a moderate cake in the bowl and lava on the rim top. The inner edge of the bowl is rough and shows some reaming damage leaving it out of round a bit. The finish is dirty and there are some spots of varnish or shellac remaining around the bowl and shank. There are a few fills but they are solid. The pipe is stamped on the left side of the shank and reads as noted above. The stamp is clear and readable. I wonder if the HEAVYWEIGH stamp is missing the “T” but suppose we won’t know for sure. The stem is well fit but the damage on the topside was more extensive than I thought once I remove the Softee Bit. I have mad patches this big before but really never have been happy with the suspected lack of durability of them. I think this one would be better off with a new stem. I took some closeup photos of the bowl and rim top to show the condition. You can see the damage on the inner edge and the generally roughness of the top and edge. The photos of the stem surface show the size of the damage. I hope you can see my rationale for restemming this one rather than making a patch that large.I took a photo of the stamping on the shank. It is clear as noted. You can also see why I wondered if the HEAVYWEIGH portion is missing the T. You can also see the shellac or varnish on the shank in this photo. To give a sense of the proportion of the of the pipe I removed the stem and took a photo of it. This will help me when I choose a new stem for it.Now to work on the pipe itself. I started by reaming it with a PipNet Pipe Reamer. The bowl was large enough that I used the second and third cutting heads. I took the cake back to bare briar. I cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. I also scraped off the lava build up on the rim top with the knife. I sanded the bowl walls with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a dowel. I took it back to smooth walls. The walls looked very good with no sign of checking or burning. I cleaned out the shank, mortise and the airway in the bowl with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol. It took a lot of cleaners but I got the grime and oils out of the shank and though the pipe smelled of tobacco it was much cleaner smelling than previous to that. I chose not to clean the stem since I was going to replace it.With the internals cleaned I turned my attention to the rim top. I worked over the inner edge of the bowl and the rim top with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I then gently topped the bowl on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper. I cleaned up the inner edge a bit more. The pipe looked amazingly good. I wiped down the bowl with acetone soaked cotton pads to remove the varnish/shellac coat. It was particularly heavy around the stamping on the shank – both sides. It took much work to remove the shiny coat. I sanded the bowl with sanding pads – 320-3500 grit pads. I dry sanded it and wiped it down with a damp cloth after each pad. I was able to remove all of the shiny coat and the bowl began to take on a natural shine. I stained the rim top with a Cherry stain pen to match the rest of the briar. I also stained the lighter areas around the shank end. The rim top looked much better.I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding debris on the surface. I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I used a shoe brush to work it into the twin rings around the bowl cap. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth and shoe brush to raise the shine. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to a new stem. I found a blank in my can of stems that was close to the right diameter and just slightly longer. With a few adjustments to the tenon and the diameter at the shank the fit will be good. You can also see the large broken chunk missing on the original stem in the photo below. In the second photo below, I knocked off the casting debris with a Dremel and sanding drum in preparation for using my tenon turning tool.I used the PIMO tenon turner to bring the tenon down close to the size that I wanted. I do this in stages as the tool can chip the tenon if you take too big a bite at one time. The second photo shows it getting closer. I paused mid turn to show how it cuts away material. Once I cleaned it up the fit was very close. Some sanding would make the fit perfect. I used a small flat file to remove the casting marks on the sides of the stem and fine tune the tenon fit in the bowl and took some photos of where it stands at this point.I started sanding the diameter of the stem to match the shank and then decided to give it a quick bend. I heated it with the flame of a lighter until the vulcanite was soft then bent the end to get the angle correct. I checked it against the original stem and the bend matched. Good to go! Now I had a lot of hand sanding to do to trim back the diameter to fit the shank. I do this next part all by hand with the stem removed and constantly putting it on the shank and checking progress. It is tedious so I can think of other things while sanding. It makes the process a bit of a respite. I can’t tell you how many hours of sanding this took but it is finally there. The fit is right and now it is time to polish it. Once the fit was correct, I started polishing out the scratch marks and smoothing the stem with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with an Obsidian Oil impregnated cloth. It removes the dust and also gives the sanding pads some bite. By the final pad it was looking quite good.Following my usual process in restoration I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished it further with Before & After Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to absorb the oil. The John Crouch Heavyweigh(t) Rhodesian has been restemmed and is finished other than the final waxing and buffing. I polished the new stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the remaining small scratches and gave it several coats of carnauba. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad on the buffer 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. The dimensions are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 45 grams/1.59 ounces. It does not feel heavy and the weight certainly does not put it in a heavy category for me. I will be sending it back to Anthony shortly. I look forward to hearing what he thinks of it once he has it in hand. If the condition was any indicator it is a good smoker. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this John Crouch Heavyweigh(t) Rhodesian.

Reworking another trade, a Borlum KB&B Italian Briar Unbreakable Stem Bent Billiard

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by Steve Laug

A month or so ago I received an email from a fellow in Japan who had some pipes he wanted to sell. We came to an agreement and he sent me a few. One of them was this interesting smooth finish Bent Billiard. This pipe is stamped on the left side of the shank with the words BORLUM in an arc over KB&B in a cloverleaf. Underneath that it is stamped ITALIAN BRIAR in a reverse arc. On the right side of the shank it is stamped UNBREAKABLE BIT. The stamping was clear and readable. The band on the shank is cosmetic and original and reads KB&B in a cloverleaf [over] Nickel Plated. The bowl had been reamed and the pipe cleaned. The shank is very clean inside and the pipe smelled very clean. It was so clean that I don’t think the pipe had been smoked since the fellow in Japan picked it up. The rim top was clean though there were some scratches and darkening and the inside edge of the rim showed some nicks. There was no damage to the outer edges. The finish around the bowl was in decent condition with great grain under some of the grime and scratching. The stem looked good, though it was not centred on the shank. The diameter of the stem extended beyond the band on the right side and a little above the top and underside. I would need to reduce the stem diameter to fit the shank band. There were some light tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside ahead of the button. Overall, I am happy with it but I will need to rework the stem fit to the shank and clean up the rim top and edges. I took photos of the pipe before I started my work on it.  I took a photo of the rim top to show the condition of the bowl and the top. You can see clean bowl and marks on the rim top. The inner edge is slightly out of round. The stem looks good with light tooth damage and no oxidation on the surface of the hard rubber. It will look much better once I trim down the top, underside and the right side of the stem.I took photos to show the stamping on the sides of the shank and the nickel band. It is clear and readable as noted above. You can also see the fit of the stem to the shank on the top and the right side. I took the stem off and took a photo of the pipe to show its condition.

From an earlier Borlum pipe that I had refurbished back in 2014, I had learned a lot about the background of the manufacturer of the brand. I quote from that blog to summarize the historical background of the pipe (https://rebornpipes.com/tag/kbb-borlum-pipes/). The italicized portions of the text come from the blog with minor edits.

I already knew that Kaufmann Brothers and Bondy was the oldest pipe company in the USA, established in 1851. The Club Logo predated Kaywoodie with the “KB&B” lettering stamped within the Club, and a multitude of KB&B lines were in production long before “Kaywoodie” first appeared in 1919. Therefore, I knew that the pipe I had was a pre-1919, pre-Kaywoodie KB&B Made BORLUM.

As noted above, this particular pipe is stamped on the left side of the shank with the words BORLUM in an arc over KB&B in a cloverleaf. Underneath that it is stamped ITALIAN BRIAR in a reverse arc. On the right side of the shank it is stamped UNBREAKABLE BIT. As stated above it was made before Kaywoodie became the flagship name for pipes from Kaufman Brothers & Bondy (KB&B). It was made before the Kaywoodie invention of the “Stinger” was added, and even before shank logos, model stamps and other features invented by Kaywoodie came to be standards of the pipe making industry. It comes from a time when names like Ambassador, Heatherby, Melrose, Suez, Rivoli, Cadillac and Kamello dominated the pre-Kaywoodie scene. Borlum is one of those names.

I learned while researching for that blog and rediscovered while working on this one that the Borlum pipe featured some innovations that were new for the time but commonplace to us. These included (1) a solid rubber bit (vulcanite, ebonite), (2) an aluminum inner-tube construction in the stem that stabilized and strengthened the stem explaining the stamping of “Unbreakable Bit” on the right side of the shank, (3) a standard nickel-plated band (marked KB&B) to strengthen the shank connection for the stem. The stem features the older style more rounded bit tip/orific button, and you can see the aluminum inner-tube fitting just inside the tip.

I have included several pictures that I found on the internet that show the unique stem tube in the Borlum that gives rise to the claim that it has an Unbreakable Bit. The first photo shows the bent stem, third from the left with the same metal tube showing at the button. The second photo shows the other end of the tube in the tenon in the Borlum stem. That told me that the pipe I had was made after 1851 and before 1919. I am guessing that because of the other pipes in this lot dating in the late 1890s to about 1905 this one is probably from that same era. Not too bad for a 100+ year old pipe. During the hunt for information, I also found the next photo of a Borlum display and sales card. What is particularly interesting to me is the diagram at the top of the card showing the interior of the stem in place in the shank. It also includes the claim, “Guaranteed against Breakage”. I love the advertisements and sales brochures of these old pipes. The descriptive language that promises so much and the prices the pipes sold for are a nostalgic journey to the past. Note the $1 and up price tag on the sales card. The pipe that I am working on presently is identical to the bottom pipe on the right side of the photo. I have circled it in red. It has the identical shape, curved shank but has a nickel-plated band like mine. It has the hard rubber stem with an orific button. It is more rounded than the modern flat stem but it is still a comfortable feeling stem in the mouth.Now it was time to work on the pipe. I decided to deal with the diameter of the stem against the shank first. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to take off the extra diameter of the stem on the right side and the top and bottom. I also sanded the tooth marks and chatter on the stem surface. It was a lot of handwork and fussing to get the fit correct. Once finished it looked much better. I worked over the stem with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to smooth out the scratches left in the hard rubber surface of the stem. Once finished the stem had a deep shine and really looked much better.I polished the stem surface with micromesh sanding pads. I dry sanded it with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down between pads with an Obsidian Oil impregnated cloth. I finished polishing it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. It looked much better. I set the stem aside and turned my attention to the bowl. I smoothed out the damaged inner edge of the bowl with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. It looked much better. I started polishing out the damage on the rim top with the 220 grit sandpaper. It looked much better.I wiped the bowl down with isopropyl alcohol on a cotton pad to remove the shiny wax or shellac coat on the bowl surface. It cleaned up very well. There was a deep sandpit/flaw on the lower front left side of the bowl. I filled it in with a combination of CA glue and briar dust. I sanded the repair with 220 grit sandpaper and smoothed it out into the surrounding briar. I touched up the sanded spot on the bowl front with a Walnut stain pen. It matched the rest of the bowl surface. Once I polished it some it would blend in very well.I polished the bowl and the shank with 1500-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads. I dry sanded with each pad and wiped the briar down with a damp cloth after each pad. I paused the polishing and touched up the stain on the bowl front and the rim top. It really was looking much better at this point. Once it cured I went back to polishing with the micromesh. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the finish of the bowl, rim top and shank with my fingertips and a shoe brush to get it in to the crevices and valleys. The product works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I find that the balm really makes the briar come alive again. I let the balm sit for 15 minutes and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The bowl really looks good at this point. I polished the nickel ferrule on the shank end with a jeweller’s cloth. It works to polish and protect the metal from further oxidation. It is a great looking addition to the pipe. With the bowl and the stem finished I put the Borlum KB&B Italian Briar Bent Billiard with an unbreakable stem back together and buffed it on the wheel using Blue Diamond to give it a shine. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the wheel. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. It really is a great looking pipe. The dimensions of the pipe are – Length: 4 ½ inches, Height: 1 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/8 inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of this large pipe is 1.20 ounces /33 grams. This Borlum KB&B Italian Briar Bent Billiard is another great looking pipe. It is much more beautiful in person than these photos can capture. I will be putting it in my older American Pipe Collection to enjoy in the future.  This is another pipe that has the possibility of transporting the pipe man or woman back to a slower paced time in history where you can enjoy a respite. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me.

Restoring one more pipe for an old pipeman – a 1990 Calich Hand Made Grade 10 Apple

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by Steve Laug

Earlier this month I received an email from Kathleen regarding one more Calich pipe for her husband. Here is here email.

… another abused Calich pipe that he had shamefully squirrelled away…

…About the poor abused Calich… a lovely pipe but he has two torch burned damage areas on a rusticated band around the top of the bowl… it might make more sense to cut it down below the rusticated band but I absolutely defer to your wisdom in the matter.

All Calich pipes deserve to be saved. — Kathleen

I agreed with her and I replied to Kathleen and invited her to send the pipes to me in Vancouver. They arrived just this week. I put on the Billie Holiday Disc and went through the package. Next to the four CDs there was a carefully bubble wrap bag with a pipe inside. It is by far the worst of the damaged pipes that I have worked on for this fellow. This one is an oval shanked apple shape pipe. It is stamped on the underside of the shank and read G followed by CALICH [over] Hand Made [over] 10 and above that 90. The rim top and the first ¼ down is rusticated in typical Calich style. The rest of the bowl was smooth as was the shank. The pipe had a very thick cake in the bowl and there was a lava overflow and burn damage on the top. There was some major burn damage under the lava on the mid-front edge of the bowl as well as a deep burned area on the left side toward the back of the left side. The burn marks on both were like a large bite out of the briar as can be seen in the photos. The shank had a thick coat of tars and oils and the stem had a thick tar build up as well so its fit in the shank was very sticky and dirty. The saddle stem itself is vulcanite with a single silver dot on the topside. It was heavily oxidized and had light tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem just ahead of the button. There were overflowing tars on the smooth shank end around the fit of the tenon in the mortise. There was a nickel repair band on the shank end that was oxidized and looking at the shank end there were some cracks in the shank. The finish was very dirty and oily but the grain I could see through the grime and tars appeared to be quite nice. A lot would be revealed once I had cleaned it. I took photos of the pipe before I started my cleanup work. I took a close-up photo of the bowl and rim top to show its condition. The inside of the bowl was heavily caked with a wet, oily tars up the sides and over the rim top. The rim top had damage on the front and on the back-left side. It is the worst as it is quite thin and is like a deep bite mark down the sides of the bowl. It left a mess for me to clean up. The stem was also is a mess. There was some light tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside ahead of the button. There was a thick coat of calcification and oxidation on the stem. The silver dot on the stem top was tarnished but very visible. I took a photo of the bowl with the stem removed to show the look of the pipe.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is clear and readable as noted above. I am once again including information about John Calich the pipemaker as I have loved John Calich’s pipes for over 25 years now and have collected a few of them. I have restored quite a few of them and written blogs about them that can be read if you are interested in seeing the kind of pipes that John made. They are unique and beautiful. Each of his pipes are a work of art to me. I am including the links to the previous blogs that have written about his pipes.

https://rebornpipes.com/2015/03/03/one-of-my-john-calich-pipes-a-calich-ee-billiard/

https://rebornpipes.com/2019/01/23/i-am-the-happy-owner-of-an-unsmoked-pipe-by-the-late-john-calich/

https://rebornpipes.com/2015/03/03/one-of-my-john-calich-pipes-a-calich-ee-billiard/

https://rebornpipes.com/2014/03/21/reflecting-on-my-collection-of-john-calich-pipes/

Each of the blogs reflects on John’s pipes if you want to get a feel for them take a few minutes and read them.

When John was living I spoke with him several times via phone and had him make some new stems for some of his pipes that I picked up off eBay. He was a very kind gentleman and was always helpful when I spoke with him. He was always ready with encouragement and when I needed to know how to do something when I was first learning to repair pipes he was willing to help. He was one of the old guard of Canadian Pipe makers. I miss him. I am including a short piece from Pipedia on John to give details on his work and the grading of his pipes. The second paragraph below is highlighted in blue as it gives some information on the Grade 10 Apple that I am working on with the single silver dot now. I am also including a photo of John Calich, courtesy Doug Valitchka

John Calich was one of Canada’s finest carvers. He died in July 2008. John was a full-time pipe maker for the last 40 years. Calich pipes were mostly traditional shapes. His signature style is rustication and smooth on the same pipe along with his unique skill to stain a pipe in contrasting colors. He used only top-quality Grecian and Calabrian briar. The mouthpieces are hand finished Vulcanite “A”. Each pipe was entirely made by hand. John Calich was featured in the summer 2005 issue of Pipes & Tobacco.

His pipes are graded 3E – 7E. Retail prices range from$ 145.00 to $ 500.00 Each pipe is stamped “CALICH” 3-8E, his earlier pipes were graded from 3-14, and a single, tiny silver dot is applied to the top of the stem (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Calich).

I summarize the dating information from those blogs now: From my research and conversations I learned that John’s later pipes were graded 3E – 8E. The retail prices for them ranged from $145.00 to $500.00. Each pipe was stamped “CALICH” and given an E grade. His earlier pipes were graded from 3-14 and had a single, tiny silver dot applied to the top of the stem. More information can be found at the Pipedia article above. All of this information told me as expected that the pipe I had was an earlier one.

Armed with the information about John’s grading system I knew that the pipe in hand was an earlier Calich Hand Made Grade 10 Oval Shank Apple pipe and the 90 told me it was made in 1990. Now it was time to work on the pipe. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer using the 2 and 3rd cutting heads to remove the cake back to bare briar. I cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to scrape back the remaining cake. I sanded the bowl with some 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel to smooth out the walls of the bowl. Once it was clean I turned my attention to the rim top. There was so much damage to the rim top that I decided to use Kathleen’s suggestion and trim off the damaged areas. I flattened out the damaged areas with a wood rasp to take it down so the sides were even. I used a Dremel and sanding drum to even it out and then topped the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper on a topping board to give the rim top a smooth surface. It looked better but the inner edge is rough on the left side and the outer edge is bad on the front side.I built up the outer edge damaged area on the front of the bowl with clear CA glue and briar dust. I did the same on the left side inner edge and rim top. Once finished it really looked like a mess.I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper and a medium grit sanding sponge to flatten the repaired areas on the exterior of the bowl. I also used the folded 220 sandpaper to smooth out the inner edge a bit. Later I would do a better job on that but I was just trying smooth it out for the next step.I scraped the shank with a penknife to remove the thick build up of tar and oil. The knife let me take it back to the briar without damaging the walls of the shank and mortise. I scrubbed the inside of the mortise, shank and airway in the shank and stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. Before I called it a day I stuffed the bowl with three cotton bolls until it was almost even with the rim top. I used a rolled cotton boll to plug the shank end. I used an ear syringe to fill the bowl with isopropyl alcohol. I set it aside in a pipe rest to let the alcohol leach out the oils into the cotton. I turned out the lights and let is sit overnight. In the morning I turned on the lights and this is what I found. The cotton was a dark brown both in the bowl and shank end. I removed it and took photos of the cotton with the tars. I used a piece of 220 grit sandpaper and a wooden sphere to give the inner edge of the bowl a bevel. Once it was finished it looked much better. Last evening I had come to a decision to rusticate the rim top and down the bowl side about ¼ inch around the sides. But to start I wanted it smooth.With the rim top smooth I used a series of burrs on my Dremel to rusticate the surface of the bowl and edge. It began to take on shape. I used a black stain pen to stain the rusticated portion of the bowl and rim top. The rustication was very similar to what I have seen on a lot of Calich pipes. The contrast was going to be nice once I finished working on the smooth portion of the bowl. I worked over the rustication with a brass bristle wire brush to clean off the burrs and debris on the rustication. Once I knocked it off I took photos of it to show the look of the bowl at this point. I polished the smooth bowl sides and shank with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down with a damp cloth after each pad. It looked very good with the rusticated portions. I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the smooth and the rusticated briar with my fingertips and a shoe brush to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for ten minutes then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. Mark Hoover’s Balm is a product that I have come to appreciate and one I use on every pipe I have been working on. I polished the nickel band on the shank end with a jeweller’s cloth to remove the oxidation and protect the metal from reoxidizing as quickly. It took on a good shine.  I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I “painted” the stem surface of the stem with the flame of a Bic lighter to lift the tooth marks and chatter on the surface. I was able to remove them all.I scrubbed the oxidation on the stem surface with Soft Scrub and cotton pads and was able to remove the majority of it. The cleaning was progressing and it was looking better.I sanded the stem with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to break up the remaining oxidation. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with a soft cloth. It began to take on a shine. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. Once I had finished the polishing I gave it final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. This is another pipe from Kathleen that I am working on. It is another beautifully shaped 1990 John Calich Hand Made Grade 10 Apple Pipe. It has the kind of beauty I have come to expect from John’s pipes with a rusticated rim top and first ¼ inch of the bowl side. I put the bowl and stem back together. I polished the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the scratches in the briar and the vulcanite. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I 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 rusticated finish is well done and the polished smooth finish on the shank end and rim top look really good with the black vulcanite stem. This Calich Hand Made Apple was a challenging pipe to bring back to life. It is a comfortable pipe to hold in the hand. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 ¼ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 42 grams/1.48 ounces. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. I will be sending it back to Kathleen later this week for her husband to enjoy.

Cleaning up another one of my restorations from many years ago

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by Steve Laug

I have always liked the GBD 9438 shaped pipe and this one was one that I picked up many years ago when I first started working on pipes. I found it at an antique shop. It was in the early days when I picked up most every pipe I found. I believe that like others I found in the early days this pipe cost me about $6CDN. Just remembering that reminds me how much things have changed over the years. It became a favourite shape of mine and over the years I have purchased many more 9438 pipes made by GBD for their main and their seconds lines such as Irwin and Dr. Plumb. I have added them to my collection. Here is a link to a blog I did on my collection back in 2013 (https://rebornpipes.com/2013/12/12/my-gbd-9438-saddle-stems-and-tapered-stem-rhodesians/). I have 12 – some were in rough shape and others not so bad. I have been sorting through my pipe collection and thinning out pipes that I am willing to part with. I have sold many already and others are currently on the store. For the most part these pipes have been early restorations and all needed a bit of work to bring them up to my current standard. I have set aside three 9438 pipes that I decided to rework. This is the second of them. It is stamped on the left side GBD in the oval [over] Gold Label [over] Made in France. On the right side it is stamped with the shape number 9438. While it was very workable and I had actually smoked it quite a bit over the years I knew that original restoration on it was less rigorous than my current standards. So, before I listed it for sale I wanted to work it over again. I took photos of the pipe to give a sense of the beauty, the French take on the 9438 shape and the work that needed to be done. I took photos of the pipe’s bowl and rim top to show the moderate cake in the bowl and some darkening on the bevelled rim top and a nick on the front outer edge of the bowl. I also took photos to capture the condition of the stem. It had some light oxidation and tooth chatter and marks on the top and underside ahead of the button.I took photos of the stamping on each side of the shank. It is readable and clear as noted above. The oval GBD brass rondel is visible on the left side of the saddle stem.I took the stem off the shank and took a photo of the look of the pipe. It an interesting take on a 9438 shape. Unique and beautiful.I decided to address the damage to the rim top and inner edge of the bowl. To deal with the burned inner edge of the rim and the rim top damage I worked on the edge with a piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I used a piece of 220 grit sandpaper on a wooden ball to further clean up the bevel. It took a bit of work to smooth out the damage and the darkening on the bevelled inner edge of the bowl. It looked much better at this point. I reamed the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to take out the cake. I removed ti back to bare briar. I sanded the bowl walls with a piece of 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a dowel to smooth out the walls. It looked very good. No burn damage or checking on the bowl walls.I scrubbed out the shank and the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to remove the tars and oils. The shank was dirty though the stem airway was not too bad. It cleaned up well.I sanded the bowl and rim top to start smoothing out the rim top and start the polishing of the bowl. I also worked on the burn mark on the lower right of the bowl/shank union. I used 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped the bowl down with a damp cloth after each pad. It really began to take on a shine. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding debris on the surface. I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth and shoe brush to raise the shine. I set the bowl aside and turned to address the stem. I “painted” the stem with the flame of a Bic lighter to lift the remnants of tooth marks that remained in the stem from the last time I worked on it. It worked very well and the dents lifted so that sanding the marks that remained removed all the remnants.I sanded the stem surface with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to remove all the marks remaining from the tooth damage. I wiped the stem down after each pad with a cloth impregnated with Obsidian Oil. It looked much better.It was in good condition other than the light tooth chatter so I polished the vulcanite with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. This GBD Gold Label Made in France 9438 Bent Rhodesian cleaned up much better this second time around and looks very good. The Before & After Restoration Balm brought the colours and grain out in the smooth finish on the pipe. It works well with the polished vulcanite saddle stem. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel. I followed that by buffing the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished GBD Gold Label 9438 Rhodesian fits nicely in the hand and I think it feel greats as it heats up with a good tobacco. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 inches, Height: 1 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¾ inches, Chamber diameter: 1 inch. The weight of the pipe is 2.08 ounces/59 grams. It is time to move it on to someone who will give it proper attention. I will be adding this one to the French Pipemakers Section of the rebornpipes store shortly. If you want to add it to your collection let me know. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it.

A Kennett No.1 Billiard Another Brilliant Attempt at a Cool Dry Smoke

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By Steve Laug

The next pipe on the work table is a pipe that we picked up from a seller in Cottage Grove, Minnesota, USA on 02/02/2022. This one was a unique fluted, pinched shank take on classic Billiard. It is stamped on the topside of the shank and reads Kennett [arched over] No 1. On the underside of the shank it is stamped London Made [over] Made in England [over] Reg’d 731096. The smooth, fluted finish around the bowl shows some nice grain patterns. There was grime and oil ground into the finish around the bowl. The fluted carving on the bowl sides and the holes around the rim go down the ridges to the bottom of the bowl. There was a moderate cake in the bowl and tobacco debris on the walls and heel. The rim top had lava overflowing from the bowl. It was thicker on left back of the rim top. The edges looked good but a clean up would tell the story. There was some thinning around the inner edge of the bowl affecting the holes in the rim top. The vulcanite taper stem was oxidized and had some tooth chatter and tooth marks on the top and underside ahead of the button. The interesting pipe showed a lot of promise but it was a mess. I took pictures of the pipe before I started my clean up work. I took photos of the rim top and bowl as well as the stem surfaces to show the condition of the well smoked pipe. You can see the thick cake in the bowl and the lava on the inner edge and rim top. There is also some roughening on the inner edge but the out edge looked good. There was a small nick in the outer edge on the left backside. The stem was oxidized, calcified and had scratches and light tooth chatter and marks on both sides ahead of the button.I took photos of the stamping on the sides of the shank and stem. The stamping is clear and readable as noted above. Before I started working on the pipe I wanted to do a bit of research and see what I could learn about it. First, I looked on Pipephil for The Kennett London Made No 1 and was unable to find any information there. There was no logo on the shank or the stem to help identify the brand.

I turned then to Pipedia (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Kennett) and found a very short entry there. I quote it below. There were photos of several pipes, a Kennett Box and a pamphlet that gave some information. I quote it below:

J.A. Kennett, LTD. in London were the makers of the Kennett pipe (photos thank to Doug Valitchka). I also Googled and was able to find a link to a Kennett for sale on smokingpipes.com (https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipes/estate/england/moreinfo.cfm?product_id=372529). There was also a photo that are worth look in at. I have included the description that was written about the pipe below.

This 1930s Billiard from Kennett is really unique, with its vertical, fluted channels opening up into tiny, hollow holes on the rim, resulting in an intriguing aesthetic. But wait: There’s more. Paired to the pert, tall bowl is a tapered, pinched, paneled shank that is unusual and is complemented by the bowl’s ridges. The jet-black vulcanite stem is also tapered. This smooth piece is dressed in a warm, chestnut stain that accentuates all of the above, and the fluting certainly provides entertainment for nimble fingers. -Angela Robertson

I also found a link on Google for an auction on Worthpoint for an unsmoked Kennett that was for sale there (https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/kennett-briar-unsmoked-air-cooled-469502789 . I have included the description that seller included with the item.Here’s an auction for sale. A The Kennett Briar “Air Cooled” Briar Pipe made in London England in the 1950’s or earlier. The bowl has 10 holes drilled down thru the bowl wall on the ribs on the bowl. The pipe will be very cool to touch and to smoke because of the air cooled circulation in the holes and around the rib cuts. The Kennett Briar pipe is Air-Cooled, Cool as a Cucumber, Light as a Feather, Sweet as a Nut says J. A. Kennett, Ltd.9/11 Tottenham Street London, W. The Kennett Guarantee says every care has been used in selecting well seasoned Briar Root for making of this Pipe, and it is guaranteed with fair usage not to crack or burn. The stem is English Vulcanite.

Now I knew that the pipe was made between the 30s and 50s. The Reg’d number on it makes me think that is an older one – possibly from the 30s. I would not be able to further pin the date down on the pipe. Now it was time to work on it.

I started my work on the pipe by cleaning up the lava on the rim top. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to clean it up. I carefully cleaned the darkening on the inner edge at the same time. I scraped the cake around the bowl sides with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe knife and then sanded the walls with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. The walls were smooth and showed no burn damage. I cleaned out the interior of the shank, mortise and airway in the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. It was a dirty pipe.I scrubbed the externals of the pipe with Mark Hoover’s Briar Cleaner (extra strength). I cleaned the surface of the briar with my fingertips working product into the surface of the briar. I scrubbed it with a tooth brush working it over. I rinsed off the Mark’s Briar cleaner with warm water to remove the debris and grit that it had collected. I dried it off with a soft cotton cloth and took some photos of the pipe at this time. There was burn damage on the rim top that was going to remain. The holes down the sides of the bowl from the rim top were thin so I did not want to remove any of the briar. I chose to leave the burn marks as they are. I used a Maple stain pen to touch up the rim top. It matched the colour of the stain on the rest of the bowl. Once it was polished it would blend in very well. I polished the bowl with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with a damp cotton pad after each sanding pad. The briar really took on a patina that began to look better with the polishing. I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. It is a paste/balm that works to deep clean the finish, enliven and protect the briar. I work it into the briar with my finger tips to make sure that it covers every square inch of the pipe. I set it aside for 10 minutes to let it do its work. I wiped it off with a soft cloth then buffed it with a cotton cloth. The briar really began to have a deep shine. The photos I took of the bowl at this point in the restoration. You see the shine that the briar has taken on and the way grain pops with the light buffing. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I worked on the oxidation on the stem with Soft Scrub and was able to remove it. Lots of elbow grease and working over the surface but it started to look much better.I sanded the stem with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to break up the remaining oxidation. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with an Obsidian Oil impregnated cloth. It was looking good.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. Once I had finished the polishing I gave it final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I am glad to be on the homestretch on what was a mystery pipe when I started. I really am looking forward to the final look when I put a pipe back together, polished and waxed. I polished the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the scratches in the briar and the vulcanite. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I 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 grain pops with the wax and polish. The shiny black vulcanite stem is a beautiful contrast to the browns of the bowl and shank. This The Kennett No1 Reg’d 731096 Billiard was interesting pipe to work on. The pipe is comfortable pipe to hold in the hand. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.45 ounces/41 grams. This Kennett pipe is a great piece of history of the ongoing search for the cooler and drier smoke. I will be adding it to the British Pipe Making Companies Section on the rebornpipes store shortly. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I working on it.

As always, I encourage your questions and comments as you read the blog. Thanks to each of you who are reading this blog. Remember we are not pipe owners; we are pipemen and women who hold our pipes in trust until they pass on into the trust of those who follow us.

Restoring a Beautiful Imperial Old Bruyere 188 Chunky Billiard

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By Steve Laug

The next pipe on the work table is another pipe is another pipe that we picked up from the estate in Oregon City, Oregon, USA on 03/21/2024. This one was a nice looking thick shanked Billard that reminds me of Dunhill LB pipes. It has some nice grain patterns. It is stamped on the left side of the shank and reads Imperial in script [over] Old Bruyere [over] Made in England. To the right of that is stamped the  which is the symbol for a Registered Trademark. On the right side of the shank it is stamped next to the bowl with the shape number 188. The smooth finish had some very nice grain but there was a lot of grime and oils ground into the finish around the bowl and the shank. The pipe was dirty but is quite nice natural tones of the briar. There was a moderate cake in the lower portion of the bowl. The inner edge looked quite good. The outer edge was rounded and damaged giving the rim top a crowned look. The stem seems to be hard rubber rather than vulcanite that leads me to think it is an older pipe. It has a stamp on the left side of the taper that reads Imperial with the tail of the “l” curving under the rest of the stamp in the same script as the stamp on the shank. It had some light oxidized and had some tooth chatter and tooth marks on the top and underside ahead of the button. The pipe showed a lot of promise but it was a mess. Jeff took pictures of the pipe before he did his clean up work. He took photos of the rim top and bowl as well as the stem surfaces to show the condition of the well smoked pipe. You can see the light cake in the bowl and the light lava on the inner edge and rim top. There is also some roughening on the outer edge at the front and back of the bowl. It appears to have been rounded over giving the rim top a bit of an artificial crown. The stem was lightly oxidized, calcified and had scratches, tooth chatter and marks on both sides ahead of the button. Jeff took some photos of the sides and heel of the bowl to give a sense of the grain and the shiny varnish or shellac coat on the exterior of the bowl. It is definitely an addition that will need to be removed. He captured the stamping on the sides of the shank and stem. On the left side it reads as noted above. On the right side it is stamped with the shape number 188. To capture the stamping on the left side Jeff had to take a few extra photos. I turned to Pipephil to get a quick overview of the background information on the Imperial brand (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-i.html). There was no background information on the site this time but the photos below are helpful in terms of the stamping on the shank and the stem.I turned to Pipedia for more information (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Tobacco_Co.). I quote the article below.

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

The Imperial 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.

See also: Civic. Brands involved: Comoy’s, Bewlay, Nording, Ogden’s, Salmon & Gluckstein, and Steel’s

There was a great older advertisement on the link as well that highlighted the age of the brand. I have included that below.Now it was time to look at it up close and personal. Jeff had removed the cake and the lava on the rim top. He had reamed the bowl with a PipNet Pipe Reamer and cleaned up the remnants with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He took the cake back to bare briar so we could check the walls for damage. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime on the bowl and rim and was able to remove the lava and dirt. He cleaned out the interior of the bowl and shank with shank brushes, pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol until they came out clean. He cleaned the stem with Soft Scrub to remove the grime on the exterior. He cleaned out the airway with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. I took some photos of the pipe before I started my work on it today. I took a close up photo of the cleaned up rim top. The rim top and the inner edge look good. The damage on the outer edge of the bowl shows up as rounding on the front and the back of the bowl. The bowl is clean and the walls are undamaged. The stem looks good with some tooth chatter and marks along the top and underside ahead of the button. The stem is hard rubber which makes the work more difficult on the tooth marks.I took a photo of the stamping on the shank side. It is clear and readable as noted above. I took the stem off the pipe and took a photo. The thick shank billiard is an attractive looking pipe with nice lines. The taper stem shows tooth damage on the top and undersides of the stem. I started my work on the pipe by working over the rim top and the bowl and shank with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped the bowl down after each sanding pad. The bowl began to take on a shine. I used a Cherry stain pen to restain the rim top and edges to match the colour of the rest of the bowl. The match will be perfect once I finish the next stage of polishing.I polished the smooth rim top and areas on the bowl and shank with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. After each pad I wiped the bowl down with a damp cloth to remove the sanding debris. It really took on a shine and the fills were less noticeable by the last three sanding pads. I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips where it works to clean, restore and preserve the briar. I let it do its magic for 15 minutes then buffed it off with a cotton cloth. The pipe looks incredibly good at this point in the process. I set aside the bowl and turned my attention to the stem. I “painted” the tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem with the flame of a Bic lighter. I was able to lift all of them to the point where sanding the stem with 220 grit sandpaper should smooth the rest of them out.I touched up the faint stamping on the left side of the taper stem with white acrylic fingernail polish. I pointed it on with the applicator and scraped off the excess and lightly sanded it with a 1500 grit micromesh pad. I sanded out the remnants of the tooth marks with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper and was able to remove all of the remaining marks. Once finished the stem looked very good.I sanded the stem surface with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped down the stem after each pad using a cloth impregnated with Obsidian Oil. It started looking better as each step took it closer to the finished look.I continued to polish the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished it further with Before & After Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to cure. I am excited to finish this Imperial Old Bruyere  Made in England 188 Billiard. I put the pipe back together and buffed it with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine and then by hand with a microfibre cloth to deepen it. It is fun to see what the polished bowl looks like with beautiful straight grain all around it. The polished grain on the pipe looks great with the black hard rubber stem. This Imperial Old Bruyere Billiard is great looking and the pipe feels great in my hand. It is light and well balanced. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 6 inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 53 grams/1.87 ounces. It turned out to be a beautiful pipe. I will soon be putting it on the rebornpipes store in the British Pipemakers Section. If you are interested in adding it to your collection let me know. Remember we are the next in a long line of pipe men and women who will carry on the trust of our pipes until we pass them on to the next trustee. Thanks for your time reading this blog.

Cleaning up a Pipe Hunt Find from Idaho

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by Steve Laug

A few weeks ago, I visited my Dad and family in Idaho Falls, Idaho. While there my Brother Jeff and I did a bit of pipe hunting. We did not find much but we did find an interesting Banker shaped pipe in an Antique Mall. The price was right ($35USD) so we picked it up and brought it home to Jeff’s house. The surface of the briar has been roughened, perhaps by steel wool or a wire brush. The finish was rough to the touch but it looked like there might be some nice grain underneath. With the use of a lens I could read the stamping on the topside. It read House of Lords [over] Made in England. There was the remnant of the shape number on the right side of the shank next to the bowl. It could be a 52S shape. The bowl had a cake in it and the rim top had a thick coat of lava built up. The stem had a crown stamp on the topside of the saddle. The stem was lightly oxidized and there were tooth marks on the top and underside ahead of the button. I took a few photos of the pipe in the car on the way home and have included them below. I reamed the pipe while I was staying with Jeff. I forgot to take photos of the pipe before I reamed it. I brought it home to finish my work on it. I took photos of the pipe when I took it out of the box this afternoon. Jeff had scraped the lava off the rim top and we cleaned up the outside of the bowl. You can see the damage to the finish in the photos below. Whoever had done the work on it had made a mess of it. This was going to be a fun one to bring back to life. I took a photo of the rim top and bowl to show the condition of both of them. The bowl itself looked quite clean after our reaming. The rim top showed some darkening on the top and down the outside edges where it had run over the rim top. The inner edge was rough from being reamed with a knife and would need to be cleaned up. The photos of the stem show the light oxidation and tooth marks/chatter on both sides ahead of the button.I took a photo of the stamping on the side of the shank. The stamping was clear and readable as noted above. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo to show the proportions of the pipe. I turned to Pipephil’s site (www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-h3.html#houseoflords). I did a screen capture of the section on the site. It shows the stamping on the left side of the shank that matches the stamping on the topside of the pipe I am working on. The crown stamp shown on the stem I have is a lot like stamping on the stem I have. I am including the information from the side bar that says that House of Lords is a brand from Samuel Gordon and possibly a Sasieni second (J.M. Lopes, op. cit.). I further followed the link to “Gordon” and learned that Samuel Gordon had founded the brand “GORDON” in 1910-20 eras. This is the link for Gordon brand of pipes; www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-g4.html#gordon

From there I turned to the Sasieni listing on Pipedia and scrolled down to the list of seconds that was given there (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Sasieni#Sasieni_Seconds). From that information I learned that the pipe was definitely linked to Sasieni. The fourth listing in the screen capture Now I knew I was dealing with a Sasieni made pipe which helps explain the stamping on the pipe including the Made in England on the topside of the shank. I did a quick search of rebornpipes and found an article on a pipe I had restored that was the same shape as this one. I have included the link (https://rebornpipes.com/2015/10/25/cleaning-up-a-london-made-charleston-banker/). Have a look at the blog and you will see the shape I am referring to. I am also including some photos of the pipe that show the parallels to the one that I am working on now. I turned to work on the pipe next. Since it had been reamed and cleaned a bit I could forgo that part of the process. I used a 320 grit sanding pad to remove the darkening from the rim top. There was some burn damage on the back inside edge and the front inside and outside edge. I Then used a piece of 220 grit sandpaper and a wooden ball to give the top an inward bevel that took care of the damage to the inner edge and cleaned up the rim top. The pipe was beginning to look much better. I still needed to sand the rough finish but I liked the rim top at this point. I sanded the bowl with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to smooth out the roughened finish. I wiped it down after each sanding pad to get a sense of the progress on the finish. It was looking better with each pad I used. I wiped the bowl and shank down with alcohol on a cotton pad to remove the sanding dust and get a sense of the grain around the bowl sides. I am very happy with how it is looking at this point. I polished the bowl with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with a cotton pad and a drop of olive oil after each sanding pad. The briar really took on a patina that began to look better with the polishing. I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. It is a paste/balm that works to deep clean the finish, enliven and protect the briar. I work it into the briar with my finger tips to make sure that it covers every square inch of the pipe. I set it aside for 10 minutes to let it do its work. I wiped it off with a soft cloth then buffed it with a cotton cloth. The briar really began to have a deep shine. The photos I took of the bowl at this point mark the progress in the restoration. You see the shine that the briar has taken on and the way sandblast has depth. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I sanded the stem with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to break up the remaining oxidation. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with an Obsidian Oil impregnated cloth. It began to look good.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. Once I had finished the polishing I gave it final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. More than usual at this point in the restoration process I am excited to be on the homestretch. I really am looking forward to the final look when I put a pipe back together, polished and waxed. I polished the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the scratches in the briar and the vulcanite. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I 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 grain pops with the wax and polish. The shiny black vulcanite stem is a beautiful contrast to the browns of the bowl and shank. This House of Lords Banker was another fun pipe to work on. The pipe is comfortable pipe to hold in the hand. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 2.08 ounces/59 grams. The pipe will be on the rebornpipes store shortly in the British pipe makers section. If you are interested in adding it to your collection let me know. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I working on it. As always, I encourage your questions and comments as you read the blog. Thanks to each of you who are reading this blog. Remember we are not pipe owners; we are pipemen and women who hold our pipes in trust until they pass on into the trust of those who follow us.

Restoring the fourth of five pipes for an old pipeman – a 1986 Calich Hand Made Grade 8 Opera

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Blog by Steve Laug

Earlier in June I received an email regarding restoring some pipes for her husband. Here is here email.

I have one Calich and one Dunhill pipe which my husband destroyed using a torch lighter on. I am wondering if it is possible to get them restored somehow. If you want to have a look I can send pics.

I wrote and asked for photos of the pipes. She wrote that there were actually 5 pipes not two and included photos of all five. I asked her if she was wanting to sell them or just repair them. Here is her response.

No… I don’t want to sell (yet) he’s 86 and has taken up smoking his pipes again. He was using a torch lighter until I discovered and replaced with proper pipe lighters. For now I’m wondering if it’s possible or even wise to restore them. – Kathleen.

I replied to Kathleen and invited her to send the pipes to me in Vancouver. They arrived just before I left for my visit with my Dad in Idaho. Here is what I found when they arrived. There were three Caliches, a Dunhill, and an Ed Burak Connoisseur. The Calich Pipes included a rusticated straight Opera, a bent Rhodesian with an octagonal rim cap and an acrylic stem. The Dunhill was a sandblast Billiard with a repair band on the shank. The Ed Burak Connoisseur was a bent Bulldog. All had rim top damage from being lit with a torch lighter. Some were in worse condition than others. The worst were the Calich Opera and the Dunhill Billiard which had torch damage on the left side of the rim and down the bowl side. The others had varying degrees of burn damage. I set them aside until I returned home from my visit. She sent me photos of the next pipe, a Calich Opera Pipe. I took the pipes out of the box and laid the group out on my worktable. I took some photos of the group to show their condition. The photo of the left side of the shank shows the damage I mentioned in the earlier paragraphs. The right-side photo looks very good. The photos from the rim top show a lot of damage and the overall condition of the pipes very clear. After looking through the last two pipes I decided to work on the last of the Calich pipes and by far the one with the worst damage of the three. This one is a rusticated oval bowled pipe or Opera that is stamped CALICH [over] Hand Made [over] 8 and above that 86. It had a smooth rim top, shank end and a rectangle on the underside for the stamping. The pipe had a very thick cake in the bowl and there was a lava overflow on the top. There was also a ball of unburned tobacco in the bottom half of the bowl. There was some major burn damage under the lava on the front edge of the bowl toward the front right as well as a deep burned area on the left back side and edge. The burn was like a large bite out of the top and left side of the bowl as can be seen in the photos. The shank had a thick coat of tars and oils and the stem had a thick tar build up as well so its fit in the shank was very sticky and dirty. The stem itself is vulcanite with a single silver dot on the topside. It was oxidized and had light tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem just ahead of the button. There were overflowing tars on the smooth shank end around the fit of the tenon in the mortise. The finish was dusty and tired but had a nice rustication under the grime and appeared to be in good condition. A lot would be revealed once I had cleaned it. I took photos of the pipe before I started my cleanup work. I took a close-up photo of the bowl and rim top to show its condition. The inside of the bowl was heavily caked with a wet oily tobacco and a ball of tobacco in the bottom half. The rim top had damage on the front right in the photo below as well as on the back left. The back left side is the worst as it is quite thin and is like a deep bite mark down the side of the bowl. It left a mess for me to clean up. The stem was also is a mess. There was some light tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside ahead of the button. There was a thick coat of calcification and oxidation on the stem. The silver dot on the stem top was tarnished but very visible.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is clear and readable as noted above. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the silver dot on the stem top. I am once again including information about John Calich the pipemaker as I have loved John Calich’s pipes for over 25 years now and have collected a few of them. I have restored quite a few of them and written blogs about them that can be read if you are interested in seeing the kind of pipes that John made. They are unique and beautiful. Each of his pipes are a work of art to me. I am including the links to the previous blogs that have written about his pipes.

https://rebornpipes.com/2015/03/03/one-of-my-john-calich-pipes-a-calich-ee-billiard/

https://rebornpipes.com/2019/01/23/i-am-the-happy-owner-of-an-unsmoked-pipe-by-the-late-john-calich/

https://rebornpipes.com/2015/03/03/one-of-my-john-calich-pipes-a-calich-ee-billiard/

https://rebornpipes.com/2014/03/21/reflecting-on-my-collection-of-john-calich-pipes/

Each of the blogs reflects on John’s pipes if you want to get a feel for them take a few minutes and read them.

When John was living I spoke with him several times via phone and had him make some new stems for some of his pipes that I picked up off eBay. He was a very kind gentleman and was always helpful when I spoke with him. He was always ready with encouragement and when I needed to know how to do something when I was first learning to repair pipes he was willing to help. He was one of the old guard of Canadian Pipe makers. I miss him. I am including a short piece from Pipedia on John to give details on his work and the grading of his pipes. The second paragraph below is highlighted in blue as it gives some information on the Grade 12 Apple that I am working on with the single silver dot now. I am also including a photo of John Calich, courtesy Doug Valitchka

John Calich was one of Canada’s finest carvers. He died in July 2008. John was a full-time pipe maker for the last 40 years. Calich pipes were mostly traditional shapes. His signature style is rustication and smooth on the same pipe along with his unique skill to stain a pipe in contrasting colors. He used only top-quality Grecian and Calabrian briar. The mouthpieces are hand finished Vulcanite “A”. Each pipe was entirely made by hand. John Calich was featured in the summer 2005 issue of Pipes & Tobacco.

His pipes are graded 3E – 7E. Retail prices range from$ 145.00 to $ 500.00 Each pipe is stamped “CALICH” 3-8E, his earlier pipes were graded from 3-14, and a single, tiny silver dot is applied to the top of the stem (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Calich).

I summarize the dating information from those blogs now: From my research and conversations I learned that John’s later pipes were graded 3E – 8E. The retail prices for them ranged from $145.00 to $500.00. Each pipe was stamped “CALICH” and given an E grade. His earlier pipes were graded from 3-14 and had a single, tiny silver dot applied to the top of the stem. More information can be found at the Pipedia article above. All of this information told me as expected that the pipe I had was an earlier one.

Armed with the information about John’s grading system I knew that the pipe in hand was an earlier Calich Hand Made Grade 8 Opera pipe and the 86 told me it was made in 1986. Now it was time to work on the pipe. The PipNet reamer would not fit in the bowl so I reamed the oval bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to scrape back the remaining cake. I would finish my cleaning of the bowl later by sanding it by hand. Once it was clean I turned my attention to the rim top. I cleaned up the inner edge of the bowl with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I flattened out the damaged area with the sandpaper to give a flat surface for my repair. I topped the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper on a topping board to give the rim top a smooth surface. I decided to work on the repair to the deep burned area on the left side of the bowl. I cut a piece of briar out of a cracked bowl I keep around for just this purpose. I eyeballed the shape of the divot and used a hacksaw blade and a carving knife to remove the chunk that I would use. I shaped the piece of briar more closely to the shape with a Dremel and a sanding drum. I mixed up a batch of JB Weld and applied the mixture with a dental spatula to the divot on the bowl side and on the underside of the cut piece of briar. I pressed the piece of briar into divot on the bowl side. I held it until it started to set and then set it aside to cure. I purposely used a little taller piece of briar than necessary as it gave me material to work with. I have found it simpler to work with the larger piece and then remove the excess. Once the JB Weld set enough for the repair not to move I set it aside to cure. Once the piece was solid in the repair I decided to work on the internals. I scraped the inside of the mortise with a dental spatula to remove the hardened tars and oils that lined the walls of the shank. Once I had that done I cleaned out the airway to the bowl, the mortise and the airway in the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. When I finished the pipe smelled very clean. Once the repair had cured I used a Dremel and sanding drum to remove the excess briar and flatten out the rim top as much as possible with the tool. I then topped the bowl again on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper to get a smooth rim top. With the top flattened, I used files to reduce the inner edge and reshape it to match the inner edge on the right side of the bowl. It took a bit of time and working through several needle files but it looked much better when I finished. I still had some work to do on the rim top and the inner edge but it was very close. I am still trying to decide if I will leave the rim top smooth or rusticate it to match the bowl rustication. Time will tell! I mixed up another batch of the JB Weld and spread it on to the inside wall of the bowl to protect the area where the bowl and inserted piece joined. This would keep the heat from following the repair joint out to the exterior and create potential burnout in the bowl. I set it aside to allow the JB Weld time to cure and harden before I sanded it smooth.I scrubbed the briar with some Before & After Briar Cleaner and a tooth brush and wiped it off with a clean paper towel. The Briar Cleaner removed a lot of built up grime and oils from the grooves of the rustication and the bowl looked much better. I polished the smooth rim top with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down with a damp cloth after each pad. I was able to smooth it out nicely and it did not look too bad. The repaired area actually blended in very well. I would not need to rusticated it! I touched up the sanded and rebuilt rim top with a Cherry stain pen. The match on the rim with the rest of the pipe is perfect.Once the internal coating of JB Weld cured I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth it out. I then mixed a batch of bowl coating with some sour cream and charcoal powder and coated the walls of the entire bowl. I used two teaspoons of sour cream and four of the Charco caps to mix a black/grey mixture that I use for the bowl coating. I applied it to the walls of the bowl with a folded pipe cleaner and covered the interior of the bowl with it so that it was smooth. I set it aside to cure. Once it hardens and dries it is odorless and leaves behind no lingering taste. I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for ten minutes then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. Mark Hoover’s Balm is a product that I have come to appreciate and one I use on every pipe I have been working on. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I “painted” the stem surface of the stem with the flame of a Bic lighter to lift the tooth marks and chatter on the surface. I was able to remove it all. I sanded the stem surface with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the remaining chatter marks. I wiped the stem down with an Obsidian Oil cloth and it looked much better at this point.I sanded the stem with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to break up the remaining oxidation. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with a soft cloth. It began to look good. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. Once I had finished the polishing I gave it final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. This is the fourth of five pipes from Kathleen that I am working on. It is another beautifully shaped 1986 John Calich Hand Made Grade 8 Opera Pipe. It has the kind of beauty I have come to expect from John’s pipes with a smooth rim top and shank end. I put the bowl and stem back together. I polished the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the scratches in the briar and the vulcanite. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I 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 rusticated finish is well done and the polished smooth finish on the shank end and rim top look really good with the black vulcanite stem. This Calich Hand Made Opera Pipe was a challenging pipe to bring back to life. It is a comfortable pipe to hold in the hand. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ¾ inches, Height: 1 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1inch x 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch x ½ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 27 grams/.95 ounces. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. Once I finish the last pipe in the lot I will be sending them back to Kathleen for her husband to enjoy.