Tag Archives: bowl topping

A Pipe for Vanity – a Stanton for a Stanton

6 Replies

Blog by Dal Stanton

I suppose it IS vain to restart my restoration operations after 6 months with a pipe bearing my name.  In my recent travelogue blog, ‘There and Back again – to Bulgaria’, I described what I called my ‘Vanity Pipe’ as one of the 105 pipes I acquired during our 6 month US visit.  I came across this name-sake while trolling eBay’s offerings.  I hadn’t come across a ‘Stanton’ before and so I decided to place a bid.  As it turned out, I was the only Stanton bidding on the Stanton and claimed my Vanity Pipe with no competition.Name aside, the medium sized billiard looked to me like he was a hearty pipe – I will see if he’s a good smoker.  Yet, if the heavy use, thick cake, and banged up stummel is any indication of the former steward’s affections, I would say it was very much part of the rotation and saw much active duty!  The eBay seller provided good pictures of the Stanton which show the numerous challenges, but also the potential.  The grain is attractive and will look great when the surface is refurbished and polished up.  Here are some the pictures I saw on eBay. ‘STANTON’ is stamped on the left side of the shank, and ‘IMPORTED’ over ‘Briar’ on the right.  Of course, one of my first questions when I landed the Stanton from eBay was, where was this pipe manufactured?  Are there any clues?  My first inquiry was in Wilczak & Colwell’s, ‘Who Made That Pipe?’  Stanton was listed but designated as ‘Unknown’.  My next stop after Pipedia came up empty, was PipePhil.eu where I found my first Stanton cousin listed:There were some differences in the nomenclature – my Stanton has ‘Imported Briar’ stamped on the left side shank.  The specimen from Pipephil has ‘Genuine Briar’ under Stanton.  Another difference is the dot.  My Stanton’s saddle stem has no identifying mark.  Yet, what was very clear from the comparison of the ‘Stanton’ on both pipes is that the same stamp pressed Stanton in the briar.  The font is identical.  My Stanton is the lower comparison. Simple google searches revealed the clan was larger with additional Stanton cousins showing up demonstrating a variety of shapes being produced under the Stanton name.

Two cousins from eBay:The only thing I found of a Stanton that provided any remote tidbit on origin was from SmokingPipes.com where the listing was for a very attractive Stanton Rhodesian described as an American Estate pipe.  I liked Eric N. Squires’ description which I thought was apropos for my rugged and worn billiard:

American Estates: Stanton Smooth Rhodesian

Product Number: 004-009-6323

Here is another example of a pipe that was built extra stout, where it is a good thing that it was. This is because whoever else owned it, sure as hell didn’t baby it. I can see why they kept it so long though, as the broad chamber promises plenty of flavor, the drilling is nice and straight, and wide, firmly rounded bowl is pleasing in hand.

– Eric N. SquiresSo, it’s starting to become clearer – my new Vanity Pipe isn’t quite as vain as I!  He has humble origins it would seem.  If anyone can add information to this query into this Stanton’s roots, I would be appreciative.

When I take a closer look at the Stanton billiard on my Pipe Steward work table here in Sofia, Bulgaria, I take a few more pictures to chronicle some of the challenges.  The rim is in rough shape, with most of the front quadrant showing heavy wear – almost looks like the edge was scraped on concrete. The cake is heavy and thick in the chamber and will need to be removed to reveal the condition of the chamber wall.  The bowl surface is grimy and dark with old finish, several pocks and dents.  Surprisingly, I do not detect any fills – the briar underneath the surface carnage looks to be very expressive, with much flow and character.  The heel of the stummel is populated with tight bird’s eye grain. The saddle stem looks to be in good condition, with some oxidation and wee bit of tooth chatter and dents.  The old screw in stinger needs to be cleaned along with the nickel insert/band – which seems to be a consistent design with the other Stantons.  I did note that the set of the tenon, when fully engaged, is under-clocked.  I’ll need to address this as well.   I begin the restoration of my first pipe after a 6-month hiatus AND one bearing my name by inserting a pipe cleaner into the stem, through the stinger, and putting it into OxiClean solution to raise the oxidation from the vulcanite.  As a side note, after reading several of Steve’s posts testing and then using Before & After Deoxidizer from Ibepen.com, I decided to try it.  I brought a bottle of it back with me to Bulgaria along with the balm and polishes.  Down the road I’ll give them a try.Turning to the stummel, I begin the reaming process with my newly acquired vintage Swiss Made Pipnet reaming kit made with heavier duty hard rubber.  Previously, I used the acrylic version that Pipnet put out later which tended to be more prone to breaking – the blades cracked on harder jobs.  With a bit of patience watching eBay, the older, stronger Pipnet system surfaced and I’m thankful to have it back in Bulgaria! Now, to take the new Pipnet blades for a test spin!  After putting some paper towel down to help in cleanup, starting with the smallest blade, I work on removing the hard, thick cake.  The blade went through with little effort.  The next larger blade did its job as well.  I then used the Savinelli Fitsall reaming tool to fine tune, removing more of the carbon in the harder to reach places.  Then, wrapping a piece of 240 grade sanding paper around a dowel rod, I sand the chamber walls and finish the job wiping out the remaining carbon dust with a cotton pad wetted with alcohol.  The pictures show the reaming process. Turning to the rim and the stummel surface, I need to clean the lava off the rim and the grime on the briar surface.  Using undiluted Murphys Oil Soap, I scrub the rim and surface with a cotton pad.  I also utilize a brass brush to work on the rim which will not add to the damage already present.  I then rinse the stummel with cool tap water.  While I’m working on the surface, I take 0000 steel wool and clean the nickel plate band/connector.  An inspection of the clean chamber walls reveals no problems.After the surface cleaning, I take a closer look at the stummel surface.  The rim will need to be topped, but it is possible that the severe outer lip damage to the rim can be leveraged to my advantage.  I can introduce an outer, rounded bevel and blend it with the freshened top.  This can allow less real estate to be lost in the topping process.  Along with the dents and pocks I saw before, I notice a dark area on the left front quadrant of the stummel which may indicate overheating of the stummel.  I also note that in the shank area, around the stamping, the old, shiny finish persists.  I want to remove all the old finish, especially around the stampings. To address this old residue of finish I use acetone and a cotton pad and make short work of the finish.  As hoped, the surface is now clean.Before moving further with the surface, I attack the internal cleaning of the mortise and airway.  I use pipe cleaners, cotton buds wetted with isopropyl 95% to do the dirty work.  I also use a dental probe to scrape the mortise surface and to excavate the oils and tars that have congealed over time in the airway.  That was the frontal attack.  With grunge still surfacing on the cotton buds, and with the late hour approaching, I decide to use the passive-aggressive approach.  Using Kosher salt, I fill the bowl and then add alcohol to sit overnight to work on cleaning the mortise.  I set the stummel in an egg crate to provide stability.  Then I fill the bowl with Kosher salt – not iodized salt which leaves an aftertaste.  I then stretch and twist a cotton ball, to create ‘wick’ to draw the crud out of the mortise as the salt/alcohol does its work.  I then fill the bowl with isopropyl alcohol 95% until full.  I wait a few minutes and top it off.  With that, I turn off the lights and head to bed.  Another day coming.  The next day, as hoped, the salt and cotton wick showed signs of the extraction of old oils and tars from the internals of the stummel.  I clean out the dried salt and used a dry paper towel and bristle brushes to remove the residue salt.  I also blow through the airway to help out.  Even after the salt treatment, there is gunk left in the mortise.  I continued to scrape the mortise wall with a dental spatula and follow with cotton buds dipped in alcohol to finish the job.  The pictures tell the story. I put the stummel aside to work on the stem, now soaking in OxiClean.  After taking it out of the soak, I take a picture and see that a moderate amount of oxidation had raised to the surface.  Taking a piece of 600 grade paper I wet sand the stem removing the oxidation from the vulcanite.  I also use a brass brush to remove the caked residue off the stinger.  Taking a close look at the bit, there were only very small dents remaining after the sanding.  I returned with the 600-grade paper focusing on those minute points and the stem is looking good. On a hunch, after the cleaning of the stinger and the mortise receptor band/plate, I refitted the stem to see if it still was under-clocked a few degrees as I saw earlier.  As hoped, the cleaning corrected the alignment – now, looking down the pipe from the steward’s view, one sees a true alignment.  Nice..To complete the clean-up, I turn to the stem using pipe cleaners dipped in isopropyl 95%.  I also utilize a long-bristled brush.  I find that utilizing the set of bristled brushes that I acquired some time ago saves on the pipe cleaners and are effective in getting at the gunk.  Stem and stummel are now clean. The rim needs my attention now.  I take a close look again.  I will top the stummel using 240 grade paper on a chopping board.  Looking at the first picture below, most of the external rim damage is on the front – 7 to 11 o’clock in the picture.  What I’m a bit concerned about is the large internal rim divot at the 2 o’clock position.  I’ll top a little and see if can address this without taking too much briar off.  Otherwise, I’ll need to fill it with a superglue/briar dust patch to build it up to the rim surface.On the topping board with 240 grade paper, I rotate the stummel as evenly as I can to avoid leaning in one direction or the other.  I check the progress to make sure I’m not leaning into softer wood.  I take some intermittent pictures below to show the progress.  I come to a point where not all the damage is removed, but enough that can be addressed by cutting bevels in the external and internal lips of the rim.  To me, applying bevels to rims generally makes it look classier.  I finish the topping by using a sheet of 600 grade and rotate the stummel several times to provide a smoothing of the surface.  The pictures show the progress.  Without going any further with the topping, I look closely at the dents and pocks on the stummel surface.  I see that some of the ‘pocks’ as I’ve described them may be very small fills on the underside of the shank and one on the top.  The fill is a light material.  The shank-side of the stummel is especially banged up with small dents.  I utilize sanding sponges to remove these and work toward smoothing out and rounding of the outer rim lip to remove the damage.  Careful to avoid the stampings on the shank, I progress by using the roughest grade, medium then fine grade sanding sponges in order.  I’m pleased with the results with most all the damage removed from the stummel.  The rounding of the rim looks great.  The pictures show the progress. The inner lip of the rim is next.  The one major divot at the 2 o’clock position I decide is too deep to remove it by creating an internal bevel.  To build this divot up, I apply a few drops of Hot Stuff Special ‘T’ CA Glue.  I’ll let the glue sit overnight before I bevel the inside lip. The next day, the CA has cured well.  To re-establish crisp rim lines, I take the stummel again to the topping board covered by 600 grade paper.  I’ll remove the CA glue mound and redefine the rim after the rounding of the rim edge.  I take a before and after pix. That does the job. Next, to complete this phase of the rim repair, I roll pieces of 120, 240 and 600 grade papers and cut an internal rim bevel to remove the remaining nicks and to soften the look.  With each rolled piece, I pinch the inside of the rim with the paper using my thumb and rotate evenly around the circumference.  The bevel is slight, and I think it looks good.  Again, before internal bevel and after pictures. I set the stummel aside and turn now to the stem.  The initial wet sanding of the stem with 600 grade paper removed the minor bite marks and I’m ready to move to the micromesh cycle.  Using all nine pads, 1500 to 12000, I wet sand with 1500 to 2400, then dry sand from 3200 to 4000 then 6000 to 12000.  Between each set of 3 pads, I apply an ample amount of Obsidian Oil to refresh the vulcanite stem. I love the pop of newly polished vulcanite!  My vanity pipe is shaping up nicely. As I pick up the stummel, I look closely at the briar grain and a dark area I thought might be an overheating of the stummel – scorching.  Now, with the old finish off and the hidden briar making an appearance, the area is a briar knot – a tight swirl of briar. It has character and I think it looks good.  To continue the preparation of the stummel, I wet sand using micromesh pads 1500 to 2400, followed by dry sanding with grades 3200 to 4000 then finishing up with pads 6000 to 12000.After finishing the first wet sanding cycle, I notice that the ‘pocks’ or fills on the shank had softened and become more noticeable and in need of filling.  A detour, but better now than later!  I use a dental probe to work out the softer fill.  I then mixed a small batch of superglue and briar dust to fill the holes.  I use a dental spoon to pack the mixture in the holes and put the stummel aside for it to cure. After the glue cures, I use a flat needle file surgically to bring the patch mounds down to the briar surface.  I am careful to keep the file on the glue mound not to create collateral damage to the surrounding briar.  Then using a tightly rolled piece of 240 grade paper, I remove the remaining glue residue by using the tight abrasive edge of the roll and rotate it in a circular motion over the mound area.  With touch and a close look, I’m able to determine the excess glue is removed.  Then, using 600 grade paper, I fine tune the entire area, not as concerned about the overrun on neighboring briar.  At this point the fine abrasion is blending and shining.  I finish the patches by catching the repair areas up with the first 3 micromesh pads.  The areas are still visible, but now smooth and will blend better as I continue with the finishing process.  The pictures show the detour progress. With the detour completed, I continue with the last two sets of dry sanding with micromesh pads 3200 to 12000.  This pipe’s briar is looking very nice. Well, there are a few pipes the make it through the restoration gauntlet up to this point, and the natural briar just says, I’m enough.  I had been planning to apply a lighter dye to the surface, but now…no.  The actual look of the briar is lighter than the pictures above, which I like.  So, with that decision made by my Stanton Vanity Pipe 😊, “I’m enough!”, I reunite the waiting stem with the stummel and take a picture – the bird’s eye view looks good.To tease out the briar grain even more, I finally take my Dremel off the hook and again use it after the 6 months hiatus!  Using Red Tripoli compound, I begin the buffing process on stem and stummel using a cotton cloth wheel mounted on the Dremel at the lowest speed. After completing a methodical circuit with the Tripoli, I switch to the lesser abrasive, Blue Diamond, using another cotton cloth wheel at the same speed.  Completing the abrasive compounds, I give the pipe a quick buff with a clean cotton cloth to remove the compound dust/powder before applying the wax.  I apply the carnauba wax with, yet another cotton cloth wheel dedicated to application of wax.  I increase the speed of the Dremel by about 20% and I apply a couple of coats of wax to the entire pipe.  For those who have not read my restorations, I live on the 10th floor of a former Communist block apartment building here in Sofia.  I do not have a lot of room, so my techniques for restoration, especially polishing techniques have had to bend to the realities – hence, my exclusive utilization of a Dremel with no room for the more powerful full wheel buffers.  After Steve asked me to write an essay on my techniques using a Dremel, I discovered out in the blogosphere many people who appreciated what I had written out of my own trials and errors.  You can find this essay at the Pipe Steward website here: My Dremel Polishing Techniques with a No-Name pipe from Sozopol Bulgaria.  My techniques have developed since then, but it’s a helpful essay.  Thanks to my wife for helping take the following pixs since I don’t have a third hand to use!After completing the application of carnauba wax, I give the pipe a rigorous hand buffing with a microfiber cloth.  This helps bring out the shine even more but also removes wax buildups that I may have not spread adequately with the Dremel.

The Stanton Vanity pipe came out well.  I’m please with the rim repair that was significant. The removal of the old finish and cleaning revealed a very nice presentation of briar grain – the highlight is the dark knot cluster that almost looks like a thumb print.  If anyone has any leads on more information about the ‘Stanton’ nomenclature I would appreciate a note!  It is good to back to The Pipe Steward work table.  The vast majority of my pipes are put in the store to help benefit the Daughters of Bulgaria, helping women and girls who have been trafficked and sexually exploited, but this fellow, Stanton, is staying in my collection.  Thanks for joining me!

 

Breathing New Life into a Royal Esquire French Made Poker

1 Reply

Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the work table is another pipe from the estate of a Vancouver pipe smoker whose widow left them with a local Pipe Shop. I was asked to clean them up and sell them for the shop after it closed. The photos show the pipe as it was when I brought it to my work table. It is a light weight Poker shape – with some interesting grain but the number of small putty fills in the bowl on the sides, back and shank detract from the cross grain on the bowl sides and birdseye on the front and back sides. The bowl was heavily caked with a lava coat on the top of the rim. It was hard to tell how the inner and outer edge of the rim actually looked until the bowl was reamed. The exterior of the bowl was dirty and covered with grime. The stem had the same tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside near the button as the rest of the pipes in this estate. There was calcification on the first inch from what looked like a Softee bit. The stem has a Top Hat logo on the left side of the saddle. The pipe is stamped on the left side of the shank with the words Royal Esquire over Made in France. There is no other stamping on the pipe. When I went back to the States after Christmas to visit my parents and brothers I took a box of these pipes with me so that I could have Jeff clean them for me. When they came back to Canada they looked like different pipes. He reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and cleaned it up with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the exterior with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to clean off the grime on the finish and the heavy overflow of lava on the rim top. He cleaned up the internals of the shank, mortise and stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to remove all of the oils and tars in the pipe. When it came back to Vancouver it was a quite different pipe. I was in a hurry this afternoon when I worked on this one and forgot to take photos of the bowl and stem before I started working on the pipe. There were so many fills and places where the putty had shrunk that I had a hard time even looking at it the way it was. I had already refilled the fills in the sides and shank with clear super glue and then remembered to take photos. You will have to imagine it without all the super glue freckles around the bowl. I took photos of the rim top and the stem to show their condition. Jeff was able to clean out the bowl completely and the rim top. He removed the tars and lava and left behind a clean top that would need to be topped to remove some of the deep scratches and burn marks around the edges of the rim. The stem was lightly oxidized and there was tooth chatter and marks on both sides near the button and on the surface edges of the button itself.I took the stem off the bowl and took photos of the repaired fills all around the bowl and shank. Somehow the pink putty that was in them really stood out and made them highly visible. They look like pox marks. Once the repairs had dried/cured I sanded them smooth with 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surface of the bowl. It took a lot of sanding to smooth them all out. I was careful around the stamping on the left side of the shank so I would not damage it. To clean up the damaged rim top I used 220 grit sandpaper on a topping board. I topped the bowl until the surface was smooth and the damage was removed. It did not take too much work to remove the damaged areas.I cleaned up the inner edge and the slight bevel with a folded piece of sandpaper. I worked it around the bowl to smooth out the damage and minimize the darkening on the inner edge.I polished the bowl top and sides with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the briar down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth. I was amazed at how many of the fills blended into the finish of the bowl and virtually disappeared. There were still some showing on the shank but the overall effect of the polishing was really apparent. I decided to stain the pipe with a Cherry stain pen to blend the repaired fills into the rest of the briar. The stain looks streaked and uneven but it will blend in nicely to the grain once I am finished with it. Once the stain dried I wiped the bowl and shank down with alcohol on a cotton pad to remove the streaking and blend the colours on the briar. The pictures below show the pipe at this point in the process. The fills have all but disappeared into the stain. The pipe looks considerably better at this point. I rubbed down the briar with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the briar to clean, enliven and protect the new finish. It also evened out the stain coat and gave the stain a multidimensional feel. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed it with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The following photos show the bowl now. The fills are invisible. The bowl is pretty well finished. I still need to wax and buff it but that will wait for the stem. I turned my attention to the stem and worked on the tooth marks and chatter near the button. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper until I removed the lighter marks on the surface of the stem.I painted the surface of the stem with the flame of a Bic lighter to lift the tooth marks. One of the benefits of the lighter is that it burned off the sulfur on the surface of the stem. The tooth chatter and marks lifted on both sides of the stem. A little sanding would smooth it out well. I polished out the scratches in the vulcanite with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper and with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with Obsidian Oil. After sanding with the 12000 grit pad I polished the stem with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. With the stem polished I put it back on the pipe and lightly buffed the bowl with Blue Diamond. I buffed the stem with a more aggressive buff of Blue Diamond. I gave the bowl and the stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely and the many fills virtually disappeared with the new stain. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I will be posting it on the rebornpipes store very soon. It should make a nice addition to your pipe rack if you have been looking for a reasonably priced pipe that can be used as a yard or shop pipe. It should be a great smoking pipe with a good hand feel. The dimensions are Length: 5 1/2 inches, Height: 1 3/4 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/4 inches, Chamber diameter: 3/4 inches. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked this pipe over.

Restoring a Tired House of Robertson Billiard

Leave a reply

Blog by Steve Laug

Not too long ago I sold one of the House of Robertson pipes to a fellow named John who collects them and lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. He loved the pipe that I sent him and wrote and asked if I would be willing to clean up and restore his first House of Robertson (HOR) pipe that had been given to him 30+ years ago by his brother. He said it was a billiard with a mixed finish – both rusticated and smooth. He said he had smoked it heavily as it was a favourite of his and it needed some attention. We made our arrangements and he shipped the pipe to me here in Vancouver. I was looking forward to working on it as I have enjoyed the other House of Robertson pipes that I have restored over the past months.

While I waited for its arrival, between working on other pipes I read over the last restoration blog I had written on an HOR pipe. I thought it might be helpful to add the information I had previously found for those of you who have not read those blogs. “House of Robertson” was in business for many years, but alas, closed their doors in 1999. They were located in Boise, Idaho. They are noted for making rather large and interesting pipes. Thayne Robertson… started the shop about 1947 and his son Jon started working there in 1970 when he finished college, along with Thayne’s daughter. Thayne and his son started making the big pipes at that time, and made them together until 1987 when Thayne passed away. Jon kept the store and his sister moved on to other things. The House of Robertson appears to have closed around 1999. https://pipedia.org/wiki/Robertson

I also received an email from Ed Mitchell from the Boise, Idaho area offering to share some of the history of the shop if I was interested. He was a frequent customer and loves the HOR Pipes. I of course was excited to learn more about the brand so I was looking forward to what he would write. It came in today’s email and I thought you might enjoy Ed’s reminiscences. Thanks Ed for sending me this information.

Hi, Steve

…I do not have any memorabilia, other than a box of two, from the House of Robertson shop. When Jon Robertson closed the store, it caught me by surprise. I do have several of Robertson pipes including a couple that need small repairs. Five or six I bought unsmoked from the widow of one of his Boise customers. The husband apparently was one of Thayne’s many friends and had bought pipes in the course of standing around visiting in his shop. One is a beautiful blond horn that I have saved unsmoked.

Thayne was a bear of a man in his 60s when I met him in the mid-1960s, a great raconteur with strong opinions on politics, religion, people and good pipes. For instance, he hated cigarette smoking; people who popped in to ask for cigarettes were shown the door with instructions on how to find the only other tobacco store in downtown Boise, an institution (still in business) that sold all types of tobacco, men’s magazines and pipes Thayne considered unworthy of any discerning smoker.

Another consequence of Thayne’s hatred of cigarettes was that he created a line of pipes sized and decorated (in some examples with inset bits of bling) for female smokers. He did make pipes in conventional shapes and sizes but preferred big freestyles. I can say I do not remember his ever making two pipes exactly alike. A large part of his business involved creating custom pipes on order. He mailed pipes to customers around the country and internationally. I am not sure what portion of his output was sold outside Boise but I had the impression that it was considerable.

The pipes I remember Thayne smoking in the shop were a couple of huge Oom Pauls about a foot long. The big man liked big pipes, usually loaded with strong English-style or oriental blends. He hooked me on my taste for Latakia tobaccos.

The shop was in one of the long, narrow brick storefronts of the old city core. An old-fashioned glass display case for pipes and accessories dominated the front along with shelves and stacks of at least 50 choices of tobaccos. A narrow flight of stairs led to inventory storage above the dusty workshop located in back behind a curtain.

For a one man shop, Thayne’s output was prodigious especially considering that the individual pipes were unique. His daughter Rosie and son Jon did assist in the shop’s latter years. Both were skilled makers but tended to create more conventionally carved and sized pipes. Most of the pipes made there, even after Thayne died and Jon was doing the work, came from a hoard of old Greek briar Thayne found in Holland around 1970. Some of the bold grain pipes from the latter years were as spectacular as smoking instruments can be. One feature I have never seen is a fill in a Robertson pipe. Thayne liked rusticating briar whenever the grain was flawed or just uninteresting.

Steve, I hope this gives you some brief insight into the House of Robertson. If you have questions to stimulate my ancient memory, I will be glad to try to answer. — Ed Mitchell

When the pipe arrived I took it out of the box to have a look at it and took some photos of it to show its condition before I began. It had a softee bit on the stem that had slid up about ¼ inch up the stem from the button. The finish was dirty and grimy. The rim top was damaged and the bowl was slightly out of round. There was a thick cake in the bowl and a heavy lava overflow on the top of the rim. There was a burn mark that was on the top of the rim at the front and extended down the bowl about a ½ inch. There was a nickel band on the shank that was a typical repair band that is available through repair suppliers. When I examined around the band on the shank end I could not see any cracks in the shank. The band had been cut off slightly so as not to cover the etched House of Robertson name on the left side of the shank. The stem was an obvious replacement that was slightly larger in diameter than the shank. The pipe definitely needed attention. I took a close up photo of the rim top to show the damage to the front of the bowl and the general condition of the pipe. The bowl is thickly caked and the rim has an overflow of lava on the rim top.  You can see how the bowl is thicker on one side than the other. The front of the bowl looks damaged as the lava on that portion is different in texture than the hard stuff on the rest of the rim top. The stem was in decent condition – some calcification on the top and underside where the rubber softee bit had been. There were some light tooth marks and chatter on both sides. The stem was lightly oxidized.I did a quick assessment of the pipe and wrote John a quick email about what I saw as I looked it over. I sent my questions to him to see if he could shed any light on what I was seeing. I am including both my questions and his response as it helps clarify what I saw when I examined the pipe first hand.

  1. Is the band something that you added? It appears to be cosmetic but it could be a repair band. They are available through online pipe parts guys and are made out of nickel. I think it is a later addition as it covers the N in Robertson. Do you know if the shank was ever cracked?? I will leave it there as it is a touch of bling.
  2. Is the stem a replacement stem? It is wider is in diameter than the shank and appears to be a replacement. The shank was drilled for a filter stem and this one is not the original as far as I can tell. It is well made and will clean up nicely. I took the softee bit off and will clean it up. I will send the softee back with the pipe.
  3. What is the hard substance in the bottom of the bowl? It appears that someone added some fill to the bottom of the bowl (unevenly mind you) to lift the bowl bottom to the level of the entry of the airway into the bowl. Is this something you added or was it there previously? I can leave it be as it is as hard as concrete. I can also smooth it out a bit with a coat of JB Weld (which is what I think is in the bottom of the bowl already).

John replied to my queries and I am including the pertinent parts of his answers:

To my recollection, the pipe is the same un-worked-on one my little brother gave me 38 or so years ago, bought directly from Mr. Robertson at his shop — I’m assuming it was the father and not the son, but I can’t remember when the elder died.

I may have had it worked on — possibly a new stem — at Jeannie’s Smoke Shop (now sold to newcomers since my friend Jeannie died; the shop still retains the name) in Salt Lake City. I do remember taking it, or possibly another pipe, to the craftsman she employed. If that was the pipe I took in, I don’t think he would have filled the bottom of the bowl, but he may have replaced the stem. I smoked that pipe a lot years ago and may have bit the mouth piece off. If you don’t think the current stem is one that Robertson used and feel strongly that it should be changed out with new, proper stem, do it. But you indicate that the stem is fine and you can touch it up and smooth it out, that’s fine, too. Your decision. And do what you suggested with smoothing the bottom of the bowl and adding the JB Weld coat. I have no idea why that would have been filled in.

I don’t recall adding a band. I don’t recall if the shank was cracked years ago and that I may have asked the guy at Jeannie’s to fix that. Please do whatever you need to do with that part. A few weeks ago, I thought I detected a slight crack, or maybe just a dark line along the shank. You don’t seem to think that a new band is necessary. The last Robinson you sold me has a silver band; my other two do not have bands. But I am reasonably sure the nickel band is what Robertson had on it when he sold it to my younger brother ($50 at the time! — a lot of money for a 19-year-old’s gift to his older brother). Possibly the stem got damaged when Robertson was making the pipe, and that’s the way he fixed it…

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer – starting with the smallest cutting head and working up to the third one. I cleaned up the remnants with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. Surprisingly there was a rock hard substance at the bottom of the bowl – it looked like JB Weld or something like that. It was rock hard and seemed to have been used to bring the bottom of the bowl up to the bottom of the airway’s entrance to the bowl.I scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I worked over the rim top with a brass bristle wire brush to break up the lava flow there. I rinsed the bowl with running water and scrubbed it under the water while it was rinsing. The bowl began to look pretty good at this point. The contrast between the smooth band around the bowl and shank with the rustication above and below the band looked really good. The rim top was so damaged with the burn mark and the nicks around the outer edge that I decided to top the bowl lightly to remove as much of the damage as I could without noticeably changing the profile of the pipe. I worked on the inner edge of the rim and the light bevel with 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the inner edge. I used it to also lightly reshape the outer edge of the bowl. You can see from the photos how out of round the bowl edges are outside and inside. I worked on the bevel to work on it and you can see the result in the third photo.I did not want to add stain to the oil finished bowl so I just rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm to deep clean the rustication on the briar. The rustication was well done and looked almost like a sandblast. I also rubbed it into the smooth portions on the band around the bowl, the rim top and the shank. The product works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I hand rubbed it with my fingers to work it into the rustication. I wiped it off with a soft cloth. I buffed the bowl with a horsehair shoe brush to polish it. The briar really began to have a rich shine. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. I decided to polish the topped rim top once more using micromesh sanding pads as the balm revealed more scratches in the finish. I wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down after each pad with a damp cloth. I cleaned out the internals of the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. (I forgot to take photos of the stem after I cleaned it with alcohol and pipe cleaners).I mixed up a small batch of JB Weld to level the previous repair to the bottom of the bowl. I applied it to the uneven area with the end of a small sanding stick. I pressed it into the indentation and smoothed it out with the tip of my finger.I set the bowl aside and worked on the stem. I sanded out the tooth chatter, tooth marks and oxidation on the button end. I sanded the rest of the stem to remove the oxidation. The diameter of the stem was bigger than that of the shank so I sanded that at the same time to reduce it to the same size as the shank and reshape it at the junction. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads to remove the scratching. I worked on it until the stem surface was smooth and the marks were less visible. I continued to polish it with 3200-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I wiped it down a final time with Obsidian Oil. I put the stem back on the bowl and worked the pipe over on the buffing wheel using Blue Diamond to lightly polish both the bowl and the stem. I buffed the bowl and stem to raise the gloss on the briar and the vulcanite. I gave the pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I don’t think House of Robertson stained the pipes as they have the rich patina of an oil finish. If it had a stain coat it was a tan stain that went well with the rich black of the vulcanite stem. The dimensions of the pipe are: Length: 5 1/2 inches, Height: 1 3/4 inches, Outside Diameter: 1 3/8 inches, Diameter of the chamber: 7/8 inches. This is an interesting piece of briar that shows a mixture of grain on the smooth portions. I really like HOR pipe work the rustication and smooth parts together in unique ways. Once the repair in the bowl cures I will mail it back to John. I know he is looking forward to enjoying it again. Thanks for walking with me through the restoration.

Restoring a Savinelli Churchwarden 3003

1 Reply

Blog by Steve Laug

I finished the restoration work on Mark’s uncle’s pipes and a few of his own and sent them back to him in late January of this year. I wrote a blog on each of the restorations. They were a fun batch of pipes to restore for him. He sent me another package a few weeks ago that had just three pipes in it – A GBD Classic Straight Bulldog, a GBD 9242 Rhodesian (one of my holy grail pipes) and a long Churchwarden pipe that had originally belonged to his uncle. Each pipe had a different set of issues that would provide a variety of challenges. The Bulldog was in excellent condition other than the first ½ inch of the stem missing in chunks. The Churchwarden had a broken tenon that was still stuck in the shank. By far the worst of the lot was the 9242 pipe. When I saw it in the bag I was excited. When I took it out of the bag I was saddened at the condition of the pipe. The bowl was dirty and there was some lava and rim darkening on the top. There were a few nicks in the edges of the bowl. The finish was dirty but the grain on the pipe was really nice. If I had stopped my observation at this point I would have been quite happy.

The second pipe I chose to work on from the batch of pipes was the Churchwarden that had belonged to his uncle. The Prince shaped bowl was in decent condition. The bowl was actually quite clean on the inside but the drilling where the airway entered the bowl was slightly off to the right side of the bowl. Other than having the tenon stuck in it; the shank looked pretty good as well. The rim top was dirty and there was a burn mark on the inner bevel of the left side. The finish was dirty and there were quite a few nicks and dents on the surface of the briar. The shank was stamped on the left side with the words Churchwarden over Aged Briar. On the right side of the shank it is stamped with the shape number 3003 and next to that was the Savinelli S shield. The underside of the shank is stamped Savinelli over Italy. The stem was quite oxidized and pitted. There were tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem at the button. The broken tenon remnants were on the end of the stem. It was broken pretty close to the stem/shank junction.

Sooo… here we go on the second of Mark’s restoration projects. I took photos of the pipe to show what it looked like when it arrived in all of its tattered splendour. The bowl had some beautiful grain underneath the grime. The photos show the stem the broken tenon and how close to the shank it was snapped off. The above photo shows the damage on the rim top to the inner edge. It is a burn mark from repeated lighting of the pipe in that spot. The photos below show the chatter and tooth marks on both sides of the stem at the button.The broken tenon was stuck in the shank when I first tried to pull it so I put it in the freezer for 30 minutes. I tried again using a long drywall screw and was able to get it free with the first try. I went through my jar of replacement tenons and found one that I thought would work. It is a threaded Delrin replacement tenon. Once I had the broken tenon out of the shank I compared them and found that the diameter was the same on both.  I tried it in the mortise and found that it was a perfect fit. Even the length was correct. I flattened the broken pieces on the end of the stem with a Dremel and sanding drum and then on the topping board. I wanted a flush surface to mount the new tenon on and also to have a snug fit against the shank. The airway was not centered in the stem so I had to do a bit of fussing with it to get it ready for the new tenon. I used a sharp pen knife to flare the side of the airway that was off to get it more centered before I drilled. Once I had done that I drilled the airway with a bit slightly larger in diameter than the airway and worked to keep it both straight and centered. This is yet another time I wished I had a drill press.I followed that drill bit with one that was the same diameter as the threaded portion of the new tenon. I sanded the threads to slightly reduce the diameter and pressed it into the stem. The fit was very good. I took a photo of the stem  at this point to show the look of the new tenon.I used black super glue that had a medium viscosity so that I had time to align the stem and the shank before the glue set. Once it was aligned I took a few photos of the fit of the stem to the shank. I would need to make a few minor adjustments but considering how off the airway was the fit was quite good. I carefully removed the stem and set it aside to let the glue on the tenon set firmly. I turned my attention to the bowl. The first item of business for me was to work on the rim top. I cleaned up the flat surface of the rim with 1500-2400 micromesh sanding pads and then shaped the inner bevel of the rim with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to minimize the damage on the right inner edge. When I finished it definitely looked better. I would do a bit of finessing it once I worked on it with the micromesh pads.I decided to address the many nicks, scratches and cuts in the surface of the finish by filling them in with clear super glue. The next series of photos show the many spots on the front and bottom of the bowl.Once the repairs had dried I sanded them smooth with 220 grit sandpaper to blend them in with the surface of the bowl. I then wet sanded the entire bowl and rim with 1500-2400 grit micromesh pads and dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads until the rim and the surface of the bowl was smooth and polished. I wiped down the surface of the bowl with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust between each pad. I decided to highlight the reds in the briar and finish so I stained it with a mahogany stain pen. It looks streaked and poorly applied in the photos but the story is not over yet. I am more interested in getting the bowl covered with a stain that is transparent so when I take the next step the grain will come through the finish. Of course I was in a hurry at this point to call it a night so I forgot to take pictures of the next step. I wiped the bowl down with a cotton pad and isopropyl alcohol to spread the stain and wipe away the excess. When the grain stood out and the repairs remained hidden I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I rubbed it into the finish to clean, enliven and protect the finish. I let it sit for a few moments and buffed it off with a cotton cloth. The photos below show the bowl at this point. Once the bowl was finished I set it aside to work on the stem. I sanded out the tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside of the stem at the button. I sanded the entire stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the damage and oxidation.I polished the vulcanite with micromesh sanding pads to remove the scratching and remaining oxidation. I wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each pad to remove the dust. I finished polishing the stem with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to remove the rest of the scratches in the hard rubber surface. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave it several coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise a shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The repairs on the finish blend in really well with the overall finish of the pipe. The new tenon on the stem works very well and is a snug fit in the mortise. It really is a nice looking Savinelli Churchwarden. There is some nice grain on the bowl. This is the last of Mark’s uncle’s pipes and it is ready to head back to Mark for his smoking pleasure. I have one more pipe to fix for him then this one and the others will be in the post back to Mark. I think it is better than it was… thanks for looking.

 

Farida’s Dad’s Pipes #4 – Restoring a Dunhill Red Bark Pot 43061

9 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

The next collection of pipes that I am working on comes from the estate of an elderly gentleman here in Vancouver. I met with his daughter Farida last summer and we looked at his pipes and talked about them then. Over the Christmas holiday she brought them by for me to work on, restore and then sell for her. There are 10 pipes in all – 7 Dunhills (one of them, a Shell Bulldog, has a burned out bowl), 2 Charatans, and a Savinelli Autograph. His pipes are worn and dirty and for some folks they have a lot of damage and wear that reduce their value. To me each one tells a story. I only wish they could speak and talk about the travels they have had with Farida’s Dad.

When I wrote the blog on the Classic Series Dunhill and thinking about its travels, Farida sent me an email with a short write up on her Dad. She remembered that I had asked her for it so that I could have a sense of the stories of her Dad’s pipes. Here is what she wrote: My dad, John Barber, loved his pipes. He was a huge fan of Dunhill and his favourite smoke was St. Bruno. No one ever complained of the smell of St. Bruno, we all loved it. I see the bowls and they’re large because he had big hands. When he was finished with his couple of puffs, he would grasp the bowl in the palm of his hand, holding the warmth as the embers faded. The rough bowled pipes were for daytime and especially if he was fixing something. The smooth bowled pipes were for an evening with a glass of brandy and a good movie. In his 20s, he was an adventurer travelling the world on ships as their radio operator. He spent a year in the Antarctic, a year in the Arctic and stopped in most ports in all the other continents. He immigrated to Canada in the mid-fifties, working on the BC Ferries earning money to pay for his education. He graduated from UBC as an engineer and spent the rest of his working life as a consultant, mostly to the mining companies. Whatever he was doing though, his pipe was always close by. 

She sent along this photo of him with his sled dogs in the Antarctic sometime in 1953-1954. It is a fascinating photo showing him with a pipe in his mouth. He is happily rough housing with his dogs. As a true pipeman the cold does not seem to bother him at all.Thank you Farida for sending the photo and the background story on your Dad for me to use on the blog. I find that it really explains a lot about their condition and gives me a sense of who Dad was. If your Dad was rarely without a pipe I can certainly tell which pipes were his favourites. As I looked over the pipes I noted that each of them had extensive rim damage and some had deeply burned gouges in the rim tops. The bowls seemed to have been reamed not too long ago because they did not show the amount of cake I would have expected. The stems were all covered with deep tooth marks and chatter and were oxidized and dirty. The internals of the mortise, the airway in the shank and stem were filled with tars and oils. These were nice looking pipes when her Dad bought them and they would be nice looking one more when I finished.

I finished two of the pipes and have written a blog on each of them. The first one was the Dunhill Shell with the oval shank pot (https://rebornpipes.com/2018/02/04/restoring-a-1983-dunhill-shell-41009-oval-shank-pot/) and the second was the Dunhill Classic Series Shell Billiard (https://rebornpipes.com/2018/02/08/faridas-dads-pipes-2-restoring-a-1990-lbs-classic-series-dunhill-shell-billiard/). The third pipe I restored from the estate was a Savinelli Autograph (https://rebornpipes.com/2018/02/15/faridas-dads-pipes-3-restoring-a-savinelli-autograph-4/).

I went back to the Dunhills today so I chose to work on a Dunhill Red Bark 43061 pot. It was so dirty it was hard to tell what it looked like under the thick grime. The blast itself was almost filled in with thick, oily grime. I wiped the grime off the underside of the shank to be able to read the stamping. It was worn but readable. On the bottom of the bowl is the 43061 shape number. Next to that it is stamped Dunhill Red Bark over Made in England 17.  Dating this pipe is a fairly easy proposition. You take the two digits following the D in England and add them to 1960. In this case it is 1960+17= 1977. (Pipephil’s site has a helpful dating tool for Dunhill pipes that I use regularly http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/redbark1.html). The bowl was thickly caked and the cake had flowed over onto the light sandblast finish on the rim top forming a hard lava that made the top almost smooth. The inner and outer edges of the rim were damaged. On the front of the bowl the rim had been scraped and damaged and then burned. On the back edge there was the same kind of damage that was on the other Dunhill pipes in this estate. This one however was not quite as deep so it would need to be dealt with a bit differently when I got to that point. The stem was oxidized and calcified at the button end. There were tooth marks and chatter on both sides in front of the button. The Dunhill white spot was intact on the top of the stem. I took photos of the pipe to show what it looked like before I started the cleanup work. I took close up photos of the bowl and rim top as well as the stem. You can see the condition of the rim top and bowl in the first photo. The stem has tooth chatter and some deep bite marks on the top edge of the button and a deep tooth mark on the underside of the stem just ahead of the button. There is a lot of calcification and wear on the rest of the stem as well.I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and I had to use three of the four cutting heads to clean out the cake. The bowl thickly caked so I started with the smallest of the three and worked my way up to the third which was about the same size as the bowl diameter. I took back the cake to bare briar. I took a photo of the cleaned bowl. I scrubbed the surface of the sandblast with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to clean out all of the dust. I worked on the top of the rim with a brass bristle wire brush and a brass bristle polishing brush to remove the lava on the rim. I scrubbed the stem with the tooth brush as well to remove the calcification and grime. I rinsed the pipe under warm running water to remove the dirt, grime and soap. I dried off the bowl with a soft rag. The cleaned and scrubbed pipe really made the rim top damage very clear. It looked to me that I would need to top the bowl. I cleaned up the reaming of the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to remove the remaining cake that was on the walls around the airway and the lower part of the bowl.I topped the bowl to remove the damage to the top surface of the rim and clean up the damage to the edges. I did not have to remove a lot and repeatedly checked it to make sure that I had removed enough but not too much.I used a series of dental burrs on the Dremel to etch a pattern into the top of the rim to blend it into the sandblast around the bowl sides. It was not a deep sandblast so the pattern on the rim needed to be random looking and not deep. I wanted it to blend in the damaged area on the back side of the rim. The photo below shows the rusticated rim top and the three burrs that I used to create it.I restained the bowl and rim with a Mahogany stain pen. I wanted to match the colour of the Red Bark shown in the photo below. After I stained the pipe with the Mahogany and I used a red oil based stain. I rubbed it onto the finish and buffed it off with a soft cloth. I rubbed down the briar with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the nooks and crannies of the sandblast finish to clean, enliven and protect the new finish. It also evened out the stain coat and gave the stain a dimensional feel. I let the balm sit for a little wall and then buffed it with a horsehair shoe brush. I buffed the bowl with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. Once again I have gotten so used to Jeff cleaning the pipes before I got them I just I realized that I had not worked on the internals of the pipe. I looked down the shank and it was filthy as was to be expected. Arghhh. Went back to clean out the shank and airway in the stem and shank. I scraped the hardened tars on the walls of the mortise with a pen knife. I cleaned the mortise and the airway in the shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol until it was clean. I painted the surface of the stem with the flame of a Bic lighter to lift the tooth dents in the underside of the stem. It took a few swaths of the lighter and the dents lifted. There was only one small pin prick left next to the button that would need to be repaired.  I repaired the remaining deep tooth marks on both sides of the stem with black super glue. Once it dried I sanded the surface of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the repaired tooth marks and chatter and removing the remnants of calcification and oxidation on the stem until the oxidation was removed.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each pad. I polished it further with Before & After Pipe Polish, using both the Fine and Extra Fine polishes to further protect and polish out the scratches. When I finished with those I gave it a final rub down with the oil and set it aside to dry. With the stem polished I put it back on the pipe and lightly buffed the bowl with Blue Diamond. I buffed the stem with a more aggressive buff of Blue Diamond. I gave the bowl several coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This is the fourth of Farida’s Dad’s pipes that I am restoring from his collection. I am looking forward to hearing what Farida thinks once she sees the finished pipe on the blog. I will be posting it on the rebornpipes store very soon. It should make a nice addition to your pipe rack if you have been looking for a reasonably priced Dunhill. When you add it to your collection you carry on the trust from her father. The dimensions are Length: 5 3/4 inches, Height: 1 1/2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/2 inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ inches. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this estate Autograph. More of his pipes will follow including some Charatans and more Dunhills.

Resuscitating a Gentle Giant Bent Billiard

5 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

Several weeks ago I got a Facetime call from my brother Jeff. He was in Bozeman, Montana at an antique shop and had found a pipe that intrigued him. The seller wanted $49 for it and it was a large chunk of briar, well carved with a horn stem. He showed me photos on Facetime and it was indeed intriguing. It had gentle curves both from the bend of the shank to the curve of the horn stem. The horn stem appeared to be in good condition overall. The button and slot were damaged but it would not take too much work to clean up the slot and the nicks at stem/shank junction. We decided to pick it up and restore it. I have to tell you I had no idea how big the pipe was.Jeff took some photos of the pipe before he cleaned it up. It was in pretty good condition. The bowl had a light cake but there was no lava overflow on the rim top. The varnish finish on the bowl was peeling and spotty. The grain on the sides of the pipe was really nice. There were a lot of fills on the bottom and back sides of the bowl and all along the sides of the shank. On the underside of the shank and on part of the bottom of the bowl there were some very large fills that were chipped and damaged.The next series of photos show the rim top and the sides and bottom of the bowl. The cake in the bowl is not thick. The rim top is clean and there are fills that are chipped and nicked on the flat surface. The grain on bowl sides is really quite nice. The photo below of the bottom of the bowl and shank show the damaged fills. They are quite long and extend all along the shank bottom. The second and third photos below show the damaged areas of the fills. The fit of the stem to the shank was snug. There were a couple small nicks in the horn stem.The slot in the button end was damaged. On the top and the bottom edges the horn was missing. The second photo gives perspective on the damage along the edges of the button. The good thing was that the button itself was quite deep and I would be able to “top” it and remove much of the damage to the end. Jeff did his usual great job cleaning the pipe before he sent it to me. He reamed the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl, rim and shank with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the peeling varnish coat on the bowl and shank. He rinsed it under running water. He dried it off with a soft cloth. Once the peeling varnish debris was removed, the finish was in decent condition. When it arrived it was in a vinyl bag that had been made for it. I had no idea how large the pipe was. I slowly took it out of the bag and took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started my work on it.It was large enough that I can honestly say I have never seen a pipe this large. To get a better idea of the size I measured it for myself. The dimensions were Length: 12 inches, Height: 3 ½ inches, Outside Diameter of the Bowl: 2 inches, Diameter of the Chamber: 1 ½ inches. Later I will take a photo of the pipe with a regular sized bent billiard. I took some photos of the pipe to show what he had done in the cleanup work. It was a beautiful pipe. I took a close up photo of the rim and bowl to show the condition after the cleanup. You can see the fills on the top and inner edge of the bowl as well as the damage on the front inner edge. The stem itself looks to be in great condition other than several chips around the end next to the shank and the damage to the slot in the button.I took close up photos of the slot in the button to show the damage. In the photos you can see the damage to the edges of the slot on the sides and the top and bottom.Because of the depth of the button, the thickness of the stem end I decided to start on that first. I used the topping board and 220 grit sandpaper and topped the end of the button to remove the damaged areas as much as possible.I filled in the notches in the slot with clear super glue. I worked on them to repair the damages in those areas. I sanded the end of the button and slot to remove the excess and used a needle file to clean up the slot edges.I blew air through the stem and found that the flow was constricted. I pushed a pipe cleaner into the airway from both end and found that it hit a clogged or constriction at the midpoint of the stem. I pushed a flexible wire through the airway and pushed out thick tars and hardened oils from the stem. I used long churchwarden pipe cleaners dipped in alcohol through the airway to clean out the debris. Once I had cleaned it out the flow of air through the stem both ways was unrestricted.I repaired the chipped areas on the tenon end of the stem with clear super glue. Once the glue had cured I sanded the repaired areas to remove the excess and blend it into the surface of the horn. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each pad. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Polish and rubbed it down with a cotton pad to deeply polish the horn. I set the stem aside and worked on the bowl. I decided to top the bowl to remove the damaged areas from the surface and edges of the rim. I used 220 grit sandpaper to clean it up. I topped it until the rim top was clean.I repaired the fills in the briar with clear super glue. I filled them until they were slightly over filled so that as the glue cured it would not shrink and require a second coat.When the glue dried I sanded the bowl with 220 and 380 grit sandpaper to blend the fills into the surface of the briar. I wiped the sanded briar down with alcohol on a cotton pad. I sanded the bowl with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge and then stained it with a dark brown stain. I flamed it and repeated the process until the coverage was even. You might wonder why I stained it with such a dark stain… my reason was quite simple. I wanted to mask the fills – particularly the large ones on the underside of the shank. I set the bowl aside to let the stain dry and called it a night. In the morning I wiped it down with alcohol on cotton pads to make the dark brown stain more transparent and allow the grain to pop through the finish. The fills though still present were in better condition and less obvious. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down with an alcohol dampened cotton pad after each grit of micromesh. I put the polished stem back on the shank and took a photo of the pipe next to a Peterson’s London Made Kapruf 9BC to give an idea of the sheer size of this giant pipe. The Peterson is an average sized pipe and it appears almost like a nosewarmer next to this big one.I took the pipe to the buffer and worked it over on the buffing wheel using Blue Diamond to polish it. I buffed the entire pipe to raise the gloss on the briar and really bring shine to the horn. I gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of Carnauba Wax. I buffed the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dark brown stains on the bowl do not hide the grain and the fills though present do not stand out as much. The bowl and the rich striated colours of the horn work really well to create a rich looking pipe. The pipe is so big that I want to once again give you the dimensions; Length: 12 inches, Height: 3 ½ inches, Outside Diameter of the Bowl: 2 inches, Diameter of the Chamber: 1 ½ inches.  This humongous briar and horn stem pipe is truly a beauty. I have never seen a pipe this big before and it makes me wonder if it was not originally made as a display pipe. I don’t think I will ever know for sure but I do know that it was smoked and it is available to anyone who is interested in adding big pipe to their own collection. I would have said rack but it is too big to fit even a large rack. I will be putting it on the rebornpipes store shortly so if you are interested let me know. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me.

Kathy’s Dad’s Pipes #7– Restemming &Restoring George Koch’s “Malaga” Canadian

Leave a reply

Blog by Steve Laug

This is the sixth of the “Malaga” pipes that I am working on from Kathy’s Dad’s pipes. For those of you who have not read the other blogs let me tell the story. Last fall I received a contact email on rebornpipes from Kathy asking if I would be interested in purchasing her late Father, George Koch’s estate pipes. He was a lover of “Malaga” pipes – all shapes and sizes and she wanted to move them out as she cleaned up the estate. We emailed back and forth and I had my brother Jeff follow up with her as he also lives in the US and would make it simpler to carry out this transaction. The long and short of it is that we purchased her Dad’s “Malaga” pipes. There are some beautiful pipes in that lot. I have never seen this many “Malagas” together in one place in all of my years of pipe restoring and refurbishing. They varied from having almost pristine to gnawed and damaged stems that will need to be replaced. Many of the pipes already had replacement stems or maybe George had the staff at the Malaga shop in Michigan put Lucite stems on them because he was such a gnawer. I don’t know if we will ever know the answer to that as Kathy did not know for sure. She did know though that he loved the brand and that most of the pipes he smoked he purchased from the shop. These were some well used and obviously well loved pipes. Cleaning and restoring them will be a tribute to this pipeman. (Here is a link to some history of the Malaga Brand if you are interested: https://rebornpipes.com/tag/malaga-pipes/. There are also links there to a catalogue and the maker George Khoubesser.) Knowing about the pipeman who held the pipes in trust before me gives another dimension to the restoration work. This is certainly true with this lot of pipes. I can almost imagine George picking out each pipe in his assortment at the Malaga shop in Michigan. I may well be alone in this, but when I know about the person it is almost as if he is with me work on his pipes. In this case Kathy sent us not only information but also a photo of her Dad enjoying his “Malagas”. Once again, I am including that information so you can know a bit about the pipeman who held these pipes in trust before they are passed on to some of you. I include part of Kathy’s correspondence with my brother as well…

Jeff…Here is a little about my dad, George P. Koch…I am sending a picture of him with a pipe also in a separate email.

Dad was born in 1926 and lived almost all his life in Springfield, Illinois. He was the youngest son of German immigrants and started grade school knowing no English. His father was a coal miner who died when Dad was about seven and his sixteen year old brother quit school to go to work to support the family. There was not much money, but that doesn’t ruin a good childhood, and dad had a good one, working many odd jobs, as a newspaper carrier, at a dairy, and at the newspaper printing press among others. He learned to fly even before he got his automobile driver’s license and carried his love of flying with him through life, recertifying his license in retirement and getting his instrumental license in his seventies and flying until he was grounded by the FAA in his early eighties due to their strict health requirements. (He was never happy with them about that.) He was in the Army Air Corps during World War II, trained to be a bomber, but the war ended before he was sent overseas. He ended service with them as a photographer and then earned his engineering degree from University of Illinois. He worked for Allis Chalmers manufacturing in Springfield until the early sixties, when he took a job at Massey Ferguson in Detroit, Michigan. We lived in Livonia, and that’s where his love for Malaga pipes began. After a few years he returned to Allis Chalmers and we moved back to Springfield. I remember that when we went back to Michigan to visit friends, Dad had to go to the Malaga store and acquire a few new pipes. Many a year I wrote to Malaga and they picked out a pipe for me to purchase that I could give Dad for a Christmas or birthday present. He was always pleased. His favorites were the straight stemmed medium sized bowl pipes, but he liked them all.  He had some other pipes, but the Malagas were his favorites. I remember him smoking them sitting in his easy chair after work, with feet up on the ledge by the fire burning in the fireplace.  Growing up it was my job to clean them and he liked the inner bowl and stem coated with Watkins vanilla, leaving a little of that liquid in the bowl to soak in when I put them back on the rack. Dad quit smoking later in life and so they’ve sat on the racks for many years unattended, a part of his area by his easy chair and fireplace. Dad passed when he was 89 years old and it finally is time for the pipes to move on. I’m very happy they are being restored by you and your brother and hope they find homes who enjoy them as much as Dad did. Thank-you for your care and interest. — Kathy, the oldest daughter

Kathy, once again I thank you for providing this beautiful tribute to your Dad. We will appreciate your trust in allowing us to clean and restore these pipes. I am also trusting that those of you who are reading this might carry on the legacy of her Dad’s pipes as they will be added to the rebornpipes store once they are finished.

The seventh of the pipes that I chose to work on is another “Malaga” Canadian. This one is a smooth pipe with a flat bottom so that it is a sitter. It had a chewed and ruined vulcanite stem. Some great grain peeks through the grime around the bowl. The warm brown finish on the bowl appeared to be good condition under the dust and tars of time. I am pretty certain that Malaga pipes must have been oil cured. The uniform finish and the light weight lead me to think that is the case. Once more there are no fills in the bowl or long shank. I have yet to find a fill in any of the bowls I have worked on in this lot and looking through what remains I think it is fair to say I won’t find any in them either.

The rim top on this Canadian was originally smooth and flat but it was covered with an overflow of lava from the thick cake in the bowl. The rim top at the back of the bowl was more thickly caked than the front. The rim top, along with the inner and outer edge of the bowl was heavily damaged. There were some nicks and rounding of the outer edge and there was some darkening on the inner edge. The bowl was out of round from previous reaming. The rim top and outer edge showed signs of being knocked against a hard surface to empty the dottle from the bowl. The stamping on the topside of the shank was clear and read “Malaga” and on the flat underside it read Imported Briar. There were no shape numbers on the pipe. The black Lucite stem was ruined with bite marks on the top and a long slice on the underside of the stem. It would need to be replaced. The interior of the pipe was dirty. I know that George thoroughly enjoyed his pipes as is evidenced by the wear that all of them show. Jeff took these photos before he started the cleanup work on the pipe. Jeff took close up photos of the bowl and rim to show the condition of the pipe before he started to work his magic on it. The exterior of the bowl and shank were dirty. You can see the lava on the rim top, the cake and remnants of tobacco in the bowl and the nicks on the rim top and bowl around the outer edge of the rim. The second rim top photo shows the damage on the front edge of the rim. It is dirty but in otherwise good condition. He also took photos of the sides and underside of the bowl and shank. He also took a photo of both sides of the shank to show the stamping on both the topside and the underside. You can see the overall condition of the shank before cleanup.The next photo shows the fit of the stem against the shank. The stem was obviously a replacement and was poorly fit. The second and third photo shows the damage to both surfaces of the stem near the button, the worn and chewed down button and the missing underside of the stem. The stem is a write off – misshapen and ruined.Working on this seventh pipe followed pretty much the same pattern as all of these pipes. Jeff had reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and followed up with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife to remove the cake. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl, rim, shank and stem with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the oils and tars on the bowl, rim and shank. He rinsed it under running water. He dried it off with a soft cloth. The lava mess on the rim was thoroughly removed without harming the finish underneath it. The slight bevel to the rim was visible once the pipe was clean. Without the grime the finish looked really good. As noted above the stem was a write off and would need to be replaced with a suitable one. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started my work on it.   I took a photo of the rim top to show the condition it was in after the cleanup. Jeff was able to remove all of the lava on the rim top and edges. There is still some darkening on the rim top. You can see the damage on the top itself and around the outer edges from knocking out the pipe on a hard surface. The inner edge of the bowl had a lot of nicks and cuts and was out of round. The stem was clean and you can see the tooth chatter and marks on the surface near the button and the large deeper tooth mark on the underside.I went through my can of extra stems and found one that was suitable for a replacement on this Canadian. It was the same shape and size as the replacement that had been chewed through. Once it was cleaned up it would work nicely. The tenon was the right size which was a bonus. I put the stem on the shank and took the following photos. This is the part of restemming that is always a challenge. Like the sixth pipe I finished a bit ago it needed to be shaped. The new oval stem is always slightly off because the shank is never truly oval or round. Either the shank needs to be taken down slightly to accommodate the fit of the new stem or the stem needs to be taken down to meet the shank. In this case you can see from the following photos that the stem was a poor fit on the sides while the top and the underside of the shank were very close. In the photo of the top side you can see that it is slightly smaller. That tells you that the shank is not perfectly oval and adjustments will need to be made.I sanded off all of the calcification on both sides of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and cleaned up the area around the button edge. I sanded the surface of the button to reshape it on both the top and underside.I decided to work over the rim top next. I topped the bowl to remove the damaged areas on the top of the rim and minimize the damage to the inner and outer edges. Once that was finished there was still some damage to the rim from previous reaming and lighting. I took care of it by reshaping the bevel and the inner and outer edge of the rim with 220 grit sandpaper. I was able to remove all of the damage to the rim surface and reshape both then inner and outer edge of the rim. The gentle bevel that was originally present was restored. With the rim reshaped I turned my attention to fitting the stem to the shank. I carefully sanded the shank to reduce the diameter to match the stem. It was interesting that most of the work had to be done on the sides of the shank with a little on the top and bottom. In essence I made the shank more oval to match the stem. The photos below show the fit of the new stem at this point. I sanded the rim top repairs and the stem/shank junction with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to make sure that the scratching was reduces but more importantly that the transition at the shank and stem was smooth and flowing. It is easy to create issues with a folded piece of sandpaper (in terms of dips in the briar or vulcanite) because the two mediums have different hardness. The sanding sponge minimizes that for me. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the briar down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust. I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm to deep clean the briar and particularly the reshaped areas. The product works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I hand rubbed it with my fingers and wiped it off with a soft cloth. I buffed the bowl with a horsehair shoe brush to polish it. The briar really began to have a rich shine. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. I cleaned out the stem with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs. It took a bit of scrubbing but before too long the airway was clean.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust. I used the Before & After Pipe Polish to remove the small minute scratches left in the brass and the vulcanite. I finished by wiping the stem down with a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I the polished stem and bowl with Blue Diamond to polish out the remaining small scratches. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This is the seventh of the many “Malaga” pipes that I am restoring from Kathy’s Dad’s collection. I am looking forward once again to hearing what Kathy thinks once she sees the finished pipe on the blog. I will be posting it on the rebornpipes store very soon. It should make a nice addition to the next pipeman’s rack and in purchasing it you can carry on the trust from her father. The dimensions are Length: 6 inches, Height: 1 3/4 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/4 inches, Chamber diameter: 3/4 inches. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this Malaga from George’s estate. More will follow in a variety of shapes and sizes.

 

Kathy’s Dad’s Pipes #6– Restemming &Restoring George Koch’s “Malaga” Carved Canadian

Leave a reply

Blog by Steve Laug

This is the sixth of the “Malaga” pipes that I am working on from Kathy’s Dad’s pipes. For those of you who have not read the other blogs let me tell the story. Last fall I received a contact email on rebornpipes from Kathy asking if I would be interested in purchasing her late Father, George Koch’s estate pipes. He was a lover of “Malaga” pipes – all shapes and sizes and she wanted to move them out as she cleaned up the estate. We emailed back and forth and I had my brother Jeff follow up with her as he also lives in the US and would make it simpler to carry out this transaction. The long and short of it is that we purchased her Dad’s “Malaga” pipes. There are some beautiful pipes in that lot. I have never seen this many “Malagas” together in one place in all of my years of pipe restoring and refurbishing. They varied from having almost pristine to gnawed and damaged stems that will need to be replaced. Many of the pipes already had replacement stems or maybe George had the staff at the Malaga shop in Michigan put Lucite stems on them because he was such a gnawer. I don’t know if we will ever know the answer to that as Kathy did not know for sure. She did know though that he loved the brand and that most of the pipes he smoked he purchased from the shop. These were some well used and obviously well loved pipes. Cleaning and restoring them will be a tribute to this pipeman. (Here is a link to some history of the Malaga Brand if you are interested: https://rebornpipes.com/tag/malaga-pipes/. There are also links there to a catalogue and the maker George Khoubesser.)Knowing about the pipeman who held the pipes in trust before me gives another dimension to the restoration work. This is certainly true with this lot of pipes. I can almost imagine George picking out each pipe in his assortment at the Malaga shop in Michigan. I may well be alone in this, but when I know about the person it is almost as if he is with me work on his pipes. In this case Kathy sent us not only information but also a photo of her Dad enjoying his “Malagas”. Once again, I am including that information so you can know a bit about the pipeman who held these pipes in trust before they are passed on to some of you. I include part of Kathy’s correspondence with my brother as well…

Jeff…Here is a little about my dad, George P. Koch…I am sending a picture of him with a pipe also in a separate email.

Dad was born in 1926 and lived almost all his life in Springfield, Illinois. He was the youngest son of German immigrants and started grade school knowing no English. His father was a coal miner who died when Dad was about seven and his sixteen year old brother quit school to go to work to support the family. There was not much money, but that doesn’t ruin a good childhood, and dad had a good one, working many odd jobs, as a newspaper carrier, at a dairy, and at the newspaper printing press among others. He learned to fly even before he got his automobile driver’s license and carried his love of flying with him through life, recertifying his license in retirement and getting his instrumental license in his seventies and flying until he was grounded by the FAA in his early eighties due to their strict health requirements. (He was never happy with them about that.) He was in the Army Air Corps during World War II, trained to be a bomber, but the war ended before he was sent overseas. He ended service with them as a photographer and then earned his engineering degree from University of Illinois. He worked for Allis Chalmers manufacturing in Springfield until the early sixties, when he took a job at Massey Ferguson in Detroit, Michigan. We lived in Livonia, and that’s where his love for Malaga pipes began. After a few years he returned to Allis Chalmers and we moved back to Springfield. I remember that when we went back to Michigan to visit friends, Dad had to go to the Malaga store and acquire a few new pipes. Many a year I wrote to Malaga and they picked out a pipe for me to purchase that I could give Dad for a Christmas or birthday present. He was always pleased. His favorites were the straight stemmed medium sized bowl pipes, but he liked them all.  He had some other pipes, but the Malagas were his favorites. I remember him smoking them sitting in his easy chair after work, with feet up on the ledge by the fire burning in the fireplace.  Growing up it was my job to clean them and he liked the inner bowl and stem coated with Watkins vanilla, leaving a little of that liquid in the bowl to soak in when I put them back on the rack. Dad quit smoking later in life and so they’ve sat on the racks for many years unattended, a part of his area by his easy chair and fireplace. Dad passed when he was 89 years old and it finally is time for the pipes to move on. I’m very happy they are being restored by you and your brother and hope they find homes who enjoy them as much as Dad did. Thank-you for your care and interest. — Kathy, the oldest daughter

Kathy, once again I thank you for providing this beautiful tribute to your Dad. We will appreciate your trust in allowing us to clean and restore these pipes. I am also trusting that those of you who are reading this might carry on the legacy of her Dad’s pipes as they will be added to the rebornpipes store once they are finished.

The sixth of the pipes that I chose to work on is a “Malaga” Carved Canadian with some different rustication. There are trails around the pipe and the top of the shank is rusticated in an unusual and interesting pattern. It had a chewed and ruined vulcanite stem. Some great grain peeks through the grime between the trails carved around the bowl. The warm brown finish on the bowl appeared to be good condition under the dust and tars of time. I am pretty certain that Malaga pipes must have been oil cured. The uniform finish and the light weight lead me to think that is the case. Once more there are no fills in the bowl or long shank. I have yet to find a fill in any of the bowls I have worked on in this lot and looking through what remains I think it is fair to say I won’t find any in them either.

The rim top on this Canadian was lightly beveled inward and was covered with an overflow of lava from the thick cake in the bowl. The bevel was almost invisible. The rim top at the back of the bowl was more thickly caked than the front.  The rim top along with the inner and outer edge of the bowl was damaged. There were some nicks on the outer edge and there was some darkening on the inner edge. The bowl was out of round from previous reaming. The rim top and outer edge showed signs of being knocked against a hard surface to empty the dottle from the bowl. The stamping on the underside of the shank was clear and read “Malaga” near the stem/shank junction. There were no shape numbers on the pipe. The black vulcanite stem was ruined with bite marks on the top and a major portion of the underside of the stem missing. It would need to be replaced. The interior of the pipe was dirty. I know that George thoroughly enjoyed his pipes as is evidenced by the wear that all of them show. Jeff took these photos before he started the cleanup work on the pipe. Jeff took close up photos of the bowl and rim to show the condition of the pipe before he started to work his magic on it. The exterior of the bowl and shank were dirty. You can see the lava on the rim top, the cake in the bowl and the nicks on the rim top and bowl around the outer edge of the rim. It is dirty but in otherwise good condition. He also took a photo of the sides and underside of the bowl and shank. He also took a photo of both sides of the shank to show the rustication pattern on the topside and the stamping on the underside. You can see the overall condition of the shank before cleanup.The next photo shows the damage to both surfaces of the stem near the button, the worn and chewed down button and the missing underside of the stem. The stem is a write off – misshapen and ruined.Working on this sixth pipe followed pretty much the same pattern as all of these pipes. Jeff had reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and followed up with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife to remove the cake. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl, rim, shank and stem with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the oils and tars on the bowl, rim and shank. He rinsed it under running water. He dried it off with a soft cloth. The lava mess on the rim was thoroughly removed without harming the finish underneath it. The slight bevel to the rim was visible once the pipe was clean. Without the grime the finish looked really good. As noted above the stem was a write off and would need to be replaced with a suitable one. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started my work on it.   I took a photo of the rim top to show the condition it was in after the cleanup. Jeff was able to remove all of the lava on the rim top and edges. There is still some darkening on the rim top. You can see the damage on the top itself and around the outer edges from knocking out the pipe on a hard surface. The inner edge of the bowl had a lot of nicks and cuts and was out of round. The stem was clean and you can see the tooth chatter and marks on the surface near the button and the large deeper tooth mark on the underside.I went through my can of extra stems and found one that was suitable for a replacement on this Canadian. It was the same shape and size as the replacement that had been chewed through. Once it was cleaned up it would work nicely. The tenon was the right size which was a bonus. I put the stem on the shank and took the following photos. This is the part of restemming that is always a challenge. The new stem is always slightly off because the shank is never truly oval or round. Either the shank needs to be taken down slightly to accommodate the fit of the new stem or the stem needs to be taken down to meet the shank. In this case you can see from the following photos that the stem fit the underside of the shank perfectly. In the photo of the top side you can see that it is slightly smaller. That tells you that the shank is not perfectly oval and adjustments will need to be made.I sanded off all of the calcification on both sides of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and cleaned up the area around the button edge. I sanded the surface of the button to reshape it on both the top and underside.I decided to work over the rim top, reshaping the bevel and the inner and outer edge of the rim with 220 grit sandpaper. I was able to remove all of the damage to the rim surface and reshape the inner edge of the rim. The rounded flowing bevel that was originally present was restored.With the rim reshaped I turned my attention to fitting the stem to the shank. I carefully sanded the shank to reduce the diameter to match the stem. It was interesting that most of the work had to be done on the sides of the shank with a little on the top and bottom. In essence I made the shank more oval to match the stem. The photos below show the fit of the new stem at this point. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the briar down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust. I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm to deep clean the nooks and crannies of the rustication paths and patches as well as the smooth areas. The product works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I hand rubbed it with my fingers and wiped it off with a soft cloth. I buffed the bowl with a horsehair shoe brush to polish it. The briar really began to have a rich shine. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. I cleaned out the stem with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs. It took a bit of scrubbing but before too long the airway was clean.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust. I used the Before & After Pipe Polish to remove the small minute scratches left in the brass and the vulcanite. I finished by wiping the stem down with a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I the polished stem and bowl with Blue Diamond to polish out the remaining small scratches. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This is the sixth of the many “Malaga” pipes that I am restoring from Kathy’s Dad’s collection. I am looking forward once again to hearing what Kathy thinks once she sees the finished pipe on the blog. I will be posting it on the rebornpipes store very soon. It should make a nice addition to the next pipeman’s rack and in purchasing it you can carry on the trust from her father. The dimensions are Length: 6 inches, Height: 1 7/8 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 3/8 inches, Chamber diameter: 3/4 inches. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this Malaga from George’s estate. More will follow in a variety of shapes and sizes.

Kathy’s Dad’s Pipes #5 – Restemming &Restoring George Koch’s “Malaga” Canadian

Leave a reply

Blog by Steve Laug

This is the fifth of the “Malaga” pipes that I am working on from Kathy’s Dad’s pipes. For those of you who have not read the other blogs let me tell the story. Last fall I received a contact email on rebornpipes from Kathy asking if I would be interested in purchasing her late Father, George Koch’s estate pipes. He was a lover of “Malaga” pipes – all shapes and sizes and she wanted to move them out as she cleaned up the estate. We emailed back and forth and I had my brother Jeff follow up with her as he also lives in the US and would make it simpler to carry out this transaction. The long and short of it is that we purchased her Dad’s “Malaga” pipes. There are some beautiful pipes in that lot. I have never seen this many “Malagas” together in one place in all of my years of pipe restoring and refurbishing. They varied from having almost pristine to gnawed and damaged stems that will need to be replaced. Many of the pipes already had replacement stems or maybe George had the staff at the Malaga shop in Michigan put Lucite stems on them because he was such a gnawer. I don’t know if we will ever know the answer to that as Kathy did not know for sure. She did know though that he loved the brand and that most of the pipes he smoked he purchased from the shop. These were some well used and obviously well loved pipes. Cleaning and restoring them will be a tribute to this pipeman. (Here is a link to some history of the Malaga Brand if you are interested: https://rebornpipes.com/tag/malaga-pipes/. There are also links there to a catalogue and the maker George Khoubesser.)Knowing about the pipeman who held the pipes in trust before me gives another dimension to the restoration work. This is certainly true with this lot of pipes. I can almost imagine George picking out each pipe in his assortment at the Malaga Pipe Shop in Michigan. I may well be alone in this, but when I know about the person it is almost as if he is with me work on his pipes. In this case Kathy sent us not only information but also a photo of her Dad enjoying his “Malagas”. Once again, I am including that information so you can know a bit about the pipeman who held these pipes in trust before they are passed on to some of you. I include part of Kathy’s correspondence with my brother as well…

Jeff…Here is a little about my dad, George P. Koch…I am sending a picture of him with a pipe also in a separate email.

Dad was born in 1926 and lived almost all his life in Springfield, Illinois. He was the youngest son of German immigrants and started grade school knowing no English. His father was a coal miner who died when Dad was about seven and his sixteen year old brother quit school to go to work to support the family. There was not much money, but that doesn’t ruin a good childhood, and dad had a good one, working many odd jobs, as a newspaper carrier, at a dairy, and at the newspaper printing press among others. He learned to fly even before he got his automobile driver’s license and carried his love of flying with him through life, recertifying his license in retirement and getting his instrumental license in his seventies and flying until he was grounded by the FAA in his early eighties due to their strict health requirements. (He was never happy with them about that.) He was in the Army Air Corps during World War II, trained to be a bomber, but the war ended before he was sent overseas. He ended service with them as a photographer and then earned his engineering degree from University of Illinois. He worked for Allis Chalmers manufacturing in Springfield until the early sixties, when he took a job at Massey Ferguson in Detroit, Michigan. We lived in Livonia, and that’s where his love for Malaga pipes began. After a few years he returned to Allis Chalmers and we moved back to Springfield. I remember that when we went back to Michigan to visit friends, Dad had to go to the Malaga store and acquire a few new pipes. Many a year I wrote to Malaga and they picked out a pipe for me to purchase that I could give Dad for a Christmas or birthday present. He was always pleased. His favorites were the straight stemmed medium sized bowl pipes, but he liked them all.  He had some other pipes, but the Malagas were his favorites. I remember him smoking them sitting in his easy chair after work, with feet up on the ledge by the fire burning in the fireplace.  Growing up it was my job to clean them and he liked the inner bowl and stem coated with Watkins vanilla, leaving a little of that liquid in the bowl to soak in when I put them back on the rack. Dad quit smoking later in life and so they’ve sat on the racks for many years unattended, a part of his area by his easy chair and fireplace. Dad passed when he was 89 years old and it finally is time for the pipes to move on. I’m very happy they are being restored by you and your brother and hope they find homes who enjoy them as much as Dad did. Thank-you for your care and interest. — Kathy, the oldest daughter

Kathy, once again I thank you for providing this beautiful tribute to your Dad. We will appreciate your trust in allowing us to clean and restore these pipes. I am also trusting that those of you who are reading this might carry on the legacy of her Dad’s pipes as they will be added to the rebornpipes store once they are finished.

The fifth of the pipes that I chose to work on is a “Malaga” Canadian with a tall almost chimney like bowl. It was one the lot with a chewed and ruined vulcanite stem. But it is another beautiful piece of briar underneath the grime and debris of the years. The warm brown finish on the bowl appeared to be good condition under the dust and tars of time. The more I work on these the more I think that Malaga pipes must have been oil cured as they are very light weight and the finishes are uniformly well done. I have yet to find a fill in any of the bowls I have worked on in this lot and looking through what remains I think it is fair to say I won’t find any in them either.

The rim top on the tall Canadian was covered with an overflow of lava from the thick cake in the bowl. The rim top at the back of the bowl was more thickly caked than the front.  The inner and outer edge of the bowl had damage. There were some nicks on the outer edge and there was some darkening on the inner edge. The bowl was out of round from previous reaming. The rim top and outer edge showed signs of being knocked against a hard surface to empty the dottle from the bowl. The stamping on the top of the shank was clear and read “Malaga” and Imported Briar on the underside. There were no shape numbers on the pipe. The black vulcanite stem was ruined with bite marks all the way through on both the top and underside at the button. It would need to be replaced. The interior of the pipe was dirty. I know that George thoroughly enjoyed his pipes as is evidenced by the wear that all of them show. Jeff took these photos before he started the cleanup work on the pipe. Jeff took close up photos of the bowl and rim to show the condition of the pipe before he started to work his magic on it. The exterior of the bowl and shank were dirty. You can see the lava on the rim top, the cake in the bowl and the nicks on the rim top and bowl around the outer edge of the rim. It is dirty but in otherwise good condition. He also took a photo of the sides of the bowl. He also took a photo of both sides of the shank to show the stamping and the condition of the overall shank so you could have an idea of where things were at before he cleaned it up.The next photo shows the damage to both surface of the stem near the button and the worn and chewed down button. The stem is a write off on this one. The bite marks go all the way through and leave the stem misshapen and ruined. Working on this fifth pipe was pretty straightforward because Jeff had done all the hard cleanup work on the briar inside and out. He reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and followed up with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife to remove the cake. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl, rim, shank and stem with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the oils and tars on the bowl, rim and shank. He rinsed it under running water. He dried it off with a soft cloth. The lava mess on the rim was thoroughly removed without harming the finish underneath it. Without the grime the finish looked really good. As noted above the stem was a write off and would need to be replaced with a suitable one. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started my work on it. I took a photo of the rim top to show the condition it was in after the cleanup. Jeff was able to remove all of the lava on the rim top and edges. There is still some darkening on the rim top. You can see the damage on the top itself and around the outer edges from knocking out the pipe on a hard surface. The inner edge of the bowl had a lot of nicks and cuts and was out of round. The stem was clean and you can see the tooth chatter and marks on the surface near the button and the large deeper tooth mark on the underside.I went through my can of extra stems and found one that was suitable for a replacement on this Canadian. It was a bit shorter than the replacement that had been chewed through.  It also had an ornamental brass ring over the end of the tenon and anchored to the stem. The tenon was the right diameter for the shank so it was a simple matter of cleaning up the tenon and fitting it on the shank. I took photos of the pipe with the new stem. The brass band was going to look really good once it was polished. I also like the shorter stem on the pipe as it looks more like the classic Canadian it was when it was sold. I took some close up photos of the new stem to show the fit to the shank. The stem is looking really good. It will need to be thoroughly cleaned and polished but it shows promise.I sanded off all of the calcification on both sides of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and cleaned up the area around the button edge. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of this part of the process. There was no tooth chatter on either side which was a plus. There was some oxidation and the brass spacer at the stem/shank junction was oxidized. I sanded the surface of the button to reshape it on both the top and underside. I cleaned out the airway and the slot in the button with pipe cleaners and alcohol. I used a dental pick to clean out the corners of the slot.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust. I used the Before & After Pipe Polish to remove the small minute scratches left in the brass and the vulcanite. I finished by wiping the stem down with a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I lightly topped the bowl on my topping board using 220 grit sandpaper. It did not take too much work to remove the nicks and damage to the rim top and edges. Once it was complete I topped it on a medium grit sanding sponge to smooth the surface even more.I sanded the inside edge of the rim to minimize the damage and bring the bowl back to round. I gave it a slight bevel that made the darkening on the inside edge less visible.I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the briar down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust. I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm to deep clean the pores and grain of the smooth finish as well as to enliven and protect the briar. I hand rubbed it with my fingers and wiped it off with a soft cloth. I buffed the bowl with a horsehair shoe brush to polish it. The briar really began to have a rich shine. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. I the polished stem and bowl with Blue Diamond to polish out the remaining small scratches. I gave the bowl and the stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This is the fifth of the many “Malaga” pipes that I am restoring from Kathy’s Dad’s collection. I am looking forward once again to hearing what Kathy thinks once she sees the finished pipe on the blog. I will be posting it on the rebornpipes store very soon. It should make a nice addition to the next pipeman’s rack and in purchasing it you can carry on the trust from her father. The dimensions are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 1/4 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 3/8 inches, Chamber diameter: 3/4 inches. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this Malaga from George’s estate. More will follow in a variety of shapes and sizes.

Kathy’s Dad’s Pipes #4 – Restoring George Koch’s “Malaga” Unique

Leave a reply

Blog by Steve Laug

This is the fourth of the “Malaga” pipes that I am working on from Kathy’s Dad’s pipes. For those of you who have not read the other blogs let me tell the story. Last fall I received a contact email on rebornpipes from Kathy asking if I would be interested in purchasing her late Father, George Koch’s estate pipes. He was a lover of “Malaga” pipes – all shapes and sizes and she wanted to move them out as she cleaned up the estate. We emailed back and forth and I had my brother Jeff follow up with her as he also lives in the US and would make it simpler to carry out this transaction. The long and short of it is that we purchased her Dad’s “Malaga” pipes. There are some beautiful pipes in that lot. I have never seen this many “Malagas” together in one place in all of my years of pipe restoring and refurbishing. They varied from having almost pristine to gnawed and damaged stems that will need to be replaced. Many of the pipes already had replacement stems or maybe George had the staff at the Malaga shop in Michigan put Lucite stems on them because he was such a gnawer. I don’t know if we will ever know the answer to that as Kathy did not know for sure. She did know though that he loved the brand and that most of the pipes he smoked he purchased from the shop. These were some well used and obviously well loved pipes. Cleaning and restoring them will be a tribute to this pipeman. (Here is a link to some history of the Malaga Brand if you are interested: https://rebornpipes.com/tag/malaga-pipes/. There are also links there to a catalogue and the maker George Khoubesser.)Knowing about the pipeman who held the pipes in trust before me gives another dimension to the restoration work. This is certainly true with this lot of pipes. I can almost imagine George picking out each pipe in his assortment at the Malaga shop in Michigan. I may well be alone in this, but when I know about the person it is almost as if he is with me work on his pipes. In this case Kathy sent us not only information but also a photo of her Dad enjoying his “Malagas”. Once again, I am including that information so you can know a bit about the pipeman who held these pipes in trust before they are passed on to some of you. I include part of Kathy’s correspondence with my brother as well…

Jeff…Here is a little about my dad, George P. Koch…I am sending a picture of him with a pipe also in a separate email.

Dad was born in 1926 and lived almost all his life in Springfield, Illinois. He was the youngest son of German immigrants and started grade school knowing no English. His father was a coal miner who died when Dad was about seven and his sixteen year old brother quit school to go to work to support the family. There was not much money, but that doesn’t ruin a good childhood, and dad had a good one, working many odd jobs, as a newspaper carrier, at a dairy, and at the newspaper printing press among others. He learned to fly even before he got his automobile driver’s license and carried his love of flying with him through life, recertifying his license in retirement and getting his instrumental license in his seventies and flying until he was grounded by the FAA in his early eighties due to their strict health requirements. (He was never happy with them about that.) He was in the Army Air Corps during World War II, trained to be a bomber, but the war ended before he was sent overseas. He ended service with them as a photographer and then earned his engineering degree from University of Illinois. He worked for Allis Chalmers manufacturing in Springfield until the early sixties, when he took a job at Massey Ferguson in Detroit, Michigan. We lived in Livonia, and that’s where his love for Malaga pipes began. After a few years he returned to Allis Chalmers and we moved back to Springfield. I remember that when we went back to Michigan to visit friends, Dad had to go to the Malaga store and acquire a few new pipes. Many a year I wrote to Malaga and they picked out a pipe for me to purchase that I could give Dad for a Christmas or birthday present. He was always pleased. His favorites were the straight stemmed medium sized bowl pipes, but he liked them all.  He had some other pipes, but the Malagas were his favorites. I remember him smoking them sitting in his easy chair after work, with feet up on the ledge by the fire burning in the fireplace.  Growing up it was my job to clean them and he liked the inner bowl and stem coated with Watkins vanilla, leaving a little of that liquid in the bowl to soak in when I put them back on the rack. Dad quit smoking later in life and so they’ve sat on the racks for many years unattended, a part of his area by his easy chair and fireplace. Dad passed when he was 89 years old and it finally is time for the pipes to move on. I’m very happy they are being restored by you and your brother and hope they find homes who enjoy them as much as Dad did. Thank-you for your care and interest. — Kathy, the oldest daughter

Kathy, once again I thank you for providing this beautiful tribute to your Dad. We will appreciate your trust in allowing us to clean and restore these pipes. I am also trusting that those of you who are reading this might carry on the legacy of her Dad’s pipes as they will be added to the rebornpipes store once they are finished.

The fourth of the pipes that I chose to work on is a “Malaga” Unique shape with a swirled brown acrylic stem. Some might call it a skater but it is not quite that. Others may have another idea but I have no clue what to call this shape. But it is another beautiful pipe underneath the grime and debris of the years. The warm brown finish on the bowl appeared to be good condition under the dust and tars of time. The more I work on these the more I think that Malagas must have been oil cured as they are very light weight and the finishes are uniformly well done. I have yet to find a fill in any of the bowls I have worked on in this lot and looking through what remains I think it is fair to say I won’t find any in them either. The rim top on the unique was covered with an overflow of lava from the cake in the bowl. The inner and outer edge of the bowl had damage. There were some nicks on the outer edge and there was some darkening on the inner edge. The bowl was out of round from previous reaming. The rim top and outer edge showed signs of being knocked against a hard surface to empty the dottle from the bowl. The stamping on the left side of the shank was clear and read “Malaga” and Imported Briar on the right side. There were no shape numbers on the pipe. The acrylic brown coloured stem fit the shank quite well and had some really interesting swirls around the stem. There was tooth chatter and marks on both sides at the button and one deep tooth mark on the underside near the button. The interior of the pipe was dirty. I know that George thoroughly enjoyed his pipes as is evidenced by the use that all of them how. Jeff took these photos before he started the cleanup work on the pipe. He took close up photos of the bowl and rim to show the condition of the pipe before he started to work his magic on it. The exterior of the bowl and shank were dirty. You can see the lava on the rim, the cake in the bowl and the nicks on the rim top and bowl around the outer edge of the rim. It is dirty but in otherwise good condition. He also took a photo of the sides of the bowl and the underside of the bowl and shank. He also took a photo of both sides of the shank to show the stamping and the condition of the overall shank so you could have an idea of where things were at before he cleaned it up.The next photo shows the colour of the stem material with all of the swirls browns and copper colours that make the acrylic stem quite beautiful. The nicks in the surface, the tooth chatter on the stem top and underside as well as the button and the deep tooth mark on the underside of the stem can be seen in the photos that follow.Working on this fourth pipe was pretty straightforward because Jeff had done all the hard cleanup work on the briar inside and out. He reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and followed up with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife to remove the cake. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl, rim, shank and stem with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the oils and tars on the bowl, rim and shank. He rinsed it under running water. He dried it off with a soft cloth. The lava mess on the rim was thoroughly removed without harming the finish underneath it. Once the grime was removed the finish actually looked it was in excellent condition. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started my work on it. It really has some nice birdseye grain on the right side of the bowl and shank. I took a photo of the rim top to show the condition it was in after the cleanup. Jeff was able to remove all of the lava on the rim top and edges. There is still some darkening on the rim top. You can see the damage on the top itself and around the outer edges from knocking out the pipe on a hard surface. The inner edge of the bowl had a lot of nicks and cuts and was out of round. The stem was clean and you can see the tooth chatter and marks on the surface near the button and the large deeper tooth mark on the underside.I sanded out the tooth chatter and worked to reduce the size and impact of the tooth marks with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth and blend them into the surface of the rest of the stem. I sanded the surface of the button to remove the marks on the top and underside. There was a small tooth mark remaining on the top of the stem and the one on the underside is visible and is repairable at this point. I sanded the inside of the tooth mark to rough it up, wiped it down with alcohol on a cotton pad and filled in the divot with clear super glue. I set the stem aside to let the glue cure and worked on another pipe. When the glue had hardened I used a needle file to recut and straighten out the button edge on both sides of the stem. I touched up the small air bubbles that had formed in the super glue with a small drop of glue on each side.When that glue had cured I sanded it smooth with 220 grit sandpaper to blend it into the surface of the acrylic. I worked on it until the repair was basically invisible.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust. I lightly topped the bowl on my topping board using 220 grit sandpaper. It did not take too much work to remove the nicks and damage to the rim top and edges. Once it was complete I topped it on a medium grit sanding sponge to smooth the surface even more.I sanded the inside edge of the rim with 220 grit sandpaper to minimize the damage and bring the bowl back to round. I gave it a slight bevel that made the darkening on the inside edge less visible.I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the briar down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust. I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm to deep clean the pores and grain of the smooth finish as well as to enliven and protect the briar. I hand rubbed it with my fingers and wiped it off with a soft cloth. I buffed the bowl with a horsehair shoe brush to polish it. The briar really began to have a rich shine. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. I put the stem back on the pipe and buffed it with Blue Diamond to polish out the remaining small scratches. I gave the bowl and the stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This is the fourth of the many “Malaga” pipes that I am restoring from Kathy’s Dad’s collection. I am looking forward once again to hearing what Kathy thinks once she sees the finished pipe on the blog. I will be posting it on the rebornpipes store very soon. It should make a nice addition to the next pipeman’s rack and in purchasing it you can carry on the trust from her father. The dimensions are Length: 5 ¾ inches, Height: 1 3/4 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 3/8 inches, Chamber diameter: 3/4 inches. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this Malaga from George’s estate. More will follow in a variety of shapes and sizes.