Tag Archives: bowl topping

Early Dr. Grabow Linkmans De Luxe Propeller Logo

Blog by Bill Hein

I bought a lot of pipes a while back that had one of these early Dr. Grabow pipes. Before I started cleaning this one up I started digging around the net to see what I could find out about it as I had never seen the propeller logo before. I mainly collect old Kaywoodies and as such didn’t know much about the older Grabows other than the few I have being great smokers. The bottom of the shank is stamped with the patent number 1896800. I went to the U.S. patent website and searched the number. The patent date is February 7th, 1933. I was unable to save the images but the patent looked to be on stinger design. From reading the patent, it seems the stinger and threaded stem were designed to help strengthen the pipe shank with the insert. The shape of the stinger was designed to also be used as a bowl scraper.

I went to Pipephil.eu and went to the Dr. Grabow section. The first pipe listed is a Propeller Logo De Luxe. They believe this model was made between 1933 and 1937 based off the markings. My pipe is stamped Linkmans’s in block letters above Dr. Grabow in script. The other side of the shank is stamped 9967 with De Luxe in script over bryure in block letters. Aside from the bowl number being slightly different on the Pipephil site, the other markings are the same. Below is the pipe as received.

The first thing I did was disassemble the pipe and throw the stem in an oxiclean bath. I then reamed out the bowl.While it soaked I filled the pipe with salt and 91% Isopropyl alcohol. After a few hours I removed the stem from its bath and gave it a good rinse. While it dried I knocked the salt out of the bowl and rinsed the inside of the bowl and shank to make sure all the salt was removed. I then set aside to dry. Once it had dried out a bit I took some 500 grit wet sandpaper and scrubbed off the oxidation from the stem as well as the gunk from the stinger. I noticed there was some build up on the rim of the bowl so I used the same paper to remove as much as I could.

I took a dark walnut stain pen to touch up the rim.

I started scrubbing out the inside of the stem, switching between bristled and soft pipe cleaners. This thing was nasty and I went through quite a few cleaners but finally they came out clean. I then went to my buffer and buffed the stem and stinger with white diamond. I switched wheels and buffed on a few coats of carnauba wax to both the stem and bowl. Once the buffing was done I buffed the pipe by hand with a microfibre cloth until I got a beautiful shine. Below is the finished pipe.

Kaywoodie White Briar Bulldog 12B

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

INTRODUCTION
The Kaywoodie White Briar line lasted from 1951-1989. Some elusive quality, including perhaps its rough condition and the fact that I can’t find the same shape shown anywhere online, makes me suspect my bulldog is c. 1960-1970. It’s alright, I’m aware of the virtual non sequitur I just committed, and stand by it as a sort of literary tool if nothing else. Call it a hunch. Maybe I’m just a romantic. No doubt about the last part, at least. RESTORATION
The bit was mostly just dirty.I put it in an OxiClean bath and began the process of cleaning the rest of the pipe by using my Senior Reamer to remove the fair amount of char from the chamber. I followed the reamer with 150-, 200- and 320-grit papers, and removed the excess soot with soft cotton cloth squares soaked in purified water. Then I applied a little purified water to the outside of the stummel with more soft cotton cloth squares, getting rid of considerable grime.

My main concern was the rim, which appeared to be scorched to the point of no return. I used still more soft cotton cloth squares with purified water to work away at the char before switching to 1800, 2400 and 3200 micro-mesh – and just as I thought it was coming clean realized to my horror that the blackened parts of the rim, which had turned a creamy brown color, were down to the briar! In hindsight, I don’t know if I should have left the tiny amount of the original finish that was left on the rim as it was, but I saw no reason. With sadness and reluctance, I removed it for uniformity. I replaced the bit, which I had removed from the OxiClean bath and used wet micro-mesh from 1500-12000 to return to a nice black smoothness, and retorted the pipe. All that was left to do was an unexpected stain of the rim using Feibing’s Brown and flaming it, then buffing with white Tripoli, White Diamond and Carnauba. I buffed the bit as usual, with red and white Tripoli, White Diamond and Carnauba. CONCLUSION
I’m always willing to face the music as far as responsibility for mistakes goes, but I honestly don’t know if the “mishap” I had with the rim is common with white briar restores. I didn’t use sandpaper – not until after it was already too late. But it was my restore, and so I will own it. As well as the pipe, most likely, unless anyone out there wants a good deal on a unique Kaywoodie White Briar Bulldog 12B with a brown briar rim!

Fixing a Citation Squat Bulldog

An Interesting Multi-Finish Stanwell Buffalo Sitter 606

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Blog by Steve Laug

This pipe came to me in the last box of pipes that my brother sent me. It is a Stanwell as can be seen from the shape and finish. From my research I came to understand that it came from the Stanwell Buffalo line. It is stamped on the smooth underside of the shank with the words Stanwell Made in Denmark and the shape number 606. The shape number is very visible and I was unable to locate that number on the internet shape charts.The front of the bowl was smooth and there was an acrylic horn-like material as a shank extension. The bowl had a light cake and looked as if it had been reamed recently. The rim of the pipe was really dirty with lava overflow from the bowl but underneath I could see that it was originally smooth like the front of the bowl and the portion where the stamping was on the underside of the shank. There was some burn damage on the outer and the inner edges of the rim that would need to be addressed. The pipe was a mix of medium and dark brown stains and the finish had a light sand blast on the surface of the sides, back and bottom of the bowl and the top and sides of the shank. The finish was dirty with lots of grime in the grain of the blast. The stem is a military style stick bit. The stem was in good shape with only one tooth mark on the underside toward the right side of the pipe. The fit in the shank was snug. The stamping on the stem showed the Stanwell Crown and S and it was faint but visible. I took a close up photo of the rim to show the state of things when I started. You can see the buildup on the surface and the burn damage on the front inner edge of the rim.I cleaned up the reaming with the Savinelli Pipe Knife and then cleaned out the internals of the bowl, shank, mortise and airway in the stem. I used pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to remove all of the oils. I scrubbed the stem with Meguiar’s Scratch X2.0 plastic polish to remove the oxidation. I sanded the tooth marks on the underside of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper until the stem was smooth. I lightly topped the bowl on the topping board. I wanted to remove the damaged surface and clean up rim edges. I also wanted to expose the burn marks so that I could address them.I sanded the rim top with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads to smooth out the scratching. I then stained it with a medium brown stain pen to match the smooth portions of the pipe. You can see the burn damage on the inside edge of the front of the bowl.I folded a piece of sandpaper and worked on beveling the inside edge all the way around the bowl to minimize the damaged area on the right front edge. While the damage is still visible it is much more subtle than it was before the beveling. I set the bowl aside and worked on the stem. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to clean up some of the oxidation and then worked on it with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit sanding pads and then rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads and gave it another coat of oil. I finished sanding with 6000-12000 grit pads and gave it a final coat of oil. I set it aside to dry. I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond (lightly on the bowl except for the smooth areas and the rim top and more concentrated on the stem). I gave the stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed with a clean buffing pad. I hand waxed the bowl with Conservator’s Wax. I hand buffed the bowl with a shoe brush. I finished buffing the pipe with a microfiber cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I am still debating rusticating the rim to match the bowl and stain it darker to blend with the sandblast but not sure… time will tell. Thanks for looking.

An Amazing Find – A Corsica Cavalier with a Horn Stem and End Cap

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Blog Steve Laug

This is yet one more of my brother’s amazing finds. It is a beautiful Cavalier with a horn stem and end cap. It is stamped in classic late 19th Century fashion with gold leaf on the left side of the shank. It reads CORSICA in and arch over two stars around a capital V with what looks like an elongated 0 in the middle of the V. Underneath the *V* is VIEILLE RACINE stamped in a reverse arch. The words form and oval. It is my understanding that the Vielle Racine stamp translates literally as Old Root. The band is stamped 14K and is almost a rose gold. It is fitted to the shank and also is beveled inward covering the shank end. The horn end cap has a threaded short bone tenon that screws into the briar. It has a large bowl.

When the pipe came to me it was dirty but the bowl had been reamed. The rim had a slight build up and the inner edge had been slightly damaged when it had been reamed. The gold band was tarnished. The finish was dirty and spotted with sticky dark spots on the end cap and in the bend at the top of the shank bowl junction. The bowl had been coated with shellac that was spotty and cloudy in places. The stem looked really good at first glance but I would have to examine it more closely once I started cleaning it up. The grain on the briar was beautiful and I could not wait to clean it up and see what lay beneath the grime and the shellac. I took several close-up photos to highlight different aspects of the pipe. The first of these is the state of the rim and bowl. The rim photo is a bit blurry but gives a pretty good idea nonetheless of the state of the bowl and the tars on the rim. The second photo is of the stamping on the left side of the shank. It still had the gold leaf in the stamping to highlight it. I took the pipe apart and photographed the parts. I also took a photo of the end cap so that the bone tenon in visible. The horn stem looked really good but looking at it up close I could see a crack along the top of the stem following the curve and a small group of them on the right side of the stem. There were also a few chips missing on the underside of the stem near the shank junction. The tenon had a unique look to it – almost a nipple on the end of it. It was coated with a little varnish as well so it much have someone’s attempt to tighten it as it was currently quite loose in the shank. Before I started to work on it I decided to do a bit of research to fill in the gaps on another pipe brand that had not heard of before seeing this one. I was familiar with briar coming from Corsica but had not run across the pipe brand of that name. I resorted to the pipephil site to see if he had any information on the pipe and who may have made it. The site did have the brand listed. It turns out that Corsica is a brand of Henri Vuillard of Saint Claude, France. This Vuillard was not to be confused with E. Vuillard & Cie also of Saint Claude. Reading that information helped me to make sense of the large *V* in the centre of the stamping on the pipe that I am working on. Here is the link to the information: http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/infos/hvuillard-en.html. The site included the following photos of several pipes in this line. The cursive form of the Corsica stamp is very similar to the stamping on my pipe.The link also included a sub link to a secondary page on the history of the brand. The following is an abstract of the information that I found regarding the maker of this pipe. At the end of the 19th century the Vuillard house managed by Paul Vuillard and established at Chemin de la Coupe (Saint Claude) produced match boxes and cases for spectacles. At the beginning of the 20th century on Henri’s (son of Paul Vuillard) initiative the factory is converted to the production of briar pipes which were marketed under the “Corsica” brand.

From that information along with the materials and the design of the pipe I am pretty confident in saying that it was made in the early 20th century when the company was managed by Paul Vuillard who took the initiative to start making pipes. An interesting note is that from 1914-1918 The Henri Vuillard Factory produced pipes for the French Army. The article says that at that time they had between 170-180 employees.

Armed with this new knowledge and an estimate of the age of the pipe I began to clean it up. The cake had been reamed already so I just cleaned up the walls of the bowl with the Savinelli Pipe Knife. I had removed the stem and the end cap so it was easy to hold the bowl and ream it.I cleaned the shank from the mortise to the end cap with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. The oils and tars that came out were not very dark and they did not smell like tobacco. It was almost as if they were the stain from the outside of the bowl. It did not matter though it took quite a few before the shank was clean all the way through.I cleaned the airway in the stem as well. It also was dirty. But as I cleaned off the exterior the cracks became more noticeable, particularly the one on the topside.I scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to remove the shellac coat. I was careful around the gold leaf in the stamping as I did not want to damage that area of the bowl. I put Vaseline on the threads of the bone tenon on the end cap and carefully turned it into the end of the shank. I polished the bone of the end cap with 1500-4000 grit micromesh sanding pads to smooth it out. I rubbed it down with some Obsidian Oil and let it dry. In the photo below you can see the fine cracks in the stem near the tenon end. This is also where the chips were. I drilled a tiny hole at each end of the crack on the top of the stem with a micro drill bit. I filled the holes and the crack with clear super glue. I used the clear super glue to also stabilize the other cracks on the sides of the stem and to build up the chipped areas on the underside of the stem. When the glue dried I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the repairs and to begin to polish the stem. Once the repairs were smooth I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and gave the stem a coat of Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded it with 3200-4000 grit pads and gave it another coat of oil. I know the oil is made for vulcanite but I wanted to bring a little life to the horn. I finished sanding the stem with 6000-12000 grit pads and gave it a final coat of oil. I polished the gold band on the shank end with a jeweler’s cloth until it shone. I gave the briar several coats of Conservators Wax and hand buffed the bowl with a shoe brush when it dried. I decided not to buff this pipe on the wheel because I did not want to damage the gold leaf or the horn. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth and polished it until it shone. The finished pipe is shown in the photos that follow. It truly is a beautiful old pipe. I only wish that the horn was more perfect. The stem glows but I see the repaired cracks. Ah well it is better than having the stem splinter apart while using it. It should be good for another hundred plus years now. Thanks for looking.

Introduced to a Bamboo Briar of Spain Oval Shank Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

I don’t know why but I keep taking out some unique pipes from the box my brother Jeff sent me. He has an uncanny ability to find the unusual and interesting pipes for me to restore. This one is one I had never heard of before. I have seen other bamboo rusticated pipes but not one that had the stamping that this one does. It is stamped on the underside of the bowl with the words BAMBOO BRIAR in an arch over the word Spain. The carver did a marvelous job of replicating the look of bamboo in the briar. The nodules, lines and grooves that he/she put in the briar really look like bamboo. To give it even more of an interesting look they left the briar natural to highlight the subdued grain of the briar coming through the smooth areas of the bamboo and the carved nicks in the surface. It is really beautiful.

When I took it out of the box the bowl had a thick cake of carbon built up in the bowl. The rim was thickly caked as well with lava. The outer edges of the bowl had some nicks in it and there was a small burn mark on the front right inner edge of the bowl. The stem did not fully seat in the mortise because of the tars and oils there. The exposed portion of the tenon and the stem were badly oxidized. There was some light tooth chatter on the stem but overall it was in decent shape underneath the oxidation. I took some close up photos of the rim and the bottom of the bowl. The picture of the rim shows the thickness of the cake and the state of the top of the rim. This old pipe was pretty clogged up with cake and tars. The picture of the bottom of the bowl shows the stamping. It reads Bamboo Briar over Spain. I removed the stem and dropped in a jar of Oxyclean to soak the heavy oxidation for several hours. Before working on the bowl I did a little research on the brand and found that on my go to site, Logos and Stampings, or pipephil there was a notation. Here is the link: http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-b1.html#bamboobriar.

On that site the pipe is described as follows: The bamboo like decorative carving was typical of Valencia’s manufacturers since the early 20th century. However it’s difficult to say who exactly the maker was.

With that information in hand I went to work on the bowl. I reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer beginning with the smallest cutting head and working up to one that was the same diameter as the bowl. I removed the cake and took it back to bare wood. I finished the reaming and cleaned up the bowl walls with the Savinelli Pipe Knife. The outer edge of the rim was rough and the top had some nicks in the briar that made topping the bowl necessary. I topped it to remove the damaged areas of the rim using a topping board and 220 grit sandpaper. I scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with acetone (fingernail polish remover) on cotton pads to clean up the dirt and oils from the natural finish of the briar. I sanded the topped rim with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and then used a light brown stain pen to stain it to match the patina on the bowl. I used a black Sharpie pen to touch the “root nodules” of the simulated bamboo. I hand applied some Conservators Wax to the bowl and once it dried hand buffed it with a shoe brush.I took photos of the pipe after buffing it. The colour of the rim and the patina that came out on the bowl with the wax gives it an aged bamboo look that I really like. I cleaned out the shank with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners to remove the tars and oils. I was quite surprised by how little came out of the shank with the cleaning. I expected it to be far worse.The stem had been soaking in Oxyclean for about four hours so it was time to work on that. I set the bowl aside and removed the stem from the Oxy soak. The soak had softened and removed much of the oxidation from the surface. It had also brought the deeper oxidation to the surface.I rubbed the stem down to remove the softened oxidation and then used needle files to clean up and define the edges of the button.I used pipe cleaners and alcohol to clean out the inside of the stem and again was surprised by the lack of real oils and tars.I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the file marks and to remove the oxidation on the surface. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and gave it a coat of Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads and gave it another coat of oil. I finished sanding it with 6000-12000 grit pads. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and let it dry. I buffed the stem on the buffer with Blue Diamond and then gave the pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax. I used a light touch on the bowl and shank so as not to clog up the nodules or grooves in the bamboo carving with too much wax. I raised the shine with a clean flannel buff on the buffer and then gave it a hand buff with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I really like the way the patina of the briar and the carvings on the bowl and shank give the pipe a look of aged bamboo. The unknown Spanish carver did a great job on this one in my opinion. Now I have to decide whether to keep this one or not. It is so unique that I think it deserves a place in my collection. Thanks for looking.

A Challenging Yello-Bole Chesterfield

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Blog by Aaron Henson

Although this is a standalone write up, it is also part 2 of an adventure I started with the rustication of a bent billiard about a month ago.

I found this Yello-Bole Chesterfield at a local flea market in town. It was part of a large estate collection, most of which were unsmoked uniquely carved pipes. My eye, however, was immediately attracted to the Peterson-like shape with military bit and P-lip stem and I was surprised to see that it was a Yello-Bole. The pipe was a bit grimy and oxidized with burn marks but after some talking we agreed on a price and I took it home.The stampings on the bowl were very clear and deep, some of the nicest I have seen on an estate pipe that is as well used as this one. The left side shank read YELLO-BOLE over HONEY CURED BRIAR over CHESTERFIELD with the KBB inside the clover leaf on the left. The band was stamped with KB&B inside the clover leaf over NICKEL PLATED. The right side shank was stamped with shape number 2816C. The stem had the Yello-Bole yellow circle inset in the top and SOLID RUBBER stamped deep into the underside of the stem.

A quick search online and I was able to use the markings to date the pipe to the 1933-1936 time manufacturing period.

The briar was in great shape with beautiful bird’s eye pattern. The pipe was dusty and grimy and after wiping down with an alcohol soaked cotton pad I continued with my assessment. The rim was coated with a heavy crust of tar and there was a deep burn mark on the outside of the rim (major issue number 1). The bowl did not have a large amount of cake so I had to assume that the previous owner had reamed out at some point. And perhaps it had been over reamed, because the air hole entered the bowl about 2/3 the way down the chamber wall. This would lead to a mouth full of hot ash when you were half way through the bowl (major issue number 2). There were some minor bumps and scratches in the surface of the bowl but nothing that could not be buffed out. The stem was in great shape. It was heavily oxidized with some minor tooth chatter but the airway was clear and the stinger was intact and in great condition.I set the stem to soak in a Oxiclean solution and turned to the stummel. First I reamed the chamber back to bare wood. Next, I tried to clean the rim with Oxiclean on a wet green pad but the tar was just too stubborn so I resorted to a topping board and lightly sand away the tar build up. This is where I made my first mistake: I scuffed off a bit of the nickel plating when topping the bowl (I still don’t have a fix for this!). I have thought about taking the ring off and having it re-plated but several attempts to remove the ring with heat have not been successful.

To address the burn mark on the rim I used a worn piece of 220 grit sand paper I removed the burned wood trying not to remove any of the sound briar under the burn. I was surprised to see how deep the burn went and was at a bit of a loss on how to address it. As you can see below, a significant amount of wood as damaged.I figured I had two options: 1) replace the burned material with glue/briar dust or 2) sand the rest of the rim to match and change the shape of the pipe. In either case I was going to need to refinish the briar so I wiped it down with acetone to remove as much of the finish as I could while I decided what I was going to do.

Looking into the chamber again, I listed out my options for addressing the air way issue. Again I came up with two options; 1) fill in the bottom 1/3 of the bowl with pipe mud, or 2) drill a new airway that comes out at the bottom of the chamber. I didn’t like either option. The first would have been a very large fill and volume change for the pipe and the second was fraught with potential problems – chiefly aligning the drill bit to come out at just the right point in the bottom of the bowl

So I figured it was time for some consultation. I outlined the issue in an email and included some picture and sent them off to Steve – our worthy “Professor of Pipe-ology” and blog host.

While I waited for Steve’s response I cleaned the inside of the shank and with alcohol soaked cotton swabs and pipe cleaners until then came out as clean as they went in. I also took the stem from the Oxiclean bath and removed the loose oxidation with a magic eraser. I cleaned the internals of the stem then polished it with micromesh pads 1500 – 12000. I used mineral oil every three pads to freshen the vulcanite and give the pads some traction. There was only one minor tooth mark that didn’t raise with heat and I filled it with a dab of black super glue and sanded it smooth with the 1500 mirco-mesh pad. Steve responded with the recommendation of building up the burn spot with super glue and briar dust confirmed that I had the right idea. I was hoping that he had another trick up his sleeve because I knew that the repair would have to be covered up with either a very dark stain or rusticated. I applied three separate layers of clear super glue and briar dust to build up the rim then carefully sanded the repair to blend it into the shape of the rim. I came across and older post where Kirk Fitzgerald rusticated a Peterson that looked very similar to my Chesterfield. Taking some note, I decided to try a similar type rustication. I lightly mark a ½” band around the top of the bowl with a pencil and corresponding area on the bottom of the bowl to balance the appearance. Using the 1/8” carving tool on a Dremel I added a dimpled texture in offset rows. I was glad I had tried using this tool on the previous project because the carving tool did have a tendency to skip on the harder grain. The final texture hid the repair and was not so extensive as to hide the grain. I sanded the outside of the bowl with micro mesh pads 1500 – 3600 to smooth out the scratches.

Instead of drilling a new airway, which posed the risk of additional misalignment, Steve recommended using a needle file to elongate the opening so it extended to the bottom of the bowl. The excess space could then be filled with plaster creating a new airway. This proved to be tedious work. Below are two rough cross-section of the pipe. On the left is the airway as it was and on the right is the revised airway (in theory).Filing was a slow process and it took some effort to keep the elongated hole from drifting off course. I went slow and checked the progress often. Once the hole was about where I thought it should be I used the stick of a cotton swab as the place holder for the new airway. It was the rolled paper type stick that could be bent to match the curve of the bowl. Holding stick in place with a rubber band around the rim I mixed a batch of thick plaster and pushed it into the elongated hole with my finger. When plaster came out the top of the hole I removed the excess from inside the bowl and set it aside to dry for 24 hours. In my first attempt at this repair, I did not have plaster so I used pipe mud (a slurry of cigar ash and water). This did not work at all. It is great for filling in the bottom of a bowl but it was too loose to stand on its own as a fill/patch. I removed the pipe mud and started over with the plaster.

The next evening, I used 100 grit sand paper wrapped around a ¼” dowel to remove the excess plaster and smooth out the repair. I carefully twisted the swab stick and it came free without damage to the patch. The next time I do this I will coat the stick with wax before securing it in place. The wax should help the stick pull free without bonding to the plaster.

It was time to finish the bowl. I chose to use straight Fiebing’s dark brown stain on the rusticated areas and then wiped it down with alcohol pad. Next I applied straight light brown to the rest of the bowl. After setting the color with heat I wiped the entire bowl with an alcohol pad to blend the colors. Happy with the results I took the pipe to the buffing station. I buffed the stem and stummel separately so I could get to all the area a little more easily. I started with white buffing compound then finished with multiple coats of carnauba wax.

With the outside of the pipe complete I wanted to cover up the plaster patch inside the bowl so I applied a bowl coating. Using my finger I spread a thin coat of maple syrup evenly over the inside of the bowl then poured in the contents of a dietary charcoal capsule. I put my palm over the top of the pipe and shook the pipe so the charcoal powder covered the inside of the bowl. I set the pipe aside to dry for 5 days before emptying out the loose powder.

I want to say “Thank you” to Steve for his advice on this one… and thank you for reading.

A New Brand for me – A Riff 221 Horn Stem Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

This was a new pipe brand for me. It is stamped RIFF in a double lined diamond on both the left side of the shank and on the horn stem. On the right side it is stamped CHELLA over *** (3 stars). On the underside of the shank it is stamped Made in Morocco and the shape number 221. This has to be the first Morocco made pipe that I have worked on. It was in pretty decent shape in terms of the bowl. There was a shiny shellac coat over a natural finish. The rim had some tars and oils built up on the back top side but inner and outer edge was in perfect shape. There was a slight burn mark on the front right top of the rim. The bowl had a slight cake that was uneven around the inside. The problem lay in the stem. There was a large crack in horn on the top that traveled half way down the stem. There was also a large chunk of horn missing on the underside of the stem. It was a very smooth scooped shape chunk that made me wonder how it had happened. When I pulled the stem out of the shank there was a large stinger apparatus that extended the length of the shank and ended in the bottom of the bowl. The tenon was metal. The internals of the shank and stem were quite clean. I was jazzed to work on this stem as it provided several challenges to me. I forgot to take pictures before I started but caught myself just after I started to work on the underside of the stem. I wiped the stem down with a cotton pad and alcohol to clean off the surface. I began to fill in the edges of the missing chunk with clear super glue. I layered the glue in place on the area until it was filled. Once it had cured overnight I would sand it down smooth with the surface of the stem. I cleaned out the crack with a dental pick. I drilled a tiny hole with a micro-drill bit at the end of the crack – toward the button. I filled in the crack and the drill hole with clear super glue and squeezed the crack together. I repeated the fill process until it formed a ridge along the crack. Once it cured I would sanded it smooth as well. While the repairs on the stem dried I worked on the stinger. I used the brass bristle brush and alcohol to scrub off the oils and tars.In the morning I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper. I had built up the edge that faced on the shank to fill in the gap caused by the crack. In the photo of the top view of the stem it is the darkened band around the edge of the stem next to the shank. I sanded the stem smooth and blended the repairs into the surface of stem. I took some close-up photos of the stamping to show it to you. It was unique to me. The first photo shows that the underside of the shank reads Made in Morocco 221. The second photo shows the stamping on the left side and the horn stem – RIFF in a double diamond. The third photo shows the stamping on the right side of the shank – CHELLA ***. At this point you can see the repairs have blended into the surface quite well. They are darker than the stem material but most of that will disappear as the stem is polished. The stem is smooth on the top and the bottom and the crack and the missing chunk are no long detectable to touch. I continued to sand the stem until the repairs were very smooth. With the initial work done on the stem I worked on the bowl. I reamed it with a PipNet reamer and took the cake down to bare wood. The rim top was damaged with heavy tarring and a small burn mark on the front right side. I topped it lightly with a topping board to remove the damage and the build up. I scrubbed the shellac off the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to get down to the natural briar. I cleaned the stem with pipe cleaners and alcohol and the shank with the same using cotton swabs along with the pipe cleaners. It did not take much to remove the grime on the inside. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads to begin to polish it. The first photo below shows the top of the stem and the second shows the underside. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil and then dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads. The cracked area on the top of the stem is visible when you look for it but it is smooth to touch. It is interesting to see the striations begin to show in the polished horn.I gave it another coat of oil and then finished sanding it with 6000-12000 grit micromesh pads. The crack is definitely less visible on the top side of the stem (first photo below) and the filled in area on the underside is almost invisible (second photo). I rubbed the briar down with a light coat of olive oil and then buffed the stem and bowl with Blue Diamond on the wheel. I gave the pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad. I had buffed it with a microfibre cloth. The finish pipe is shown in the photos below. I tried to give a variety of photos and angles so that you can see the repaired areas. The photo below shows the underside of the stem and the repaired area mid stem near the spot in the photo.The next two photos below show the repaired crack in the top side of the stem from various angles. While it is visible to the eye it is smooth to the touch. The crack has been stabilized and the drilled spot at the far end has stopped it from spreading further. I am happy with the finished pipe. Thanks for looking.

A Ruined Stanwell Handmade 80R Bent Billiard – another ugly duckling

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Blog by Steve Laug

Out of the three pipes from the “hackster” – the cut off Rhodesian, the coffee grounds Dublin and this Stanwell 80R Bent Billiard I have to say that the work he did on this one was by far the worst abomination. This pipe is stamped Stanwell Hand Made 80R Made in Denmark on the underside of the shank. It was a sandblast brown contrast bent billiard that would have been beautiful when it was made. The “hackster” decided to improve upon the finish and believe it or not he desecrated the pipe. He used a Dremel or sander to remove the majority of the sandblast finish leaving a dab of it on the back of the bowl at the joint of the shank and the bowl and a dab on the front side about 1 inch long from the rim. In removing the blast he completely ruined the shank leaving a thick band near the stem and the two thick sandblasted dabs. He sanded off the blast on the shank leaving it looking anemic and awful. He ruined the shape of the bowl and left it totally out of round on the outside. He also over reamed the bowl with what looked like a Dremel and sanding drum and took the bottom of the bowl almost ¼ inch below the entrance of the airway.

He did not leave the stem safe either he reshaped the button by removing the majority of the sharp edge. Then to add insult to injury he left the stamping intact on the bottom of the shank giving credit to Stanwell for the ruination of this fine briar pipe. It went from handmade to hand ruined. Over the entire bowl and slopping onto the stem was a thick coat of shellac. Runs and drips had hardened. The file and Dremel marks were held in perpetuity under a thick coat of shellac. That is where I started with this abomination. The question was could I do anything to redeem this mess. I took some photos of the stem and the left over sandblast sections. There is also a photo of the rim shows the out of round condition of the outer edge of the rim. I sanded off the remaining sandblast sections on the bowl and shank and rounded the bowl with a Dremel and sanding drum. I used the Dremel to reshape the shank and the bowl and shank. The damage done to the shank made it necessary to shape the stem into an oval instead of a round. With the rough shaping work done there was a lot of fine tuning to be done to the shape of the bowl. I topped the bowl with a topping board and 220 grit sandpaper to remove the deep saw and file marks and to flatten the surface. I sanded the areas on the bowl where I left the shellac and existing finish until they were smooth as well. I left the band on the bottom of the shank where the faint stampings that the “hackster” had left behind remained. I had still not decided whether to remove them as the pipe was certainly not a Stanwell any longer and when I was finished reclaiming it the pipe would be two times removed from the pipe that came out of the Stanwell factory. I hand sanded the bowl and shank with 220 grit sandpaper to further shape it. I sanded the stem as well to remove the damage that had been done to it and also to reshape it to the oval shank. I worked on the outer edge of the rim and shaped the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper. Fortunately, the inner beveled rim was undamaged. The bottom of the bowl was a mess that I would need to fill with pipe mud to restore the depth of the bowl to the bottom of entry of the airway into the bowl.I sanded the bowl and shank with a coarse grit sanding block to smooth out more of the curves. The larger surface of the block ensures and evenness to the contours of the bowl and shank. I used the heat gun to bend the end of the stem to the angle that would have originally been present when the pipe left Denmark. I sanded the stem and bowl further with sandpaper and gradually the pipe was taking shape. The swan was beginning to appear. During the sanding process I found that there were several flaws in the briar and at least one fill. During the course of the sanding these may well disappear. Overall this is a nice piece of briar with enough meat on it that I can still end up with a nice pipe.I cleaned out the shank and the airway to the bowl and in the stem with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs. It was amazingly dirty for a pipe that had been “refurbished”. The “hackster” had left the inside absolutely filthy while destroying the outside of the bowl and stem. I continued to sand the bowl and stem with a coarse grit sanding block to remove the remaining scratches left behind by the Dremel and sanding drum. Gradually the swan was beginning to emerge. I was getting excited about what this one was going to look like when it was finished. There was some nice grain emerging as I sanded. I sanded the bowl with micromesh sanding pads to further remove the scratches. I wet sanded the bowl with 1500-2400 grit pads and sanded until the grain began to shine. I dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads and then rubbed on a coat of Danish Oil Cherry stain. I gave the bowl several coats of the finish and then set it on a cork stand to dry over night. I cleaned up the sharp edge of the button with needle files to redefine it as the shape was blurred into the body of the stem. I shaped the button with 220 grit sandpaper at the same time to give it definition. I sanded the file marks out with 220 grit sandpaper to blend the edge of the cut into the surface of the stem. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and then gave the stem a coat of Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads and gave it another coat of oil. I finished by sanding with 6000-12000 grit pads and giving it a final coat of oil. I set the stem and pipe aside for the night. In the morning I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the wheel to bring out the shine and then gave the pipe several coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad and then by hand with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. To me it looks far better than the mess I started with but what is your verdict? Did a swan emerge? The pipe certainly has some nice grain and the flaws are small in comparison to the overall look of the pipe. Thanks for looking.

The Transformation of a Second Ugly Duckling – Can it be done a second time?

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Blog by Steve Laug

This afternoon I took on the second ugly duckling from the eBay “hackster” who had ruined the pipe that I transformed into a swan earlier. This one is stamped Morell over Mackenzie on the left side of the shank and Imported Briar over Italy on the right side. The Morell was a filter pipe so it was made to accommodate a Medico style paper filter. The pipe was a mess. Picture with me what it looked like. It had been painted with a band of coffee grounds (?) around the rim going down the sides of the bowl about a ¼ inch. The rim had been roughly sawn off and the tooth marks of either the file or saw were still present. The shank had damage that was ignored. The entire pipe had then been coated with a thick, runny coat of shellac that had rippled over the surface and given the pipe an obscene shininess that highlighted the atrocities that had been done to it. The stem was original but the “hackster’s” hand had not missed it either. It was cut off and a poorly cut button was carved into the stem. No care of thought was taken to account for the angles of the stem to the button and nothing had been done to open a slot in the end of the button. If you cannot picture it in your mind’s eye here are some photos. I took some close up photos of the rim and stem. The rim photo is a little out of focus but you can see what I was talking about above. It was a mess. The issues with the stem are pretty self evident. I scraped the coffee grounds off of the bowl edge with a sharp pen knife. In doing so I found a large pink/white fill on the left side of the bowl across the top just below the rim edge. In the next two photos you can see the coffee grounds on the cloth I put on the work table to collect them when I scraped them off. The bowl was pretty full of fills all the way around. I scrubbed off the shellac with acetone on cotton pads until I had removed all the thick, runny coat that covered the bowl. I took a close up photo of the fill area on the left side to give you an idea of the size of it. It was large and ugly. The other side of the bowl also had several and one larger one mid bowl. I took a photo of the rim to show the detail of the file or saw marks.With fills this large and a pipe this ugly something had to be done with it or it would end up looking worse than it did when I started. The ugly duckling would just be a duck of another colour. There would not be any swan emerging unless I took some drastic measures. I taped off the stamping on the bowl and a band around the shank stem union with some electrical tape to protect it during the rustication and the staining. I used a series of burrs on the Dremel to cut a random rustication pattern on the sides of the bowl. Different burrs gave a different effect so follow the photos until the end of the rustication to get a full idea of how each burr worked. When I finished with a series of five different burrs I then used the rustication tool that was gifted to me and tore up the finish even more. I wanted to cut some deep gouges in the briar to give it heavy rustication.I followed that up with a flower frog (see picture below) to further rusticated the finish.Once finished with the serious weapons I used a brass bristle brush to knock of the loose particles of briar and smooth things out a bit.My next step in the transformation process was to stain the bowl. I chose an aniline black stain to go into the grooves of the rustication because of the large fills. The black stain would penetrate even the white stain in the grooves I cut into it. I applied the stain and flamed it to set it in the briar. When the stain dried I removed the tape from the smooth areas. I sanded the high points on the rustication with a sanding block to remove the black from those areas. I wanted to have a contrast that blended well with the smooth areas. I chose on this bowl to also rusticate the rim because of the amount of damage that the “hackster” had done to that area of the pipe. With the sanding done you can see the contrast beginning to show. After I sanded the bowl and rim I rubbed it down with a light coat of olive oil to enliven the briar. I let is absorb into the wood before I hand buffed the pipe with a shoe brush. With the bowl finished it was time to tackle the damage done to the stem. It had been clipped off and then sloppily tapered to the hand cut new button. I worked on the taper with a flat file and a sandpaper until the transition on both sides of the stem matched. I also cleaned up the button as it was wider on the top than the bottom. I also shaped the button so that it was uniform. The button was pinched and there was an indentation on both sides of the stem in front of the button. I sanded the sides of the stem to remove that indentation.The end of the stem was left with a raw air hole. I used needle files to clean up the shape of the button from the end and also to cut and shape a slot. The photo above shows the general shape of the slot. I still needed to flatten the face of the button and to clean up the slot but you get the idea. I also used some tiny spots of superglue to fill in the areas on the left side of the stem near the button where the “hackster” had cut back too much material. Once it dried I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth it out and blend it into the surface of the stem.With the reshaping and tapering done to the stem I went on to use my usual array of micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and gave it a coat of Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads, another coat of oil and then finished with 6000-12000grit pads. I gave it a final coat of oil and let it dry. I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond – making sure to use a light hand on the bowl. Then I gave the stem several coats of carnauba wax. I gave the bowl a coat of Halcyon II wax and hand buffed the bowl with the shoe brush. I gave the entire pipe a final buff with a microfibre cloth. I think the ugly duckling once again became a swan. What do you think? I may well have to make a new stem for it one day.