Tag Archives: Bowls – refinishing

An Interesting Wellington Straight Billiard

Just finished researching a bit on WDC Wellington Pipes. Yet in all of the research I cannot find the one that I picked up. It is a straight billiard. It is chunky and 5 1/2 inches long. It is a system pipe like the Wellington Bent pictured below but it is a standard P-lip stem with a regular tenon. The band is sterling silver and has the WDC triangle and hallmarks stamped in it – an anchor, a five point star, and an eagle. The shank is also stamped WDC in a triangle under a script Wellington. The stem is stamped the same way. The bowl is U shaped with draft hole at the shank side as usual. From there it drops down into the shank where there is a chamber – a bit different than the well in the picture below. It is more of a wide open chamber that tapers a bit to receive the end of the tenon. Very interesting design.

It was rough so I reamed and cleaned the bowl. Cleared out the reservoir and the shank with pipe cleaners folded in half and then gave the bowl an alcohol bath. I left it in for about a 1/2 hour and then took it out and cleaned it again. It did not need to be re-stained as it retained its colour. I buffed it with White Diamond and then gave it a coat of carnauba wax. The stem needed a buff as well. It was a bit oxidized. The stem is unique as well in that the tenon end is very open and tapering back to the whole in the Plip. Here are the after pics.

I have also included a couple of adverts that I came on that are interesting bits of history of the brand.

Had fun with this one – GBD International

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I just finished this beauty – a GBD International. It is a beautiful little pipe. The shape #9456 says it is a bent apple – I suppose that is so. I did some work on what they originally looked like. They had a plateau (Faux?? not sure) top that was stained black and the bowl was a medium warm brown.

This one was pretty well stained with dirt and grit. The finish was blown and the bowl was caked and dirty. The stem was brown and it was a pretty gross mess. It was one I was going to put off but today I decided to work on it. I am glad I did as it was actually quite fun to work on.

I cleaned the stem as usual. It was tough and still shows some oxidation under the flash of the camera. I will do a bit more in brighter light. But it looks good to the natural eye. The bowl was reamed and cleaned and put in the alcohol bath. I removed any of the bits of left over stain left. Then I used a pipe cleaner and stained the plateau black. Once I did that I had the notion to stain the whole pipe black as well. I then wiped off the stain on the bowl and washed it with a damp alcohol rag to get it to the tone of brown I was looking for. I am really pleased with the stain and how it came out. I love the contrasts of the brown undertones and the black overstain. The wipe and then sanding with micromesh really worked to highlight the birdseye and grain in it.

Thanks for looking.

Here is a final picture to give you an idea of the size.

A New Rustication Method

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Blog by Steve Laug

I finished cleaning up a pipe bowl, turned the tenon and fit the stem on it this afternoon, but then I was stuck. The pipe is stamped D in a circle and next to that Dover Cliff, it had a pleasing shape but was almost entirely without grain. I know this sounds impossible to most of us, but truly there was very little grain even visible on the bowl or shank. Rather, it was a piece of briar that was made up of bald spots connected by a few straight grains. It also had three significant burn marks – on the bottom of the shank, the top of the shank and on the rim. Added to that problem, there were probably 20 or more fills per side of the pipe that looked like scratches but were actually filled with black putty. They are visible in the sanded and clean bowl pictured below. The front and the back of the bowl also had fills. Interestingly, the rim was without fills as was the shank. The rim was chamfered inward toward the bowl but had burn marks all around the bowl as if it had been lit with a torch. My question was what to do with the finish on this pipe. I knew from experience that a coat of stain would only highlight the many flaws rather than hide them. The burn marks were significant enough that even sanded, they had permanently coloured the wood. No amount of stain would hide the burns on the shank and the rim. I could give it a solid stain of black or brown but I was not interested in using a solid body stain. That left me with two options – put it back in the box for another day or rusticate it. I decided to rusticate it and then stain it.

I took out my rustication tools and looked them over – the fistful of nails and the florist frog, (I have shown these both in a separate post on rusticating) and decided it was time to try something different. I took out my Dremel and put on the cutting/grinding wheel and took a Philips screwdriver and ground the tip off of it. Once I had ground the point off I used the grinding tool to cut a trench both ways across the remaining + to create what I was looking for. Once that was done the screwdriver was left with four points on the head of the shaft. These four points were sharp teeth. I polished the steel with my buffer and my new tool finished. The great thing was that it even had a comfortable handle which would allow me a bit of creature comfort as I pushed it into the briar and twisted it to rusticate the wood. It also would provide a very different rustication pattern in the briar than my other tools. It would produce a very rough rustication pattern that should be interesting on this particular pipe.

I decided to take my time and document the process as I worked on the pipe. As I worked on each step of the rustication I took photographs and wrote down what I had done. The tool worked very well and was a good fit in the hand. The sharp teeth cut deeply into the briar and left a rough finish to the surface of the briar. The process went quickly. It took me about a half hour to complete what turned out to be the first level of rustication. I left the rim of the pipe smooth and left a smooth rectangular area on the shank where the stamping remains. I decided to also leave a smooth band around the shank where it joins the stem. I find that it makes it much easier to match a stem to the smooth surface than to a rusticated chipped surface. All of these smooth spots stand out nicely. To protect the shank and create a band near the stem I wrapped the shank with cello tape up the shank about ¼ inches. The tape would protect it from the points of the tool and provide a straight edge for me to work against. I also put a strip of tape over the area where there was stamping on the shank to protect it. I avoided the rim as I rusticated the pipe so there was no need to tape it off. One of the great features of this new tool is the small tip size that allows me to rusticate very closely to the shank/bowl junction and up to the top edge of the bowl. It also was very easy to work near the band that I was creating at the stem/shank junction. The ease of control made this a great tool to use.

I worked my way down the sides of the pipe from top to bottom. From there I moved to the shank sides from the bowl to the stem and the top of the shank from the stem to the bowl. I used the same pattern on the other side of the shank around the stamping and then on the underside of the shank and bowl. Once I had it completed it that far I took a few pictures and then proceeded to rusticate the remaining side of the pipe and back end at the shank/bowl junction. I finished the rustication with working on the front of the pipe. Once the pipe was fully rusticated the burn marks were pretty much obliterated and were definitely less visible. The many fills in the bowl were hidden under the rustication. I used a wire brush on the pipe bowl to knock of the loose chips of wood before I gave it an initial coat of dark brown stain. I flamed the stain to set it deeply in the briar. It burned with the signature blue flame for quite awhile setting the stain in the deep grooves. Once it was dry I laid it aside for a bit and then took it to the buffer and gave it a light buff with red Tripoli. The finished pipe still needed more work in my opinion before it would be acceptable.

I took time to look over the pipe and handle it to get a feel for the rustication. I like a random look to the rustication rather than a repeated pattern. To me it looks more natural once it is finished. After this inspection I decided to give it a second level of rustication with the tool to make it even more rustic and more random in its look. This second rustication was much easier to do and took less time. One of the benefits of having the brown stain on the bowl is that the new places I rusticated were raw and stood out clearly. I could easily see where I needed to do more work on the bowl. I worked my way around the bowl and shank again. I checked to see if it was in keeping with the look I wanted it to have and gave it a few more twists of the tool. Now it was ready for the finish stain.

Before I stained the pipe I needed to do some work on the rim. To address the burned areas on the rim the best decision was to top the bowl. It was not only burned but also worn around the inside edge of the rim and that needed to be addressed. I sanded in a slight bevel on the inner rim to restore the roundness of the bowl and give it a finished look. I re-stained the rim with the dark brown and let it dry before I re-stained the whole pipe with oxblood stain applied with the wool dauber that came with the stain. The pipe soaked up the stain nicely. I stained the top of the bowl and the smooth portions on the side of the shank and the band around the shank near the stem. I let it dry for several hours before I polished the smooth portions. This drying also revealed some places on the bowl that needed a bit more stain to adequately cover them. So I re-stained those portions that showed bare wood in the crevices.

I used the micromesh sanding pads (1500 through 6000 grit) on the smooth parts of the pipe to polish them. Once that was done I waxed the smooth portions. Then I buffed them with a soft cloth to give them a bit of contrast to the rusticated portions. I decided to leave the rusticated part with a matte finish. The pipe is finished in terms of the rustication and the staining. I will need to let the oxblood stain dry overnight before it is thoroughly dry. The bowl feels amazingly good in the hand. The tactile nature of the rustication really gives it a rough yet pleasant feel.

The bowl is finished and ready for the stem. The above pictures give you the idea of what it looked like once it was finished. The contrast on the rim and on the smooth parts of the shank added a nice touch and highlighted the rustication. In person the pipe is a deep rich oxblood/cordovan colour that is not captured in the pictures above. The pits and crevices actually show the red and give depth to the rusticated surface. I gave the pipe one more once over under a bright light and touched up spots on the finish that did not get a good coat of the stain. I then went over the smooth surfaces with another coat of wax and hand buffed them before setting the pipe bowl aside for the night.

I then tackled the stem to remove scratches that showed up in the bright light. I used some 240 grit to take out some of the deeper grooves and some tooth dents in the reclaimed and reworked stem. My method is to remove the deeper grooves with the 240 grit and then use the 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper afterwards. I find that if I use those first it seems to only polish the grooves rather than remove them. The 240 grit gives a solid base to work with in the polishing that takes place with the wet dry sandpaper and then the further polishing with the micro-mesh pads. I finished the polishing with 1500, 1800, 2400, 3200, 4000 and 6000 grit micro-mesh that was kept wet in a bowl of water that I kept by the work table. I changed the water between grits to keep it clean and to ensure that I was not polishing the older grime into the stem. The stem came out beautifully and was ready to be put back on the pipe while it rested overnight.

The next morning I polished the stem and the smooth areas of the pipe and rechecked the rustication to make sure that all areas were covered by the stain. I took the pictures below after it had been polished and was ready to smoke. The new rusticated finish creates a far better looking pipe in my opinion and provides a very tactile pipe for the pipe smoker who likes rusticated finishes. The new tool worked so well that I will have to sort through my box of bowls to re-stem to see if there is another pipe that could benefit from this kind of face lift. Thanks for looking.

Steve Laug

June 04, 2012

Reworked Old Apple

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Blog by Steve Laug

I had this old apple with very faint stamping that looked like it could have been stamped Edwards but not clear. I decided yesterday to rework it. The old stem had a split in the button and was shot. I decided to fit a new stem for it. I reamed and cleaned the bowl and fit the stem. While I worked on the stem I dropped the bowl in my alcohol bath for an hour. Once it was done I sanded the bowl and cleaned it some more. There were a couple of spots on it where small fills had fallen out so put some briar dust in them and then a spot of super glue. Once dry I sanded them smooth so that the stain would take around and in them. I put the stem on and stained the bowl with an oxblood stain as I figured that would match what was originally on the pipe. Once it was all polished it reminded me of an old timer that I had seen and been hunting for – a straight shanked BBB apple. Well that got me thinking and I dug through my box of bands and sure enough I had an old BBB silver band hallmarked 1909 that fit perfectly. The stem and pipe look older so the band added some more age to it. I really like the final look of this one.

Before pictures:

And the finished pipe:

Unique old pipe – “The Rubywood”

From Sow’s Ear to Silk Purse

Plugging a burnout

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Blog by Steve Laug

I picked up an old Dunhill Root Briar off eBay that I knew would have to have a lot of work done to make it smokeable once again. It was obvious that it would need a plug as it was burned out. Many probably would not have bid on it but I got it for cheap and thought it would be worth learning how to do a briar plug to repair it. With not a huge amount invested in it I figured it was worth the education I would get doing a repair. I often will buy pipes on eBay that are rejects for the sole purpose of learning a new skill in the repair department.

When the old Dunhill arrived I opened the package for the initial inspection of the pipe. I wanted to have a clear picture of what I would be dealing with in the repair. On the underside of the bowl there was some kind epoxy fill that had been injected into small burnout spot. It had been also daubed on the bowl to provide a layer of “insulation” or something. It was really a mess in terms of the application of the epoxy. No amount of wiping the bowl down with alcohol or acetone would remove the goo from the surface of the pipe. I sanded it until the bottom was back to briar alone and the glue was gone. I then used a dental pick to check the integrity of the bottom of the pipe. I wanted to find out from the outside how far the damage had gone into the briar. If it was charcoal like and soft I would know the extent to which I would have to drill out the bottom of the bowl. I marked the extent of the damage with a permanent marker to show how far the burnout had damaged the briar.

Once I had the outside of the bowl cleaned up and the burn out clearly marked I turned my attention to the inside of the bowl. Once I had cleaned out the grit and grime from the inside of the bowl I found that the previous owner had reamed far too aggressively and compromised the thickness of the bottom of the bowl. It was almost ¼ inch below the bottom of the airway. The bottom of the bowl was in fact very thin. Using my dental pick I probed the bowl bottom to identify the extent of the damage around the burn out hole. It was virtually the same as the outside. With that information in hand I was ready to drill out the spot on the bowl.

I sanded out the inside of the bowl with a dowel and sandpaper to smooth out the hack job on the bottom. I then drilled out the burned out spot from the outside of the bowl with a drill bit slightly larger than the area I had marked with the marker. I was careful to get all the burned wood. Once the hole was open I again tested the soundness of the surrounding briar with my dental pick. I wanted to make sure that the damaged briar was removed. I re-drilled it a second time with a slightly larger bit to remove what remained of the damage. I then cleaned the pipe yet again. I wanted to make sure that the inside of the bowl was reamed and sanded to bare wood and that the bottom of the bowl that remained was free of carbon and dirt. I washed the entirety with isopropyl alcohol and then let it dry out.

I measure the outer diameter of the hole in the bottom and the inner diameter of the bowl. I then cut a piece of briar to those dimensions. The briar plug was shaped like a “T” and was actually significantly bigger than the pin hole that was originally in the bottom of the bowl. I had decided to create a new bottom for the bowl and a plug for the hole I had drilled. I used some wood glue and coated the bowl bottom and the inside of the hole. I then inserted the plug in the top of the bowl and used a rubber mallet and a piece of dowel to drive peg to the bottom of the bowl. The leg of the T extended through the hole in the bottom of the bowl that I drilled out. I had purposely made it longer than the thickness of the bowl so that it would extend below the bottom of the bowl. Once it was in place it not only was glued but in essence was pressure fit. I laid it aside to dry over night before I worked on sanding the leg of the T flush with the bottom of the pipe. The next morning I sanded it flush with the bottom of the bowl. It was a great fit as can be seen from the pictures that are included in this essay.

Once the exterior was smooth and ready to go I turned to the inside of the bowl. The top of the T formed a new thicker bottom for the bowl. I had made it thick enough to provide a new briar bowl. Because of the thickness I had used a spade bit to re-drill the bottom of the chamber and give it a concave feel like the original bowl. I also re-drilled the airway so that it would come out in the bottom of the new bowl. I again used the dowel and sand paper to smooth out the junction between the new surface and the old surface of the chamber walls. I wanted the transition between the two pieces to be smooth.

The final touch for this old timer was a good coating of pipe mud on the walls and on the bowl bottom. The mix I use for the mud is cigar ash and water. Others have used pipe tobacco or a mix of various things but I like cigar ash. The bonus is I get to smoke a good cigar in the process. I mix a good thick paste that I apply with a brush and a pipe nail. I brushed it on and tamped it into place with the brush and the nail. It gave a nice grey ash look to the inside of the bowl. The inside looked as good as new. I left it to dry through the night.

I sanded the rest of the bowl be careful to not damage the stamping. Once it was smooth and the scratches and nicks were gone I stained the outside of the bowl. I gave it a second and third coat with a Mahogany and then a brown stain. Between each coat of stain I flamed the stain by lighting it with a lighter. I find that this sets the stain a bit better than an air dry. I also buffed between coats of stain to make sure the coverage was even. The final coat of stain was applied, wiped off and then buffed with white diamond and then carnuaba.

I let the pipe mud cure for several days before I fired up the pipe. I was curious to see how hot the bottom of the bowl became. Success!! It smoked cool and dry to the bottom with no heat to the hand. The patch worked well. Next time I do a patch I will try to blend the flow of the grain a bit more!

I have been smoking it for a long time now and continue to be pleased with it. The patch is starting to blend in a bit more as it gets a patina. The pipe still smokes dry and cool throughout the bowl.

03/30/2012

This week my computer died!!! I was forced to dig out a very old laptop that I have sitting in the basement so that I could at least have access to the internet. While I was cleaning up the hard drive I found these old photos of the same pipe. The repair may be a bit more visible in these photos if you are interested to have a look.

Re-staining Estate Pipes – A Pictorial Essay

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Blog by Steve Laug

I am often asked by other hobbyist pipe refurbishers how I go about re-staining the pipes that I refurbish. I have answered the question in different ways over the years as I have worked out my own process. This past weekend I had some time and a box of pipes to work on so I decided to document the process I use. I took photos of four old pipes that I was reworking; these photos take you through my methods from start to finish. I have added written commentary to explain what I have done. The method I describe is how I work with estate bowls like these. I am certain that there are other methods that can be used with equal success. This is the one I have arrived at over the past ten years as I have been reworking estate pipes. I am sure that it will continue to evolve in the years ahead as it has over the past years. Here it is for your perusal and use. Feel free to use it, enjoy the process of rejuvenating the finish of an old pipe, adapt it and modify it as you will. Email your modifications and additions to the method to as we work to keep the fire alive in the home based pipe restoring hobby – slaug@uniserve.com.

I need to make a final confession before I jump ahead to describe and document the process. I totally forgot to take pictures of the state these old pipes were in when I received them. As is often the case for me, the cleaning process took on a life of its own and once it is moving along I find it hard to slow it down. So, with that out of the way, I begin with pictures of the pipes after I removed them from an hour soak in an alcohol bath.

Out of the alcohol bath
Once I have chosen the pipes to restore I remove the stems and place them in a soak of Oxyclean and water while I work on the bowls. I place the bowls in an alcohol bath. I use a plastic jar with a screw on lid to hold the 99% isopropyl alcohol for the bath. It is roughly a large mouthed quart sized jar and will hold four bowls. The size also allows me to reach in and retrieve them when they are finished. I reuse the alcohol in the bath for a long time. I find that it turns dark from the stains and the sediment settles to the bottom of the jar. I pour off the alcohol regularly and wash the jar so that there is no sediment remaining. I also top up the jar with fresh alcohol to keep the levels high enough to cover the bowls.

The first two pictures below show the four bowls after they have been removed from the bath and have been dried. (In each photo the bowls will be in the same order for ease of recognition.) Starting at the top left and working left to right you will see the effects of alcohol bath in removing finish. I have found that it does not remove all the stain but it removes the finish, waxes and oils that are over the stain. When the bowls are removed they have a flat finish look to them. The top left bowl has a slightly yellow stain once the varnish coat was removed. The top right bowl has a reddish stain that was also under a coat of varnish. The bottom left is a prehistoric GBD finish/sand blast with a dark red/brown stain. The pipe on the bottom right has a dark brown stain and had a coat of shellac or varnish over it. The varnish on the last pipe had turned milky white even before I put it in the bath and increased when I took it out of the alcohol bath. The fourth bowl will take the most work to remove the finish. All will need more hand work with an alcohol soaked soft cloth and a soft bristle tooth brush to remove the residual finish. The smooth bowls will be sanded and further cleaned.

Washed and sanded
The pictures below show the bowls after they have been washed in alcohol and sanded and rewashed and re-sanded repeatedly. The stain colour is removed as much as it will be at this point in the process. There is still a lot of work to do on each bowl before staining can be done. The top coat of varnish, wax and the grit and grime have all been removed at this point. From the pictures you can see that there is still some varnish on the bottom right pipe but the majority has been removed and the others are getting ready to go to the next step in the process. Once I finished this stage of sanding I washed them a final time with a tack (soft cotton material) cloth to remove dust and such and also let me see any remaining shiny spots on the finish.

Two of my favourite tools are shown in the following pictures (I use both constantly in the process of refurbishing and always have them near at hand) – a tooth brush and a dental pick. The dental pick allows me access to the rings on the bulldogs. I carefully use it to follow the rings around the bulldogs and clean out the grit that gets stuck in them. I follow that up with the tooth brush which allows me to rub the alcohol into the rings and to scrub other places in the blast on the prehistoric and stubborn shiny spots on the smooth pipes. They both are used in cleaning rims and the dental pick also precedes my pipe cleaners in the shank. I have straightened one end to make access to the shank easier. These pictures show the bowls after the third sanding and alcohol wash. I also sand the rims with 400, 600 and then finally with 1200 to remove any grit or rough spots on the finish. All the bowls have been sanded with 1200 grit sand paper. I sand them one more time with the 1200 grit sandpaper and then I use micromesh pads to get a good smooth surface on the bowl. If you choose to go for a scratch-free finish you can examine the bowls with a jewellers loop under a bright light and re-sand as necessary to remove any noted scratches. For the majority of the old timers that I refurbish, I sand until they are scratch free to the naked eye in a bright light. To my mind some of the deeper nicks and such lend character to the old pipe and contribute to the look of age. My main requirement is that they are smokeable when I am finished and that they look good for their age. Should you choose to go further with the finish the choice is yours as you re-work them.

The next picture shows the foursome after all the smooth pipe bowls and smooth rim on the sand blast have been sanded with 1800/2400/4000 micromesh pads. They are smooth to the touch and have a rich shine to them. This is a good time to give them an inspection for any marks or scratches that you want deal with further. After I inspect them this last time, I wipe them down with an alcohol damp cloth to get any residual grit or dust off the bowls and set them aside. The bowls are ready to be re-stained.

Re-staining the bowl
In preparation for staining each pipe bowl, I insert folded pipe cleaners in the shanks to enable me to manipulate them with ease while I am applying the stain. This gives me some flexibility in turning the bowl at different angles to apply the stain coat. You will note the Fiebing’s stain in the previous picture – that is the stain I use. It comes in a variety of colours and is an aniline (alcohol based) stain. It works extremely well on wood. All of these bowls were given a first coat of Fiebing’s Dark Brown stain applied heavily. While it is still wet I use a match to light the stain to set it in the grain. It does not light the bowl on fire at all but only burns off the alcohol in the stain coat. For these four bowls, I started with the blast and liberally applied the stain to the bowl. I start with the bowl held bottom up and let the stain flow toward the tops. I follow the flow of the stain to ensure that I have thoroughly and evenly covered the entire bowl surface. I finish the first coat using the dauber pictured in the lid below to stain the rim. I reapply the stain to make sure the coat is even and not streaked.

The picture below was taken after the second application and flaming of the stain. After the first coat of stain is dry to touch, I give each bowl a second coat of stain and set it aflame with a match or lighter. After flaming the stain the bowls are basically dry to the touch and I set them aside until they are thoroughly dry. (I often let the bowls sit over night to dry.) The next day (or later the same evening if I get impatient or curious) I take them to my buffers and see what they will look like with a light touch on the buffing wheel. I generally use the Tripoli buff with a light touch, though I have also used the White Diamond buff as well. For those who do not have a buffer I have also sanded the bowls at this point with 1200 grit sand paper or higher. If the stain is too dark to my liking I wipe the bowls with an alcohol damp cloth until I get the colour the way I want it on each pipe. That is one of the beauties of aniline stain! The briar in each pipe bowl will make them quite unique looking once the stain is buffed.

While the bowls are drying I turn to work on the stems. Throughout the process described above, the stems have been soaking in an OxyClean bath. I put a mixture of once scoop of OxyClean into a one quart plastic covered jar and mix it with hot tap water. I shake it until the powder is all dissolved and the liquid is a milky white. Then I place the stems in the bath to soak. Generally I soak them a minimum of two hours but often will leave them in the wash over night. They remain in the bath the entire time I am working on the bowls.

With this foursome I grew impatient and was curious to see the finished product once I buffed the stain off the bowls. The bowls were dry so I took them to the buffer. The following pictures show the bowls – stained, buffed and polished. At this point in the process, I still need to wax them with carnauba but the pictures give you the idea of what they look like. Each pipe bowl took the dark brown stain in its own way. To me one of the joys of the process is arriving at this step and seeing the freshly stained bowls. I love the contrasting colours and grain that comes through in the pipes.

The final pictures in this essay show the finished product using two of the pipes. I finished working on the stems while the stain was drying. They are both WDC pipes. The apple is an Aristocrat shape 11. The bulldog is a Royal Demuth shape 79. Both are screw mount stems with interesting diffusing apparatus in them.

Rustication – A Pictoral Essay

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Over the years I have been developing a process for rusticating pipes. I have used it on old estates that I have been given or purchased where the finish did not work for me or it had too many fills or pits. The tools I use are pictured below. The one on the left is a variation of a tool that I made from plans on Tyler Lane’s Pipe making site. It is made of a piece of black 1 inch pipe. I packed it with galvanized nails and then a cap is put on the end of it. The cap is packed with steel wool to keep the nails from shifting. I plan to make another variation on this and use a T union that will serve as a handle. The current cap is hard on the palm of the hand as I twist it into the surface of the pipe. I also want to weld the nails in place to avoid any shifting of them as I use the tool. The second tool is a florist’s frog – it has a lead base with sharp spikes (watch your hands and fingers on this one) that is used in floral arrangements. I got this at an antique shop. I want to create a wooden handle for this one to give me a bit more distance from the surface of the briar when I am working it over the wood.

I start rusticating the briar with the large tool on the left and then finish with the smaller one on the right should I want to achieve a bit different pattern or rustication. Either individually or together they provide an interesting rustication. The larger tool does the gross work and the smaller one adds finesse to the rustication.

For the sake of showing the process I have chosen the following old timer – a Dr. Plumb carved apple that had a finish that I did not like. It had a carved finish of lines around the bowl and then horizontally on the shank. The original pipe is pictured below in the first two pictures to give an idea of the original state of the pipe. I also include pictures of a Canadian that is riddled with fills. It smoked great but just looked awful in my opinion. I wanted to show pictures of both a previously carved finish and one with fills to show what I see as an improvement in both of these pipes after rustication. Each one has a slightly different rustication pattern to it as I was trying to achieve something different in each case. The pictures that follow will give you an idea of how the process works from start to finish. I conclude the essay with two added pipes that I rusticated to give a broad sampling of the finished look of my rustication method.

To begin the process I want to work with clean pipes that do not have any finish on them other than the stain. I put the bowls in an alcohol bath for an hour to remove all the waxes, finishes and grime that is on the outside of the bowl. I also ream and clean the pipe as I will handle it pretty roughly as I rusticate it. I don’t want added grime on my work table and hands so for me a clean pipe is what I like to work with. On the Canadian I removed the band and set it aside so that it would not be damaged in the rustication process.

For the purpose of this essay I will begin with the Dr. Plumb apple. I worked the rustication tool into the wood, twisting it back and forth until it had the rough look to it as can be seen below in the picture on the left. Once that was done I gave it a coat of black aniline stain. I find that the stain facilitates seeing any part of the wood that still needed to be worked or showed a pattern that was to uniform. I reworked the rustication with the larger tool to get it a bit more rough and random looking. Once I had the rustication the way I wanted it I stained the pipe a second time using a medium brown stain. This was to be the finish coat. I stained it, flamed it to set the stain, restained and set it a second time. The result was the matte finish pictured below on the right. In the light it showed some depth and variation in colour coming through from the earlier black stain that I put on after the first rustication. The third picture from taken from above shows the finished rustication before I buffed the stem and gave the entire pipe a light buff with white diamond.

The next step is to take the pipe to my buffer. I buffed the stem with red Tripoli and then white diamond. I buffed the bowl with white diamond to knock off some of the rough edges and to soften the edges of the rustication a bit and polish the smooth areas to highlight them. From pictures below the effect of the buff can be seen. It helps to differentiate the smooth areas from the rusticated ones and give a nice contrast to the finished look. The smooth areas have been polished and have a sheen. The rough areas have a softer glow that highlights the depth of the rustication and the pebbled finish of the pipe. The tactile surface of the “new” pipe is pleasant to the hand. It also has a better look than the pipe that existed before with the carved finish.

I have included the remaining pictures to show several other pipes that I have rusticated. These will give you an idea of the variety of finishes that can be achieved with the tools. It also shows a unique texture finish that I have developed that I like and repeat. The key here is to work the process repeatedly to develop your own distinctive look and feel. Rustication is an individual process as can be seen by the wide variety in rusticated pipes seen on the market. I continue to develop my method and try different patterns and also try to repeat the ones I like.

The first set of pictures show the finished Canadian that was pictured above before rustication. I used only the larger tool on this pipe. When I had finished rusticating it to my satisfaction I used a brass whitewall brush to smooth out the rustication. I took it to the buffer and used white diamond to soften and flatten out the roughness. I wanted to have a different look with this pipe which explains the process variations. I stained it with a medium brown aniline stain and was aiming for the look of old leather. The flaws and fills on this old Canadian are now hidden and a pipe that is much more pleasing to the eye is the result.

The second pipe is a John Bessai bent apple. I cannot find the pictures of the pipe before rustication but I remember it well. It had many fills and flaws in the wood and was a light tan colour. The pink putty fills stood out against this nice tan backdrop. They made me always bypass this pipe in my rotation. It smoked well but it was just ugly. I would pick it up and then put it down and take another one in hand. I was going to sell it but thought I would rusticate the bowl and see what it would look like. Again I was going for a leathery look. I used only the larger tool on this one as well. Once I finished the rustication I again used the brass whitewall brush to soften the rustication and buffed it with white diamond. The final rustication before staining looked much as it does in the finished pipe. The colour of the pipe is achieved by a combination of an oxblood undercoat stain and then a buff followed by a medium brown topcoat. I left the shank smooth with the stampings still visible. To me the much improved look draws me to it and the tactile nature of the pipe in hand is a bonus. As it heats up the feel is very pleasant.

The final pipe pictured below is one I carved. It was a kit I picked up from eBay. It was a small block and stem stamped Caveman pipes. I carved the shape I saw in the block. As I did, the flaws and sand pits became visible. It became clear that once more rustication was the solution yet again. I used the larger tool followed by the brass whitewall brush to soften the rustication and give the pipe my favourite old leather look. The first two pictures below show the unstained pipe after rustication. Note that I wrapped the shank with electrical tape at the stem/shank junction to protect the stem and to give a band of smooth briar. The third two pictures show the pipe after the undercoat of black stain. The final colour (seen in the last two pictures) was achieved by a combination of a black undercoat of aniline stain and a top coat of medium brown. I buffed between coats of stain. All of the above pipes were then polished with Halcyon wax and buffed with a flannel buff.

The above process is demonstrated in the four pipes pictured. It is very simple. I stained each of the pipes before I rusticated them so that I could easily see where I was working. I used the larger rustication tool on all of the pipes. For the first one I used the second tool to change the rustication and then applied stain. In the last three I used a brass whitewall brush to soften the rustication and give it a leathery texture. Once I got the desire rustication I stained the pipe again for the finished colouring. The first was merely buffed with a soft touch on a white diamond buff. The remaining three were polished by hand with Halcyon wax and then buffed with a flannel buff to give it a polished look.

Give the process a try and see what you can come up with. It is a creative outlet and a means of exercising some creativity. Let us know what the finished product looks like.