by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table was one that the local pipe shop contacted me about repairing. I have included the email from the shop regarding this pipe. I quote:

Good evening Steve! Hope all is well. I’ve got yet another pipe here in need of your expertise! It’s a beautiful hundred year old (according to our client) Brigham 3 dot with something stuck in the stem. I included a few photos showing the issue and some of the more unique features of the pipe. If you’re available in the next little while, would it be possible to drop by? Cheers, Joe.

He included the following photos of the pipe. The third photo shows the item stuck in the shank. From the photo it appears to be the metal end of the Brigham Rock Maple Distillator. I have seen this happen before when the aluminum breaks off the wooden distillator. I could also see some corrosion to the aluminum tenon that held the distillator. I let Joe know that once I returned from my visit to my Father in the US I would let him know. Today, Joe dropped pipe by for my work. It was stamped on the underside of the shank and read 323 [followed by] Brigham [over] Made in Canada. The 323 was the shape number of the pipe. The style of the stamping would also help me identify when the pipe was made. The rusticated finish was classic Brigham. There was a thick cake in the bowl and some lava on the rim top. The rim top also had some nicks in the top and the front edge was damaged from knocking the pipe out against a hard surface. The bowl was slightly out of round. The clog in the shank did not allow the shank to be cleaned of the tars and oils and it was very dirty. The stem was oxidized and had tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. The end of the metal tenon was also corroded and damaged. I would need to either smooth it out or replace the stem if I could. It had three brass dots on the left side of the taper. I took photos of the pipe before I worked on the pipe. I took close up photos of the bowl and rim top to show the condition of the bowl and damage to the rim edge as well as the cake and lava overflowing onto the rim top. I also took close up photos of the stem to show its condition as mentioned above.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank and it is very clear and readable. I took the stem off the shank and took a photo of the pipe to show the overall look of the pipe.For the needed background I am including the information from Pipedia on Brigham pipes. It is a great read in terms of the history of the brand (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Brigham_Pipes). Charles Lemon (Dadspipes) has written book on the history of the brand. This article is a good summary. I have included it below.

Roy Brigham, after serving an apprenticeship under an Austrian pipesmith, started his own pipe repair shop in Toronto, in 1906. By 1918 the business had grown to include five other craftsmen and had developed a reputation across Canada for the high quality of workmanship. After repairing many different brands of pipes over the years, Roy noted certain recurring complaints by pipe smokers, the most common referred to as “tongue bite”. Tongue bite is a burning sensation on the smoker’s tongue, previously thought to be due to the heat of the smoke (i.e. a “hot smoking pipe”).

He soon began manufacturing his own pipes, which were lightweight, yet featured a more rugged construction, strengthening the weak points observed in other pipes. The problem of tongue bite intrigued him, and he decided to make overcoming it a future goal.

About 1938, Roy’s son Herb joined him to assist in the business. The business barely survived the great depression because pipes were considered to be a luxury, not a necessity, and selling pipes was difficult indeed. In approximately 1937 [1], after some experimentation, Roy and Herb discovered that tongue bite was in fact a form of mild chemical burn to the tongue, caused by tars and acids in the smoke. They found that by filtering the smoke, it was possible to retain the flavour of the tobacco and yet remove these impurities and thereby stop the tongue bite.

Just as Thomas Edison had searched far and wide for the perfect material from which to make the first electric light bulb filaments, Roy & Herb began experimenting with many materials, both common and exotic, in the quest for the perfect pipe filter. Results varied wildly. Most of the materials didn’t work at all and some actually imparted their own flavour into the smoke. They eventually found just two materials that were satisfactory in pipes: bamboo and rock maple. As bamboo was obviously not as readily available, rock maple then became the logical choice.

They were able to manufacture a replaceable hollow wooden tube made from rock maple dowelling, which when inserted into a specially made pipe, caused absolutely no restriction to the draw of the pipe, yet extracted many of the impurities which had caused tongue bite. The result was indeed a truly better smoking pipe…

I then turned to a second article by Charles Lemon called, “A Closer Look at the Dots, Dates, and Markings of Brigham Pipes” to be able to pin down the time frame that the pipe was made in and to help interpret the stampings and shape number on the pipe. Here is the link to his article (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Brigham_Pipes_%E2%80%93_A_Closer_Look_at_Dots,_Dates_and_Markings). I quote the pertinent information below to establish the date on the pipe.

Around the late 1960s or early 1970s, at the beginning of what I’ve called the Canadian Era (roughly 1970 – 1980), the stampings changed again as Brigham moved to modernize its logo. Pipes are stamped with the 3-digit shape number and “Brigham” over “Made in Canada”. Note these two variants of this stamping.

The stamping on the one I am working on is like that shown in the photo below. From the information above I know that the pipe I am working on was made between the late 1960s and the 1980s which makes the pipe approximately 45-65 years old. Now it was time to work on the pipe. I decided to pull the metal blockage in the shank end. I knew it was broken off the Hard Maple Distillator. I tried to pull the metal piece with an ice pick and it was too tight in the shank to come out that easily! Always seems to be the case for me. I used drill bit slightly larger than the airway in the metal piece. I carefully turned it into the metal with a cordless drill. Once it bit I was able to pull it free from the shank. It is shown on the end of the drill bit in the first photo below and free of the bit in the second photo below.I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer. I used the first and second cutting heads and took the cake back to bare briar. I cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife and removed all the remnants of the cake. I scraped the rim top with the flat edge of the blade at the same time and removed most of the thick lava build up. I sanded the walls of the bowl with a piece of dowel wrapped in 220 grit sandpaper. The walls look very good at this point in the process. I cleaned out the shank, the airway and the deep mortise with alcohol, cotton swabs, hard bristle and soft bristle pipe cleaners. It was a very dirty pipe which just meant that it had really been enjoyed and used. I cleaned the inside of the aluminum tenon and the airway in the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners in the same way as I did the shank. It was clogged with debris and there was no airflow. It took some work with a paper clip but eventually it opened up so I could clean it well.I scrubbed the exterior of the bowl and shank with a tooth brush and undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap. I scrubbed the lava on the rim top and overflow on the outside of the bowl with the soap. I rinsed the briar with warm water to remove the grime and debris of the scrubbing. It looked significantly better after the scrubbing. I cleaned up the inner edge of the rim and the rim top with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I removed the darkening as much as possible and smoothed out the top of the rim. I lightly topped the bowl on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the damage on the top and minimize the damage on the front outer edge. I sanded the rim top with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to remove the marks, scratches and darkening and to help shrink and minimize the damage on the front outer edge of the bowl. I used an oak stain pen to blend the top colour into the finished colour of the bowl once polished. It looks a bit darker at this point but it will match very well.I polished it with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding it with 1200-15000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. It began to look very good. While the damage on the front of the bowl is visible, in person it is less so. I rubbed the bowl and shank down with Before & After Restoration Balm to deep clean the finish on the bowl and shank. The product works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I worked it in with my fingers to get it into the briar. I used a horsehair shoe brush to work it into the rustication around the bowl and shank. I let it sit for 10 minutes then I wiped it off and buffed it with a soft cloth. 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. It is a beautiful bowl. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I scrubbed the oxidation on the stem with Soft Scrub cleanser and was able to remove a large amount of it. Even after cleaning the inside of the stem the airflow was still quite restricted. I had a hunch the other end of the hard Maple Distillator was stuck in the stem. It made sense. I worked on it with the wire and some bristle pipe cleaners and finally the piece of maple came free and the stem was open as it should have been.I sanded the area around the button edge and the remaining oxidation with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. Progress was happening!I sanded the surface of the vulcanite with the 2 x 2 inch sanding pads. I dry sanded with each pad between the grits 320-3500. I worked on the surface until I had removed all of the oxidation and the stem started to really shine.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished the stem with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I gave it a coat of Obsidian Pipe Stem Oil. It works to protect the stem from oxidizing. I set it aside to dry. I refit the damaged aluminum tenon with the new Brigham Rock Maple Distillator. It is a unique and cool smoking experience.The final steps in my process involve using the buffer. I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the light scratches in the briar and the vulcanite. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I have found that I can get a deeper shine if I follow up the wax buff with a buff with a clean buffing pad. It works to raise the shine and then I hand buff with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. It is always fun for me to see what the polished bowl looks like with the polished stem. It really is a nice pipe. The smooth tall bowl sides and the rusticated blaze on the left shank side looks great with the yellow acrylic stem. The Brigham 323 Bent Billiard with a vulcanite taper stem feels great in my hand. It is a well-balanced pipe. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.62 ounces/46 grams. It is a beautiful pipe that I will soon be sending back to the local shop to give back to the owner. It is obviously one that he enjoys.

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