Tag Archives: buffing

Bringing a Herbert Love of Edinburgh The Queensferry Billiard 422 back to life

Blog by Steve Laug

I received a gift box of pipes from a friend on Smokers Forums this week and it contained 23 pipes that presented a variety of challenges for repairs. Looking them over, I found that there were quite a few pipes with stampings that I was unfamiliar with. There were brands and sub-brands that were new to me. I chose to work on one of those I knew nothing about first. I had never heard of the Herbert Love Shop of Edinburgh. The stamping intrigued me. On the left side of the shank it was stamped Herbert Love of Edinburgh and on the right side it was stamped The Queensferry. On the underside of the shank it was stamped horizontally along the shank with the shape number 422. On the left side of the saddle portion of the stem it had a faint HL stamping.

I did my normal search on Pipedia and Pipephil’s site to see if I could find the stampings or the cursive HL on the saddle of the stem. There was nothing to be found. I posted a request for information on Pipe Smoker’s Unlimited Forums specifically asking several of the members there that are from Edinburgh to see if they had any information. I received a response from a collector of English pipes that included the photo and article on another Herbert Love Tobacco Shop in Glasgow. I also received a response from one of the Edinburgh folks, Chris with this information: … it closed down many years ago. It was on Queensferry St. (the road to the old ferry across the Forth before the rail and road bridges were constructed) at the West End, handily situated next to the iconic ‘Old Man’s Pub’, “Mather’s Bar”. At that time there were three pipe shops in Edinburgh (HL’s, one on George 1V Bridge and another in Leith); now only the latter exists… All I remember about the shop itself, apart from it being very old-fashioned, was that they used some interesting old scales for weighing out the loose tobaccos.

Here is the link to the article that I received about the closure of the Glasgow shop. http://www.heraldscotland.com/last-smokers-paradise-closes-1.828258 Sadly I could find no photos or information online regarding the now close Edinburgh shop to include in this post. If anyone reading has information be sure to let us know in the comments section below. Thank you.

When I brought the pipe to the worktable it is in pretty rough shape. The finish was damaged and spotty. The rim had a burn spot on the inner edge and the top at the front of the bowl. This damage also made a dip in the surface of the top of the rim. The bowl was filled with a crumbling cake that was uneven. The stem was oxidized and looked greenish yellow in colour. There were bite marks and tooth chatter on the top and bottom sides of the stem next to the button. The internals of the stem and shank were not too dirty and would clean up quite easily. There was no sweet smell of aromatics or the smoky smell of Latakia in the bowl so ghosting would not be an issue.

I took close-up photos of the shank on both sides to show the stamping. The left side bore the Herbert Love of Edinburgh and the right side the Queensferry. From my queries I had learned that the Queensferry was actually the street the shop was located on. Herbert Love Tobacconists seemed to be quite widespread in Scotland – I found them in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Aylesbury, and Edinburgh. There were also hints of it being found in other locations as well.

I scraped some of the oxidation away on the left side of the saddle stem and found that underneath was some faint stamping that read HL in script. I checked the right side and top and bottom for further marks and found none.

I took a close up photo of the rim and bowl to show the damage from the burn on the surface. You can see that it is deeper than the surface of the rim and extends from the inner edge to the outer edge of the rim. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer using the cutting head that fit the bowl properly. I took the cake back to bare wood on all sides of the bowl so that I could address the rim damage on an even and hard surface. The next photo shows the cleaned up bowl and further shows the damage to the inner edge and top of the rim. The first step in addressing this kind of rim damage is to top the bowl to even out the dip from the burn. I wanted the top surface to be smooth so that I could then chamfer the inner edge of the rim with a slight bevel to deal with the burned front edge. I used a flat board and a piece of 220 grit sandpaper to top the bowl. I sanded until the top of the rim sat flat against the board. As usual I collected the briar dust in my box for repurposing on fills and repairs. The next photo shows the top of the bowl after sanding and smoothing out the rim. It really shows the extent of the damage on the rim. I decided to keep topping the bowl until I had evened out the rim and removed as much of the top damage as possible without dramatically changing the profile of the bowl. The next photo shows the bowl rim after I had finished topping it with the 220 grit sandpaper. It still would be sanded with 400 grit wet dry and fine grit sanding sponges before the surface was finished. While I worked on the bowl the stem was soaking in a bath of OxyClean to soften the oxidation. With the top of the rim smoothed out I worked on the inner edge with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I chamfered or beveled the inner edge to minimize the damage and to give the entire inner edge a similar look. The next photo shows the beveled inner rim and how that process served to minimize the effect of the burn mark. With the repair to the rim finished I wiped down the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to remove the finish and facilitate matching the restain on the rim with the colour of the rest of the bowl. It also removed the damage and spotty finish that covered the bowl. It appeared to have a thin varnish coat over the stain that came off quite easily with the acetone.

I used the Guardsman stain touch up pens to stain the rim. I chose the lightest coloured stain to get a proper match for the first coat of stain. When it dried I would then stain the entire pipe with a medium walnut aniline stain. The stain pen was the first step in matching the colours of the bowl. I cleaned out the shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol to remove the tars and oils in the shank. It was an easy clean up so I decided not to use a retort on this one. It took very few swabs and pipe cleaners before the mortise and airway was clean. With the bowl at this point in the process I set it aside and took the stem out of the OxyClean bath. It had been soaking for several hours while I had worked on the bowl. The bath had done its magic and when I rubbed it down to dry it much of the surface oxidation came off and the deeper oxidation would easily be removed with a light sanding. I put the dried stem back on the bowl so that I could finish staining the bowl. I used a medium walnut aniline stain, applied it and flamed it. I lightly buffed the bowl with White Diamond to even out the stain coat. I took some photos to show the progress. Note in the first photo the HL cursive stamp that is on the surface of the stem.

I decided to use the Bic lighter trick that I have written about in other articles on the blog and painted the stem with the flame of the lighter to burn off more of the oxidation. It also helped to raise the tooth dents on the top and bottom of the stem next to the button. I put the plastic washer on the tenon between the stem and shank so that I could sand the stem and not damage the shoulders of either shank or stem. I lightly sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and then with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the remaining oxidation and tooth chatter.

I sanded the stem with my usual micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads. When I finished sanding with the 12,000 grit pad I rubbed it down one last time with the oil.

I buffed the pipe with White Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a soft flannel buffing pad to raise the shine. The stamping on the stem was very faint to begin with and when I removed the oxidation it is still present but is not deep enough to repaint.

The last three photos give a closer picture of the top of the pipe – showing the rim edges and surface more closely. In comparison with where I started with this pipe the new look is dramatically better. The burn mark is much less visible and the grain on the rim looks sharp. The outer and inner edge are clean and crisp.

Bringing an Everton Big-Boy 1025 Rhodesian back from the brink

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Blog by Steve Laug

I saw the Everton Big-Boy pipe on a website and the shape hooked me. In the photos the bowl seemed squat and wide and the shank was thick. The bend in the stem appeared similar to an earlier Sina pipe that I picked up; in fact the entire shape was similar. I searched and could find nothing on the brand. There was nothing in any of the books that I usually check out and nothing on the various websites that I use when researching a brand. The brand was a mystery to me and that made me want the pipe even more. I could find Everton Tobacco which is a Danish pipe tobacco. I could find the Everton Football Club (Everton is a District of Liverpool) but no Everton tobacco pipes. I figured that when it arrived I might be able to see why the seller had labeled it an English made pipe. When the pipe arrived I checked the stamping and it was stamped Everton over Big-Boy on the left side of the shank. On the right side of the shank it was stamped 1025. The shape in hand is not as wide and squat at the above photo led me to believe it would be. It is actually very close to a GBD 9438 though I had never seen a GBD stamped with this number. This sent me on a hunt for potential English makers that had a similarly shaped Rhodesian. I looked through many of the Comoy’s charts and again could not find any reference to the number. On a lark I just typed in the shape number in a Google search and immediately had a hit for a 1025 shaped pipe made by the French pipe making company, Butz Choquin (BC). I opened the link from Google to find that it was indeed the pipe I was looking for. BC still makes the 1025 shape in several of their lines. The stamping is slightly different in terms of the name on the left side of the shank. All of them have the BC name and the Line underneath. The right side has the 1025 stamp and also a Made in France. I have included the next two photos from Tobacco Pipes.com. The first is the Bistro line 1025 Rhodesian, while it has the thick shank the stem shape is slightly thinner that the one I have. The second one is from the Manoir line. It has the same thick stubby stem as the one I have. From this exploration I can see that the pipe is an older BC pipe. I have no idea what the Everton stamping is – though it may well be a Liverpool tobacconist.

As I examined the pipe upon taking it out of the box I was troubled by the state of the pipe. There were no noted issues with the pipe either on his site or in email exchanges regarding billing and shipping. The trouble was that there were many issues with the pipe. All together they add up to a question mark for me regarding this pipe. The bowl was over reamed and out of round. There appears to be a sandpit in the inner edge of the bowl toward the front. There is a small crack on the underside of the bowl (the heel) directly below the over reaming. The top of the shank near the stem has a large pit that appears to have small spider web cracks that radiate from it. They are not deep but they are present. The stem is a mess. Evidently the previous owner found the stem to thick to his liking and had performed a butcher job trying to remedy that. It had been hacked with a knife blade on the underside from about mid stem to the button leaving the surface corrugated looking with a lot of file and knife marks. The top of the stem had also been hacked and filed in an attempt to thin it down. It is wavy and rippled. I think that most of the damages to the stem can be fixed as the stem is beefy and I should be able to smooth them out. In terms of the over reaming and the crack – time will tell what I can do with it. Needless to say I was disappointed when I opened the package from the seller.

From first appearance the pipe does not appear all that deficient. It seems like it is in pretty good nick. You can see the similarity in shape to the GBD 9438 Rhodesian in the photos below.

It is only when the pipe is viewed more closely that the problems become obvious. The first photo below shows the crack in the bottom of the bowl and the dents and scratches around that crack. The next photo shows the underside of the stem. The underside had been carved with a knife and with files and left maimed and decimated. The gouges were deep and crossed each other leaving a corrugated surface. The next photo shows the topside of the stem. It had much the same issues as the underside but was nearly as drastic. It had grooves, scratches and flattening. There were ripples in the surface of the vulcanite that left it marked. The filing had left grooves and damage and had been done at angles that destroyed the flow of the stem. The bowl was out of round and the rim had damage to the inner front edge of the bowl. There was a pit in the edge that had opened up. There was burn damage to the bowl edge and rim top. I started working on the stem to smooth out the ridges and corrugations on the top and underside. I used 180 grit sandpaper to begin the process and reduce the ridges. The next series of photos show the stem after this initial sanding.

I continued to sand with 220 grit sandpaper to reduce the scratches and smooth out the surface. I followed that by sanding with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. The next two photos show the progress in the shaping of the stem. The top side worked quite well. The underside still had one horizontal groove that would take more work but the overall look was getting better.

I continued to sand the underside with the 220 grit sandpaper to remove the groove and reshape the edges of the stem. Once I had the stem shaped and smoothed out I sanded the bottom of the bowl to clean up the glue and bumps on the bottom of the bowl. I sanded with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the surface. Once I had removed the glue I could see that the damaged area, the crack had been repaired with epoxy mixed with briar dust. I was glad to see that the crack had been repaired and that the repair while rough, nonetheless was solid and had stopped the crack. The round area in the center of the crack made me wonder if there was potential burnout that had been cleaned out and repaired. Examining the bowl interior I could not see evidence of a burnout though it was severely over reamed.

I topped the bowl to remove the sandpit in the surface and smooth out some of the out of round shape of the bowl. The rim was damage so a light topping would take care of the problems. I used a folded piece of sandpaper to smooth out the inner rim of the bowl. I cleaned the shank with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and isopropyl alcohol.

On the top of the shank there was a sandpit at the shank/stem junction that had spidering cracks around it. I sanded it smooth and refilled it with super glue and briar dust. I sanded the junction with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the flow of the stem and shank.

I sanded the stem and shank with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge and wiped the bowl and stem down with a cotton pad. I wiped the bowl down with acetone and cotton pads to remove the finish from the bowl and prepare it for staining.

I sanded the bowl and stem with a fine grit sanding sponge to smooth out the finish and remove the wear and tear that had come with the bowl.

I mixed a small batch of plaster of Paris to repair the over reamed bowl. I inserted a pipe cleaner in the shank and then pressed the plaster into the bowl bottom under and around the pipe cleaner. I raised the bottom of the bowl to the bottom of the airway.

I sanded the inner edge of the rim some more to bevel it inward and try to work in more into round. I finished that shaping and then prepped the bowl to restain. I stained it with a dark brown aniline stain and flamed it. I restained and reflamed it until I had an even coverage on the bowl. I wiped the newly stained bowl down with alcohol on a cotton pad to lighten the bowl and make it more transparent. I wanted the grain to show through once the bowl was polished.

I sanded the stem with my usual pattern of micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads. Once the final rub had dried I buffed the stem with White Diamond.

The newly shaped stem is shown in the next two photos. The shine and polish came out well and the reshape of the stem took care of the ridges and cuts on the surface. The sanding had taken care of the issues with the stem.

After I put the stem on the pipe I buffed the entirety with White Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed with a soft flannel buffing pad. The finished pipe is shown below. Once I shed this chest cold I intend to christen this one with a bowl of Black Parrot. I am looking forward to giving this old timer a re-entry into pipedom.

Restoring a Four-Digit Kaywoodie Canadian

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Blog by Andew Selking

I have a weakness for Kaywoodies, especially those from the 1940’s or earlier; the briar is just amazing. I read somewhere that Kaywoodie was the largest pipe maker prior to WWII and used 100-year-old briar. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but this pipe was one of their mid-range pipes, yet it doesn’t have a single fill. Additionally, it weighs exactly the same as my Heritage Heirloom with the same shape number. (As an aside, the Heritage pipes were made in the 1960’s to compete with Dunhill. According to their brochures, only one pipe out of 300 made the cut.)

Here is a picture of the pipe when I received it. It had some heavy cake, tar build up on the rim, and a few dents in the stem. Cake doesn’t scare me, my reamer makes quick work of it, and tar build up often protects the rim from damage. The only problem from a collector’s standpoint was the stinger had been cut. I think pipes smoke better without the stinger, so that wasn’t a huge issue for me. One of the things that I do to make reaming heavy cake easier is soak the bowl in alcohol. Here’s the bowl getting dropped into the bath. After a good long soak, it was time to remove the cake. My Castleford reamer effortlessly removed the cake. I like to multi-task, so while the bowl was working, I soaked the stem in Oxyclean. I used a fuzzy stick and Oxyclean solution to get the worst of the gunk out of the stem. Here is the first pass. Although I usually retort the shank and stem separately, the screw in stem prevented that. I ended up retorting the whole pipe. The inside of the shank and stem were nasty. Next I turned my attention to the rim. It had some scars that necessitated topping.

I used 150 grit sandpaper on a piece of glass to remove the damaged section. To fix the dents in the stem, I used a three-pronged approach. First I used steam to raise the dents as much as possible. I have an old kitchen knife that I heated with my heat gun. I placed a wet cloth over the area and pressed the hot knife blade onto the stem. It raised it a little bit. This is after the application of steam. Next I used 400 grit sand paper. The underside of the button was kind of messed up, so I dressed it with a file. I still had a small dent, so I filled it with clear super glue and applied a drop of accelerator. The accelerator comes in a spray bottle, which I find makes a mess. My solution is to take the sprayer out and use the end as an applicator. I also use a thumb tack to apply a small amount of glue. I’m not very neat when using glue straight from the bottle and using a thumb tack gives me more control (it also means less material to sand after the glue dries). Once I had the stem sorted out, I used 400 grit wet/dry with water followed by 1500-2400 grit micro mesh with water. I used a progression of 1500-12000 micro mesh on the bowl. Next I used Pimo Pipe Supply medium walnut stain, cut with 50% de-natured alcohol, to make the rim match the bowl.

After an uneventful spin on the buffer (anyone who ever used a buffer to shine pipes understands the drama that can occur when the pipe gets away from you) this is the result.

The Little Champion 057 Horn Reborn

7 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

When I saw this old timer it reminded me of a Dunhill shape that I had seen though that one had had a taper stem. The seller was from Germany and the only photo included is the one below. The stem was badly oxidized in the photos and the finish on the bowl that showed was worn. I had no idea what the rim or the rest of the pipe looked like. The seller did not include any information on the stamping on the pipe so it was a bit of a blind bid. I decided to go for it and put in a low bid and won the pipe. The pipe arrived this week and I was nervous when I saw the package that the postie delivered. It was totally smashed with the corners blown out on two sides. Someone had reconstructed the box with strapping tape but the crushed box was not repaired. I cut the tape and opened the box with fear and trembling. I was wondering if the pipe inside would be in pieces of if it would be unscathed. Inside the box were many crumpled newspaper pages. I dug through the pages and in the very middle was a bubble wrapped object. The stem was still in the shank of the pipe and looking through the bubble wrap it appeared unbroken. I cut the tape on the wrapping and took out the pipe. What I found is shown in the next four photos below.

The finish was much worn with much of the black overstain worn off. Someone had put a coat of varnish over the worn finish so it was very shiny. There was very little of the sandblast that was not worn. The odd thing was that the blast was still quite rugged and not flattened in the worn portions. The stem was oxidized and dirty. There was a faint logo on the stem of the pipe – a rising sun over a wavy line like a sun over water. On the bottom of the shank it was stamped “The Little Champion”. The bowl had some remnants of broken cake in the V shaped bowl. The rim had a build up tars and oils that had filled in the blast. The rim was slightly slanted inward and gave a dapper look to the old pipe. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer. For the upper portion of the bowl I used the second cutting head in the set and the smallest cutting head for the lower portion of the bowl. I evened out the section where the two cutting heads over lapped with a small pen knife. Once the bowl was reamed I put the stem in jar of oxyclean to soak and the bowl in an alcohol bath to soak. I wanted to loosen the oils on the rim top and also see if the alcohol would begin to remove the varnish coat.

Later in the day, after the bowl had soaked in the bath for several hours I took it out of the bath and dried it off with a cotton cloth. I used a soft bristled brass tire brush to scrub the rim and loosen the buildup.

I wiped down the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to further remove the varnish. Using the acetone I was able to take of the varnish coat and prep the bowl for restaining.

I took the stem out of the oxyclean and dried it off. I put it back on the bowl and then set up a pipe retort to boil out the shank and stem. I put a cotton ball in the bowl and the surgical tube over the mouth piece. I heated the alcohol with a tea light candle. The first boil through came out brown. The photo below shows the colour of the alcohol after the first tube boiled through. I dumped the alcohol out of the test tube and refilled it and repeated the process.

I removed the stem and cleaned out the shank and stem with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs. It took very little time to clean out what remained. I put a plastic washer in place between the shank and the stem and then sanded it lightly with 220 grit sandpaper to loosen the oxidation. I followed that by sanding with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil when finished. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads and again rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil. I buffed the stem with red Tripoli and then finished sanding with 600-12,000 grit micromesh pads. I rubbed the stem down a final time with Obsidian Oil and then when dry buffed it lightly with White Diamond.

I stained the bowl with a mix of 50/50 alcohol and dark brown aniline stain. I applied it with a cotton swab, flamed it and then wiped it down with a cotton pad. The dark brown stain settled deeply into the blast. Some of the higher spots remained a lighter brown. The contrast came out looking quite nice.

Once the stain had dried I buffed the bowl and stem lightly with White Diamond. I then gave both the stem and the bowl several coats of Halcyon II wax and buffed it with a shoe brush to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown below. The pipe is ready to load and enjoy. I am planning on loading it up on Christmas morning with a bowl of Pilgrim’s Muse from the Country Squire shop in Jackson.

The final photo shows the bottom of the shank and the stamping is very readable. Anyone with information on the brand please let us know in the comment section below and I will add it to the blog. Thanks ahead of time.

UPDATE:
Yohanan sent me a note that he had found the same logo on PipePhil’s Logo site http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-e3.html and once I checked it out it matches the stem logo exactly. Here is a photo.

Fitting a Maplewood Bowl to fit a Kirsten Pipe Shank

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Blog by Steve Laug

My son-in-law brought his Kirsten with him on the pipe hunt we went on recently and mentioned that the bowl was too small to his liking. We were talking about hunting for a bowl that had a airway drilled in the bottom of the bowl that could be modified to accept the fitting – screw and cap – on a Kirsten bowl. These fittings hold the bowl on the shank. I remembered that I had a Maplewood bowl in my box of pipe parts that could work really well. It had a nipple on the bottom of the bowl. The nipple ended at a rounded cap and then steps up to the bowl. The original bowl can be seen in the photo below. The bowl was clean and unsmoked. There was a varnish finish on the bowl and the wood was quite rough. Around the hip at the base of the bowl there was a rough band around one side of the bowl. The bowl had some really interesting grain on it. Around the top third of the bowl the grain went around the bowl horizontally. Below that there was some vertical grain. The combination was attractive. This bowl would work well once I modified it to fit the pipe. I sawed the nipple off the bottom of the bowl with a hacksaw. I sawed it flat against the bottom of the bowl to make that surface flush. With the nipple removed it was clear that the airway was slightly off centre and would need to be adjusted once I drilled it to open it up to hold the bottom cap from the Kirsten. I measure the diameter and the length of the insert to figure out how much of the bottom of the bowl I would need to remove. I drilled it out with a drill bit the same size as the insert on the Kirsten cap. I used a knife to open the air hole and move it more toward the centre of the bottom of the bowl. I used the Dremel with a sanding drum to shape the bottom of the bowl. I had to remove about ¼ of an inch or more from the bottom of the bowl. I sanded it bring it down and begin to round the edges. The next three photos show the progress of shaping the bowl bottom. The third photo shows the bowl after I also sanded it with 180 and 220 grit sandpaper.

I sanded it with a medium grit sanding sponge to smooth out the scratches. I fitted the bottom cap to the bowl to see what more I would need to remove for a proper fit between the bowl and the shank. I fit the screw into the bottom cap and used a Philips screwdriver to tighten it in place.

I sanded the bowl more to remove the finish and fine tune the shaping the bottom of the bowl. I wanted the finished bowl to look like a brandy glass shape.

When I had fine tuned the bowl shape and the bottom of the bowl I fit it on a Kirsten shank from one of my pipes. The fit was pretty accurate and the look of the shape worked well with the pipe. I would need to sand the bowl some more, remove the remaining varnish and then stain the bowl once finished. I topped the bowl on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the rim. Though the pipe was unsmoked the rim was roughly finished.

I took the bowl apart and prepared it for staining. I wiped it down with acetone to remove the remaining varnish and dust from the bowl. I used a dark brown aniline stain to colour the bowl. I stained it and flamed it with a lighter. I reapplied and reflamed the bowl several more times until the coverage was even.

I wanted the finish to be light brown in colour with dark grain patterns on the bowl. I wiped it down with alcohol on cotton pads to thin down the finish. I continued to wipe it until the underlying maple showed through and the grain patterns were darkened. I buffed the bowl with red Tripoli and also White Diamond. Once it was finished I sanded it with 1500-3200 grit micromesh sanding pads to smooth it out. I rubbed it down with a light coat of olive oil and rubbed it into the finish. The bowl was complete at this point – I fit it back on the shank and took the next set of photos to show the look I was aiming for.

I took the bowl off the shank and buffed it with White Diamond once more. I gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a soft flannel buff. The dark brown aniline stain had brought out the grain and contrasted nicely with the rest of the bowl. The horizontal and vertical graining makes this a nice looking pipe bowl.

I put the bowl back on the Kirsten shank and took the next set of photos to show the finished bowl and shank. It certainly fit the shank well and the larger bowl should meet my son-in-laws request for a longer smoking bowl for his Kirsten. He is away with my daughter for the weekend but when he returns home I look forward to seeing what he thinks of his new bowl.

Addendum: I was working my way through Ebay UK when I found a pipe that had the same bowl as the one used in this article. It is a tourist pipe from the Smokey Mountains National Park. It looks to be the same pipe bowl and looks identical to the one I used.

Restoring a Paronelli Bent Apple

1 Reply

Blog by Steve Laug

I picked up a large bent apple-shaped pipe from one of the antique shops I visited on my journey in Alberta. It is a filter pipe with a Lucite stem and a metal spacer between the shank and stem. The spacer was loose and would need to be glued in place. The stem had sticky gum on it from the sales tags that were on the pipe. There is a stylized pipe stamped on the left side of the saddle portion of the stem. The bowl had a light cake on the top 1/3 of the bowl and some darkening on the rim itself. There was no damage to the rim or the briar of the bowl. The piece of briar used had some great grain on the right side and the back and front of the bowl. The left side had a bald spot but overall the pipe had some nice grain. There is one fill on the back side of the bowl midway between the top edge and the junction of the bowl and shank. The finish was covered with a glossy varnish coat that was dirty, worn and had darkened in some spots on the bowl. The stamping was quite simple – Paronelli on the left side of the shank in script and on the underside of the shank next to the stem is ITALY. I was drawn to the shape as I had not heard of the brand before. Before I started working on it I did a bit of digging on the web to see what I could find out about the brand. I found quite a few oddly painted Paronelli pipes and quite a few in wild colours with appliqués. But I did not immediately find anything on just simple briar pipes. Finally I found Paronelli pipes listed on http://www.theitalianpipe.com/artisans/paronelli.htm

I copied the picture of Alberto Paronelli to put a name with the face for this pipe. The following is adapted from the site.

“Alberto Paronelli, now in his eighties, is undoubtedly one of the true fathers of the art of pipe design and craft. He continues to design and make briar and clay pipes. Many world-famous pipe makers, such as Tommaso Spanu, are indebted to him for their knowledge and fame. Among his endless achievements are the founding of the International Pipe Academy, the Pipe Museum in Gavirate (Italy), and the publication of the now out of print magazine called “La Pipa” (The Pipe).”

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and took back the cake on the top 1/3 of the bowl back to bare wood. I cleaned out the shank and the tenon/filter area with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and alcohol. I scrubbed until they came out clean. I cleaned the metal spacer and reglued it to the stem. I wiped down the bowl and stem with alcohol to remove the gummy substance on the stem and on the sides of the bowl. Once I had the inside of the bowl, shank and stem clean I worked on the finish of the bowl. I decided to try to remove the shiny varnish finish so that I could clean off the dirty and worn areas. I wiped it down with acetone on cotton pads until I had cut through the finish. I sanded it with a medium grit sanding sponge to further break up the varnish and then wiped it again with the acetone. I worked on the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three sanding pads. Fortunately the Lucite stem was in excellent shape other than some minor scratching so it cleaned up quite easily. I reapplied the logo on the side of the stem with white out and lightly buffed the pipe stem with White Diamond when I had finished. I gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and set it aside while I worked on the bowl. I buffed the bowl with White Diamond and then rubbed it down with a light coat of olive oil. I wiped the oil on and then off again and let it sit overnight. In the morning I buffed the bowl with White Diamond once again and then gave the pipe several coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a soft flannel buff. The finished pipe is shown below. I will either have to get a 9mm converter to fill the open tenon or put a filter in place. I have some filters that I picked up in Europe when I was there that fit perfectly so that may well do the trick with this one.

UPDATE: The pipe is on its way as a gift to a young pipeman to add to his growing rotation. Hope you enjoy this one Justin.

The Screwy Nature of the Jenkins Truly Dry System Billiard – Robert M. Boughton

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Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.roadrunnerpipes.com
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
— Confucius (551-479 BC), Chinese philosopher, teacher, editor and politician

INTRODUCTION
I had two main concerns when another pipe lot arrived in the mail and I turned one of the diverse examples in my hands: the head of a screw tightened flush with the draught end of the bottom of the shank, just before the chamber, and my serious doubts that whatever purpose a screw might serve could be legitimate. In other words, I was afraid to remove the thing for fear the pipe, which otherwise had potential for elegance, would fall to pieces if I did so. Before attempting to remove the ominous screw, I tried blowing through the open end of the shank, only to become red in the face and breathless with failure. Then I turned to running an alcohol-soaked pipe cleaner through the shank and found that it, also, was blocked, although the cleaner came out with only a light rusty color, a fact I told myself was promising. For the first time in my restoration experience, I had a structural problem with which to deal. I was elated.

Now, don’t go and think I’m some sort of nut who gets his jollies working on broken things. For the most part I satisfy myself making old, abused or “well-used” pipes beautiful again. From upcoming photos, the need for this treatment on the bizarre Jenkins billiard this blog is about will be obvious. It’s just that until this pipe, the only kind of restoration I had done was of the basic variety. At last, I had an opportunity to tinker around and make adjustments to a pipe’s infrastructure, if you will. Hence, I felt the butterfly effect in my stomach.

Before touching whatever was screwed into the bottom of the pipe – I only describe the device this way now, as at the time I had no reason to suspect it might be anything but an average screw – I thought it advisable to see if I could find a Jenkins Pipe Co. or the like anywhere online. I started with pipephil.eu, my favorite first stop, but found no mention of the brand. And so I resorted to pipedia.com, which, as a user-generated source of information, can be more dubious in its reliability. Still I found no mention of the maker, despite the crisp, clear nomenclature including an elaborate brand stamp. Having spent two days using more than every word combination in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy to track down the pipe’s origin, with both Google and Yahoo search engines, and finding everything but a plausible reference to the Jenkins who made this beautiful if weird pipe, my patience, wits and research skills (short of doing something crazy like going to the library) were exhausted. I must now hope for knowledgeable feedback from readers of this blog, or maybe our host.

The closest I came was a patent issued to one Eric G. Jenkins in 1959 for a wild but unique spring contraption to be used for tamping the spent ashes of pipe tobacco from the chamber into a suitable receptacle, without risking damage to the pipe or staining of the fingers, to which I gather pipe enjoyers back in the day had no other way to avoid. [See first hyperlink at the end of the blog. Thinking about it, the idea occurs to me that this is just the sort of Jenkins who could design the device used in the Ever Dry.

Remember, this was before the now ubiquitous three-piece pocket pipe tool was patented in the early 1970s.

RESTORATION
My routine in these blogs has been to take a linear path showing, with words and photos, what it was like, what happened, and what it is like now. But this restore was far more indirect, and so to guide me in my description of it I organized my photos to prompt my memory of just what it was I did, and when, to fix this Jenkins TrulyDry system pipe. That noted I will nevertheless begin with what it was like: As some may have noticed in a few of the photos above, the stem and shank were uneven. In fact, I had to place the entire pipe in the refrigerator for close to an hour before I could even make the stem budge much less remove it. That feat came with more time in the cooler. The problem with the alignment, I soon learned, was remedied without trouble by cleaning off the buildup of some substance, with which I am not familiar, from the tenon. Confident enough to continue with the removal of the screwy, old-fashioned tenon attachment-like gizmo that was over-tightened into the bottom of the shank, I did so with extreme care and slowness, listening all the while for something like a nut to come undone inside. But there was no such sound. Right away, it was apparent that the object removed from the shank was not a regular screw employed in an ad lib repair but something designed for a purpose, however inexplicable. Able to blow through the shank, at least, I decided it was time to clean the pipe after reaming and sanding the chamber and using super fine steel wool on the rim to remove the blackness there.

Without much hope that the pipe would have any draw on it when I replaced the screw, I was, therefore, not disappointed to find I was correct. But an idea came to me, and I loosened the screw just one full turn, allowing me to blow and inhale through the intact pipe. I removed the ventilator again and set it aside for the remaining work on the wood.

I cleaned up most of the scattered scratches either with 1500 micromesh or 400-grit paper and then rubbed the entire area of wood with the 1500 followed by 3600. The result was, as one reader of another recent blog commented, baby smooth. I also only had to re-stain a few small patches of the wood, not counting the rim.The stem required heavy sanding with 400-grit paper to fix all of the scratches, teeth chatter and uneven bit, followed by 1500 and then 3600 micromesh.

When I had prepped the pieces better than I had ever done before, the buffing brought out a brilliant, dark reddish luster. CONCLUSION
I emailed my blog-in-progress to a retired engineer friend of mine, who looked over the text and photos and called me to arrange a meeting at McDonald’s the next morning. Armed with my laptop, an iced coffee and two printouts of the ash removal system patent that even I could see did not match the device used in the Ever Dry, I was relieved when I saw my friend walk through the door.

Confirming my conclusion concerning what the valve was not, my friend determined by the design and placement of the device that it was some sort of ventilator, however obtuse in planning and execution, that was intended to release heat and maybe even to collect moisture and small pieces of tobacco with the valve extended almost all the way. The engineer’s analysis made sense, and, happy to have an explanation of the atypical screw valve to present in this blog space, I embraced it.

At that time, I experienced another one of my moments of clarity. Seeing the intentional groove cut into the wood, I suggested that it would accommodate storage of the device with the valve retracted at times when the pipe was not being enjoyed. The engineer concurred.

Still later, while making the extensive but necessary revisions to my original version that had been debunked by the good engineer, I recalled an enlightening and lengthy online article concerning and titled “The Revolution of the System Pipe,” by Don Duco. The general knowledge and research behind the study of the evolution of system pipes around the globe is exhaustive.

I flashed on a description of the original Kirsten metal pipes with screw-on briar bowls and their inclusion of a closure system between the bowl and the shank that accomplished the same result of the screw valve on the Jenkins, and realized the design of the mechanism in the Jenkins pipe was nothing more than an adaptation of the early Kirsten, despite the newer, cruder method.

Still, whoever owned the Jenkins pipe brand must have been a frustrated engineer, if only by the aesthetic evidence, for being inspired by the notion of screwing something that, when the pipe is being enjoyed, dangles downward with an obvious and alarming attraction of attention. Besides, anyone, whether or not a connoisseur of pipes but not familiar with the Jenkins system, seeing one with the head of a screw in the bottom of it, would think it some sort of jury-rigged attempt to hold the pipe together.

As my father often pointed out, it takes all kinds.

WEBSITES TO VISIT

http://www.google.com/patents/US2886044 (Click on View as PDF for official USPTO document.)

http://www.pijpenkabinet.nl/Artikelen/Systeempijp/art-E-systeempijp.html

The Case of the Danco Squat Diplomat Sitter – Robert M. Boughton

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Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.roadrunnerpipes.com
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
— Steve Jobs (1955-2011), U.S. inventor, entrepreneur and marketer and co-founder, chairman and CEO of Apple, Inc.

INTRODUCTION
Once again I found myself with an estate pipe that looked, without close inspection, ready to clean and sanitize and offer for sale. The squat Danco brand Diplomat sitter, which looks like the offspring of an apple that mated with a tomato (in terms of pipe shapes), had dark brown stain I suspected might hide fills or other flaws, and so, in particular given the shine and apparent smoothness of the finish, I saw no reason to mess with that. The stem was in the best condition I have ever encountered, and the bowl, at least, was already partly cleaned.

Then I put my dollar store 3x glasses on and took a closer look. I observed clear, deep lines all around the rim that I supposed were caused by uncouth tamping of smoked tobacco from the chamber and also found small but numerous scratches and dings all over the bowl and shank that would in all likelihood require more than micromesh to remove. Therefore, re-staining in patches might be necessary.

Information online about the Danco brand was sparse, but I did learn that the pipes were manufactured in Belgium, Italy and the U.S. Those stamped “Imported Briar,” as is this squat Diplomat sitter, are believed to have been made and distributed in the U.S. Also, the brand dates at least to 1946:

Courtesy of the Web

For more information on and examples of Danco pipes, see the hyperlinks at the end of this blog.

RESTORATION
While the necessity of taking a restoration a step at a time is obvious, choosing the order is the trick. This time, as I did with my WDC Full Bent Billiard, I decided to begin with the rim, which seemed to require little attention. The lack of blackening made it easier, but the crags called for sanding that would leave it even.

320-grit followed by 1500 micromesh made a fast, clean job of it. Venturing into the chamber, I switched to 150-grit to break through what I found to be more carbon than had at first appeared to be the case and was very rough to the touch. When the sandpaper proved to be insufficient for the job, I turned to my reamer and all but finished with the chamber in short order. The last step was to do an alcohol flush, which I let sit for about a half-hour.
While the chamber was clean down to faint briar showing through somewhat all the way down, the shank was still filthy. I used up about 10 bristly cleaners soaked in alcohol before the last one came out white.

Next, with a small piece of super fine steel wool, I rubbed clean the small round opening of the shank where the stem fits and put on my dollar glasses again for close scrutiny to plan a course of action for mending the bowl and shank.

Hoping against hope to avoid even a spotty re-stain, I started with 1500 micromesh, which in fact removed one or two shallow scratches, then 1000 and even 800, all of them with the effect of wet toilet paper.

I decided to notch it up (or down) to the limit I trusted would get out all but a few of the scratches and pits – 400-grit. I was not surprised that the coarser paper worked as I expected but that the resulting lighter color was more pleasing to the eye and also uncovered no blemishes. I buffed the wood with 1500 micromesh to eliminate the sanding marks and give it some shine. And so, taking a chance I knew I could correct if necessary, I removed the rest of the original waxes and stain to the same degree. Astonished to find not a single fill or other blemish that needed repair, but even more so at the apparent sloppy over-application of stain in some areas where it was so thick the wood looked black, I forthwith took off all of the offensive misuse of stain with more 400-grit and buffed the entire surface with 1500 micromesh. I mentioned earlier that the stem was almost perfect as I received it, and so the minor sanding of the lip and micro-meshing of the rest was easy. And then, the moment had come to put the prepped vulcanite and briar to the electric buffers. As usual, I used red Tripoli and White Diamond on the stem, and white Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba on the wood. CONCLUSION
At the risk of repeating myself, I took on this project thinking it would be fast and easy. I will either give it to a pipe club friend who has a penchant for apples and whom I think might also like this shape, or donate it to the club’s raffle, one of which contingencies will happen this coming Thursday. Several times, I have restored three or even four pipes from start to finish in a single evening, but this was not one of those occasions. I ended up spending more time on this one “simple” pipe.

I have often heard that there is no such thing as common sense, which requires complex cognitive abilities beyond some humans. By the same token, to paraphrase Steve Jobs, simple ideas often, if not always, require hard work to formulate.

WEBSITES TO VISIT
Here are some of the sources of information I gleaned on the Danco brand:

http://pipedia.org/wiki/Danco

https://www.etsy.com/listing/167017038/vintage-danco-hollow-bowl-tobacco-pipe?ref=shop_home_active&favorite_listing_id=167017038&show_panel=true Scroll down
http://www.smokingpipes.com/pipes/estate/united-states/moreinfo.cfm?product_id=35071

The Guildhall London Pipe Large Pot: An Account of Extreme Abuse – Robert M. Boughton

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Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.roadrunnerpipes.com
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

“Beauty is whatever gives joy.”
— Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), U.S. poet

“Beauty of whatever kind, in its most supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.”
— Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), U.S. author, poet, editor and literary critic

WARNING: Some of the images that follow are graphic and shocking and may be upsetting to pipe smokers with sensitive souls.

INTRODUCTION
This is with certainty the most abused pipe I have ever restored, although, no thanks to the original owner, the damages sustained were reversible. In the event that the smoker of this Comoy’s second ever had children, I suspect their emotional baggage is far greater, but for the sole reason of their sentience, and I pity them.

I can only add that I was fortunate enough to aid in the vintage pipe’s liberation, through an intermediary agent online, by purchasing a group with similar wounds, if not inflicted with such evil spirit.

RESTORATION
Here is the condition of the pipe, which I in fact restored some weeks ago but failed to publish the details until now, when I received it: In my haste to restore the pipe as close to its original beauty as possible, I also did not take photos of the project’s progress, which I will of course describe in detail, as well as showing the results. Needless to say, except for a quick inspection to ensure the lack of more serious harm to the interior, I began with the chamber. I was successful in removing all of the massive and repugnant cake buildup.There must somehow, despite the overwhelming unlikelihood of the possibility, be a dozen bowls’ worth of carbon that I reamed and sanded out of the chamber before that part of the Guildhall London Pipe large pot was smooth again, and down to the briar around the top and almost as far the rest of the way. The rim also came clean with caring and determined use of 400-grit paper followed by 2400 micromesh.

The bowl, shank and stem I gave a bath with four small patches of cotton soaked in purified water. Again I wish I had a record of the grime from the dirt, sweat, body oil and other unknown unpleasantness that the wet cloth cleaned away to reveal scratches, pits and various attendant blemishes, although I think the reader of this might still not believe what he saw with his own eyes.

I used 1500 micromesh wherever possible but had to resort to 400-grit paper again in many areas. When I finished sanding, I re-stained the places on the rim, bowl and shank that needed it with a burgundy boot stain, flamed those areas and rubbed every inch of the wood with 3200 micromesh to remove the char and leave the body a nice, uniform, deep reddish color.

For the stem, I was forced to choose 220-grit paper, so horrible were the scratches, pocks and discoloration. Whoever smoked this pipe had succeeded in removing the upper ridge of the lip altogether, leaving serious teeth chatter and bite marks. Four of the bites are still present, awaiting an order of Black Super Glue to fill them.

When, an hour after all of this work described so far, I finished cleaning out the filthy stem and shank, I threw into the trash about 12 bristly cleaners, for the most part in utter black ruin and then lightening by degree to pure whiteness.

In the end, I polished the stem with red Tripoli and White Diamond waxes and the wood with the same but added white Tripoli and carnauba, to this effect: CONCLUSION
One of the recent major themes of my blogs has been abuse because I love all of the many pipes in my collection and would never, with intent, do harm to any of them.

That is the main reason I have taken up pipe restoration and am sure I will never give up that endeavor. The other is that I enjoy working with my hands on various man-made, and sometimes neglected objects of beauty.

Breathing New Life into an Astleys 48 Cherrywood

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Blog by Steve Laug

The third pipe from my recent pipe hunt that I chose to restore was the last one pictured below. It is a rusticated Astleys Cherrywood style pipe with a tight rustication pattern resembling a sandblast. I think the process may have been to rusticate and then to sand down the high spots until they were smooth. The texture is really well done and comfortable to hold. The pipe is a light weight with a classic look.The finish was in pretty good shape with a few worn spots where the stain was rubbed off on both the bowl and shank. The rim had a buildup of tars and oils that had hardened and formed a scale on the rim. The bowl had a thick cake that choked out the diameter of the bowl. The stem had been over bent to the point it hung oddly in the mouth rather than the way the original bend had made it hang. It was also oxidized and had a buildup of calcium around the button end of the stem that covered several deep tooth marks on both the top and bottom sides of the stem. As shown in the photo above the bowl had been stamped on the smooth bottom of the bowl. It read Astleys over 109 Jermyn St.Under that was stamped London over 48. I looked up the shape in an old Astleys catalogue (page pictured below) and found the 48 was round Cherrywood Briar. The description stated that it was a copy of an old English cherrywood with a flat base. The correct bend can also be seen in the photo below from the catalogue.I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and took the cake back to bare wood. The oily, sweet, aromatic smell was more than I wanted to deal with in terms of ghosting.I cleaned out the internals with isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs and pipe cleaners until they came out clean. I scrubbed the pipe with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a soft tooth brush for the sides and shank. I used a brass bristle tire brush to clean off the buildup on the rim. I then scrubbed the rim again with soap. When the scrubbing was finished I rinsed it with running water and dried it off with a cotton towel.I used the stain pens from Greg to touch up the worn spots on the finish of the bowl and shank. I buffed the bowl with a shoe brush once the stain was dry.Once the bowl was cleaned and buffed I turned to work on the stem. I used a needle file to give better definition to the crease on the button and clean up the bit marks on top of the button on both sides. I heated the tooth marks with a Bic lighter to raise them and then sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the small marks left behind. I also sanded to remove the calcium and oxidation on the stem.Up to this point I worked on the stem off the pipe. I avoided the area on the saddle where it sat against the shank so as not to round the shoulders. I cut a plastic washer and put it between the stem and the shank to allow me to work on the shoulders without damaging them when I sanded. I lightly reworked that area with the 220 grit sandpaper and then sanded the entire stem with medium and fine grit sanding sponges.There were still some small divots in the top of the stem so I removed it from the pipe and sanded them once more with the 220 grit sandpaper and the sanding sponges.I sanded the stem with the usual battery of micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads. As the stem absorbs the oil the oxidation comes to the surface and the oil makes sanding much simpler. When I finished with the 12,000 grit pad I gave it a light buff with White Diamond.I gave the light spot on the shank shown in the above photo a touch up of stain and then put the stem back on the pipe and buffed the whole pipe lightly. I gave the bowl several coats of Halcyon II wax and then buffed the stem with more carnauba. I gave the entire pipe a light buff with a soft flannel wheel. The finished pipe is shown below.