Tag Archives: contrast staining

Loving the old WDC Campaign Pipe

Blog by Steve Laug

Another of the pipes found during the Virtual Pipe Hunt in Montana was one stamped on the lower left side of the out bowl with the WDC triangle logo over the word CAMPAIGN. There was no other stamping on the pipe. The bowl was like a calabash bowl and screwed into the outer bowl. The entirety was made out of briar. The grain on the bowl and rim top is quite stunning with a lot of birdseye grain on the sides and mixed grain over the rest of the bowl. There was a nickel band on the shank but there was no shank stamping. The band was stamped PLATED NICKEL. The stem was lightly oxidized and the fit against the end of the shank was not tight. There was a gap caused by what I presumed was the tars built up in the mortise area.My brother, Jeff took quite a few photos of the unique old pipe because it really was a beauty. There would need to be some significant cleanup work but the grain and the shape were both unique and quite stunning. The bowl was thickly caked and a thick buildup of tars and oils had flowed over to the top of the rim. The bowl had twin airways in the bottom of the calabash cup directing airflow into the external bowl. The airway in the outer bowl enters the shank at the top of the bowl. Smoke would have been drawn from the calabash cup into the interior of the outer bowl and up the back side to the airway into the shank and through that to the stem and button into the mouth of the smoker. I did a bit of digging online and found a brief interchange on a Google group. Here is the link if you would like to read it in context and in its entirety. It has some helpful information regarding the brand and the particular pipe that I wanted to know more about. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.smokers.pipes/kpkpd3zXoiwExcerpt from pipedia.org

To a request for information regarding the WDC Campaign pipe on the Google Group there was quite a long string of answers. I am quoting two of those in full…

Respondent 1: While I can’t say anything about this pipe specifically, I have a hazy memory of that shape listed in a book about pipes; (I may be totally misremembering this, but here goes) the shape being called the “Dawes”, named after Harding’s Vice President? Anyone else remember this? Sounds like an interesting pipe, whatever it’s called…

Respondent 2: From Weber’s Guide to Pipes: “The Dawes Pipe (more correctly named the Lyons, after its inventor, Charles Herbert Lyons) happened to be the favorite pipe of General Charles G. Dawes, Vice-President of the USA from 1925 to 1929. General Dawes smoked the curious pipe incessantly and it became popularly known as the Dawes Underslung, because the shank joined the bowl near its rim.”

I looked on Pipedia, https://pipedia.org/wiki/William_Demuth_Company and I quote in part from the article on the William Demuth Company.

The Demuth Company is probably well known for the famous trademark, WDC in an inverted equilateral triangle. William commissioned the figurative meerschaum Presidential series, 29 precision-carved likenesses of John Adams, the second president of the United States (1797-1801) to Herbert Hoover, the 30th president (1929-1933), and “Columbus Landing in America,” a 32-inch-long centennial meerschaum masterpiece that took two years to complete and was exhibited at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

The Presidential series was the result of Demuth’s friendship with President James A. Garfield, a connoisseur of meerschaum pipes. Demuth presented two pipes to Garfield at his inauguration in 1881, one in his likeness, the other in the likeness of the President’s wife. Later, Demuth arranged for another figurative matching the others to be added to the collection as each new president acceded to the White House, terminating with President Hoover.

From the above information I learned some significant details about the Campaign pipe. It was invented by Charles Herbert Lyons and was the favourite pipe of General Charles G. Dawes who was the Vice President of the USA under President Harding from 1925-1929. It fits nicely into that period when WDC was having Presidential Pipes commissioned ending in 1933. That places this old pipe in the time period between the late 1920s and early 1930s.

My brother took the following photos of the pipe to show what it looked like when it arrived in Idaho before he started his cleanup work. The cake in the calabash bowl was quite thick and the overflow onto the rim top was also thick. The finish while pretty decent was soiled and spotty with buildup and dirt. Jeff unscrewed the briar calabash bowl insert and removed it from outer bowl. The threads on both looked to be in very good condition. The out bowl was dirty and had a lot of dried tobacco oils and juices along the walls and bottom. The underside of the calabash bowl was dark and dirty with dried oils. It would need to be cleaned up. The next two photos show the stamping on the left side of the outer bowl. It is clearly stamped with the WDC logo in the inverted triangle and under that reads CAMPAIGN. In these photos you can see the beautiful grain of the briar. Even the bottom of the outer bowl has some nice grain. The next two photos show the wear on the finish of the shank and the oxidation on the nickel band on the shank. The band is stamped NICKEL PLATED. The stem does not sit tight against the shank and I am assuming that there is a lot of buildup in the mortise that is keeping it from seating properly.The stem was oxidized and there was some were to the sharp edge of the button. There were some light tooth marks on the surface of the button on both sides.My brother did his usual masterful cleanup on the pipe. When I received it things were much cleaner than the photos above. He had reamed back the calabash bowl to bare briar. He had scrubbed the rim top off and was able to remove the lava coat. He scrubbed the internals of the outer bowl as well. The briar had been scrubbed with Murphy’s Oil Soap and rinsed to remove all of the grime. The oxidation on the band was better than in the above photos. The stem was oxidized but it now sat properly in the mortise. I took the following photos before I started my final cleanup and restoration. I took some close up photos of the condition of the bowl and rim top. It looked far better than before his cleanup work. The stem also looked really good other than the oxidation. I took the calabash bowl out of the outer bowl and took some photos of the various parts of the pipe. It is an interesting piece of pipe history and it is in excellent condition for a pipe of its age. I did a bit more scrubbing of the internals to remove any remaining oils and tars. I used pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to clean out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem. I scrubbed out the inside of the outer bowl and the inner bowl with alcohol and cotton swabs. I pushed pipe cleaners through the two airholes in the bottom of the calabash bowl. I sanded the bottom of the internal bowl to remove the last of the buildup and wiped it down with alcohol on a cotton pad. I sanded the oxidized stem and reshaped the edge of the button with 220 grit sandpaper to clean things up and bring it back to the original black vulcanite. I scrubbed it with some Before & After Stem Deoxidizer to remove the loosened oxidation. I wiped off the scrub and resanded the stem to remove the remaining oxidation. The photos below show the progress of the stem cleanup. I used a folded piece of 220 sandpaper to smooth out the inner edge of the calabash bowl and remove the remaining debris along the edge. I sanded the inside of the bowl to clean it up as well. I polished the rim top with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the rim top down with a damp cloth to remove the sanding debris. The photos show the progress of the polishing. I polished the outer bowl with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl with a damp cloth to remove the sanding debris. The photos show the progress of the polishing. To preserve the threads on the calabash bowl and the outer bowl I use a small dab of Vaseline to lubricate both. I rub it into the threads by hand and wipe it down lightly with a cotton pad. I screw the two parts together and find that it removes friction and makes the cap turn easily into the outer bowl. I hand buffed the bowl with a microfibre cloth, polished the nickel band with a jeweler’s cloth and took photos of the pipe at this point in the process. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil to bring life back to the vulcanite and protect it. The photos show the progress of the polishing. I buffed the stem with red Tripoli to polish out the last oxidation and scratching. I buffed the pipe – stem and bowl – with Blue Diamond on buffing wheel and gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise a shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. One thing that shows through in the photos is some red along the crease of the button – I am pretty sure it is red Tripoli that is left behind from the initial buffing of the stem. After I took the photos I wiped that area down with some alcohol on a cotton pad. It removed the red Tripoli around the stem. It looks far better now that it is finished. Thanks for walking through this refurbish with me.

Restoring a Weber “Windpruf” Golden Walnut Panel

1 Reply

Blog by Steve Laug

My brother sent me a link to a Weber “Windpruf” pipe. I have had a few different windproof pipes in the past but most had a domed top that swiveled on a pin or a screw in the back of the rim top. The cap rotated to either side for lighting and tamping. This one was different and when I went on-line to look at it I was hooked. It was stamped on the left side of the shank Weber in an oval over “Windpruf” and on the right side it read Golden Walnut over Imported Briar. The pipe was a square panel. The right and left sides of the front of the bowl were grooved and a copper coloured wind cap was anchored in those grooves. The lid was spring loaded on both the base on the bowl front and on the cap itself. It sat on top of the bowl rim and let air flow into the bowl from the top and the sides. The stem was oxidized but otherwise undamaged by tooth chatter or marks on either side. The first seven photos come from the EBay seller. The briar looked pretty clean in the photos and the copper cap was in good shape. The seller included some close up photos showing the rim cap closed and open. The inside of the cap and the top of the rim were dirty and there was some lava build up on both.The seller also showed the stinger apparatus that was in the stem. It had a lacquer build up that turned it a golden colour. My brother put the bid in and won the pipe. It did not take too long for the pipe to travel to his house.When it arrived in Idaho he took some photos of the pipe before he cleaned it up. The briar had some nice birdseye and cross grain on the shank and the bowl. The stem was dirty and the interior of the bowl had a light cake and the lava on the rim and inside the cap was not thick and would be easier to clean up. Jeff took some close up photos of the sides of the bowl. There was some pretty birdseye grain on the sides. The front of the bowl was worn and dirty. It appeared that the lid could be slid down the front of the bowl if one held the lid open. It evidently had been moved up and down the front side as it left marks behind on the briar. The underside of the bowl had some great cross grain that stood out really well with the nice brown contrast stain. The next two photos Jeff took show the rim top, cap inside and the cake in the bowl. You can see from the next two photos the thickness of the lava on the rim top and the cake in the bowl.The next two photos show the stamping on the sides of the shank. The top photo shows the left side of the shank and the second shows the right side of the shank.The stem was in good shape other than oxidation and dirt on the surface. There were some worn spots on the button edge on the top and the underside of the stem.Once again I am thankful for the cleanup work that my brother is doing on these old pipes we are reworking. He does a really good job cleaning the interior and exterior. He reamed and cleaned the bowl and the rim and scrubbed the exterior with Murphy’s Oil Soap and rinsed the briar with water. He soaked the stem with Oxyclean and rinsed and cleaned it with a soft cloth. He cleaned out the mortise and airway in the stem and shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. He did not remove the stinger so I would need to do that. The next four photos show what the pipe looked like when it arrived in Vancouver. I took some close up photos of the top with the rim cap closed and with it open to show how well the pipe had cleaned up.The next two photos showed the condition of the oxidized stem and the small tooth marks on the button top on both sides of the stem.I removed the stem from the bowl and took a picture of the stinger apparatus. It was shiny and clean but I could see that it had not been removed before the stem had been cleaned. I would need to do that.I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to break up the oxidation. I wiggled the stinger out of the tenon and cleaned out the stem with alcohol and pipe cleaners. I cleaned the sting airway with pipe cleaners, dental pick and alcohol. I sanded some of the marks that were on the top and underside of the stinger to smooth them out and wiped down the stinger with a cotton pad and alcohol. I cleaned out the airway in the shank – particularly next to the entry into the bowl. It was surprising how much grime came out of the airway. With the internals double checked and cleaned I worked on the outside of the briar. I moved the rim cap up the front of the bowl to align it with the top and make the gap even all the way around the rim top. I sat evenly on a metal edge against the back side of the bowl. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each pad. The oil provided the medium for polishing with each higher grit. After the final 12000 grit pad I gave it a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry. I buffed the stem with red Tripoli to try to remove some of the more stubborn oxidation marks around the shank stem junction. Then I buffed the briar and the stem with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I avoided the copper rim top and hinge area as I did not want to damage it with the polishing compound. I gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It is a unique piece of pipe history that is for sure and looks good as well! Thanks for walking through the refurbishment process with me.

Out Damn Spots – a C.P.F. Cromwell Double Vertical Stem Bent Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

Like other older C.P.F. pipes this one has some real charm. It is on the petite side of things – 4 ½ inches long and 1 ½ inches tall. It is not a bad piece of briar, a mix of grains. The silver collar on the shank is stamped with faux hallmarks and the C.P.F. in an oval logo. It is probably silver or at least plated but I am not sure. The stem is the unusual part of the mix. It has two silver plated spigot tenons that fit into openings in the silver collar. The twin stems merge into one single airway. Looking at it I could not wait to examine it and see what it looked like with the stem removed and what the mortise looked like. The finish was worn but the pipe looked like it still had some life in it. The left side of the shank is stamped in worn gold leaf C.P.F. in an oval over Cromwell in script. There is no other stamping on the bowl. The stem is also stamped on the left side and reads PURE RUBBER on the top stem and C.P.F. in an oval on the lower stem. This pipe is also from the virtual pipe hunt my brother and I did in Montana. He took photos of the pipe from a variety of angles to show the uniqueness and the condition.I did some digging online and found a WDC Marlborough that had a similar configuration though far more boxy. It did not have the elegance that the C.P.F. does in my opinion. Playing around with the mechanics of the smoke and how it flowed through the stem I examined the dual mortise and the way the stem was laid out. I fed a pipe cleaner through the stem and found that natural flow of the cleaner was from the button through the top of the stem and into the top mortise. I could plug the lower tenon and the air was unobstructed from tenon to button. When I plugged the upper tenon and blew air through it I could feel it against my fingertip and then it made its way out the lower tenon. The airflow seems to have flowed against my finger and back a short distance to an opening between the two stems and out. From that I figured out that the smoker draws smoke through the upper mortise and into the airway on the stem. It flows into the bottom stem and mortise (which is a sump like the Peterson System pipes have) where moisture is collected and the smoke exits up the lower stem and into the button and into the mouth of the smoker. In my online search I found a photo of the Marlborough with the airpath drawn out as I conceived it in my words above. I drew the same kind of pattern on the C.P.F. to show how it appeared from my experiments. Here is the link to the Marlborough; http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/wdc-marlborough-double-airway. I used the drawing on that link to draw in the airflow on the Cromwell that I have. You can see that in the diagram below.I did some more digging on the internet to see if could find any more information on the brand. I found that C.P.F. did a second dual stem pipe called the Lafayette. Both pipes had military style bits so both were pocket pipes. Was it possible that C.P.F. did a line of pipes in honour or military leaders and these were two of those? You had Cromwell – potentially Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector in England and Jean Lafayette, mercenary during the US Revolutionary War.The finish was very worn and there are a lot of scratches on the briar. I wonder if this little pipe was somebody’s pocket pipe and bumped against coin and whatever else was carried in the pocket of the pipe man who owned it. The bowl was caked and there was a lava overflow onto the rim top. There were some nicks and sandpits on the rim and the bottom of the bowl. My brother took photos of the stem and the mortise of the pipe. It is an unusual set up. The top portion of the twin stems fits in the mortise and the airway into the bowl is high at the bottom of that mortise. The second mortise for the lower portion of the stem is merely a dead space. It appears that the smoke came up the stem and circulated in the lower mortise before being drawn to the mouth of the smoker – perhaps it is a cooling system somewhat like the sump in Peterson System pipes. The twin ends of the stem are covered with a silver end mount and from the looks of the photos the pipe had been sitting for quite a while and cob webs had formed. The stem was oxidized for sure but something about the colour of the stem made me wonder what was happening with it. He did a lot of cleaning and scrubbing on this pipe and in the process we learned some interesting facts about the repair work that had been done on this pipe. The entire stem had been coated with what appeared to be a black paint. It was flaking and bubbling at the button end as can be seen in the photo above. The oxidized stem had some really strange patterns in the oxidation and there seem to be deep staining in spots on both the top and underside surfaces of the stem. On the topside there was a white repair that looked and felt like putty. The black paint had hidden that repair. Jeff had stripped the remaining finish off the dirty bowl, reamed the bowl and cleaned the rim top. The silver band on the shank looked better and the metal tenon ends on the military style tenons looked more brass than silver. He had cleaned out the two mortises and the airway into the bowl and the shank. Note the spotty appearance of the vulcanite stem. I took a close up photo of the rim top to show the condition of the surface and the damage on the right inner edge of the bowl. The bowl was out of round once he had removed the cake and the sandpits in the flat surface stood out.The next two photos I took show the condition of the stem. The stamping on it is very clear – Pure Rubber on the top stem and C.P.F. in an oval on the lower stem. I have not seen this spotty pattern in the oxidation before and I am wondering if in the process of the previous repair the repair guy did not damage the surface of the rubber. Note the putty fill as well. It is quite large.I used a dental pick to remove the putty fill and you can see from the photo below that it was quite large. It covered a large portion of the top and right side of the upper stem. I wiped the surface down with a damp cloth to remove the debris left behind by the putty in preparation for repairing the damage. I greased a pipe cleaner and put it in place in the airway in the stem so that it would not accidentally fill in from leakage of the repair. I mixed a batch of charcoal powder and black super glue putty and filled in the damaged area. I purposely overfilled it on the top to give me room to work. I carefully filled in the right side of the stem so as not to fill in the groove between the two parts of the stem. I put aside the stem so the repair could cure. Once the repair had dried I used a flat file to smooth out the ridges and peaks in the new surface. I sanded the repaired area with 180 and 220 grit sandpaper to further smooth it out and shape it.I wiped the stem down with a damp cloth and checked for air bubbles in the repair and areas that needed to be built up. I applied some more black super glue to the surface of the repair and smoothed it out with a dental spatula to ensure that all of the air bubbles had glue in them. I set the stem aside to dry.While the stem repair was curing I worked on the rim. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to work on the damage to the inner edge of the bowl. It took a bit of work to blend in the damaged areas and smooth them out. I filled in the sandpits with clear super glue. It did not take too long to cure so when it had hardened I sanded it smooth and blended it in with the rest of the rim top. I wiped the bowl down with alcohol on a cotton pad to clean off any debris left behind by my rim work and used some European Gold Rub n’ Buff to touch up the gold in the stamping on the shank. I applied the product and rubbed it into the stamping and wiped off the excess with a cotton pad. The next three photos show the fresh shank. By this time the stem repair had hardened and I sanded the surface with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth things out. I used a folded piece to smooth out the grooves between the upper and lower stems. The stem is looking much better but the reddish spots in vulcanite really looked odd to me. I wondered if I would be able to polish them out of if I was going to be stuck with them in the finished pipe. The finish on the bowl was rough and there were a lot of scratches and worn areas on the sides and bottom. I sanded out the ridges and as many of the deep scratches as possible with 320 grit sandpaper. In the photos below you can still see the scratches but the feel in the hand is much better and the bowl is beginning to look smoother. I sanded these marks smoother with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper and then polished the bowl with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads. The next sequence of photos show the progress in smoothing and polishing the bowl. The stem still needed a lot of work. I shaped the repaired area and worked the surface over with 220 grit sandpaper to remove as much of the oxidation as I could. While it was definitely looking better the spotty areas were still visible. I still needed to polish the stem with micromesh pads to see how much more of the spotty surface I could clean. I also needed to finish polishing the silver tenon caps. I worked over the surface with 400 grit wet dry sand paper and 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and still could not remove the stained spots on the rubber. I decided to try something different. I stained those spots of the stem with a black aniline stain to see if that would bring the red spots more in line with the rest of the stem. When the stain dried the spots were definitely better, but they still stood out. Time to go back to the sanding and polishing! I wet sanded it some more with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads. I still had those obnoxious spots present in the rubber. They were deep and it really appeared that I would not get them out. I sanded the stem some more to try to remove more of the damaged areas. It did not seem to matter how much I sanded the spots remained. I decided to try one more trick. I used a black Sharpie Pen to colour in the spotted areas. I let the ink dry. I was hoping that these Permanent Markers would actually be permanent and cover the spots. Once the ink had dried I lightly sanded it with 3200-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads. The black seemed to stay in the spots better than any of the other methods so far. Maybe I had some success but polishing would tell the story. The more I polished most of the coverage remained but there were still remnants of the spot in the vulcanite. I polished the metal tenon caps with micromesh sanding pads and finished polishing them with a jeweler’s cloth to remove any remaining tarnish.I lightly buffed the stem with carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. I gave the bowl multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise a shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth. I put the parts back together and rebuffed it by hand. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The stem looks far better than when I first started but the spots still show through the polish. The pipe as a whole is a beautiful old piece of history. It does not look too bad for its age – over 125 years old. Thanks for walking through this restoration with me. It was a challenge and it was a pleasure to resurrect this old piece of tobacco history.

Bringing an older 1890s Era Spiral Shank Horn Stem Billiard back to Life.

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Blog by Steve Laug

My brother Jeff visited an antique mall in Montana on one of his recent trips and found a lot of older pipes from the 1890s era. There were CPF, WDC and other older brand pipes with amber and horn stems. I wrote about how we used Apple Facetime so that I could be present on the hunt. It was an amazing time “in the shop” for me. The link to the blog on this hunt follows: https://rebornpipes.com/2017/04/26/a-virtual-pipe-hunt-a-new-way-to-experience-the-joy-of-a-pipe-hunt/. The first pipe that I chose to work on from the hunt was the one picture below. My brother took the following pictures of the pipe before he cleaned it up to send to me for finishing. It is a unique and interesting old pipe. The spiral shank continues through the horn stem. The finish on the bowl was worn and tired but the spiral shank and stem were undamaged. There was one deep “worm hole” in the left side of the stem in the bottom of a spiral that would need to be repaired but otherwise it was in pretty decent shape.The photos show the overall condition and look of the pipe. Whoever carved it remains a mystery as there is no stamping on the shank or bottom of the bowl. It is unmarked so it is one of those unknown pipes. The difference is that this is not a homemade pipe it has the marks of a good pipemaker and the drilling is perfect from the stem forward. The bowl was lightly caked and the rim had a tarry overflow on the top. The inside edge of the bowl was in great shape as far as I could see from the photos. The outer edge of the top had been knocked about enough that there was some damage and wear to it. The next two photos show the rim top and bowl. The finish on the outside of the bowl is worn and there are a lot of dents and dings in the surface of the wood. The photos lead me to wonder what kind of wood the pipe is made of because of the way the damaged rim looks. The next photos show the condition of the stem and the drilling in the button. The spiral continues from the shank through the stem seamlessly. The second photo shows the worm hole in the horn stem. It is deep but clean and the areas around it are undamaged. The junction of the stem and the shank is very tight and clean. The transition from wood to horn is smooth to the touch. The last photo shows the orific button on the end of the stem. It is clean, round and centered in the end of the crowned button. This older style button helps me date this pipe as early as I do above. My brother did his usual job reaming and cleaning the pipe. He reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and cleaned it with a Savinell Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the internals with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners to remove the grime in the mortise, shank and airway in the stem and shank. He scrubbed the exterior with Murphy’s Oil Soap and was able to remove all of the grime on the bowl sides and rim. The pipe came to me in great condition. I took a close up photo of the rim top and stem to show their condition more closely. The rim top was worn and there were some spots on the edges that had slivered. The rim would need to be topped to smooth things out and remove the damage.The stem photos show the tooth damage on the top and underside at the button and the “worm hole” in the left side near the shank.I wiped down the area around the hole in the left side of the stem with a cotton swab and alcohol and dried it off. I layered in several fills of clear super glue into the hole. As each layer dried I added more glue to the top of the hole repair. I continued until the file was slightly overfilled then sanded the areas smooth.While waiting for each layer of glue to dry I worked on the rim top. I topped it lightly with 220 grit sandpaper on a topping board to smooth out the damage to the rim. I took enough of the damage off to leave the rim top smooth to the touch.I wiped down the bowl with acetone on a cotton pad to remove all of the finish that remained on the bowl. I kept wiping it down until no more stain would come off and the bowl was clean. I could see once it was clean of the stain that the wood was not briar. I was dealing with what appeared to be walnut. It was extremely light weight and the grain was very different from what I expected once the stain was gone. I restained the pipe with dark brown aniline stain and flamed it to set the stain deep in the grain of the wood. I repeated the process until the coverage is acceptable.I put the stem back on the shank and hand buffed the stain with a soft cloth to show what the pipe looked like at this point in the process. The first photo and the last show the repair to the hole in the stem. It is smooth once again. I polished the bowl with 1500-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads. Each successive grit made the walnut bowl shine more and made the stain more and more transparent. I polished the horn stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each pad and when I finished the last pad I gave it a final coat of oil and let it sit and dry. I turned the bone tenon on the stem into the threaded mortise on the shank. I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel to raise a shine. I gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. In the first photo you can see the repair on the lower portion of the horn stem. It is a slightly darkened spot but it is smooth to the touch. Do any of you recognize the style or work on this old pipe? Can you tell me any information regarding the maker or the era? Do you think I am in the ball park with a late 1890s date? What do you think? Thanks for the help ahead of time and thanks for walking with me through this restoration.

A Brigham One Dot Dublin with a Back Story

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Blog by Steve Laug

This old Brigham was the next pipe I brought to my work table. I got a message from Greg on Facebook saying he had been reading one of my posts about a box of estate pipes I had received and he was interested in adding this one to his rack. The pipe was a Brigham One Dot Dublin with a slight bend in the stem. It was an older one made before the manufacture of the pipes was moved to Italy. It has the standard aluminum tenon and filter mechanism of the Canadian made pipes. The finish is rusticated with the classic Brigham rustication on the bowl, rim top and shank. It has one smooth patch on the underside of the shank that is stamped Brigham in script over Canada. There is no shape number or other stamping on the shank.

The pipe came to me in a box of pipes that I inherited from a friend in Ontario. He was an old Anglican priest and we had shared a lot about pipes and mutual calling over the 15 years that I knew him. I repaired, restored and sold many pipes for him and have a few of his previous pipes in my current collection. He was a great guy and he is alive in my memory each time I smoke one of his pipes. When the box came I found that there were 70+ pipes in the box and his daughter included a note that said her dad wanted me to restore them pass some of them on to others. This is the first from that lot that I have restored.The finish was very worn and the outer edges of the rim showed wear and damage. The inner edge worn as well but the bowl was still in round. The rim had a thick buildup of tars and oils that filled in the grooves and ridges of the rim top. The rim had some darkening of the finish as well. The stem was oxidized and had a sticky residue left behind by a price sticker. There were no tooth marks on the stem surface on either side next to the button.The stamping on the underside of the shank was clear but slightly worn. It reads Brigham in script at an angle from left to right and block letters, CANADA underneath. Charles Lemon of Dadspipes has written a helpful blog about dating Brigham Pipes by the style of the stamping on the shank. I turned to that blog to look up information on this particular pipe and see if I could identify the time period. Here is the link; https://dadspipes.com/2016/10/03/brigham-pipes-a-closer-look-at-dots-dates-and-markings//. According to that info this pipe comes from the late Canadian Era 1980-2000. The second close up photo below shows the rim and the cake in the bowl. The end of the Brigham system can be seen poking out of the airway in the photo as well.The next photo shows the tenon and system tube. It was incredibly dirty with a lot of tar and oil on the inside. The pipe had been smoked a long time without the filter in place and there was a lot of buildup in the tube and stem. The shank was also very dirty.The next two photos show the condition of the stem. The oxidation pattern and the sticky label gum on the surface are very visible on the stem. The stem is also clear of tooth marks or chatter on the surface near the button.I reamed back the cake with a PipNet reamer and a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife. I used a brass bristle brush to knock off the tarry buildup on the rim top and clean out the crevices and grooves in the rustication.I decided to clean out the interior of the mortise, shank and airway in the shank and stem before going any further with the exterior. I used alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs to scrub out those areas and scrubbed until the pipe was clean. I wiped down the surface of the stem to remove the sticky gum left behind by a label on the top side of the stem.I scrubbed the surface of the briar with Murphy’s Oil Soap, toothbrush and a brass bristle brush to clean out the grooves and cleaning off the dirt, oil and debris on the briar. The bowl and the rim looked significantly better once I had rinsed it off with running water. It was dry and the stain was lightened but it was clean. I decided to work on the stem first so while I did I stuffed the bowl with cotton balls and used an ear syringe to fill the bowl with alcohol. I folded a pipe cleaner and plugged the airway so that the alcohol could draw out the oils in the briar. The second photo shows the cotton after it had been sitting for four hours. When I took the cotton balls out at the 6 hour mark they were exactly as they looked at the 4 hour mark. I was a bit surprised that they were not darker. But then again my old friend smoked primarily Virginias – in fact I don’t think he ever smoked aromatics in the time I knew him.I took out a new maple wood Brigham filter for the system and took a photo of the pipe at this point in the process. I still need to stain the bowl but it was looking better and it smelled and looked clean.I stained the bowl with a dark brown aniline stain and flamed it to set it in the grain. The characteristic blue flame that burns the alcohol out of the stain setting it deep in the grain is a beautiful site to my eyes. I repeated the process several times until the coverage was correct.I wiped the bowl down with alcohol on cotton pads to make a bit more transparent. I wanted the contrast that had originally been on these old Brighams to show through. There was enough dark stain in the deep grooves of the finish to contrast nicely with the new stain coats I gave the pipe. I rubbed the stem down with Brebbia Pipe and Mouthpiece Polish and some Before & After Pipe Stem Polish to remove the oxidation in the vulcanite. It lifted a lot of the oxidation and what was left behind was minor.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each pad and gave it a final coat of oil after the 12000 grit pad. I set the stem aside to dry. When I finished there still appeared to be a little oxidation at the tenon end of the stem. I was not sure if it was the light from the flash or reality so I took it to the buffer and buffed that area with red Tripoli and repeated the last three micromesh pad grits. I buffed the pipe and stem with Blue Diamond to further polish it. I buffed the stem with carnauba wax and gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine and with a microfibre cloth to deepen it. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It is a beautiful pipe and even better in person. Thanks for looking.

Dent Steaming a 1932 PATENT DUNHILL T197 Billiard with a VERNON STEM

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Blog by Henry Ramirez

Saw this mousey looking pipe with a clicker stem on EBay. Nobody seemed to want it so I took it home to practice my dent steaming. The stem attaches with a loud click and some research told me it was named after Vernon Dunhill, who was responsible for the fitment’s design. It was designed to allow the stem to be separated from the bowl even when the pipe was hot from recent smoking. It had the earlier square tip tube rather than the later angled tip. The stem had a funky downward cant before the button and it strongly resembled my Kaywoodie Allbriars. Boy they nailed that briar stain to the oxidized Cumberland stem color! The bowl rim was dented/chipped and the surface scratched. The stem and the button were in fine shape so the usual soak in Oxyclean to remove the smegma followed by a trip to the oven to allow the stem to straighten itself.The metal tube is removable from the keeper which is part of the stem. I have seen examples of the opposite where the keeper is integral to the shank. These pipes seem to have been mostly billiard Cumberlands but some exceptions exist. Both the tube and the keeper were polished with fine brass wool. I did reface the tube with a carborundum disk.The shank stampings were crisp but there seemed to be personalized script on the bottom long polished off.The dent on the bowl’s rim was the major distracting feature. I didn’t want to top the bowl and the briar dust/CA mixtures never seemed seamless to me. So I tried to fatten up the cellulose fibers with hot steam using my hand held steamer. This worked somewhat and had the advantage of pin pointing the area to be steamed. Not satisfied, I decided to fall back on the hot iron on a wet kitchen towel technique. This did a better job, I think because it affected a larger area. The problem then became one of restaining this larger area to match the rest of the pipe.

Restaining the pipe became somewhat of a chase your tail love’s labor, trying light brown, medium brown and the finally dark brown in various concentrations followed by isopropyl alcohol on a gauze sponge scrubbings.

So, I think I’m going to someday re-stain the whole pipe dark brown to try to better match the Cumberland stem while learning to love the residual dent on the rim. The only home run here was the straightening of the stem to its original straight shape. Thanks for looking, regards, Henry.

Stem Button TIME SAVER on a 1940’s Dunhill LB

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Blog by Henry Ramirez

I was ghosting through Ebay listings looking for a cracked shank to experiment with when this old classic appeared. The auction was won for a song because in addition to a cracked shank, the year stamping had been buffed off the shank. The usual whole lotta cake and dented stem story.I started with the stem, which was really in great shape. I have come to love the stumpy profile of the patent LB’s with their constricted contour button. An Oxyclean bath was followed by an isopropyl alcohol scrubbing with a shank brush and pipe cleaners. I wanted to use heat to raise the bite marks as much as possible to not only decrease my work load but to minimize the inclusion of foreign filler. To this end I also wanted to learn the proper temperature needed to reproduce my results consistently.

Using a heat gun, I took my time and warmed up the vulcanite until my nose told me it was getting close to burning. If that happens the surface becomes a porous charred stinky mess! I quickly used a laser temperature gun to obtain a surface reading of 275 degrees F. Amazing how quickly the surface cooled off once the heat was removed.I was not impressed by the amount of rebound and it looked like filling and filing was in my future.

Having nothing to lose, I pressed my wife’s oven into service, knowing that I could set the temperature substantially higher than previous attempts without fear of ruination. I set the oven temperature at 265 degrees F to have a 10 degree safety zone and watched as the whole stem “stretched out”. This was more like it! The dents were now depressions that needed the light to shine just so to be seen. Little CA and polishing was needed.

I should mention that these values are for older Dunhill vulcanite only. The composition of vulcanite has changed over the years, according to some posts I’ve read, and I’ve noticed it in the depth of polish ability.Now it was the time to clean and evaluate the briar. While I ream the mortise and bowl I am wishing that I had Steve’s magical Savinelli Pipe knife. Boy, those things are rarer than hen’s teeth and this old cake is super hard. That is followed by total immersion in an isopropyl bath with various scrub brushes stripping the briar. I couldn’t save the original finish because the shank crack needed to be clean and open as much as possible for the bonding. One of the perks of the alcohol bath is that after the bowl dries out, if there is any residual cake stuck to the chamber walls, it shrivels up and is easily removed.The shank crack was now very evident but the year stamping was not.Getting back to the stem, I wanted to know if the alcohol retort was worth the hassle. I had been as meticulous as possible with the pipe cleaners and cold alcohol. The color of the used alcohol in the distillation flask tells the story, close but no banana! I could now address the cracked shank. I had previously repaired such a problem using a micro-screw and bonded dental composite resin. I was concerned that threading the screw into old dry briar could start micro-fractures and crazing.

This time I elected to drill a channel spanning the crack and passively bond a post fabricated from longitudinal glass fibers encompassed in a strong composite resin matrix. This would also provide some flex in the repair to accommodate the dimensional changes that briar goes through because of temperature changes during smoking.

At this time I also drilled a post hole at the end of the crack to prevent further spidering. Because the crack was significantly wide I made sure to introduce my resin with a size 06 endodontic file. I had planned to use a C clamp to close the gap but I chickened out when finger pressure did nothing. Not sure how to make briar temporarily more flexible….

After filling the post hole and cementing the fiber post with dual cure composite resin, I trimmed off the post and blacked out the white resin with black CA.

Before beginning to start the staining process I wanted to open the pores of the cellulose to not only gain greater absorption of the dye but also improve the briar’s capacity to absorb tars for a sweeter smoke. I had noticed such a phenomenon with the Missouri Meerschaum corn cob pipes.

I found that this particular wheel had already been invented by the folks who refinish wooden decks. I tracked down some relatively non-toxic materials which did the job and whose run off wouldn’t hurt plants.

Sodium percarbonate does the cleaning and oxalic acid removes the smear layer, thus opening up the wood’s pores. Looking around online for a source I realized that I already had both chemicals in the laundry room! Oxyclean is the percarbonate and states on the container that it’s great for wood decks, siding and lawn furniture. Bar Keeper’s Friend has oxalic acid as its active ingredient and states on the container that it works on teak wood.Indeed after scrubbing with both and rinsing with water, I noticed that the chamber’s surface looked and felt less dense.Now it was time to stain the briar with Oxblood diluted 50% with isopropyl alcohol in two coats, both flamed with the micro-torch.I was lucky that the original black stain in the depths of the blast remained.An overlay stain of light brown was applied in 2 coats.After a rub down with an old t-shirt to remove any xs dye, I applied 2 coats of Halcyon wax. A quick buff on the lathe and then a hand strapping with a shoe bristle brush brought the shine up. I want to mention that my wife gifted me her silver brush which is narrow and has long soft bristles which easily accesses the crotch of the pipe without fear of collision. This has proved most useful on bent pipes.Another very helpful tip came from a pipe maker’s blog about dead-faced files to add crispness to the button area. They are the dead faced nut seating file by Stewart MacDonald, a luthier’s supply house and the pillar files which have the dead side on the edge from OttoFrei, a clock makers source.Well I’m now satisfied with the pipe but not finished. They say we abandon these projects because we reach a point where better becomes an enemy of good. Boy that was fun and I hope to share more adventures with these fabulous old pipes! Regards, Henry

Refurbishing an Yves St. Claude Glacier 80 Bent Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe I chose to work on today was one that came from the friend of mine who has the pipe shop. He had been given a large number of pipes from a customer’s estate to sell and he had given them to me to clean up. This one is a rusticated billiard that has a slight upward bend to the shank and a Lucite stem with a ¼ bend. It was stamped on the underside of the shank Yves St. Claude in script over Glacier. Next to that it was stamped with a COM circle that read Made in France. At the end of the shank near the stem/shank junction it is stamped with the shape number 80. The finish was very dirty and almost lifeless looking. The striated rustication was well done but the grooves were all filled with grit and grime. The bowl had a light cake and the rim had some darkening and tar on the back side. The stem had some light tooth chatter but no deep tooth marks. The variegated yellow/gold stem went well with the rustication.In searching the web I found several references to Yves Grenard, trained in Comoy’s England factory, purchasing the Chacom plant in St. Claude. He managed the factory and it passed on to his son afterward. I am pretty certain that this Yves St. Claude pipes was made by Chacom in France with the stamping bearing Yves name.I took a close up photo from the top looking into the bowl to show the light cake in the bowl and the darkening to the back side of the rim. The rim top is a bit oddly shaped in that the back outer edge of the bowl slightly flattened and then rusticated over the top of the shape. I also took photos of the chatter on both sides of the stem at the button. I sanded out the tooth chatter with 220 grit sandpaper and it did not take much to smooth out the marks. There were also some marks left behind from when the stem had originally been bent that sanded out quite easily.I scrubbed the bowl with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime. I used a brass bristle brush with the soap on the rim surface to remove the darkening and tars. I rinsed the bowl under warm water to remove the soap and grime. I took photos of the cleaned bowl and included them below. I decided to use a dark brown aniline stain thinned with isopropyl by 50% to make it more of a translucent medium brown. The colour once it was dried, buffed and polished would really look good with the yellow stem. I applied the stain, flamed it and repeated the process until I was happy with the coverage.There were some thick, hard tars on the inside of the mortise walls so I scraped them out with a dental spatula. Afterwards I cleaned out the mortise and the airway in the shank and stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. I worked on the stepped tenon with alcohol and cotton swabs to remove the darkening at that point. I wiped down the outside of the stem with a damp pad. I used white acrylic paint to fill in the YSC stamp on the left side of the saddle. Once the paint dried I scraped the excess off and polished it with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads.I polished the Lucite stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with the damp pad between each set of three pads. I put the stem on the pipe before taking the photo of the stem after I had finished sanding with the last three pads. The new stain looked really good with the yellow Lucite stem. The contrast worked really well on my opinion.I buffed the stem and bowl lightly with Blue Diamond polish on the buffer. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and buffed it with a shoe brush. I gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise a shine and finished by hand buffing it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are, Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 5/8 inches, Outer bowl diameter: 1 3/8 inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 inches. The pipe has been thoroughly cleaned and prepared for the next pipeman who wants to add it to their rack. I will be putting on the rebornpipes store shortly but if you want it email me at slaug@uniserve.com or send me a message on Facebook. Thanks for looking.

1967 DUNHILL 197 SHELL BRIAR Clean-up

Sasieni Fantail Wire Rusticated Patent Billiard

1 Reply

Blog by Steve Laug

My brother Jeff found this old Sasieni on one of his gallivants to the Oregon Coast. He stopped by an antique shop and picked up a few nice ones. This wire rusticated Sasieni billiard with a Sterling Silver band is unique to my eyes. I have not cleaned one up before or repaired one for someone else. It has a Fantail or Fish Tail stem that is unique. It is stamped on the underside of the shank and the stamping is faint but readable. In bright light I can read that at the bowl end it is stamped England in an arch. Flowing from the arched England it reads Sasieni in the newer script over FANTAIL over Pat. D-170067. The last stamping is the shape number 55. I am pretty certain that this is a Family Era pipe made somewhere between 1946 – 1979. The change of “Sasieni” script without the fish-tail initiated by Alfred Sasieni occurred after second world war. This puts the date of the pipe between 1946 and 1979 – a large spread.The Sterling Silver band looks like it could have been original with the pipe when it left the factory but I am not certain. Sasieni is a brand that I am not as familiar with so I do not know all of the ins and outs of the shapes and finishes.

I remembered that Al Jones had worked on a Sasieni pipe with a similar finish and stamping. His was a Moorgate Pot. Here is the link: https://rebornpipes.com/2015/02/28/sasieni-moorgate-rustic-restored/ I quote a section of Al’s blog regarding this pipe, “This Sasieni “Moorgate” shape in Rustic finish is the second pipe from the shop in Albany and part of the General Electric executives estate. The nomenclature shows that the pipe is from the “Family Era” and made between 1946 and 1979. The “Rustic” finish is a hand carved, rusticated finish done completely by hand. This work must have been painstakingly slow with the carving following the briar grain lines.”

I have included a photo of the stamping on the underside of the Moorgate shank from Al’s blog post as it is very close to the stamping on the one I am working on. Mine is not stamped Four Dot Rustic over “Moorgate” but rather FANTAIL where the Rustic stamp is and where Moorgate is mine has a Patent number. The finish on Al’s was more horizontal than the one I am working on. The striations run vertically on the bowl sides but the shank is the same style. I have included the photos of the bottom of the shank on the one I am working on below. I also included a screen capture of the pertinent section of PipePhil’s Logos and Stamping website and included the link should you want to look at on the site. http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-sasieni2.html From what I can see through the oxidation on the stem there may well be a letter “F” on the left side of the stem. Jeff included photos of the pipe from a variety of angles to show the condition of the bowl, rim and finish on the pipe. It was worn and tired. Fortunately there were no chips or cracks in the briar and other than just being dirty and worn it was in good shape. Jeff sent along a photo of the cake in the bowl and the lava that had flowed over the top of the rim. The outer edges of the rim looked pretty decent with no wear or tear from tapping it out against hard objects. The cake in the bowl was hard and quite this. The lava on the top filled in most of the grooves in the rustication on the back half of the bowl.The Sterling Silver band was heavily tarnished but it appeared to be sound underneath the tarnish. It had an arched Sterling Silver stamped into the topside of the band.The stem had deep tooth marks and the button was worn away from use. There were no bite throughs or cracks in the stem. The middle portion on both sides of the stem near the button was in the worst condition with the edges being quite clean. The stem was oxidized. The photos below show the tooth marks and chatter on the stem surfaces.Jeff reamed the bowl with the PipNet reamer and took out all of the cake. It was then clear that the inner edge was also undamaged. He scrubbed out the inside of the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs until it was spotless. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl and the lava on the rim with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap and was able to remove all of the grim and build up in the grooves of the finish. The stain lightened considerably with the cleaning but it would not be hard to restain it to match the colour of the original. I took the next photos to show the condition of the pipe when it arrived in Vancouver. The cleanup on the rim was stellar in my opinion. The grime and lava are gone and the grooves of the rustication are clean and visible.I took photos of both sides of the stem to document the oxidation and the tooth marks located on the top and underside.I sanded the tooth chatter out of the vulcanite and cleaned up the area with a cotton swab and alcohol. I used black super glue to fill in the tooth dents that were too large to raise by applying heat to the stem. I set the stem aside while the glue dried. After the photo I used a little more glue to build up the area around the sharp edge of the button. Once it is dried I will recut that area with a needle file.I cleaned and polished the tarnished Sterling Silver band with a jeweler’s cloth. The tarnish came off quite easily and I buffed it with the cloth to make it shine.I restained the bowl with a dark brown aniline stain cut by 50% with isopropyl alcohol. I applied it and flamed it with a lighter. I repeated the process until the coverage was good on the briar. Once it was dry I wiped down the bowl with cotton pads and alcohol to lighten it even more and bring it closer to the finish that had originally been on the bowl. I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel carefully avoiding the stamping on the underside of the shank. It was light enough already and I did not want to damage it further. I hand buffed the area with a microfibre cloth. The bowl was looking very good at this point. I took the following photos to show where what the pipe looked like at this point. I decided to clean up a bit of extra cake that clung to the bowl walls toward the bottom of the bowl with the Savinelli Fitsall Reamer. It did not take too much to knock off the small remnants of cake toward the bottom of the bowl.Once the repair had cured I used a needle file to recut the sharp edge of the button. I also used the file on the flat surface of the repairs to blend them into the rest of the stem. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the oxidation and blend in the repairs with the surface of the stem. I sanded it so as to remove the oxidation but not change the profile of the stem. I examined the left side of the stem for the “F” stamp and all that was present was a very faint mark. If you did not know it was supposed to be there you would not see it. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and rubbing it down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded it with 3200-4000 grit pads. I buffed it with red Tripoli and gave it another coat of oil. I dry sanded it with 6000-12000 grit pads and rubbed it down between each pad with a coat of oil. I set aside the stem to let the oil dry. I put the stem back in place in the shank and buffed the bowl and stem lightly with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and the bowl several coats of Conservator’s Wax. I buffed the pipe and stem with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the bowl with a shoe brush and then with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outer diameter of the bowl: 1 3/8 inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 inches. The contrast of the dark brown and a medium brown that shines through give the finish a rich patina. The bowl has been cleaned and the entire pipe is ready to smoke. The stem is in great shape. The tooth marks have been removed though there is slight scratching on the vulcanite. It is a beautiful pipe, just a little big for my liking or I would hang on to it. I will be putting it on the rebornpipes store soon. If you are interested in adding it to your collection email me at slaug@uniserve.com or send me a message on Facebook. Thanks for looking.