Tag Archives: contrast staining

Reworking a Peterson’s Irish Seconds Canadian

Blog by Steve Laug

This pipe was another one I got in my trade with Mark, an Irish Seconds made by Peterson. It is stamped on the top of the shank, IRISH SECONDS and on the underside of the shank, Made in the Republic of Ireland. There is no shape number or other stamping on the pipe. The briar is actually very nice except for a flaw that ran around the bottom of the front of the bowl like a smile. It had been filled with white putty that had shrunk and left a shallow groove its entire length (from side to side of the front). The finish was non-existent and I am not sure it ever had been stained. The stem was evidently a replacement and did not fit well against the shank. The diameter of the oval on the shank and that of the stem did not match. The stem was also lopsided at the junction. On the underside of the stem there was a trough carved about ½ inch from the button that functioned as a groove to make the stem a dental bit. It too was poorly executed and was rough. The dimensions on this pipe are diminutive – its length is 5 ¼ inches, height is 1 5/8 and outer diameter of the bowl is 1 ¼ inches. It fits well in the hand and is very light in weight. I suspect that if it were not for the flaw noted above this would have been a higher grade Peterson.

The next photo shows the extent of the flaw and the white fill material on the bottom front of the bowl. This is the only flaw on the bowl.

The next two photos below shows the groove that had been cut in the stem to make it function as a dental bit.

I used a dental pick to remove the white fill material in the flaw and then wiped it clean with acetone. The groove was not deep but it was long and quite wide. I used a combination of briar dust and superglue to replace the fill. I packed the area with briar dust using a dental pick and then dripped superglue into place. While the glue was still wet I quickly put more briar dust on top of the glue and packed it in place as well.

I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and then a medium grit sanding sponge. I wiped it down with Everclear and then filled the remaining groove with clear superglue until it was a bubble on the surface of the stem. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper once it was dry. I sanded the stem shank junction with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the transition and make the fit more seamless. I followed that by sanding with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches. I was careful in sanding the shank to make the flow of the shank into the stem a gradual incline rather than an abrupt change. I have found that in doing this the stem and shank flow look as close to original as possible.

I sanded the front of the bowl with 220 grit and also with the medium and fine grit sanding sponges. The fill still had spots that needed more work.

I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to clean up the finish. I am very happy with the transition from the shank to the bowl.

I did more sanding on the fill on the front of the bowl and refilled the spots that needed work. I stained the bowl with a dark brown aniline stain thinned 2:1 with isopropyl alcohol. I have been using this mixture since I opened the bottle of stain several months ago and now am at the bottom of the bottle so it may be slightly darker.

The stain went into the new fill material but it turned very dark. I continued to apply the stain to the area and flame it repeatedly until the blend was better.

I buffed the pipe with red Tripoli and the White Diamond to see where I stood with the staining.

The fill still stood out as can be seen from the photo below. I decided to continue to apply stain to the surrounding area on the bowl to darken the bottom of the bowl a bit. My thinking was that if the entire bottom of the bowl was slightly darker the fill would blend in better with the briar.

I sanded the stem with my usual array of micromesh pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit sanding pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit sanding pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil to protect the vulcanite and set is aside to dry.

I buffed the pipe and stem with White Diamond. The photo below shows the finished stem after buffing. The repair of the trough is not visible in the photo and is barely visible when held in the light. I am happy with the repair.

I buffed the entire pipe with White Diamond a final time and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect it. I did not want a high gloss on the pipe but rather a slight matte finish. The photos below show the finished pipe. It is ready for many more years of service.

Repairing and Reworking a Comoy’s J186 Billiard

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Another part of the trade I got from Mark was this damaged Comoy’s Billiard. It has some great grain on it. The stamping is Comoy’s on the left side of the shank and J186 on the right side. It also has the characteristic circular Made in London over a straight line England. This circular stamp is next to the end of the shank. The stem was a replacement – it does not have the C logo on it. It had also been repaired. I believe that Mark must have used the black superglue to patch a couple of bite marks in the stem near the button. The shoulders on the stem were rounded and the stem shank junction was not smooth. Otherwise the finish was in fairly decent shape and the stem looked good.

In the letter Mark included with the pipes he noted that there were small cracks in the exterior bottom of the bowl. I examined it with a light and saw that the three small cracks radiated from the three divots on the bottom of the bowl. These were flaws in the briar or dents, I am not sure which. The cracks radiated from the three points to a centre point where they met. They did not extend beyond the divots. Examining the inside of the bowl the bottom was not overly deep and there did not appear to be any cracks internally.

I decided to work on the rounded shoulders on the stem and the stem shank junction first. This is a very easy fix and I thought I would give the cracks a bit of thought before I worked on them. I sanded the stem and shank with 220 grit sandpaper carefully avoiding the stamping. I also did not want to sand too deeply so as to taper the stem artificially from the junction forward. This took care but I was able to smooth out the rounded shoulders. I followed the 220 sandpaper with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches.

I wiped the bowl down with acetone to remove the finish and make the restaining easier. I also wanted to clean up the bottom of the bowl to be able to examine the cracks more closely.

As can be seen in the photo below the cracks are virtually invisible to the eye. There is no burn or darkening around the cracks so I am pretty sure that it is not a burn out. I decided to restain the bowl and see how the stain took in the area of the cracks.

I stained the pipe with a dark brown aniline stain mixed 2:1 with isopropyl alcohol to approximate the colour on other Comoy’s I have. In the photos below it appears far redder in colour than it is in reality. I flamed the stain and repeated as necessary. The cracks were still visible so they would take a bit more work to repair.

I worked on the stem with my usual array 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 and let it dry. I buffed it with White Diamond paying particular attention to the patches around the top and bottom of the stem near the button. I was able to blend them in well and the black of the polished stem and the black of the superglue match.

I decided to work on the cracks on the bottom of the bowl. I scratched out the cracks using a dental pick. I was able to clean out the debris in the cracks and open them slightly. They did not go deep into the briar and there was no internal darkening in the bottom of the cracks. I packed in briar dust and dripped superglue into the briar dust. The photo below shows the superglue briar mix after it had dried. I over filled the cracks to ensure good coverage of the repair.

I sanded the patch with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the excess glue and followed that with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. The photo below, though slightly out of focus shows the repair clearly. It is almost a Y shaped repair.

I mixed a batch of pipe mud – cigar ash and water to make a paste. To ensure that the bottom was not damaged I picked it clean with the dental pick and then painted it with the pipe mud. Though there was no sign of damage on the inside of the bowl, the pipe mud was a precautionary measure for peace of mind.

I buffed the pipe with White Diamond and gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect and to give it a shine. I have set it aside to allow the pipe mud to cure before using it. I want to see if the bowl bottom heats up at all during a smoke. I am happy with the overall look of the repaired pipe. If it turns out that the cracked area over heats then it may well be a candidate for a briar plug. The verdict is still out for now, but time will tell.

Refurbishing a Pipe for a New Pipe Smoker – A Straight Grain Apple

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This past weekend I was in Lethbridge, Alberta as the speaker at a retreat for a friend of mine. As usual I took along my pipe and some tobacco and planned to sit on his front porch and enjoy a few bowls during the course of the weekend. We were sitting one night in his living room enjoying good conversation and a pint when he commented that he had been thinking of smoking a pipe. He wanted to know if I would teach him the ropes. Of course I agreed and the next afternoon we visited a couple of antique shops in search of a pipe for him. My experience in helping a newbie start is to find a seasoned pipe that is in good shape and use it to introduce the art of pipe smoking. The seasoned or estate pipe is already broken in and if it has been cared for is not too difficult to clean up and restore. We found just the pipe at the third shop we visited. It is a nice apple shaped pipe that was in fairly decent shape. He paid the $9 price on the pipe and we took it home.

I asked him for some isopropyl alcohol, some cotton swabs, cotton makeup pads, and a sharp knife. I had some pipe cleaners with me so that we could field dress the pipe and clean it enough that he could smoke a bowl with me. The pipe had a slight burn on the front right of the bowl toward the bottom from having laid it in an ashtray and having it come in contact with a cigarette. The rim was caked and dirty with buildup but undamaged. The bowl was caked and had some burnt tobacco in it. The stem was lightly oxidized and there was light tooth chatter near the button. There was a stinger apparatus in the tenon of the stem. The stamping on the pipe was on the left side and read Straight Grain over Imported Briar. There was no other stamping on the pipe.

I carefully reamed the bowl with the pocket knife to remove a large portion of the cake. I scrubbed the top of the rim with the cotton pads and saliva until I removed the buildup on the rim. I cleaned out the inside of the shank with the pipe cleaners and the cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol. I removed the stinger, threw it away and scrubbed the exterior and the interior of the stem to make it ready for him to smoke. Once finished we loaded a bowl of tobacco – a light English blend and headed to his front porch to have a bowl. It took some work to get the hang of lighting and keeping the bowl lit but it worked well after several tries. We enjoyed the visit and the smoke and then headed back inside.

When I headed back to Vancouver I took the pipe with me to give it a more thorough cleaning and polish. The photos below show the pipe when I put it on the work table to give it a thorough work over.

The next photo shows the cigarette burn mark on the bowl. It was not too deep and did not char the wood but it was deep enough that it could not be sanded out without damaging the shape of the bowl.

I sanded the burn mark and the rim to clean up the burn on the front inner edge. I used 220 grit sandpaper to start with and followed that with a medium grit sanding sponge.

I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to remove the finish from the bowl and to prepare it for new staining.

The slot in the stem was tight and hard to get a pipe cleaner to pass through easily so I decided to open the slot open with needle files. I shaped it and opened it and then sanded it with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper.

I reamed the bowl and cleaned out the shank with isopropyl alcohol and then used pipe cleaners. I used the drill bit in the KleenReem pipe reamer to open up the airway into the bowl from the shank. The tars had clogged the airway so the drill bit opened it and cleaned up the buildup on the sides of the airway.

I decided to do a cotton boll and alcohol soak on the bowl. I stuffed the bowl with cotton and used an ear syringe to fill it with Everclear. I set the bowl in an old ice cube tray to let it soak while I was at work. The alcohol leaches out the tars in the bowl into the cotton and leaves the pipe fresh inside.

It sat in the tray for about 10 hours soaking. The cotton boll was soaked and brown coloured from the tars that leached out of the bowl.

I took the cotton out of the bowl and then lit the alcohol remaining in the bowl with a lighter. It quickly burned the alcohol out and left the bowl dry. I used a folded piece of sandpaper to work on the inner edge of the rim to remove the burned spot on the front inner edge. I also used a PipNet reamer to remove the remaining cake that I had missed earlier. I wiped the bowl down a final time with acetone on cotton pads to remove the grit and grime that came out with the cleaning of the bowl.

I stained the bowl with an oxblood stain as an undercoat. I applied it and then flamed it. I hand buffed the bowl once the stain was dry.

For the second coat of stain I used a dark brown aniline stain thinned 2:1 with isopropyl alcohol. I hand buffed the bowl with a soft cloth and then took the pipe to the buffer and buffed it with White Diamond.

Once the staining of the pipe was finished I worked on the stem with my usual array 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 and let it dry.

I took the pipe to the buffer and buffed it with White Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I finished by buffing it with a clean flannel buffing pad. The pictures below show the finished pipe. It is ready to send back to my buddy in Lethbridge. I think I will put a few samples of tobacco in the package with the “new pipe”. I think he will enjoy the improved version of his pipe.

Reworking a Bad Reshaping of a GBD International 9438 Rhodesian

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Blog by Steve Laug

I am working on a pipe for Mark and in exchange he sent me a GBD 9438 pipe – one of my all time favourite shapes. It is stamped on the left side of the shank GBD in an oval over International over London Made. On the right side of the shank it is stamped with the Made in London Circle (with in centered in the circle) over England in a straight line. Next to that it is stamped 9438. The stamping makes it clear that this is a newer GBD pipe from the Cadogan era. The stem has a gold decal on it – an oval with GBD in the center. It is not a roundel just a decal that is applied to the surface of the stem. The shape of the stem is slightly wider and flared as it moves away from the saddle area. It is slightly different in shape from my other 9438 pipes. It was in very good shape and the bowl was also clean and undamaged. The rim was unmarked on both the top and outer edges as well as the inner bevel. There was no rim darkening or damage. The only issue was that someone had decided to make it a sitter and flattened the bottom of the shank so that it would sit on a table without tipping. The finish was virtually gone and the flattened area was heavily scratched with little or no sanding to smooth out the work. It appeared to be a quick job of pressing the pipe against a sanding disk or orbital sander.

I removed the stem and began to reshape the flattened portion of the bowl and shank. Fortunately the sanding was done behind the drilling of the bowl so it did not thin the bottom of the bowl at all. The person who did the sanding had carefully sanded only the thickest part of the bowl and shank. I sanded the briar with a sanding drum on a Dremel to smooth out the sharp edges of the bottom and then used a folded one inch pieces of 220 grit sandpaper to further smooth out the abrupt edges of the flattened area. I used a medium grit sanding sponge to continue to remove the scratches left behind by the sandpaper.

I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to remove the finish so that I could more easily blend in the stain with the newly sanded bottom of the shank and bowl.

I sanded the reshaped shank and bottom of the bowl with 1500 and 1800 grit micromesh sanding pads. I wiped it down a final time with acetone.

I cleaned out the shank and the bowl with Everclear and cotton swabs. I also used a pipe cleaner to clean out the stem. The slot in the button was very tight and would not allow even a thin pipe cleaner to pass through so I used needle files to open the slot. Once it was open and allowed a pipe cleaner to slide in with ease I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to sand the inside edges of the slot and smooth it out from the files. The first photo below shows the slot before my work with the files. The remaining three photos show the progressive opening of the slot with the files and sandpaper.

I decided to give the bowl two coats of stain for contrast. For the first coat I used a dark brown aniline stain and applied it to the bowl and flamed it to set it in the grain. I hand buffed it with a soft cotton cloth and then gave it a buff on the buffer with red Tripoli.

I then gave it the second/top coat of stain. I used a medium walnut MinWax stain to highlight the grain further on this pipe. I applied it with a cotton pad and rubbed it off with a soft cotton cloth. The contrasting stain gave depth to the finish on the pipe and made the grain and stamping stand out clearly.

The next three photos show close up views of the reworked bottom of the bowl. My goal was to round out the edges of the flattened area and shape the bottom of the shank and bowl back as close as possible to the original shape before the previous owner flattened them.

I rubbed on Obsidian Oil on the stem and carefully worked on the area around the decal on the stem. Some oxidation remains in that area but I would have to sacrifice the decal to remove the oxidation and I chose to leave it. I buffed the pipe with White Diamond and then gave the finished pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buffing pad to give it a finished shine. The reworked pipe is picture in the next series of four photos. It is ready for its place in my collection of GBD 9438 pipes.

Restoring a Chacom Festival Billiard

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I have had this Chacom Billiard for quite a while and never done any work to it. It had a lot of rim damage and the outer edge had been rounded over. Looking at the brand online I could not find any with a rounded top so I decided to rework the top. It also had many dents and dings in the surface of the briar all around the bowl. It seemed like there were too many to be a onetime drop of the pipe but rather seemed like the pipe had been bumped around in a drawer or glove box in a car and picked up the dents. I have not smoked the pipe so I have no idea how it smokes but I have been in a mood to clean up many I have around that need a little more TLC. This one was also filthy inside the shank and the stem to the point that the airway in the stem was a black line like a stripe from the shank to the button. The stamping on the pipe is Chacom over Festival on the left side of the shank and Chapuis Comoy on the right. On the underside near the shank stem junction it bears the stamped numbers 291 – the shape designation. The 291 shape is a Comoy’s number. The acrylic stem is stamped CC on the left side near the shank. I am not clear on the relationship between Comoy’s and Chacom other than a few vague memories regarding the company separating and the Comoy’s moving to London and a portion staying in France and taking on the name Chacom. I do not recall the history or the connection.

I decided to do some research on the web to check out my vague recollections and gather details on Chacom pipes. I found a timeline for the brand on the Chacom website with a short history abbreviated. (http://www.pipechacom.com/en/pipes-traditionnelles/history.htm). It turned out that I was partly correct in my information regarding the connection but the timeline gives details to the name and the changes that it went through. I had no idea that Chacom was a combination of the first three letters of the Chapuis name and the first three letters of the Comoy’s name. I also had no idea of the detailed ongoing use of the two names that are stamped on my pipe. It appears that the dual name was stamped for many years and generations. I have copied some of the pertinent dates that give me data in understanding the stamping on this pipe. I have incluced portions that give a glimpse into the history of the brand. For more information or to follow-up on this I have also included the website above.

1870: Henri COMOY, prisoner of war in Switzerland met his cousins the Chapuis and together they consider the idea of an association.

1879: Henry COMOY immigrated to London with some of his technicians from Saint-Claude and establishes the first English pipe factory in England – H. COMOY & C° LTD. The Saint-Claude factory supplied them with briar and pipe bowls…

1922: After the First World War the association COMOY and CHAPUIS is realised and the Saint-Claude factory becomes CHAPUIS COMOY & Cie.

1924: Death of Henri COMOY. His sons Paul and Adrien assume the direction of the factories in Saint-Claude and London assisted by their cousins Emile and Louis Chapuis.

1928: London was able to produce their own pipes, and in order to develop the Saint-Claude factory, the brand CHACOM was created, using the first three letters of the COMOY and CHAPUIS family names. Up till 1939 CHACOM was offered only in France, Belgium and Switzerland in order not to cause confusion with the COMOY pipes which had the same shapes and qualities.

1932: The world economic crisis reached Saint-Claude. To weather this problem Chapuis Comoy & Cie joined with another company under the name of LA BRUYERE, forming the biggest pipe concern in the world with 450 workers. Big trucks were needed to transfer the briar blocks from the drying shed to the factory.

1945: After the Second World War CHACOM assumed its entire commercial liberty and launched a complete and modern range of pipes.

1946: Chacom became the principal brand in France and Belgium…

1957: In face of the commercial preponderance of the brand CHACOM the company La Bruyère returned to the name of CHAPUIS COMOY & Cie.

1964: Death of Adrien COMOY. His son Pierre succeeded him in London. Mr. REED was the Chairman and Managing Director in Saint-Claude…

1971: Having recovered its independence from COMOYS of London, Yves GRENARD, second cousin of Pierre COMOY, took over the Direction of Chapuis Comoy & Cie and at the same time the exclusive sale of H. COMOY & Ltd, in France…

1994: Chapuis-Comoy integrated ROPP Company.

As can be seen in the next series of photos below the rim was damaged and the outer edges were rounded over instead of sharply defined and the surface flat.

I set up my topping board and sandpaper and sanded the top of the bowl. I generally use a circular motion while pressing the top onto the sandpaper. I find that this minimizes the scratches and makes the easier to sand later. The next photo below shows the top after just a few rotations on the board and highlights the damages rim edges.

I continued to sand the top until the surface was smooth and the edges sharp and defined. I wanted to remove all of the rounding that was present on the outer edges of the bowl. When I finished with the sandpaper I sanded the top with a medium and a fine grit sanding block to further smooth out the surface and remove the scratches left behind by the paper.

I wiped down the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to remove the finish. In this case there were so many dents in the briar that I wanted to remove the finish before I steamed out the dents in the sides of the bowl.

I took the pipe up to the kitchen to use the gas stove to heat a knife for steaming the dents. I generally try to do this when my wife is away as I use an old butter knife, a dish cloth and her stove for the work. I have found her hovering to make sure I don’t ruin her stove or knife or cloth for that matter, hard to deal with while I am focusing on the work at hand. It is far easier to do it when she is away – I avoid her concern and I find it goes more quickly!

The next photo below shows the tools I used. I put the wetted dish cloth on a plastic lid so that I do not damage the counter tops. The knife on the right side of the photo is my weapon of choice in this process as the blade is long and wide so it covers a lot of dents.

The next photo shows the blade being heated with the gas flame. For some reason the flame is not visible in the photo but it is present. It does not take long to heat the knife to the temperature that works with the cloth to create steam.

The next photo shows the next step in the process. When it is hot enough I place it against the wet cloth that I have placed over the dents and hold the hot knife blade against the cloth and pressed against the dented briar. The application of heat to the wet cloth creates the steam that is needed to raise the dent in the briar.

The next series of photos show the bowl after steaming out the dents in the surface. The majority of the marks are gone after the process. Those that remain were minimal and I dealt with them by sanding the bowl. I used a medium grit sanding sponge and a fine grit sanding block to sand the briar of the bowl and smooth out the surface dents that remained.

The airway on the acrylic stem was black. I thought at first this was a part of the striations in the acrylic but that turned out to be wrong. I cleaned the stem with a shank brush, many pipe cleaners and Everclear until the pipe cleaners finally came out clean. The shank brush cleans up easily with soap and water when I am finished. The airway looked far better when cleaned.

The next three photos show the pipe, cleaned and ready to be stained. I wiped it down a final time with Everclear to remove any dust or grease from my hands and took it to my work table to restain it.

I stained the pipe with MinWax – using a Medium Walnut stain first and then applying a Red Mahogany stain over that. The photos below show the bowl after I have stained it with Medium Walnut. Once applied the Red stain it blended very nicely with the darker colours in the acrylic of the stem.

I buffed the bowl with White Diamond and then stained it with the red stain. I buffed it a second time with White Diamond. I buffed the stem and pipe again with White Diamond and then gave the pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax to give it a shine. I liked the way the finish is almost matte and does not have a high gloss to it. The addition of the red stain brought out the red tones in the briar and they match those in the acrylic exceptionally well. The acrylic stem is one of the most comfortable ones that I have seen or experienced and that is a pleasant surprise. The following photos show the finished pipe ready to fire up and enjoy.

Giving an Ugly, Worn Billiard a Makeover

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I was given this older, truly ugly pipe a bit ago. It is stamped Astoria De Luxe on the left side of the shank and on the underside the number 8 is stamped near the shank/stem junction. The stem has the letter “A” stamped in the vulcanite. The bowl was coated with a thick coat of something like urethane that gave it a plastic feel. It also seemed to be an opaque coating that was a yellow tan colour. The coating complete hid the grain and the numerous fills on the sides of the bowl. The rim had been damaged from a knife wielding person who tried to ream the bowl. The inner edge had a slight bevel that was damaged and the outer rim had damage from a torch lighter. This time the heavy coating on the bowl protected it from charring but the coating had darkened to black and was pitted. The top of the rim was badly damaged from tapping the bowl out against something hard. This pipe was certainly one that normally I would not have bothered to work on, but there was a challenge there to see if I could do something with it. This one will also go in the box of pipes for the Vancouver Pipe Club.

I took a close-up photo of the top of the bowl to highlight the rim damage before I went to work on repairing it.

I set up my topping board and sandpaper and sanded the top of the rim. I press it against the board and work it in a circle to remove the damaged briar. I continue until the top is once again flat and the damage minimized. In doing so I was able to remove much of the gouging of the inner edge of the rim and flatten the rim. It also removed the burn damage to the outer edges of the bowl. However, it also revealed a flaw in the top of the rim. I filled the flaw with briar dust and superglue and when dry topped it slightly more to remove the excess fill that I had made.

I scrubbed bowl down with acetone on cotton pads but the coating did not come off. I sanded the bowl with a sanding sponge and broke the top seal on the coating and then continued to wipe it down with acetone and then sand repeatedly until the finish was virtually gone.

Last evening when I finished for the night I dropped the bowl in an alcohol bath overnight to further remove some of the stubborn spots on the coating. These were at the bowl shank union and at the end of the shank. There were spots on both sides of the bowl and the front that also resisted the combination of sanding and acetone. When I took it out of the bath this morning the finish was gone. I rubbed the bowl dry and gave it a quick buff with Tripoli to remove any remnants of the coating. I cleaned out the shank with cotton swabs and Everclear to remove the tars and oils that were inside. When it was clean, I wiped it down a final time with a cotton pad and Everclear and prepared it for staining. I decided to once again use the MinWax and gave the bowl a coat of Red Mahogany and then a coat of Medium Walnut stain. I hand buffed the bowl and then took it to the buffer and buffed it with Red Tripoli and White Diamond.

The combination of the two stains worked well and minimized the ugly fills that stood out around the bowl. Combined they gave the pipe a light reddish brown hue. The stem had some damage around the shank area so I sanded it lightly with a medium grit sanding sponge to remove those markings.

I further sanded the stem with the usual array 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 and then buffed it with White Diamond.

I reinserted the stem in the pipe and gave the entire pipe a final buff with the White Diamond and finished by giving it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean flannel buff to raise a shine in the stem and bowl. The result of the work can be seen in the photos below. The old, ugly duckling billiard had a facelift and now was far more attractive than previously in my opinion. It is ready to go in the box for the pipe club. Hopefully the pipeman who takes it home eventually will get good use out of it and enjoy the Astoria De Luxe. The challenge was worth doing and in doing so I learned some more tricks on removing a thick urethane coating.

Topping a Badly Damaged Georg Jensen Bent Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

In the process of going through the box of pipes for the Vancouver Pipe Club to put back the ones I had worked on, I found another that really needed attention. I just could not leave it in the box as the damage looked awful and I knew it could look so much better. It is an oddly shaped bent billiard to me but it had a quaint quality about it that I liked. It is stamped Georg Jensen over Made in Denmark Pipes on the left side and Zenta on the right side. On the underside of the shank it is stamped 525. I am assuming that is a shape number. The stem was oxidized around the shank. The bowl had been coated with varnish – even over the grit on the surface. There were also finger prints in the varnish. The worst part of the pipe was the rim. It was worn down on the front side and the varnish had covered the rough surface of the beat up briar. It was also burned on the back inner edge of the rim and onto the rim surface. The inner edge of the rim was also damaged and nicked and gouged out of round. The stem had one tooth mark on the topside near the button.

I have included the next two close-up photos to show the rim damage. The front edge is very worn, the back inner edge is burned and the inner edge of the rim is clearly gouged and marked. Fortunately the damage did not extend deeply into the bowl was limited to the top 1/8th inch of the bowl top. The bowl had also been coated with a black rubbery bowl coating. I chose to leave it as the bowl also had some gouges in the bottom from the knife that someone used to ream the bowl.

I set up my board and sandpaper that I use for topping pipe bowls and sanded the top of the rim. This one was a little tricky in that the front slope was lower than the rest of the rim. I worked the back half of the rim first to bring the height down to the same place as the highest portion of the front slope. Once I had that done it was an easy matter to proceed with topping the rest of the rim. I worked until I had removed the burn damage and the rough front edge and had a flat, smooth and rim with an even circumference.

I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to remove the varnish coat and the rest of the finish so that I could blend in the stain on the freshly topped rim with the rest of the pipe.

I used MinWax Red Mahogany stain to restain the pipe. I rubbed it on and then wiped it off several times until I had the even coverage I wanted on the bowl. I had buffed it with a cotton cloth to give it a slight shine and get a feel for the overall look of the stain on the bowl. I retouched the stain on the rim to darken it slightly. I lightly buffed the bowl with White Diamond and gave it an initial coat of carnauba wax.

The tooth mark on the top of the stem needed to be heated to lift it as much as possible and then I used some superglue to finish the repair. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to feather it into the surface of the stem. I followed that with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge. I finished the stem with my usual array of micromesh sanding pads – wetsanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and then buffed the pipe with White Diamond. I gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax to finish. The completed pipe is shown in the photos below. I also included a photo of the top of the rim to show the repair. The pipe is now ready to join the rest of the ones heading to the Vancouver Pipe Club. It should provide years of service to the pipeman who takes it home.

A Renovation of a Good Companion London Made Billiard

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My wife and I went out for lunch on Saturday and there was an antique shop across the street from the restaurant. After eating we brave torrential downpours and ran across the street check out a shop we had not visited before. We looked through the various display cases and I found the pipe below along with a chewed up Yello-Bole billiard. The pipe was a small group 3 sized billiard. The finish was a dark brown stain on a sandblasted pipe. The left side had great grain pattern and showed deep grooves. The right side was a tight birdseye grain and the blast was shallow and close. The shank was rusticated to look like a sandblast. The stem had a slight bend but seemed be from sitting in the heat rather than intention. There was a bite through on the top surface of the stem that was large enough that it could not have been patched. The rim was originally smooth and beveled inward but the bevel had been damaged and needed to be reshaped and cleaned up. The stamping on the pipe is what ultimately made me spend the $10 to make the pipe mine. It read Good Companion over London Made on the underside of the shank. I just finished reading a new book by Mark Irwin called Pipe Companions. In it he wrote of the relationship between the pipe and the pipeman. I think it was a great coincidence to walk into a pipe stamped Good Companion. I wanted to clean it up and make it my own.

When I got home from the visit to the shop I took the pipe apart. The stem had a large spiral stinger apparatus in the tenon. The stem itself was badly chewed. I found a new stem for the pipe in my can of stems and worked on the tenon to make the tapered stem fit the shank.

I pushed the newly fitted stem into the shank to have a look at the shape with a taper stem. I liked the overall look of the pipe with the new stem. I sanded the stem to remove the calcification and the oxidation on it. I also worked on the fit of the stem to the shank. I wanted the transition to be smooth and seamless. I took the stem in and out several times while I worked on it. The last time I pushed it into the shank there was a crack! I don’t know if that has happened to you but when it happens there is a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Here the pipe was almost ready to refinish and the stem fit well and then crack. The frustration at that moment is high level. I laid the pipe down and had a coffee while I thought about my next steps.

I went through the box of nickel bands that I have here and I did not have any the correct size for the shank. All of them were either too huge or too small. I did remember however that I had some brass plumbing pressure fitting pieces that would make a great band on the pipe and create a totally different look on this old pipe. Before fitting the band I worked on the bevel of the inner edge of the rim. I used a folded piece of sandpaper to smooth out the rim damage and reshape the bevel.

I used a Dremel and sanding drum to sand back the shank so that the band could be pressure fit against the cracked shank. I took back the rustication until the finish was gone and the shank area was smooth. When the band fit tightly on the shank I heated the brass band with a heat gun and then pressed it into place on the shank.

I pressed the band into place on the shank and then hand sanded the area in front of the band smooth so that I could rework the taper of the shank and the finish to match the rest of the pipe.

I used the two Dremel diamond cutting heads pictured below to rusticate the finish on the shank. I used the cylinder first and then the ball. I worked it into the briar to make the smooth area match the rest of the bowl.

After rusticating the shank I stained it with a dark brown aniline stain and flamed it to set it deep within the grain. I stained the rest of the pipe as well and the rim with multiple coats of the dark brown.

Once the stain was dry on the bowl I hand buffed it with a cotton cloth and then stained it a second time with MinWax Red Mahogany stain. I rubbed it on and then rubbed it off. I repeated the process until I had the colour that I wanted.

I buffed the bowl on with White Diamond and to evenly distribute the stain coat and give the pipe a rich shine. When I had finished I worked on the stem with 220 grit sandpaper, a medium grit sanding sponge and micromesh sanding pads. I used my usual array – wet sanding with the 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with the 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed down the stem with Obsidian Oil and rubbed it into the vulcanite.

I sanded the bevel on the bowl and the brass band on the shank with the 1500-2400 grit micromesh pads.

I buffed the pipe with White Diamond and then gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I used Halcyon II wax on the sandblast finish of the bowl. I buffed the pipe with a clean flannel buff. I have to say though I would have liked to keep the pipe unbanded and pristine, the crack that happened in the shank made me try something a little different. I actually like the finished look of the pipe with the brass band. The combination of the two stains give the blast finish depth that changes with different lighting and the tapered stem adds some panache to this Good Companion.

Looking at the photos I decided to do a bit more work shaping the brass band. I sanded the band with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the ridges in the brass. I followed that by sanding with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge. I finished sanding the band with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-3200 grit polish it.

With the band finished I will give the pipe another buff to polish the handling that it received working over the stem.

Topping and Refinishing a No-name Worm Trail Billiard

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There are a few of the pipes in the Vancouver Pipe Club lot that just don’t do anything for me. One of them was this large billiard – no name. There are several others in the lot that have the same finish and bear the stamping of Partner. It has some nice wedges of smooth grained briar in between the rustication pattern on the bowl. That pattern is what really does not work for me – I call the pattern worm trails because that is what they look like to me. This old pipe has been restemmed somewhere along the way and the person who did the work sanded the shank down to fit the stem – one of my pet peeves! I think there is little that is more irritating in my work of restoration than working on pipes that have been “butchered” to make a stem fit. Why not hack the stem to fit the shank instead of the shank to fit the stem? Hmmm. I will never understand that really. But that is irreparable. The bowl itself had the standard coat of varnish over the bowl and rim – even over the buildup on the rim. The rim was a mess, lots of damage to the outer edge of the bowl and to the top and the bevel in the bowl.

I took several close-up photos of the damage to the rim to give a general idea of what I was starting with on this old pipe.

I topped the bowl with my sandpaper and board setup. I sanded until the top was flat and the majority of the damage was minized. I also evened out the bevel on the inner edge of the rim with folded sandpaper to match all the way around the bowl.

Once I finished with the 220 grit sandpaper I sanded the rim and bevel with a fine grit sanding block to smooth out the scratches. I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to remove the varnish and the finish as much as possible. I also reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer to remove the black rubbery bowl coating.

When the finish was gone, I decided to highlight the “worm trails” and give them some character in the finished bowl. I used a cotton swab and some black aniline stain to paint the trails around the bowl. To dull them a bit and lighten them I wiped them down with a cotton pad and Everclear.

I stained the bowl with MinWax Red Mahogany and Medium Walnut. I wanted to highlight the reds in the briar but not have it an oxblood colour so I use the two stains. I applied the red first and then the walnut stain.

When the stain was dry I buffed the pipe with White Diamond on the wheel and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax to give it protection and a shine. The finished pipe is shown below. With the addition of this one to the Pipe Club box I am getting closer to finishing this project – I think maybe four or five left that desperately need some work and perhaps a few others that will need a touch up. Hopefully someone will like the “worm trails” more than I do.

Topped, Reshaped and Restored a Kolding Old Briar 17

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This old Kolding Old Briar is also one of the pipes that belong to the Vancouver Pipe Club lot. It is stamped Kolding over Old Briar on the top of the shank and Made in Denmark over 17 on the underside of the shank. I have a very similar pipe to this one made by Stanwell – same overall shape and oval flat saddle stem. Mine is a great smoking pipe. This one appears to have been much-loved as well. As with the others in this lot it was in dire need of attention. The briar had been given the standard coat of varnish that is on all of them. The varnish is put over the top of some buildup on the rim and some significant rim damage to the top and the edges of the bowl. There was a small piece of briar missing from one spot on the left front side of the bowl’s outer rim. The inner rim also was rough. The bowl had been coated with a black rubbery bowl coating. The stem was in very good shape with no tooth marks or damage and no oxidation.

The close up photo below shows the rim damage – both burning, buildup and marks that went quite deep and broke the grain of the briar. Steaming would not work to lift the damage on this rim as it was compromised.

Topping this bowl would be far more involved than the previous bowls I had topped. It needed to be topped to remove the damage to the surface, flattened to take care of the deep cuts in the briar, and then the inner edge beveled and the outer edge rounded. I set up my topping board and sandpaper and began to sand the top of the bowl.

I took it down far enough to remove the damaged portions of the rim and then worked to bevel the inner edge with a folded piece of sandpaper. I sanded the rim and the inner bevel with a medium and then a fine grit sanding block. I also used the block to reshape the curve of the outer edge of the rim into the flow of the bowl.

I wiped the pipe down with acetone on cotton pads to remove the varnish and the finish on the remainder of the pipe in preparation for the new coat of stain.

I decided to use two different colours of stain to restain the pipe. The first stain was a MinWax Medium Walnut stain. I rubbed it on and then rubbed it off. I buffed the pipe with White Diamond to polish the briar before giving it the second colour of stain.

For the second stain I used MinWax Red Mahogany stain. I rubbed it into the bowl and then rubbed it off. I polished the pipe with a soft cloth. I rubbed down the stem with Obsidian Oil and hand buffed the stem.

I buffed the bowl and stem with White Diamond again and then gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I gave it a final buff with a clean flannel buffing pad. The finished pipe is shown below. It will now join the others in the Pipe Club box until I finish those that remain. I love the rounded look of the bowl top and the bevel on the rim as it adds to the feel of the pipe. I think this one will also bring a good return for the club.

rebornpipes

reclaiming old and worn estate pipes

Tag Archives: contrast staining

Reworking a Peterson’s Irish Seconds Canadian

Repairing and Reworking a Comoy’s J186 Billiard

Refurbishing a Pipe for a New Pipe Smoker – A Straight Grain Apple

Reworking a Bad Reshaping of a GBD International 9438 Rhodesian

Restoring a Chacom Festival Billiard

Giving an Ugly, Worn Billiard a Makeover

Topping a Badly Damaged Georg Jensen Bent Billiard

A Renovation of a Good Companion London Made Billiard

Topping and Refinishing a No-name Worm Trail Billiard

Topped, Reshaped and Restored a Kolding Old Briar 17

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