Tag Archives: cotton ball and alcohol treatment

Restoring an Obstinate Marxman Jumbo War Club

Blog by Steve Laug

Not long ago I was emailing back and forth with a reader of the blog in Quebec about a pipe that he had purchased online. He said that it was a Marxman Jumbo Bench Made and it was huge. He said the photos of the pipe online were far better than what the pipe looked like when he received it. The pipe was marked on Etsy as follows: 1940s Rustic Tobacco Pipe Jumbo Marxman Carved Briar Root Wood Smoking Pipe OAK Handcarved Vintage Pipe Large Oversize Pipe. You and I know that the pipe was not OAK but Briar. Here are the photos that he sent me the link for. In the photos you can see the unique shape of this War Club/Hammer. It is quite big and I was expecting it to be much bigger than it actually is. The finish looks pretty good in the photos as well. The cake and lava on the rim looks negligible but present. It looks like a great deal but even in these photos you can see the large fills around the shank and bowl. We talked back and forth a bit and finally decided that the pipe should be sent to me in Vancouver. He wrote in the email that he sent before the pipe was mailed: “The stem seems stuck while the cake is relatively thick in the chamber. Also, the finish of the pipe seems stained and uneven. It’s a massive pipe but I’m confident it will look good”. With that I awaited the arrival of the pipe. Canada Post was efficient and it arrived three days after it was shipped. I opened the box and took photos of the pipe as it was when it arrived. He was right in saying it looked very different from the pipe in the Etsy seller’s photos.

The stem was solidly stuck in the shank and was upside down. The finish was flat and dirty with no life to it. There were large fills on the front and back sides of the bowl and all the way around the shank. The fills were what gave an uneven appearance to the finish on the pipe as they were a light tan/pink. The bowl had a thick, uneven cake and the pipe smelled musty and dank. The rim top had a coat of lava on the top around the bowl and the inner edge of the chamber was out of round and damaged. The stem was high quality vulcanite and had tooth chatter on both sides near the button but there were not any deep tooth marks in the vulcanite. The photos show you what I saw as I examined the pipe. I took close up photos of the rim top and the stem. The photos confirm the condition of the pipe that I described in the paragraphs above. You can see the damage to the inner edge of the rim top. It had been hacked and damaged with what looked like a knife.I took a photo of the stamping on the flat heel of the bowl. It is stamped with a letter C at the top of the heel. Under that is reads Jumbo in script over Bench Made. Underneath at the bottom it is stamped with the Marxman logo inside an arrow.I wanted to refresh my memory of the brand so I turned to Pipephil first to get a short summary of the history (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-m2.html). The site had a side note that the brand was created in 1934 and merged with Mastercraft Pipes in 1953.I then turned to Pipedia to find out a bit more information on the brand and the maker of the pipe (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Marxman). The site quote from Pipes, Artisans and Trademarks, by José Manuel Lopes. I include a portion of that information below.

Marxman (Marxman Pipe Company) was created by Robert (Bob) L. Marx in 1934, when he was 29, and after he had worked for the William Demuth Company. His pipes were not outstanding because of the quality of their wood (probably Algerian), but Bob started making unique sculpted pieces, which brought the brand fame in the World of Hollywood cinema. Actors like Zachery Scott, Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson, Alan Hale, Joel McRae, and Ronald Reagan were some of the faces that appeared on the bowls.

Bob new how to innovate and took full advantage of marketing and press advertising in order to sell the brand–one of his slogans being “Relax with a Marxman”.

From the information on the two sites I learned that the pipe was made between 1934 when the company started and 1953 when the company was taken over by Mastercraft. I have included an advertisement for the Marxman Jumbo that was included on the article (1946 Ad, Courtesy Doug Valitchka).

It includes the following information. “A rare treat for the pipe connoisseur is the Marxman Jumbo, distinguished by a carved bowl that is in perfect balance for easy, comfortable smoking. From the thousands of pieces of briar that flow into our factory we select the perfect and unusual. These are reserved only for the Marxman Jumbo – and are fashioned into truly elegant pipes of exclusive designs – unique in appearance and superior in smoking qualities. Each pipe is an individual artistic creation following the natural shape of the briar. No two pipes are alike. They are priced according to size.” The prices are noted in the ad that I included below.I went on to read the remainder of the article on Pipedia and include the pertinent portion below.

Bob also produced other brands, such as the “Bench Made”. The company lasted until 1953, the year in which it merged with Mastercraft, then the USA’s biggest pipe importer. Marxman Pipes Inc., was located at 27 West 24th St. New York 10, NY.

I had put the pipe in the freezer before I went to bed and in the morning I took it out and with a little effort I was able to remove the stem from the shank. It was very tight but it came out with patience.I took the bowl to the work table and reamed it. I used a PipNet pipe reamer with the second cutting head to remove the thick cake in the bowl. I removed the remnants of the cake with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife and finished the bowl with a piece of 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. I used a dental spatula to scrape out the inside of the mortise and remove the thick lacquer that had built up there from much smoking. I cleaned the interior of the shank/mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. They were very dirty and after I had scoured them the pipe was clean and smelled better. I would still need to do a cotton ball alcohol soak to draw out the rest of the mustiness.I scrubbed the exterior of the bowl and shank with a tooth brush and undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap. I scrubbed the grooves of the rustication to remove the grime with the tooth brush. I rinsed the pipe off with warm running water and dried it off with a cotton cloth. The finish looked clean but you could see the fills very clearly now. I have circled them in red in the photos below. Now it was time to deal with the out of round bowl edges. I gently topped the bowl. I did not want to flatten the crowned rim just smooth out the top edge of the bowl. I used a folded piece of sandpaper to work a slight bevel to the inner edge to clean up the damaged edge and bring back to round. I also sanded the darkening on the rim edge to remove it as well. With that finished I moved on the polishing the smooth portions of the bowl and the rim top with micromesh sanding pads. I polished it with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads and wiped the bowl down with damp cloth to remove the sanding dust. I used a Walnut stain pen to touch up the fill areas and the lighter areas on the briar bowl. I covered all of them and set the bowl aside to dry. The stain actually hid the fills very well. Once the stain had dried I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the grooves of the finish with my fingertips and a horsehair shoe brush. I set it aside to absorb into the briar for ten minutes. Once it had been sitting I polished the bowl surface with a soft cotton cloth. At this point in the process the briar is looking very good. I filled the bowl with cotton balls and used and ear syringe to fill it with alcohol. I fit a folded pipe cleaner in the shank to keep the alcohol in the bowl. I left the alcohol and cotton ball in the bowl while I worked on the stem. It sat for over an hour and then I removed it from the bowl and took the photo of the cleaned pipe. I turned my attention to the stem. I sanded out the tooth chatter and marks with 220 grit sandpaper and 400 grit wet dry sandpaper.I polished the stem with Denicare Mouthpiece Polish to remove the light scratching and the light oxidation on the stem surface. The product is a red paste that is gritty and when rubbed with a cotton pad it removes many of the scratches and remaining oxidation.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – polishing it with 1500-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads. I wiped it down with cloth between each sanding pad. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I gave it a rub down with Briarville’s No Oxy Oil to protect the stem from oxidizing. It was looking very good at this point. I was looking forward to this part of the restoration when all the pieces are put back together so I can send a photo back to the fellow in Quebec. I put the pipe back together and buffed it with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I hand buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. It is fun to see what the polished bowl looks like with the smooth portion and the rusticated portion contrasting well and added to that the polished black vulcanite stem. This Marxman Bench Made Jumbo looks far better than it did when I started. The fills are present but have blended in very well. The stem fits well in the shank. The pipe is nice looking and feels great in my hand. The pipe is a sitter so that it can be laid down on a desk top while the pipeman is working on something else. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 1/8 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¾ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. This old Marxman Jumbo is a beauty and I look forward to what the pipeman who sent it thinks of this restoration. Thanks to each of you who are reading this blog. Remember we are not pipe owners; we are pipemen and women who hold our pipes in trust until they pass on into the trust of the next pipeman or woman.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS – How do I “De-ghost” a pipe?

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Blog by Steve Laug

Another of the questions that I am frequently asked is about how to remove a tobacco ghost from a pipe. For some folks it is a matter of removing the ghost of Latakia from an estate pipe so they can smoke a favourite Virginia or aromatic without the smoky overtones coming through from the past. For others it is the opposite – how to remove the sweet, candy-like ghost from a past pipe man. However, one I hear about most often involves the left over smells and tastes left behind in a pipe from Lakeland tobaccos. Folks want to remove that ghost of “grandma’s perfume”, the floral scent that stubbornly clings to a pipe even after a thorough cleaning. I thought it was worth devoting an Answers to Questions Blog to addressing some of the different methods that can be used to address the ghost in the pipe.

All of the methods that I will write about assume that the pipe has been thoroughly cleaned before using them. It is easier to work on a pipe that is not filthy with tars, oils and debris than otherwise. I am sure that others may think that this pre-clean is not necessary but I have found that it is not only necessary but also essential to getting the best deep clean possible. I will summarize the way I do this cleanup in the form of a checklist.

___ Remove the stem and clean out the airway in the stem with alcohol and pipe cleaners. Repeat the process until the pipe cleaners come out clean.

___ Clean out the mortise area in the shank with cotton swabs and alcohol to remove the obvious buildup in that area. Check the walls of the mortise to see if there is any hardened buildup on the walls. If so, scrape it out with a thin blade – I use a penknife or a dental spatula to scrape the walls. Be careful to not cut into the briar in the walls.

___ Clean out the airway between the end of the mortise and the bowl. You can use pipe cleaners and alcohol to begin this process however; I have found that the airway is often quite constricted with tars and oils. I use the drill bit that comes with the KleenReem pipe tool and twist it into the airway in the mortise carefully until the tip comes out in the bowl.

___ Clean off the drill bit and wrap a pipe cleaner up the grooves of the bit. Dip the bit in alcohol and twist it into the airway once again. It will remove the grime and open the airway. I repeat that until the pipe cleaners come out clean.

___ Finish the process by running pipe cleaners and alcohol into the shank – mortise and airway to remove any remaining debris.

When that process of “pre-cleaning” is complete the pipe is ready for the deep cleaning of “ghost busting” methods I will describe next. I have used the all of the methods for over 20 years now and I have found that they all work far better after a thorough pre-clean as I have described above. I will cover the three methods that I use in the order that I use them. In most cases, one method can bust the ghost from a pipe. However, as usual in this hobby there are exceptions. I have found that there are some very stubborn ghosts that do not leave the pipe until I have used all of the methods.

Pipe Retort System

I have written several blogs on the use of a pipe retort covering how it is used and an instructional sheet included with the retort I purchased on eBay. I am including those links here if you want to read in more detail about the use of a retort system. https://rebornpipes.com/2012/10/17/what-is-a-pipe-retort-and-how-it-is-used/
https://rebornpipes.com/2015/03/02/an-instruction-sheet-for-using-a-pipe-retort/ A short explanation of the system is that it involves boiling alcohol through the pipe and then removing the heat and letting the dirty alcohol exit the pipe back into the attached test tube. I will use a checklist once again to spell out the process.

___ Materials needed are cotton balls, isopropyl alcohol, surgical tubing, a pipet or metal tube, a rubber stopper that will hold the tube, a Pyrex heat resistant test tube and a heat source. The surgical tubing is attached to the pipet/tube and then the tube is put through the stopper. The open end of the surgical tube is fit over the end of the stem.

___ Pour alcohol into the test tube until it is half-full. Put the stopper in the test tube to keep the alcohol in place.

___ Fit the open end of the surgical tube over the button end of the mouthpiece (leave the mouth piece attached to the shank).

___ Gently stuff one or two cotton balls in the bowl of the pipe to keep the alcohol inside when it is heated.

___ Hold the end of the test tube over the heat source and the heat will bring the alcohol to a rolling boil. The stem will warm up as the alcohol moves through it. Hold the tube by the rubber stopper at about a 33-degree angle – enough to encourage the heating alcohol to move through the pipe.

___ The alcohol boil through the pipe for 5 minutes or more then remove the tube from the heat source. As the alcohol cools, it flows back into the test tube bringing the tars, oils and debris with it.

___ Remove the stopper from the test tube and dispose of the dirty alcohol. Refill and repeat the process until the boiled alcohol comes back clean.

___ Remove the retort from the pipe and run clean pipe cleaners through the airways and cotton swabs through the mortise to remove any remaining debris.

Once the pipe has dried out, smell it and see if the ghost remains. Take a couple of draws on the stem to see if there is any remaining flavor from the ghost. If the ghost has been “exorcised” you can do a simple wipe down, buff the bowl and stem with either a buffer or by hand to raise a shine and remove any signs of the retort. I give my pipe a day to dry out then load a bowl and enjoy the first smoke in this refreshed bowl. However, if it still reeks of the ghost’s presence there are several more options that we can use.

Salt and Alcohol/Cotton Ball and Alcohol Treatment

I have written several blogs regarding the use of the salt and alcohol treatment already and have compared it with using cotton balls in place of the kosher salt. Both work equally well in pulling the tars and oils out of the briar bowl and shank. I have moved away from using the kosher salt with the alcohol to cotton balls because it is less of a mess and for me removes some of the threat that others have mentioned regarding the salt splitting the briar. The cotton balls and alcohol are just as effective in removing the tars and oils from the briar as the salt. The concept is simple in that the surface of the cotton or salt provides somewhere for the tars to rest once the alcohol draws them out of the briar. Here are the links to two of the blogs I have written on this treatment previously on rebornpipes. Give them a read if you want more details of either treatment or a comparison of the two.
https://rebornpipes.com/2013/02/08/to-use-or-not-to-use-the-salt-and-alcohol-treatment/
https://rebornpipes.com/2013/02/10/sweetening-a-pipe-an-alternative-to-the-salt-and-alcohol-treatment/ I will use a checklist once again to spell out the process.

___ Whether you use cotton balls or Kosher salt (coarse grind) the beginning step is the same. Remove the stem from the pipe. Fill the bowl of the pipe with either one leaving some room at the top of the bowl. The idea is to leave enough room that once the bowl is filled with alcohol it does not splash onto the rim top or down the sides and damage the bowl.

___ Insert a twisted piece of paper towel or a pipe cleaner into the shank of the pipe to keep the mixture in the bowl from flowing out the mortise.

___ Use an ice cube tray or a bowl of uncooked rice to hold the pipe upright with the shank elevated enough that the mixture does not wick out of the bowl.

___ Use an ear syringe or some other simple tool to fill the packed bowl with alcohol. I use isopropyl alcohol (99%) because of the low water content of the alcohol and I find that by the time I empty the bowl most if not all of the alcohol has evaporated.

___ Leave the bowl sitting overnight to maximize the draw of the mixture on the oils and tars in the bowl. I find that typically in the morning, after the mix has sat all night, the cotton balls or salt are very dark brown and smell awful.

___ Remove the cotton balls or salt and dispose of them. Dry out the inside of the bowl with paper towels of cotton swabs, run several pipe cleaners through the shank to dry out the briar and remove any debris.

___Let the pipe dry thoroughly before putting the stem on the shank. I usually let it sit for 2-3 days to ensure that it is dry.

Once it has dried out smell the bowl to check if you have eradicated the ghost using this procedure. You may have to repeat the process several times to remove all of the oils and tars from the briar. (Because of the repetition, I find that the cotton balls work better and do not leave any salty residue in the briar of the bowl or shank.) After the pipe has been sitting and it has dried out then load a bowl and enjoy the first smoke in this refreshed bowl. However, if it still reeks of the ghost’s presence there one more trick that we can use.

Activated Charcoal Treatment

(I have yet to have this final method fail.) You might think that you can short cut to this method first and avoid all of the other methods. I do not do that as I find that the majority of ghosts are “exorcised” with the first two methods spelled out above. I leave this final method as my last resort. It is simple but many folks find it a bit intimidating. It was first spelled out in an article by Greg Pease that he originally wrote in for the now out of print Pipe Friendly Magazine (it appeared in Vol. 5 No. 4). He has since added it to his Briar & Leaf Chronicles (GLP Blog). It is a well-written piece that gives the results of his experimenting with the method and the results he achieved. What he has written should allay your fears about trying out his method. Here is the link to the blog: http://www.glpease.com/Articles/Spot.html. I will use a checklist to summarize the process of his method.

___ Heat the oven (electric is what Greg used though I use a gas stove) setting the thermostat to 180°F. (Greg’s experimental tests had shown him that the temperature in an empty oven would vary between about 180°F and a bit over 200°F, which well below the temperature at which the briar would scorch.

___ Remove the stem, place the empty bowl on a towel in the oven, on the upper rack, far away from the source of radiant heat, and let it sit for three hours.

___ Remove the now hot pipe and fill the bowl with the activated charcoal.

___ Place the bowl back in the oven for an additional three hours.

___ After three more hours remove the pipe and empty the charcoal.

___ Smell the bowl and see if there is any trace of ghost.

Allow the pipe to cool overnight before putting the stem on it. I run pipe cleaners through the bowl to remove any of the carbon bits that might be in the shank then load a bowl and enjoy the refreshed bowl. Give Greg’s article a read if you want more detail on this method along with a couple of disclaimers he gives. The method works well.

Those are the three methods I use to de-ghost a pipe. Each of them is used after a thorough cleaning of the pipe to make the method more effective. I would encourage you to give them a try if you want to remove a ghost of past tobaccos from your pipe or even just sweeten a pipe that has grown sour. With that I bring this Answers to Questions blog to a close. I hope that it has given you some insight the methodology for the process of de-ghosting. Thank you for taking time to read this blog. Cheers.

Rejuvenating a Caminetto Business Long Shank Stack

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Blog by Steve Laug

I just finished working on a long shank Caminetto Stack. It is stamped on the left side of the shank Caminetto Business. On the right side of the shank it is stamped Ascorti over Radice over Cucciago over Cantu Italy. Next to it is a shield. The finish is a rustication that looks very much like the older Castello Sea Rock finish. The bowl needed a thorough reaming to clean out the remnants of the old cake. The internals of the shank will also need a thorough cleaning. The pipe has a strong English smelling ghost that would need to be exorcised by a retort treatment. If that did not kill it then it would need to be given a cotton ball and alcohol treatment to further remove the ghost. The inner and out rim edges look really good. There is a build up tars and oils in the rustication on the top of the rim that will need to be scrubbed out. The deep rustication is also harbouring a lot of dust in the crevices that will also need to be scrubbed as well.

The stem needs some work. It is loose in the shank and I will need to see what the fit is like once the shank is cleaned. There is a deep tooth mark on the underside of the stem next to the button. It is not quite broken through the surface of the stem but it is deep. There are also marks on the topside of the stem in the same place though nowhere near as deep. The stem was almost clogged and will need to be cleared. The slot is tight and hard to get a pipe cleaner through easily. It will need to be opened to make cleaning the pipe a simpler procedure. Between the semi-clogged stem and the tight slot the draw is constricted. Once the repairs are made to the stem it will need to be polished.

I took a close-up photo of the rim for you to see clearly the build up on the rim. There were tars and oils deep in the grooves of the rustication on the surface of the rim. There was also a thin cake on the walls of the bowl that would need to be removed to address the heavy Latakia smell that was in the pipe. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer using the smallest cutting head and working up to the third head that was the same diameter as the bowl. I then scraped the inside lightly with a sharp pen knife.

I scrubbed the inside of the shank with pipe cleaners and cotton swabs and isopropyl 99% alcohol before setting up a retort to boil alcohol through the inside of the pipe. I stuffed a cotton ball in the top of the bowl and then fit the rubber end of the test tube stopper over the stem. I place the bowl in a pipe rest and held the test tube over a candle. As the alcohol heated and boiled in the test tube it circulated into the bowl and when removed from the flame the alcohol would carry the tars and oils back to the test tube. I continued to boil the alcohol and remove it from the flame until the alcohol turned amber from the inside of the pipe.

I changed the alcohol and boiled it through the pipe again. This second time the alcohol came out clean. I kept it boiling through for about 15 minutes and then removed it from the flame. The photo below shows the relatively clean alcohol after this retort. Once I had removed the retort I cleaned out the bowl and the shank with isopropyl alcohol on cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. This time they came out relatively clean. The problem was that the pipe still smelled strongly of Latakia. The ghost was stubborn and persistent. I decided to use a cotton ball and alcohol soak to see if I could draw out some more of the oils and smell. I stuff two cotton balls into the bowl and plugged the shank. I used an ear syringe to fill the bowl with alcohol and tipped it back and forth to run the alcohol through the shank. I unplugged the shank and set the bowl in an old ice cube tray over night to draw out the oils. The next three photos were taken over a 12 hour period and show what happened with the soak.

When I removed the cotton balls and let the pipe dry out the ghost still persisted. I cleaned out the bowl and shank again, then put some white vinegar and cotton in the bowl and shank and let it sit for 3 hours. I cleaned out the shank and the ghost still remained. I was beating it but it was still present. I then filled the bowl with Kosher rock salt and then used an ear syringe to fill it with alcohol. I set it aside in the ice cube tray to let the salt do its magic.

Once I removed the salt and alcohol and cleaned out the shank and bowl a final time the ghost is pretty well exorcised. There is a faint tobacco smell but the overpowering smell is gone.

I scrubbed the top of the rim with a brass bristle tire brush and then rescrubbed it with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap. I scrubbed it hard enough to remove the dust and grime from the crevices of the rusticated finish.

I rinsed the bowl under running water to remove the soap from the finish, being careful to not get any water in the bowl. I dried it off with a cotton cloth. The photos below show the cleaned bowl. The finish was dull and had lightened slightly.

I used a wash of brown aniline stain mixed 4 parts alcohol and one part stain to restain the bowl and shank. The next four photos show the pipe after it had been restained and buffed with Blue Diamond. I buffed it with a light touch and then rebuffed it with a shoe brush.

With the bowl finished it was time to work on the stem. I decided to start with the narrow slot and airway on the end of the stem. I used three different needle files to open it up. I started with a flat file to widen the gap on the top and the bottom edge of the slot. I needed it open enough that I could use a flat oval file to smooth out the slot and open both the top, bottom and sides of the slot. I finished with a round file to taper the edges of the slot at an angle to the airway in the stem. While this was done to a slight degree I increased the angle and also opened up the end of the airway. I used the round file to also enter from the tenon end of the stem and smooth out what appeared to be rough transitions from the airway to the slot. I finished by sanding the inside of the slot with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper and then finishing with a bristle pipe cleaner and a little scrubbing powder.

I still needed to clean up the end of the stem when I worked on the stem surface itself but the basic shape was finished and the slot was wide enough to easily handle a pipe cleaner. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and also with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to remove the tooth chatter on the top side of the stem and to clean up around the deep tooth mark on the surface of the stem. I picked out the debris from the tooth mark and then filled it with black super glue. I set the stem aside overnight to let the glue repair cure.

The next morning I sanded the repaired area with 220 grit sandpaper and then the sanding sponges to remove the excess patch and to blend it into the surface of the stem. Once the repair was smoothed out it was time to sand the stem with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil. Once it had dried I gave it a quick buff with White Diamond. The tooth chatter was gone on the top of the stem and the repair on the underside blended in quite well. At this stage in the sanding it still showed but would begin to disappear into the stem with further sanding with micromesh. I dry sanded the stem with 3200-4000 grit pads and then rubbed it down again with Obsidian Oil. The first photo below shows the topside of the stem. The tooth chatter is gone. The second shows the underside of the stem. The tooth mark is repaired and the repair no longer shows. The next three grits of micromesh will make the patch disappear in the shine of the stem.

I dry sanded with 6000-12,000 grit pads and then gave it a final buff with Blue Diamond. I rubbed in a final coat of Obsidian Oil and let it dry.

The next two photos show the finished stem. The repair is blended into the vulcanite and it is polished and clean.

I gave the pipe a light buff with Blue Diamond Plastic polish and then gave the stem several coats of carnauba wax. I lightly buffed the bowl with carnauba and then buffed the entire pipe with a clean flannel buff to raise the shine. Here is the finished pipe. Thanks for looking.