Tag Archives: Dunhill Shell 41111 Lovat

Restoring a tired and worn Dunhill Shell 41111 Lovat

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Blog by Steve Laug

I took a second Dunhill to the work table. It was I picked up while I was in Idaho. It was one that we had purchased from a friend in Denmark on May 22, 2024. It is a petite and worn Dunhill Shell Lovat. The stamping on the underside of the shank read 41111 on the heel of the bowl. That is followed by Dunhill Shell [over] Made in England followed by a number 18 to the right of the D in England that will help me date the pipe. The bowl had been reamed not long ago. There was some dust and debris in the light sandblast on the rim and the inner edge had some darkening. The outer edge looked very good. The sandblast finish was worn and dirty but it could not hide the lovely blast around the bowl and shank. There were some very worn areas on the left side of the shank. The oxidized and tarnished silver band on the shank appears to be cosmetic as there are no visible cracks in the shank. The band is stamped with AD in a diamond which is the Alfred Dunhill stamp. It also reads .925 which is the quality of sterling silver. The stem was clean and there were light tooth marks on the top and underside ahead of the button. There also appeared to be a hairline crack in the middle of the button on the topside. The classic Dunhill White Spot was on top of the saddle stem. I took a few photos of the pipe before I started my work on it. I sent the photos to Paul and he is excited about it. I took a photo of the rim top and bowl to show the condition of both of them. The bowl itself had been recently reamed. The rim top showed a coat of lava and some darkening around the edge. The inner edge looked rough but a cleaning would make that clear. The outer edge looked very good. The photos of the stem show light oxidation and tooth marks/chatter on both sides ahead of the button. The first photo shows a tiny hairline crack mid button and just over the edge.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. The photos are blurry but you can see the shadow of the stamping. In person it is very readable. The stamp on the silver band is also very readable once the oxidation has been removed. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo to show the proportions of the pipe. As is my regular practice, before I started my work on the pipe, I turned to Pipedia’s section on Dunhill Shell Pipes to get a bit of background on the Dunhill finishes (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill#Root_Briar). I quote:

Shell

A deep craggy sandblast with a black stain finish (usually made using Algerian briar) – the color of the stain used has varied over the years. Although there is some doubt as to them being the first to sandblast pipes, Dunhill’s Shell pipes, and the sandblasting techniques developed to create them are considered one of Dunhill’s greatest and most lasting contributions to the art of pipe making.

The documented history of Dunhill’s inception of the Shell is largely limited to patent applications — there are no catalog pages or advertisements promoting blasted pipes at the time. The preliminary work on the English patent (No. 1484/17) was submitted on October 13, 1917. The patent submission was completed half a year later, on April 12, 1918, followed by the granting of the English patent on October 14, 1918. This was less than a month before the end of The Great War on November 11th.

In 1986 Dunhill released a line of premium Shell finish pipes – “RING GRAIN”. These are high-quality straight grain pipes which are sandblasted. Initially only Ring Grain, but now in two different finishes. In 1995 the “Shilling” was introduced with Cumberland finish – it is an extremely rare series. These pipes exhibit a deeper blast characteristic of that of the 1930’s – mid-1960’s (and the limited ‘deep blast’ pipes of the early 1980s) and show a fine graining pattern. These are considered the best new Dunhills by many enthusiasts today and are very rare. The finish is sometimes described as tasting like vanilla at first, with the taste becoming more normal or good as the pipe breaks in.

There was also a link to a catalogue page that gave examples and dates that the various finishes were introduced (https://pipedia.org/wiki/File:Dunnypipescatalog-1.png).I turned to Pipephil’s dating guide to show how I arrived at the date of manufacture for this pipe (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1a.html). I am including the chart that is provided there for the dating a pipe. I have drawn a red box around the section. Since the pipe I am working on has a superscript suffix 18 after the D in England it points to the 1960 line on the chart below. To date it just add 1960 +18 for a date of 1978. I have drawn a red box around the pertinent section in the chart.I now knew that I was working on a Shell that came out in 1978 as far as I could tell by the date stamp. The shape of the pipe is 41111. From the shape chart on the site I could know that I was dealing with a Lovat (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/shapes.html). I quote below for the interpretation

Dunhill pipes are stamped with a four digit code.
Digit 1: (from 1 to 6) denotes the size of the pipe (the group).
Digit 2: denotes the style of the mouthpiece (0,1=tapered, 2=saddle)
Digit 3 and 4: denote the generic pipe shape (in yellow in the chart on top) 

Example: 5102
(5 = size | 1 = tapered stem | 02 = Bent)

When 5 digits occur, the meaning of the 4 first remain the same

The pipe in hand is stamped 41111 which is a size/group 4 pipe, the 1 is for taper but on a Lovat it is a saddle as noted in the chart on the link above, the 111 is the shape of a Lovat.

Now it was time to work on the pipe. I cleaned up the oxidized silver band with a jeweller’s cloth to remove the tarnish and protect it from further tarnish. There was more work to do but at least at this point I could read the stamping on it clearly. I used a brass bristle wire brush to knock off some of the debris and lava on the rim top. I did this in preparation for scrubbing it with Murphy’s Oil Soap.I scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with a tooth brush and undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime and debris in the finish. I scrubbed out the mortise and tenon with small tube brushes and soap to remove the oils and tars in the shank area. I rinsed it with warm water to remove the grime and oils in the finish and shank. I dried it off with a soft cotton cloth. One of the benefits of doing this is that the briar in the nicks and dents on the bowl sides swell and virtually disappear. The pipe has a fresh look that really highlights the depths of the sandblast on the briar. I used a Walnut and a Mahogany stain pen to touch up the fading on the bowl sides. There were spots where the stain had faded and it added to the worn look. I restained it with these two stain pens and then used a black stain pen to touch up the spaces. The combination of the stains is very close to the colour on the Shell Briar. I let it dry and once it did it looked much better. I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. It is a paste/balm that works to deep clean the finish, enliven and protect the briar. I worked it into the briar with my finger tips to make sure that it covered every square inch of the pipe. I set it aside for 10 minutes to let it do its work. I buffed it with a cotton cloth. The briar really began to have a deep shine. The photos I took of the bowl at this point mark the progress in the restoration. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. The first photo shows the hairline crack on the top side of the button forward about 1/8 of an inch. I filled in the cracked area on the stem with rubberized black CA glue. I set the stem aside to let the repair cure.Once the repair had cured I sanded it smooth with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I was able to blend in the repair on the top of the stem. It looked much better and the repair was solid.I sanded the stem with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to break up the remaining oxidation. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with an Obsidian Oil impregnated cloth. It began to look good.When I finished polishing the stem with the sanding pads it dawned on me that I had not cleaned the internals of the shank and stem. My routine had been broken as this restoration was spread over the better part of a week. No excuse but that is what happened. So I paused the polishing and scrubbed out the inside of the shank, mortise and the airway in both the stem and the shank. I used pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol. It cleaned up very well.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. Once I had finished the polishing I gave it final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry.  I put the 1978 Dunhill Shell 41111 Lovat bowl and stem back together. I polished the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish the briar and the vulcanite. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The Shell Briar stains worked amazingly well with the polished vulcanite saddle stem. The grain around the bowl and shank and looks quite remarkable. This is truly a beautiful Dunhill Shell 41111 Lovat. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.16 ounces/33 grams. I will be adding this to the rebornpipes store in the British Pipemakers Section soon. It will be a definite good deal is you have been looking for a Dunhill. Let me know if you wish to add it to your rack. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me. Cheers.

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