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Revitalizing a Distinctive L J Peretti of Boston – Large Full Bent Egg

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Blog by Dal Stanton

I’ve grown to like L J Peretti pipes and I guess you could say, that I’ve started collecting them.  Why?  My son gave me my first Peretti for Christmas which I restored by splicing the missing part of the stem by cannibalizing another:  A Christmas Gift in need of a stem splice – L J Peretti Squared Shank Billiard.  It turned out to be a great smoker and I like the stout squared shank.It was my research with this pipe that I discovered the mystique of the Boston-based, L. J. Peretti name and its place in Americana pipe history as the second oldest US Tobacconist started in 1870 (Quoted from Lopes in Pipedia).  The L J Peretti Co. continues to serve patrons today in their Boston shop on 2 ½ Park Square by being one of the few places where one can bring his/her pipe and be guided by experienced tobacconists and test several selections before deciding to purchase!  I was also attracted to the Peretti story because Boston is a cool city – my son lived there and I enjoyed my visits.The next Peretti I serendipitously received was from a colleague working in Ukraine – a square shanked Rhodesian.  He brought it to me when we met last winter in Oslo, Norway, to watch a world-class Biathlon event (skiing and shooting).  He wasn’t utilizing him anymore and asked me if I would.  Yes!  It’s a smaller pipe and good for a shorter smoke.  Suddenly, I had two Perettis of Boston!  Both, strong, squared shanks – I liked them.Then I drank the Peretti Kool Aid.  I bought my own Peretti – well, that’s not the whole truth.  I bought 10 pipes of Peretti in a lot for sale on eBay from a seller located in Everett, Massachusetts, just north of Boston.  I guess you could say that I’m now a Peretti collector!  Of the 10 pictured from the eBay seller below, I chose 4 to add to my personal collection – one of the Oom Paul’s (many to choose from!), the Calabash (top left), the Billiard EX (bottom), and the massive Full Bent Egg in the center of the picture. The remaining Peretti cousins will eventually be restored and put up for adoption in The Pipe Steward Store Front to benefit the Daughters of Bulgaria.  I’m pressing to restore and ready the Peretti Full Bent Egg for service because my wife and I will be returning to the US from Bulgaria for a few months and I was hoping to bring this new Peretti along!  Now on my worktable, on the 10th floor of a former Communist block apartment building, I take some pictures of the L J Peretti Full Bent Egg in the condition he arrived from Everett, Mass. The pipe is generally in good shape.  It shows normal wear and usage.  The briar surface is grimy.  The narrow, cylindrical bowl is laden with cake which needs removal.  The stem is heavily oxidized with tooth chatter and some compressions present.  This L J Peretti has enjoyed a lot of use showing that the former steward enjoyed his company.  The nomenclature is situated on the left-side of the shank and simply reads, ‘LJ PERETTI CO’ and is very worn.  I’ll be careful to preserve it.  There are no other markings that I can tell.  I take a magnifying glass to the left side of the full bent saddle stem to see if there might be a Peretti ‘P’ stamp hiding in the oxidation, but I see no sign.  I’m anxious to recommission this newest of my L J Perretti collection – an extra-large Full Bent Egg.  The first step is to put the full bent stem into the OxiClean bath to raise the serious oxidation on the stem.  I leave it in the bath overnight. Then, using the Pipnet Reaming Kit (minus blade #3 which broke during the last restoration), I attack the cake in the chamber.  I use only the smallest two blades, and the cake easily surrenders.  The carbon cake was crusty – like hard toast, and it comes out readily.  I finetune the reaming with the Savinelli Fitsall Reaming Knife which can reach down the long, deep chamber.  To clean the walls further and to reveal fresh briar for a new start, I wrap 240 grade paper around a Sharpie Pen and sand the chamber.  Finally, I wipe out the chamber with a cotton pad and alcohol – ridding the chamber of the carbon dust resulting from the reaming.  The chamber condition looks good.  The pictures show the progress. Next, I clean the external briar surface.  I do this using undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap with a cotton pad.  I also employ the use of a brass wire brush to work on the tight rim of the Egg shape as well as my thumb nail to scrape the crusted briar and lava.  Grimy was an understatement.  The stummel was dirty and the rim came clean through the process, but revealed some burn damage to the slender, vulnerable rim.  I’ll need to top the rim gently to remove the scorched, ‘charcoaly’ wood.  The cleaning also reveals a beautiful piece of briar – inspecting the surface I find no fills.  The large Egg bowl shows a lot of grain movement – very nice!  My day is ending and I will let the internals of the stummel clean through the night using a kosher salt/alcohol soak.  I’ve never started with the soak before.  I’ve always worked first on the internals with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and isopropyl 95% and then followed with a soak.  I’ll do the soak and see how it does.  I fill the chamber with the kosher salt, that does not leave an aftertaste as does the iodized variety.  Then I fashion a cotton wick by stretching and twisting a cotton ball and then stuffing it down the mortise.  Its purpose is to draw the tars and oils out during the soak.  I then fill the chamber with alcohol using a large eye dropper until it surfaces over the salt.  I wait a few minutes and top off the alcohol once more.   Then I set the stummel in an egg cart and turn off the lights. Morning has arrived and I check out the progress with the salt/alcohol soak.  Both the kosher salt and the cotton wick have darkened indicating the nocturnal stealth activities of cleaning.  I remove the expended salt and wipe the chamber with a paper towel and run long-wired bristled brushes in the bowl and through the mortise to remove salt crystals.  I then use pipe cleaners and cotton swabs dipped in isopropyl 95% to clean up the leftover gunk from the soak.  There were additional oils and tars in the mortise – in the moisture trap underneath the airway drilling, but all clean up quickly and well.  I also scrape the mortise walls with dental probes and a pointed needle file to augment the cleaning.  Internals clean!It’s time to take the stem out of the OxiClean bath and clean it up.  The oxidation has surfaced well during the soak and using 600 grit sanding paper I wet sand the stem to remove the top layer of oxidation and tooth damage to the bit.  I follow with 0000 steel wool to reduce the oxidation further and buff up the vulcanite. I now take a closer look at the bit to see what tooth chatter remains.  Using 240 grit paper I sand the areas where tooth dents remain on the top and bottom bit.  There also remains a dent on the lower button lip. At this point I use the heat method to help minimize the dents that remain.  With a lighter, I pass the flame over the bit area and ‘paint’ the vulcanite surface.  I don’t want to ‘cook’ the vulcanite but warm it sufficiently to expand the rubber.  When this happens, the dents seek their original pre-dental positions.  This works very well and the dent on the lower button lip has all but disappeared.  I return to using 240 grit paper, followed by 600 then steel wool and the damaged bit areas look great.  This time around I will not need to use CA glue to repair the dents.With the stem in hand I turn to cleaning the internal airway.  Using only a few pipe cleaners dipped in alcohol and the stem is good to go!Looking now at the scorched rim, I need to remove the charred briar at the 1 to 2 o’clock position on the rim in the picture below.  The Egg shape bowl sets off the rim as the shape tightens as it moves toward the rim.  It creates a very tight look with the top.  The rim appears originally to have been crowned – a gently rounded rim.  I will aim toward restoring the crowned rim.  First, I top the rim very little – it’s not easy as the shank extends further than the plane of the rim so it will not sit on the topping board.  I must hang the shank over the topping board edge to allow the rim to sit flat.  I then gently rotate the stummel in a limited fashion.  I don’t take much off and then switch to 600 grit paper on the board and rotate the stummel more. Now, using 240 grit paper rolled, I sand the inside of the rim creating a beveling effect and removing the remaining damaged briar.  After beveling and cleaning the internal rim lip, I gently bevel the outer lip of the rim.  This is sharpening and restoring a rounding of the tight rim.  I follow using 600 grit paper which smooth the rim more and enhances the crowned effect I want.  The pictures show the results – I like the look of the rim – it enhances the Egg shape.Looking at this large block of briar, the Bird’s Eye grains are wonderfully portrayed in the first 2 pictures below – large landscapes of grain movement – I like that!  From my original Peretti research I emailed the L J Peretti Tobacconist Shop in Boston with a question about where their pipes were manufactured.   Tom was kind enough to respond, saying that over the years they had used many different sources, but most had been produced by Arlington Briars.  I found this about Arlington in Pipedia:

Arlington Briar Pipes Corporation was founded in 1919 in Brooklyn, New York, and produced the Arlington, Briarlee, Firethorn, Krona and Olde London brands among dozens of others, primarily acting as a subcontractor making pipes to be sold under other brand names. Among others, in the 1950’s, Arlington turned pipes for the famed Wilke Pipe Shop in New York City. The corporation was dissolved by the State of New York as inactive on December 6, 1978. 

Where ever this L J Peretti Full Bent Egg was birthed, the block of briar used was an excellent specimen and it is now showcased in this striking pipe.  I see no fills on this stummel, only minor nicks which is normal for any pipe’s experience.  I use a two grades of light sanding sponges to remove these small imperfections. I continue with the grain’s emergence using micromesh pads.  I begin by wet sanding with pads 1500 to 2400, followed by dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000, then 6000 to 12000.  There is nothing quite like the natural briar shine that emerges during the micromesh process.  The pictures show the transformation. I will stain the bowl keeping it on the lighter side by using Fiebing’s Light Brown Leather Dye and adding alcohol to it.  I use a 2 to 1 ratio of Light Brown to alcohol.  I first clean the stummel with a cotton pad wetted with alcohol.  I mix the ratio of dye/alcohol in a shot glass and insert a cork into the shank to serve as a handle.  I heat the stummel with a hot air gun to expand the briar better to receive the dye.  After warmed, I use a folded pipe cleaner to apply the dye to the bowl.  After fully covered with dye, I fire the aniline dye using a lit candle.  The alcohol burns off setting the pigment in the grain.  I wait a few minutes then repeat the process.  I then put the stummel aside to rest. With the stummel resting, I turn again to the stem and wet sand it using micromesh pads 1500 to 2400, then dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000, then 6000 to 12000.  After each cycle, I apply Obsidian Oil to restore vitality to the vulcanite.  The full bent saddle stem was a chore to hang on to and sand with the tight angles, but the stem looks good and has that new vulcanite pop! It is finally time to unwrap the stained and fired stummel to see what we have underneath!  I enjoy this part of the restoration process primarily to see the grain emerge – this large Egg shaped stummel holds great promise.  I mount a felt buffing wheel onto the Dremel and set the speed at the lowest which is 20% of its power.  I apply the more abrasive Tripoli compound to the stummel to do the unwrapping of the crusted shell.  To reach into the crook between the shank and stummel, I switch to an angled felt buffing wheel to remove the wrapper from the hard to reach place. To lighten the stain and to blend the dye, using a cotton pad wetted with alcohol, I wipe the stummel.  This is an advantage of using aniline dyes for staining.  The alcohol wipe clouds the finish but this is normal.  I follow now by mounting a cotton cloth buffing wheel onto the Dremel and set at 40% speed, I apply the less abrasive Blue Diamond compound to buff-sand the stummel, as well as the full bent saddle stem which I remount. After completing the application of Blue Diamond compound on stem and stummel, to remove compound dust before waxing, I buff the pipe with a felt cloth.  Then, I mount a cotton cloth buffing wheel to the Dremel and maintain the speed at 40% and apply several coats of carnauba wax to the Egg shape stummel and full bent saddle stem.  The wax protects the surfaces but it also causes the shine and natural gloss of the briar to shine – I don’t know how to describe the natural beauty of briar when it shines through – and this L J Peretti is making a statement!  After completing the application of carnauba wax I give the pipe a rigorous hand buffing and I’m enjoying the view.This L J Peretti Full Bent Egg is a beautiful example of briar grain coming and going.  The size and the feel of the large Egg stummel in my hand fits like a glove.  The tight, cylindrical bowl’s apex with the thin, crowned rim is classy.  I’m happy to add this Peretti to my Peretti collection and I look forward to trying him out with a bowl of my favorite blend, Lane BC.  The pipes I restore and don’t adopt myself, are put in The Pipe Steward Store Front which benefits our work with the Daughters of Bulgaria, women and girls who have been sexually exploited and trafficked.  Thanks for joining me!

Repairing, Renewing and Rejuvenating a Removable Bowl C.P.F. Pullman Bent Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

I decided to go back to the older pipes that my brother and I picked up on our virtual pipe hunt in Montana. This old timer was a briar base with a removable bowl pipe. It had a brass separator between the bowl and the base. It had a brass band on the shank and horn stem. It is stamped Pullman in a Germanic Script over C.P.F. in an oval on the left side of the shank. This one is a classic bent billiard shaped pipe but the removable bowl on the briar base is unique. I have had other C.P.F. pipes that had a Bakelite base with a briar bowl but never one with a briar base. It is delicate in terms of size (5 inches long and 1 7/8 inches tall) and feels light weight in hand. Like the other banded pipes in this lot the band on the shank is loose and the same faux hall marks over the C.P.F. oval logo. The finish is very dirty and the rim is damaged around the inner and outer edges of the bowl. The threads on the bowl bottom and the base were worn and the bowl no longer stayed in place. The horn stem is worn and there is tooth chatter on the top and underside of the stem near the button. The stem is underturned in the shank. The photos below show what it looked like before my brother did his clean up on it. If you would like to read about some of the other C.P.F. pipes I have restored I have written about them in individual blogs. They include a C.P.F. French Briar Horn, C.P.F. horn stem bulldog, a C.P.F. French Briar bent billiard, a C.P.F. Remington French Briar military mount billiard and a C.P.F. French Briar Rhodesian. Just a reminder – C.P.F. stands for Colossus Pipe Factory. The pipe was made during the same time period as the other pipes of this brand that I have been working on – the late 1880s and 1890s.Jeff took some close up photos base and the bowl sides and bottom. It shows the crack in the base and the cracked and damaged brass separator plate between the bowl and base. The bowl has a lot of deep nicks and scratches in the outer rim edge and the base has some deep nicks around the crack. The bowl had a thick cake that had run over the top of the rim and formed a thick cake on the rim top. It was rock hard and very thick.The next photos show the faux hallmarks on the ferrule and the C.P.F. oval on the left side of the metal. It was oxidized and worn. The stamping on the shank read Pullman over the C.P.F. oval and both were filled in with gold leaf.Once the bowl was removed from the base you can see the cord that is wrapped around the threads on the bottom of the bowl. The brass separator plate was split and was missing a piece of the folded over portion of the plate. There was a thick cake of tars and oils on the bottom of the bowl and in the base. The threads were worn in the base as well. The ferrule was loose and came off when the stem was removed. The bone tenon was threaded into the shank and was not removable. The stem was underturned and with the grime and build up in the shank as well as the stem it would not align. I had a hunch that the loose ferrule also contributed to that. The dried glue did not allow the ferrule to sit snug and against the end of the shank. The horn stem was in good shape other than the tooth chatter and marks on both the top and underside at the button. When we looked at this pipe during our pipe hunt I wondered if it would even hold together once Jeff had cleaned the briar. The cracked spacer looked delicate as well. I was really curious what it would look like when it arrived in Vancouver. Jeff did his usual regimen of cleaning but proceeded carefully through each step. He reamed bowl with a PipNet Reamer and took the cake back to bare briar. He cleaned up the little remnants of cake with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed out the inside of the base and the threads on the bottom of the bowl. He removed all of the cord that had been used to attach the bowl to the base. He cleaned out the internals of the pipe – the airways in the shank, mortise and stem using alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl and base with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove all of the thick grime. He scrubbed the overflow of lava on the rim top and edges with the soap and tooth brush. He rinsed the pieces under tap water and dried them off with a towel. He scrubbed the exterior of the horn stem with the oil soap and tooth brush as well as it works well with horn.

When the pipe arrived I was excited to have a look at it. Here is what I saw once it arrived. It was clean and everything was loose – the separator plate, the bowl and the ferrule all moved freely. The cracks and the sandpits in the base were visible and the nicks and damage to the outer edge of the bowl were also very visible. I took photos of the pieces before I began to work on the pipe. The horn stem looked really good and the striations that run the length of the stem will polish up well giving the stem a unique appearance. The variations in horn stems are part of the allure to me and keep me looking for them.The next photo shows the missing piece of the separator plate and the damage to the rim top and the outer edge of the bowl.I put the pieces together enough to take a picture of what the pipe would look like as a whole. Nothing was permanent in these photos as just picking the pipe up would cause a jumble of parts on the work table. I took a close up photo of the rim top to show the condition of the edge of the bowl. Interestingly the photo does not show the damage to the outer edge. It does show the nicks and scratches on the inner edge of the bowl and some of the nicks in the rim top.The next series of photos show the process of the repairs of the sandpits and the nicks on the base. I also scratched out the crack with a dental pick and filled it in with super glue while I did the same with the sandpits. Once I had sanded the repaired areas on both sides of the base I reglued the brass plate on the top with the cracked and damaged portion facing the back side toward the bend in the shank. It would not show as much once the bowl was in place. Once the repairs had been done on the base I used clear fingernail polish to build up the threads in both the base and on the bottom of the bowl. It took several coats to build it up enough to give them enough material to connect.I removed the ferrule from the shank and cleaned the dried glue on the shank and inside the ferrule with acetone on a cotton swab. I sanded the area under the band with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the surface so that the ferrule would seat correctly on the shank. I painted the shank end with a folded pipe cleaner and all-purpose glue. I aligned the faux hallmarks and the C.P.F. oval with the stamping on the side of the shank and pressed the ferrule in place on the shank. I screwed the stem on the shank to check if things aligned now and everything was perfect. The repair to the ferrule had taken care of the underturned stem.I set the base aside to let the glue harden. I turned my attention to the bowl itself. I cleaned off the damaged outer edge of the rim with acetone on a cotton pad. I circled the damaged area in the photo below for ease of reference. I filled the damaged area in with clear super glue and let it dry. Once the glue had cured I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to blend it into the surrounding briar.I topped the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper on a hard board to remove the damage to the rim top, inner and outer edge from the top view. It did not take too much to get things smooth again. I polished the bowl sides and top with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. The bowl began to show some very nice grain patterns as the polishing made them stand out. I wiped the bowl down with a damp cotton pad after each micromesh sanding pad and hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth before moving on to the next step of the refurb. I polished the brass separator plate between the bowl and base and the ferrule with micromesh sanding pads and wiped them down with a jeweler’s cloth to bring out a smooth shine.I polished the briar base with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the base down with a damp cotton pad after each micromesh pad. With the work on the bowl and base finished I set them aside and turned my attention to the stem. I sanded out the tooth marks on the surface of the stem on both sides at the button with 220 grit sandpaper. I polished the horn with micromesh sanding pads – we wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem with Obsidian Oil after each micromesh pad and after the final rubdown I set it aside to dry. I polished each part of the pipe separately with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I gave each part multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect the briar and the horn and help the brass from oxidizing. With all the parts cleaned and polished it was time to put the pipe back together again. I thread the bowl onto the base and screwed the stem onto the shank. I aligned everything and carefully hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. For a pipe over 125 years old it looks pretty good. It is cleaned and ready for its first smoke post restoration. It should work well and should last a lot longer than this old refurbisher will. It will pass on into the hands of another pipeman who enjoys the unique qualities of old briar and horn stems. Thanks for looking.

 

 

 

 

Giving New Life to a KBB Yello Bole Imperial 3068C

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Blog by Mike Rochford

In the last two weeks, I have been corresponding with Mike about a pipe he had. He wrote and sent photos of it and asked if I thought it was repairable. Those of you who have been reading the blog for a while know that I rarely put a pipe in the bin to burn. We wrote back and forth as he did the work and he sent photos along the way. I asked if he would mind doing a blog on the refurb job he did. He sent me the following. Without further introduction, I will let Mike tell you about himself and then share his work with us. Welcome Mike.

First a bit about me. I am a retired FBI Special Agent of 30 years. My grandfather had a wood pattern shop in downtown Chicago. I always enjoyed woodworking projects, but never had much time for complicated projects. This project was pretty easy as long as I did not hurry each step. Patience and your guidance helped me a lot. I am now pretty confident that I can handle another project if one comes along. – Mike

My brother Tim bought me a very worn out KBB YELLO Bole Imperial 3068C pipe. He knew I loved its look. But its issues were many: gaping hole in bowl, rotting wood on ferrule, bite marks on stem, and a slight tool mark on the crowned our area of the stem below the Yellow circle.

I was prepared to throw the pipe out or just relegate it to a shelf. But I found Steve Laug on rebornpipes. He advised me step by step how to restore and make my pipe smokeable again.

First, I completely cleaned out the inside of bowl down to the briar in order to relieve pressure on the crack in the bowl. Then I used a 1/32 drill bit to drill out the bottom of the crack.  I stripped and cleaned the outside of the pipe and combined briar dust with super glue and filled in the crack on the outside of the bowl. I was surprised that the chemical reaction caused a flash fire on my first try. But I worked through that. The paste dries very fast so I had to apply it to the crack quickly, using a Popsicle stick.  I then let it set. Then I applied JBWeld for wood to the cracked area inside of the bowl. I put a pipe cleaner inside the opening to ensure no weld found its way into the airway blocking up my smoking end of the bowl. I let that dry and set it aside for the evening. Then I used 500 grit sand paper on the outside and inside of my bowl. Once I was satisfied, I applied Aniline dye stain to the outside of the bowl and painted the inside of my bowl with a charcoal powder/ sour cream paste.Next, I worked on the cracked and damaged shank end using the 1/32nd inch bit on the end of the cracks in wood and my super glue briar dust paste to fix the damaged areas. Sanding it after it set.I then used the charcoal powder and super glue paste to patch up the bite marks on my stem, using a pipe cleaner with Vaseline on it to ensure it did not super glue my stem closed. I used some 800 grit sand paper to buff the entire stem clean of oxidation and to clean off excess super glue charcoal powder once it dried. I also used the 800 grit sand paper to clean up the tool marks on my stem below the Yellow circle. I did not have any obsidian oil, so I used some sesame seed oil on my stem to slick it up. I also super glued the silver metal ferrule on the end of the shank as it was much too loose. I then resanded and repasted the inside of my pipe bowl.

I sent before and after pictures to Steve. I am very pleased and thankful to Steve Laug for guiding me through this process. My pipe is truly “Reborn!” Thanks!

Reclaiming a Hard Smoked KB&B Borlum Unbreakable Stem Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next restoration on my worktable was a Borlum Bent Billiard. It came to me in the lot of older pipes that my brother brought home from our virtual pipe hunt in Montana. It was in rough condition with the finish very worn and almost non-existent. The bowl had a thick cake that had overflowed the bowl onto the rim top. The previous owner had obviously loved this pipe and the condition was testimony to it being a great smoker. He also seemed to have a very utilitarian view of his pipes. This one appeared to have never been cleaned – a veritable stranger to the aid of a pipe cleaner. The outer edge of the bowl had been knocked about a lot and there was lots of damage to the edge – it was broken down and rounded all the way around. He had obviously knocked the pipe out on a fence, a rock or his boot heel when finishing a bowl. There were dings and nicks in the sides and bottom of the bowl. The stem was oxidized and had some tooth marks on the top and underside near the button. Jeff took the next photos of the pipe before he started to work on cleaning it.From an earlier Borlum pipe that I had refurbished back in 2014, I had learned a lot about the background of the manufacturer of the brand. I quote from that blog to summarize the historical background of the pipe (https://rebornpipes.com/tag/kbb-borlum-pipes/). The italicized portions of the text come from the blog with minor edits.

I already knew that Kaufmann Brothers and Bondy was the oldest pipe company in the USA, established in 1851. The Club Logo predated Kaywoodie with the “KB&B” lettering stamped within the Club, and a multitude of KB&B lines were in production long before “Kaywoodie” first appeared in 1919. Therefore, I knew that the pipe I had was a pre-1919, pre-Kaywoodie KB&B Made BORLUM.

This particular pipe is stamped on the left side of the shank with the words BORLUM in an arc over KB&B in a cloverleaf. The cloverleaf is faintly stamped but still readable with a bright light and lens. Underneath that it is stamped ITALIAN BRIAR in a reverse arc. On the right side of the shank it is stamped UNBREAKABLE BIT. As stated above it was made before Kaywoodie became the flagship name for pipes from Kaufman Brothers & Bondy (KB&B). It was made before the Kaywoodie invention of the “Stinger” was added, and even before shank logos, model stamps and other features invented by Kaywoodie came to be standards of the pipe making industry. It comes from a time when names like Ambassador, Heatherby, Melrose, Suez, Rivoli, Cadillac and Kamello dominated the pre-Kaywoodie scene. Borlum is one of those names.

I learned while researching for that blog and rediscovered while working on this one that the Borlum pipe featured some innovations that were new for the time but commonplace to us. These included (1) a solid rubber bit (vulcanite, ebonite), (2) an aluminum inner-tube construction in the stem that stabilized and strengthened the stem explaining the stamping of “Unbreakable Bit” on the right side of the shank, (3) a standard nickel-plated band (marked KB&B) to strengthen the shank connection for the stem. (This particular pipe does not have the nickel-plated band and does not appear to have had one).The stem features the older style more rounded bit tip/orific button, and you can see the aluminum inner-tube fitting just inside the tip.

I have included several pictures that I found on the internet that show the unique stem tube in the Borlum that gives rise to the claim that it has an Unbreakable Bit. The first photo shows the bent stem, third from the left with the same metal tube showing at the button. The second photo shows the other end of the tube in the tenon in the Borlum stem. That told me that the pipe I had was made after 1851 and before 1919. I am guessing that because of the other pipes in this lot dating in the late 1890s to about 1905 this one is probably from that same era. Not too bad for a 100+ year old pipe. During the hunt for information, I also found the next photo of a Borlum display and sales card. What is particularly interesting to me is the diagram at the top of the card showing the interior of the stem in place in the shank. It also includes the claim, “Guaranteed against Breakage”. I love the advertisements and sales brochures of these old pipes. The descriptive language that promises so much and the prices the pipes sold for are a nostalgic journey to the past. Note the $1 and up price tag on the sales card.

The pipe that I am working on presently is identical to the bottom pipe on the right side of the photo. I have circled it in red. It has the identical shape, curved shank and lack of a nickel-plated band as mine. It has the hard rubber stem with an orific button. It is more rounded than the modern flat stem but it is still a comfortable feeling stem in the mouth.

Jeff took some close up photos of the pipe bowl to give an idea of the condition of the pipe before we started to work on it. The first two photos show the sides of the bowl. You can see from those photos that the bowl is in rough shape. The outer rim has a lot of damage to it and the finish is worn and tired.The next two photos show the rim top and the clean bowl. Note how beat up the edge of the rim is in both photos. The third photo below shows the heel of the bowl and all of nicks and dents in the surface of the briar. The stamping on the left side of the shank and the right side of the shank is readable in the next two photos.The next photos show the condition of the stem. It is oxidized and there is a dark line across the top of the stem that looks like a crack. Under a bright light there is no crack visible, it is merely a mark on the vulcanite.Jeff rarely varies his established process for thoroughly cleaning the pipes he sends to me. He reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and touched it up with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. He scrubbed the exterior of the pipe with Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime and grit on the bowl. He worked over the rim and removed the lava overflow. He scrubbed it with a tooth brush and the oil soap until he removed the buildup and clean up the damaged edges of the rim. The grain on this pipe is quite stunning. He soaked the stem in an Oxiclean bath to bring out the oxidation and scrubbed the debris from the exterior of the stem. I took photos of the pipe to show the condition it was in when it arrived in Vancouver. I took a close up of the rim to show the damaged condition of the edges. It really is a mess and will be an interesting restoration. The idea is to get it back to a smooth condition without changing the profile of the pipe.A lot of the grime and grit on the stem disappeared in the OxiClean soak. The dark line on the top left of the stem disappeared and showed that there were no cracks in the “Unbreakable Bit”. There were some tooth marks on both sides of the stem near the button. The ones on the underside were definitely deeper. The last photo below shows the inner tube from the button end view.I decided to try something a little different this time around on the removal of the oxidation. Months ago I had purchased some Before & After Pipe Stem Deoxidizer from a guy on Facebook. His name is Mark Hoover and he is on the Gentlemen’s Pipe Smoking Society Group on Facebook. He has a pen making site where you can email and order the deoxidizer and the polishes (http://www.lbepen.com/). I have actually never used it according to the directions. I have sponged it on and scrubbed it off. In talking with Mark the concept was simple – put the stem in the Deoxidizer to soak. The Deoxidizer will do its work and leave the stem oxidation free. With a bit of skepticism I poured the mixture into a tray and set the stem in it to soak overnight.I worked on the bowl for a while that evening before calling it a day. I lightly topped the bowl to remove some of the damage on the top surface of the rim and leave a flat, smooth surface. I wiped down the bowl with alcohol on a cotton pad to remove the dust. I carefully filled in the outer rim edge with clear super glue to build up the chipped and damaged areas. I think that this is the first time that I have worked on a pipe with this much damage and chipping all the way around the outer rim. It did not take too long for the glue to dry and when it did I sanded the outer edge of the rim smooth blending the fills into the surface of the briar and ‘sharpening’ the edge itself. The photos that follow tell the story. When I finished smoothing out the fills I wiped the bowl down with alcohol on a cotton pad to remove the sanding dust and check to make sure I had sanded the rim edge enough. If any spots are still too large and not blended they will show up glaringly when the bowl is stained. I stained the bowl with a dark brown aniline stain mixed 50/50 with isopropyl alcohol. I flamed the stain on the bowl and repeated the process until the coverage was even. I set the bowl aside for the evening. In the morning I “unwrapped” the bowl (borrowing one of Dal Stanton’s terms) to see what the stain had done. I wiped it down with alcohol on cotton pads to make it more transparent. Once I finished it was still too dark to my liking and obscured the grain too much. I sanded the bowl with micromesh sanding pads to remove more of the stain. After sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads I wiped it down with a bit of alcohol on a cotton pad and I was pleased with what I was seeing. I polished it some more with 3200-12000 grit pads and finished by giving it a light buff with a microfiber cloth. Now the colour was what I was aiming for – a reddish brown that highlighted the grain and muted the repairs and some of the imperfections.  I buffed the bowl on the buffing wheel using Blue Diamond polish and hand buffed it with a cloth. The following photos show what the finish looked like after the buffing. I still needed to wax it but I really liked what I saw. I took the stem out of the deoxidizer bath and wiped it down with cotton pads. The bath definitely had removed much of the oxidation and wiping it down afterward it was clear to see how much had come off the brown looking stem. I ran a pipe cleaner through the airway to remove the deoxidizer from the inside of the pipe. The stem clearly looked better than when I had started. The surface was dull and there was still some stubborn oxidation on the curve. The tooth marks in the surface are very visible in the photo of the underside of the stem.I painted the tooth marks with the flame of a lighter to lift them as much as possible and filled in the remaining tooth marks with clear superglue. I chose to use the clear super glue rather than black as I have found it blends better with the hard rubber stems on these older pipes. When the repair had dried I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the area on the underside and used a needle file to sharpen the edge of the button on the top and underside.I polished the 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 after each pad with Obsidian Oil and after the final pad gave it a last coat and set it aside to dry. I buffed the stem with Blue Diamond and then gave the pipe mulitple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine and hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I am not a 100% happy with the stem – the flash seems to reveal some more oxidation in it but to my eye it looks fine. I will do some more polishing and buffing to get it do the rich black that my eye sees but the camera does not at this point. Ah well, the refurbisher’s work is never finished. Thanks for looking.

 

 

Refreshing a French Jeantet D’Orsay Billiard Found in Burgas

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Blog by Dal Stanton

The first time I saw the Jeantet D’Orsay was looking at a picture of it on my iPhone 6s.  My fellow colleague, Gary, who also lives and works here in Bulgaria, was with his wife on the Black Sea coast strolling down the main walking street of Burgas.  Gary has previously culled pipes for me during his travels as he keeps his eyes open and sends pictures of possibilities.  Gary also is my main supplier of ‘quality’ cigar ash which is the main ingredient in making ‘Pipe Mud’ to coat the inside of bowls.  The picture he sent was of two pipes, the Jeantet (top in picture below) and a nice hefty bent Billiard marked only with Bruyere [over] Garantie.  My primary interest was the product of Saint Claude, France, the Jeantet, but I encouraged him to do a bundle deal which landed both in my ‘Help Me!’ basket.  Thank you, Gary!I’ve not been restoring pipes long, but among my earliest restorations were French made and I enjoyed those initial forages of discovery of a pipe’s heritage and the geopolitical significance of the name.  My first restoration of a Jeantet was a Fleuron and it was discovered at my favorite antique shop, dubbed, The Hole in the Wall, here in Sofia.  It was then I discovered the historical importance of Saint Claude, the pipe production center in Europe for much of the 1800 and in the 1900s until pipe production peaked in the 1960s, causing many corporate closings and consolidations (See Pipedia’s article on Jeantet).  Saint Claude became the a center for pipe production and the place many prominent pipe houses called home, not because of the accessibility of briar, but it was where industrious monks and artisans turned their abilities from making toys and religious paraphernalia to pipe making after briar pipes first started being mass produced (See: fumerchic.com) when briar was discovered to have heat resistant qualities.   The Jeantet D’Orsay now on my worktable enjoys a part of this heritage, though most likely produced toward the closing chapters of Jeantet’s history.  On my worktable, I take more pictures of the Jeantet D’Orsay to fill in the gaps. The nomenclature is stamped on the left side of the shank, with ‘Jeantet’ (in fancy script) [over] ‘BRUYERE’, and to the right of this is ‘D’Orsay’ (in diagonal fancy script).  The stem bears the ‘J’ ensconced in a heptagon.  As I research the D’Orsay line, I have found a dearth of information as I’ve looked for and through catalogues trying not only to ID the D’Orsay, but even finding any systematic information on Jeantet pipes in general is a challenge.  If there is any clue in the name ‘D’Orsay’, I’m not sure what it is.  Today, Orsay is a smaller suburb of Paris, primarily known as a center in the development of technology with different educational institutions based there.  Historically, this Wiki article is informative:

There has been a village called Orsay on this site since 999, and the first church there was consecrated in 1157. From the sixteenth century, the town and surrounding area were owned by the Boucher family, and it was in honour of this family that Louis XIV gave the quai d’Orsay its name. This is the reason that the Musée d’Orsay is not in Orsay. In the eighteenth century, the family of Grimod du Fort bought the land and received the title of comte d’Orsay. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian war, Orsay was occupied by the Prussian army. 88 young “Orcéens” were killed in the First World War.

Interesting, but not too helpful regarding the heritage of this French made pipe.  Generally, the pipe is in great condition.  The chamber has moderate cake.  The rim has trace amounts of lava and grime – not too much to clean.  The stummel has nice grain, but many very small fills to be examined. Not much in the way of oxidation or tooth chatter on the stem.  Of interest to me is the long stinger system which reaches all the way to the draft hole – visible looking down the chamber.  I will keep the stinger since it’s such a goliath.  Perhaps it does help deliver the dryer, cooler smoke which has been the holy grail in pipe technological innovations.  The cleanup and recommissioning of this Jeantet begins with placing the stem in the OxiClean bath after covering the ‘J’ stamp with petroleum jelly to protect it.  Even though it has little oxidation, I’ll let it soak.  I also easily remove the stinger as I discover that it is threaded and unscrews with a little help.  The nickel divider band also comes off. I use the Pipnet Reaming Kit to address the moderate cake.  Starting with the smallest blade, I remove the cake, bringing the fire chamber to fresh briar.  I use two of the four blades available.  To fine tune the reaming, I switch to the Savinelli Pipe Knife and scrape the chamber wall further.  Then, wrapping a piece of 240 grit paper around a Sharpie Pen, I sand the bowl removing the vestiges of carbon.  Finally, I wipe the chamber with a cotton pad wetted with alcohol.  The chamber looks good – no problems that I see. Next, using undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a cotton pad, I scrub the external briar surface and rim.  I also use my pin knife to scrape the crusting on the rim.  I do this by dragging the blade over the surface rather than pushing the blade to not cut into the briar.  Afterwards, I rinse the stummel in tap water.  Examining the stummel more closely, the cleaning reveals a gouge on the internal rim lip.  I also picture several of the small fills in the surface.  I use a sharp dental probe to test the strength of the fills to see if they need replacing.  What I discover is mixed news – some need more attention than others.  I dig out the weaker fills and will need to refill them.  I will simply use clear CA glue to fill them, but first I will darken the pits with a dye pen to improve blending.  I use Special ‘T’ CA glue and spot drop on each pitted fill using a toothpick.  I place a bit of glue on the toothpick and gravity pulls it to the tip and I apply it to the pit.  I spray them with an accelerator to quicken the curing time.  In all, 6 fills were patched.  The pictures show the progress. Using a flat needle file, I bring each of the CA glue patches down near to the briar surface.  Then I use 240 grit sanding paper to bring the patch flush with the briar surface.  I try as much as possible with both the file and sand paper to file/sand only on the patch footprint.  The second picture below shows a ‘slip’ off the footprint by the lower patch – ugh.  The pictures show the progress. Turning now to the rim gouge mentioned earlier.  There was already an internal bevel on the rim.  To erase the damage, using 240 grit paper then 600 grit paper, I recut the bevel.  That does the job. With the stummel repairs completed, I take a medium grade sanding sponge and apply it to the surface to remove surface nicks and to start blending the fill patches.  I follow with a light grade sponge.Before I proceed further on the external surface, I need to address the internal unpleasantness.  I’m curious what collects in the mortise with the tenon extending right to the draft hole?  Unless, its design is to bypass all the sludge.  Well, it didn’t take long to discern the latter to be the case!  With cotton swabs, alcohol and a bit of scraping the edge with a needle file the mortise started cleaning up.  Later, I will still utilize a Salt/Alcohol soak to clean and freshen further for the new steward of this classic Billiard.The stem has been soaking in the OxiClean bath and I take it out to start removing the light oxidation on the vulcanite.  After reattaching the stem with the stummel, divided by my separation disk, I wet sand using 600 grit paper followed by 0000 grade steel wool.  I’m not sure how I did it but it looks like I nicked the Jeantet ‘J’ circle during the sanding – that is a grand bummer.  I’ll try to fix it later.  The tooth chatter was removed by the 600 grit and steel wool.  The pictures tell the story. Before moving further on the external sanding, I need to clean the internals.  Using bristled and smooth pipe cleaners and isopropyl 95%, I do the job – the internals take more effort than I was expecting.  I also use a long, wired, bristled brush to work on the stinger.  In the end, I soak it in alcohol to make sure it’s clean. Turning back to the stummel, I plunge into the micromesh sanding by wet sanding with pads 1500 to 2400, then dry sanding with 3200 to 4000, finishing with 6000 to 12000.  With the completion of the micromesh process on the stummel, my work-day here in Bulgaria will soon demand my full attention.  Before heading out the door, I want to give the bowl a Salt/Alcohol soak through the day.  I pour kosher salt, leaving no aftertaste, into the bowl until almost full.  Then I twist and stretch a cotton ball to act as a wick in the mortise – drawing out the remaining tars and oils.  I palm the top of the bowl and shake it causing the salt to settle into the internals and set the stummel in the egg carton.  Then, with a large eye dropper I fill the bowl with isopropyl 95% until it surfaces over the kosher salt.  I wait a few minutes as alcohol is absorbed, and then I top the bowl off again.  I set the egg carton aside and let the alcohol and salt do their thing – off to work!  Back from work!  The salt has darkened a bit, but not much.  This means that the job of cleaning was well along the way. After cleaning away the expended salt with paper towel and a bristled bush in the mortise, I put a cotton swab into the mortise to make sure and it came out clean.  Clean as a whistle – nice! After the salt/alcohol soak, I see a fill on the inner rim lip that I did not see earlier.  After digging it a bit with a dental probe, I drop fill it with ‘T’ CA glue, let it cure, file it down with a half-circle needle file, sand it with 240, 600 and then the full spectrum of micromesh pads – all these focused on bringing this patch up to the speed with the rest of the stummel! The Jeantet D’Orsay Billiard’s stinger was soaking in alcohol.  I take it out and the alcohol had cleaned it up.  I buff it with 0000 grade steel wool.  While I was at it with the steel wool, I also buffed up the nickel band divider to clean and shine it.I love the classic leather brown look on work-horse Billiards.  To blend the fills overall, I use Fiebing’s Light Brown Leather Dye to do the job.  I set up my staining workstation and take a picture of it.  I wipe the stummel down with a cotton pad wetted with alcohol to clean dust off the surface.  I use a whittled cork in the stummel as a handle and I warm the stummel using a hot air gun to expand the grain helping it to be more receptive to the dye.  When warm, I use a folded-over pipe cleaner to apply liberally the dye to the stummel – I want full coverage.  Then, with a lit candle, I fire the stummel – burning off the alcohol in the dye which sets the pigment in the grain.  I repeat this process after a few minutes, then I put the fired stummel aside to rest for several hours. With the dyed stummel resting, I turn to the stem.  Earlier, I was using MagicEraser on the Jeantet’s ‘J’ stem stamp and I noted then that the paint was readily coming off because of it.  I decide to go ahead and remove the paint and clean the stamp with the MagicEraser with the view to refreshing the ‘J’ stamp later.  I then wet sand the stem – mindful of the ‘J’ stem stamp, with micromesh pads 1500 to 2400.  Then I follow successively with pads 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000, and applying Obsidian Oil after each set to revitalize the vulcanite stem.  I’m hoping that there is enough tread left in the Jeantet ‘J’ stem stamp to hold new paint.  Using white acrylic paint, I dab paint onto the area of the stamp.  Instead of waiting for it to dry, I gently wipe the excess off while wet.  Then I dab a little more wet where it is thin, and gently wipe off the excess. After some time has elapsed, it’s time to ‘unwrap’ the fired, dyed stummel.  After mounting the felt buffing wheel on the Dremel, setting the speed to slow – 20%, I buff off the crust by applying Tripoli compound.  The second picture below shows the contrast and progress. After the application of the more abrasive, Tripoli compound is completed (1st picture), I wipe down the stummel using a cotton pad and isopropyl 95% to both lighten the stain and blend it.  The alcohol wipe leaves a cloudy film on the stummel.  I remove this by going to the next compound, Blue Diamond.  I mount a cotton cloth buffing wheel on the Dremel and increase the speed to 40% and buff the briar surface.  During this buffing, the grain starts to come out more distinctly and I like the deep rivers of grain that divide the stummel like a watermelon rind. I use a little CA glue and reattach the nickel band divider to the shank.  I then use the Blue Diamond compound on the stem and band as well.  The pictures show the progress. After completing the Blue Diamond buffing, I hand buff the stummel and stem with a felt cloth to remove the compound dust before waxing.  I mount a cotton cloth buffing wheel on the Dremel, also at 40% speed, and apply a few coats of carnauba wax to both the bowl and stem.  Completing the restoration, I give the pipe a rigorous hand buffing with a microfiber cloth to heighten the shine and distinctiveness of the briar grain.

When I started this restoration, I saw a classic straight Billiard that had potential.  The Jeantet D’Orsay that Gary found for me in the antique store in Burgas, on the Black Sea, has proven to be a very attractive pipe with the light brown leather-look finish.  The grain pops.  I like the band divider – it’s not a precious metal but it provides a nice accent.  This Jeantet D’Orsay is ready for a new steward!  If you are interested in adding this pipe to your collection you can check it out in The Pipe Steward ‘Store Front’.  All the pipes I restore benefit the Daughters of Bulgaria – women and girls we work with here in Bulgaria who have been trafficked and sexually exploited.  Thanks for joining me!

Restoring a Long Stem Mini Churchwarden Imperial 15 Prince

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the worktable is a mini churchwarden prince shaped pipe. It has a delicate look to it and is very lightweight. It is petite with a length of 6 ¾ inches, height of 1 1/8 inches, bowl diameter of 1 ½ inches and a chamber diameter of 7/8 inches. The pipe is stamped on the left side of the shank Imperial in script with a flourish underneath. Below the flourish it reads De Luxe. On the right side of the shank it is stamped Made in London over England with a shape number 15. The next photos of the pipe show what it looked like before my brother did his clean up work.The pipe was in rough shape. The finish was worn and crumbling. There were some small sandpits on the bottom left and right sides. The underside of the bowl had a spot of glue and the remnants of something that the pipe had been glued to. I wonder if it had not been in a display box of some sort before being liberated and sold. The bowl had a thick cake but the rim had an overflow of lava on the top and the inner edge was damaged to the point that the bowl was no longer in round. There was an inner tube extending into the bottom of the bowl. The original slant on the tube was ruined and the end of the tube was chewed and damaged. The stem was oxidized and there were deep tooth marks on the top and underside near the button. The underside tooth marks had a small hole that broke through into the airway in the stem. Jeff took some photos of the bowl and rim to show the condition of both. You can see the cake in the bowl and the lava overflow down the sides of the bowl from the surface of the rim. The fact that the bowl did not have a flat rip to but a rather rounded/thin rim top allowed the flow downward on the bowl.The next photo shows the bottom of the stummel and the thick glue/paper coat that is stuck to that part of the bowl. It appears to me that someone had the pipe stuck to some fibre board in a display case of pipe shapes. Possibly, it was a shadow box of “dad’s” or “grandpa’s” and this one was a centerpiece. Following that photo are three different pictures of the inner tube that sat in the bottom of the bowl. The end on these is usually slanted with the longer edge sitting on the bottom of the bowl and the shorter edge ending at the entrance of the airway into the bowl.The bowl has some amazing grain running up the sides of the bowl and I am sure that underneath the debris that is glued to the bottom there will be some nice bird’s eye grain. The finish was worn but the grain popping through the grime.The stamping was readable but it was faint. Care would need to be taken in the clean up so as not to damage it further.The stem had some issues – there were deep tooth marks on both sides from the button forward. On the topside there were nicks mid stem and near the shank/stem junction. The button also seemed worn and there was a possible crack on the underside mid button.I have read different bits of history on the Imperial pipes and trying to put them together is an interesting puzzle. From Pipes, Artisans and Trademarks, by Jose Manuel Lopés’ I found that t he Imperial Tobacco Co. (Imperial Tobacco Ltd.) was founded in 1901 through the merger of several British tobacco companies. In 1902 it went into partnership with the American Tobacco Company to found the British American Tobacco Company. This information was also cited on https://pipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Tobacco_Co.

I looked further on Pipedia under The Civic Company https://pipedia.org/wiki/Civic. This lead came from a price list/catalogue that I had found in researching information on an earlier Imperial pipe I was working on. Here is the link https://rebornpipes.com/2014/05/11/civic-company-1921-trade-list/. The Pipedia article says Civic was formed in 1921out of the Imperial Tobacco Co. (Fancy Goods Department) Ltd which was located in Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith. The article went on to give a bit more information on the The Imperial Company itself. It repeat that it was formed in 1901 but that it was formed in response to an aggressive take over raid in Britain by American Tobacco and involved the pooling of tobacco retail outlets including closely related items such as briar pipes. Here is the additional information that was not included in Lopés’ – in 1902 Imperial purchased the Salmon & Gluckstein retail empire, which included a section that finished briar pipes, originally made in France, for sale in Britain. It was this unit that became the fancy goods department within Imperial and, ultimately in 1921, the Civic Company. In 1928 Civic was a key element in the merger with other producers and retailers that formed Cadogan Investments, which still trades today.

I did some further searching on Google to try to pin down more information on the brand. I found lots of repetitive information in bits and pieces but nothing that added to what I already knew. I did find confirmation of the above information in a discussion on the pipesmagazine online pipe forum. It contained no new information but it gave the same data I had quoted above.  http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/need-help-to-identify-this-pipe-1.

Jeff has established his own process of thoroughly cleaning pipes for me and he did not vary in his procedure here. He reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and tidied it up with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol and cleaned the exterior of the threaded bone tenon with a cotton swab and alcohol. He scrubbed the exterior of the pipe with Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime and grit on the bowl. The top took some special work because of the heavy lava overflow. He scrubbed it with a tooth brush and the oil soap until he removed the majority of the build up. There was still some minor buildup that would need to be dealt with when I worked on the out of round bowl. I took photos of the pipe to show the condition it was in when it arrived in Vancouver. The grain really was quite stunning. I took a close up photo of the rim top and bowl, to show how well he was able to remove the buildup around those areas and down the bowl sides.He had soaked the stem in OxyClean so when it arrived it was clean and the oxidation sat on the surface of the stem. The tooth marks were very evident.The damage to the inner tube was visible and it was ragged and torn. I would need to rework it to smooth things out and restore the angle.I used a Dremel and sanding drum on low speed to sand and shape the angled end of the inner tube and remove the damaged areas. I put a slot on the tube end to match other inner tubes I have on hand and fit the bottom of the bowl once the stem was in place.The next series of photos show the process of repairing the out of round bowl. I used a folded piece of 180 and 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the inner edges of the bowl and repair the top edge. Once I sanded it smooth I wiped it down with a cotton pad and alcohol to clean off the sanding debris and darkening on the surface. There was still polishing to do but the major portion of the repair was finished. I repaired the two small sandpits on the bottom sides of the bowl with super glue and sanded them smooth with 220 grit sandpaper once the repairs had cured.With all the repairs and reshaping on the rim and bowl finished it was time to stain the pipe. I decided to use a dark brown aniline stain that I mixed 50/50 with isopropyl alcohol to make it more transparent. It will still have the dark stain in the grains but once I wipe it down and sand it with micromesh it will be a rich brown tranparent overcoat with dark highlights. I applied the stain with a dauber and flamed it with a lighter to set it in the briar. I repeated the process until I was pleased with the coverage on the bowl and shank.Once the stain dried I wiped the pipe down with alcohol on cotton pads to remove the thick topcoat and make the stain more transparent. It significantly lightens the colour at this point but the grain won’t stand out until I polish it with micromesh pads. I polished the briar, being careful around the stamping on the shank, with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down after each girt with alcohol and cotton pads. With the bowl finished I directed my attention to the stem. I cleaned out the damaged areas with a dental pick and sandpaper and filled them in with black super glue. The photos below show the repairs on both sides of the stem. The third photo shows the repairs further up the topside of the stem.When the glue had cured I used a file to bring the thickness of the repairs down to the surface of the stem. I used to do all this with sandpaper but figured out that the file actually sped things up a bit. I sanded the stem surface and repairs with 180 grit sandpaper after the file to smooth out the surface and remove more of the oxidation. I would need to sand it with higher grits to remove the scratching but it was at least getting better. I used a needle file to reshape the edge of the button and the top and underside surfaces of the button. I sanded the repairs smooth with 220 grit sandpaper and then polished them with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads. I took a photo of the stem at that point in the process and the oxidation showed up clearly in the bright light of the flash. I poured the Before & After Stem Deoxidizer into a flat container and put the stem in to soak while I worked on other pipes. I removed it from the soak after about 2 hours and polished it with Before & After Pipe Polish. It looked much better than it did when I put it in the bath. I decided to continue polishing it with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit pads and rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads and rubbed it down again with the oil after each pad. I gave it a final rub down with the oil and set it aside to dry. I polished the bowl and stem on the buffing wheel with Blue Diamond to take out the last minute scratches in the briar and vulcanite. I gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise a shine. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The pipe looks far better than it did when I started. The bowl looks round, the finish looks far better and the repairs on the stem though visible up close blend in well with the black of the vulcanite stem. The aluminum inner tube is shine and smooth with the reshaped angle of the tube looks like it must have when it left the factory. Thanks for walking with me through this refurbishing it was a fun one to work on. Cheers.

 

 

Enlivening a Mysterious Old Knobby, Oval Shank Meer Bowl

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Blog by Steve Laug

My brother Jeff, sent this old meerschaum to me from our virtual pipe hunt. It was certainly unique and would be an interesting pipe to fit with a new stem. It was meerschaum with no stamping or markings on the shank to help identify it properly. It had knobs all about the bowl and shank and there was a transition of colour from dark on the shank to lighter at the top of the bowl. The bowl was caked and there was an overflow of the cake to the rim top. It was dirty and worn looking. The threaded metal tenon was anchored tightly in the shank and would take some work to remove and possibly even then it would not come out. Jeff took photos of the bowl before he cleaned it up. The first three photos give an idea of the condition and the charm of the pipe to both of us. When he showed me the pipe in our Montana virtual pipe hunt I wanted to see if I could find a stem that would work with it. There was something about it that made me want to give it a new life. He took some close up photos of the rim top and the bowl that show the cake and the lava build up on the top. The bowl did not have too much cake but enough that it was hard see if the inner edge of the rim was still round and undamaged.Jeff also took photos of the sides of the bowl and the shank end to give an idea of the colouration of the bowl and show that variation of the colours up the shank and the bowl. The silver band was unreadable but it appeared that there were some hallmarks under the tarnish on the surface of the band. I could not wait to see what they told us. It really was a pretty interesting looking old pipe. Jeff cleaned up the pipe with his usual regimen of thoroughness. He reamed out the bowl carefully with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife and took it back as far as he dared. He scrubbed the exterior of the rim and bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove as much of the grime and dirt of age from the surface. He scrubbed out the internals with pipe cleaners and alcohol until they came out clean. He polished the band with soft scrub and a cloth until the hallmarks were visible.

When it arrived I wanted to see if I could find out about the maker of the pipe and try to date it if possible. I had a feeling that the band on the shank may possibly give a clue as to its maker. On the left underside of the silver band it is stamped A.F. &Co. in an oval. Following that maker’s mark it is stamped with hallmarks – an anchor, a rampant lion and a cursive lower case “f”. The anchor hallmark tells me that the band was done in Birmingham, England. The rampant lion is the mark for .925 Sterling Silver. The “f” stamp had great promise in that it might well give me a date for the pipe (or at least the band).

I looked up the date hallmarks for Birmingham and copied the chart in the photo below. There were two likely candidates for a date that had the lower case “f” stamp. The first was 1803 in a shield cartouche and the second was 1905 in a square cartouche with rounded corners (I circled both options in red in the photo below). Under a bright light with a jeweler’s loupe I could see that the cartouche was square with rounded corners. Now I knew that the pipe was banded with a Sterling Silver band in Birmingham, England in 1905.Now I wanted to see what the stamp A.F. & Co. in an oval referred to. I turned to the internet and searched for A.F. &Co. I was led to a Dictionary of Tobacconists, Pipe Makers, Pipe Mounters and Silver Hallmarks (http://www.silvercollection.it/dictionarytobacconistA.html). There I found the stamping that was on the band of my pipe. The difference of course was the BBB Diamond logo on the one below. The A.F. & Co. in the chamfered rectangle was the same. The site identified the maker as Adolph Frankau & Co. LTD – London and Birmingham, England. I have worked on BBB pipes that had the same stamping on the band so I am wondering if there is not some link to BBB even for this old meerschaum. There could very well be a connection. They were known for their gold and silver works and had been founded in 1902.Now I knew not only the date but the company who did the silver work on the bowl. Amazing the information you can find with just a little bit of work. To me it is these kinds of details that give a restoration of an estate pipe depth and add colour to their story. It is these details that drive me forward in my restoration of the pipes I work on.

I took photos of the pipe when it arrived to give an idea of what it looked like before I started working on it further. Notice the small crack in the shank coming from under the band. I would need to repair that so it does not spread further.I had a stem in my can of stems that was Bakelite and had some age on it. It had a regular push tenon but had an orific button on the end. It was in excellent condition and it would work well with this old pipe. I sawed the tenon off with a hacksaw and used the Dremel and sanding drum to smooth out the remnants of the tenon.The airway was too small for the threaded tenon so I would need to drill it out and open it up. Before I did that I used a pair of pliers and carefully removed the tenon from the shank of the meerschaum bowl. I decided to repair the crack on the shank at the same time. I did it quickly and forgot to take photos. I cleaned the area and picked it clean with a dental pick. I used a black Sharpie Pen to colour in the crack so that it would not stick out through the repair. I filled in the crack with clear super glue and smoothed it out with a dental spatula. The clear glue let the colour underneath show through.I measured the diameter of the tenon and used a drill bit the same size to drill out the airway in the stem. I marked the depth of the tenon on the bit and hand turned it onto a stationary cordless drill. I drill the airways by hand with no power so as not to drill to deep or too quickly and damage the stem. I used a tap to thread the newly drilled airway and coated the tenon with amber super glue and twisted it in place in the stem. I checked the alignment to make sure that everything was straight and set the stem aside to let the glue cure.I turned my attention to the rim of the bowl. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the inner edge of the rim and bring the bowl back into round. I polished the top of the rim with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads. I wiped the rim down with a damp cotton pad. I gave the bowl and rim a thick coat of Clapham’s White Beeswax Polish and set the bowl aside until the wax dried. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth and took the following photos of the bowl at this point in the process. (Notice in the photo of the bowl rim and the top of the shank how well the repair blended in at the band.) I noticed in the photo of the rim top and bowl that there was still some light cake on the walls of the bowl. I used my Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife and cleaned up the remaining cake. The bowl was not smooth inside.With the bowl basically finished at this point I needed to work on the fit of the stem. I have learned in the past that sanding the older Bakelite often removes some of the patina and colour from the material. I decided to do so anyway to get a more flowing fit between the shank and the stem. I used a Dremel and sanding drum to remove the excess material from the top, bottom and sides of the stem and sanded the fresh areas with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the scratches. The colour did change slightly – it is funny in that the colour on the stem transitions much like the colour on the bowl. I am hoping that with use and time the sanded areas will darken and match the rest of the stem. 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 after each pad with Obsidian Oil. I buffed the stem and bowl with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel to get some shine in the meerschaum and the Bakelite. I gave the pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect and help with colouration. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine and hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I think it looks pretty good for its age. I am hoping that in my travels I will one day come across an oval amber stem to replace the Bakelite but until then this one will serve its purpose. Thanks for walking with me through the refurbishment of this 1905 pipe. I appreciate your reading my work. Cheers.

A Lady’s Choice – WDC Milano Swan Neck Billiard

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Blog by Dal Stanton

Is there a psychology in the choosing one makes when befriending a pipe?  A young Bulgarian lady, who also is a budding pipe lady, chose a pipe out of my ‘Help Me!’ baskets and boxes.  After looking at scores of hopeful candidates, there was only one – only one – that she held in her hands, looking at it and smiling. A beautiful, graceful, WDC Milano Swan Neck Billiard caught her attention, and it would seem, her affections.  Is there a psychology unfolding in the process, the evaluation, and the weighing of one pipe against another?  Or, is the process more like the lore of Harry Potter’s choice of one’s wand?  The young wizard does not choose the wand – the wand chooses his wizard.  Does the pipe do the choosing?

And is there any credence to the oft unspoken observation – do pipe stewards resemble their pipes like canine lovers sometimes uncannily resemble their 4-legged friends?  These observations come to my mind because intriguingly, the young lady who was claimed by the WDC Milano Swan Neck, shares, in some very remarkable ways, pleasing characteristics of this graceful pipe.

And then there is the ‘question’ of the ‘Pipe Lady’ more so than the ‘Pipe Man’.  A Pipe Lady lives closer to the social and cultural ‘edge’ when she takes her pipe in hand and enjoys a bowl of her favorite blend.  This picture I found somewhere on the internet (sorry, can’t cite!), I suspect would never be ascribed to Pipe Men.  Yet, a Pipe Lady looks at the three with a smile of agreement and a wink, while she is thinking, ‘You’ve got that one right!’This graceful, Milano Swan Neck stem comes from the William Demuth Company, established in 1862 – one of the oldest pipe manufacturing houses in the United States (Pipedia article).  The WDC Milano patent goes back to the 1920s with an example of the familiar WDC rhombus from the same WDC article in Pipedia (courtesy of Doug Valitchka).The eBay seller from Akron, Ohio, described the long dimensions of the Lady’s Choice WDC Milano:  Very graceful bent billiard! About 6″ long, bowl is 2″ tall, 1 3/8″ wide. ID 3/4″, depth 1 13/16″. From Pipedia’s WDC article, courtesy Doug Valitchka, a very nice example of what appears to be the same Swan Neck Billiard of the Milano line.From my worktable on the 10th floor of our flat here in Sofia, Bulgaria, I take these pictures to fill in the gaps. On the left side of the shank is stamped the traditional WDC rhombus [over] MILANO.  The right side is stamped the single shape number, ‘63’.  The chamber appears to have been cleaned to some degree and the carbon cake is very light.  The rim is sad.  It appears someone took a divot out of the internal lip trying to clean it or something.  The rim’s outer edge is beat up and I can see the vestiges of a bevel.  There is lava crusting as well on the rim surface and some hardened light stuff – the rim needs cleaning.  The stummel has few if any fills that I see – the grain of the tall bowl is impressive.  The stem has the WDC inlaid white triangle on the top.  Oxidation is present and the former steward was a clencher and chewer.  Both top and bottom of the bit shows deep bite dents.  The top button lip is dented.

The recommissioning of this Lady’s Choice WDC Milano Swan Neck Billiard, begins by putting the stem into the OxiClean bath to work on the oxidation.  The second thing I do is toss the tubing that was hanging in the tenon.  If it belonged to this pipe originally, something is missing as the airway diameter of the tenon is much larger than the tubing.  On an interesting note, there is a patent number stamped on the tubular stinger.  I looked it up in Google patent search but found nothing that had bearing on pipes (PAT. NO. 5861 / IX – I think).Next, after spreading paper towel to catch the carbon dust, I use the Savinelli Pipe Knife to remove the little carbon left.  I follow with sanding the chamber walls with a 240 piece of sanding paper wrapped around a Sharpie Pen. I then turn to cleaning the internals of the stummel using cotton swabs and pipe cleaners wetted with isopropyl 95%.  There’s a good bit of tar and oils in the mortise.  After some time, I decide to switch to a Kosher Salt and alcohol soak to finish off the internal cleaning and to freshen the stummel.Next, using undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap I work on the external surface of the stummel and the rim with cotton pads.  I also use a brass bristled brush on the rim.  After the scrub, I rinse the stummel in cool tap water.  The condition of the rim becomes more evident.  I think I will be able to remove the large divot at 4 o’clock in the second picture below by creating an internal bevel on the rim after I lightly top it. I start with by topping the stummel using 240 grit paper.  I follow by creating an internal and external bevel around the rim.  After a few rounds of working on the bevels, I realize that the internal rim divot is too much for the bevel to erase.  I switch gears and mix some briar dust with thick CA glue and create a putty and fill the divot on the rim.  I spray it with an accelerator to shorten the curing time.  With a needle file, I file down the briar dust patch material until it’s almost flush with the briar.  I then use 240 and 600 grit sanding paper to blend the patch and finish the bevel on the internal and external edges of the rim.I then sand the stummel using a medium grade sanding sponge followed by a light grade sanding sponge.  I remove the minor nicks and scratches on the bowl surface.I then proceed to sand the bowl using micromesh pads 1500 to 2400, then 3200 to 4000, then finally, 6000 to 12000.  The process brings out the beautiful horizontal grain flows from the front of the bowl downward to encompass the heel.  Bird’s eye grain is sprinkled nicely on the stummel sides. With the day ending, I continue the cleaning and refreshing of the stummel internals using a Kosher Salt and alcohol soak.  I create a wick to insert into the shank/mortise by twisting and stretching a cotton ball.  I take a straight stiff wire to help stuff it deeply into the mortise.  With the stummel secured in the egg carton I fill the bowl with Kosher Salt (which leaves no iodine after taste) and give it a shank to displace the salt.  I then, using a large eye-dropper, put isopropyl 95% into the bowl until it surfaces over the salt.  I put it aside for the night.  The next morning, the salt and alcohol soak did the job well.  The salt had turned dark and pulling the wick out – the same was true of it.  I toss the expended salt and wick in the waste and wipe the bowl out removing leftover salt.  Then returning to the use of cotton swabs and alcohol, in only a few plunges down the mortise, the internals are clean.  Pictures show the cleaning process. The stem was soaking in an OxiClean bath to raise the oxidation from the vulcanite.  I take stem out of the bath and the oxidation was raised showing the normal olive-green color.  I then take 600 grit sanding paper and wet sand the stem to remove the oxidation and to work on the serious teeth clenching damage. After the 600 grit sanding, I give the stem a stiff buffing from 0000 grade steel wool.  Interestingly, I noticed it earlier but thought that it would go away with the OxiClean and sanding.  I see a small lighter (reddish?) dot on the underside of the stem (second picture below), almost below the WDC triangle mark but just off center.  I’m not expecting a ‘manmade’ mark there so I assume it’s a discoloration in the vulcanite.  I take a little 240 grit paper and go after it, but it remains for now.  Pictures show oxidation and post-oxidation sanding. The button area is in bad shape.  The former steward was a clencher par excellence.  Neither upper nor lower bit areas were spared.  The upper has deep bites and a ‘wedgy’ dent on the button lip.  The lower button lip is spared, but there is a ‘go to’ clench handle which is distinct.  I take pictures to mark the start. Focusing first on the topside, I use the heating method to see if I might hopefully tease out the concave dents.  Then the bottom-side.  Vulcanite, a form of rubber, amazingly will seek out its original disposition when heated as the rubber expands with the heat.  I light a candle and pass the bit-end of the stem over the flame in back and forth style.  I try not to cook the vulcanite, but simply heat it strategically.  After some time, using heat on upper and then lower, I take pictures to compare.  You can see the closing of the dents in the picture comparisons below.  I think there is a beneficial change, but there are still dents to repair.  Pictures 1 and 2 are before heating and after for the upper side.  Pictures 3 and 4 of the lower side – before heating and after.  I first use 240 grit paper on the upper bit.  I sand out as much as possible all the smaller dents. Through the years of clenching, the button lip has lost its distinction so using a flat needle file, I reintroduce the lip edge and then follow by sanding with 240 to erase file tracks and shape more.  I’m wondering if I can avoid having to rebuild the button lip.  I gently sand the upper button lip as well.  The tooth grip has turned into only a small dimple – good movement.  I sand gently to remove the dimple because I don’t want to lose too much button real estate.  The top looks great.  The only patch needed is the remaining large dent.  The topside filing, sanding and shaping progression is pictured below. Turning to the lower bit, again I use 240 grit sanding paper to sand out what can be removed and blended by sanding. The dent/clench configuration was minimized by sanding but I need to patch what remains of the surface damage.To prep the vulcanite for the patch work, I wipe down the upper and lower bit with a cotton pad wetted with alcohol.  I mix activated charcoal powder with Hot Stuff Special ‘T’ CA Instant Glue (extra thick) to form a putty which is like molasses in viscosity to apply to the damaged areas.  I use a tooth pick as my trowel and tamper and I apply more putty than needed – the patch mound allows me to file down gently to the surface of the stem to achieve a better blended patch.  I apply putty to the upper bit, and a dab on the small, remaining dimple on the button lip.  I spray it with accelerator to cure the putty.  I then do the same for the needed area on the lower bit.  The pictures show the patch progress. Using a flat needle file, I begin filing the patch mound on the upper bit until I’m very close to the vulcanite surface.  With the patch expanding closely to the button lip, I also utilize the flat needle file to separate and define the button lip.  When close to the surface, I switch to 240 grit paper to bring the patch flush with the vulcanite surface.  After I’ve blended as far as 240 paper will take me, I switch to 600 grit paper and then finally, 0000 steel wool which fine tunes the blending and each in turn erases the former’s scratch marks.  I take pictures along the way to document progress. At this point, not surprised, I see very small air pockets exposed on the patch area (see picture above).  Taking Hot Stuff CA Glue, thinner than the ‘T’ I used for the patch, I dip a toothpick into the glue opening to give a coat of CA glue on the toothpick.  With this wet glue, I paint the patch with a thin glaze of glue which fills the air pockets.  I give the glaze of glue a quick spray of accelerator to cure it.  I then take 600 grit paper followed by 0000 steel wool to blend and complete the upper bit patch work.  The micromesh sanding later will further blend the patches.Now, to the lower bit patch.  As before, I use the flat needle file initially, then 240, 600 and then 0000 grade steel wool working toward the vulcanite surface then blending.  Again, a few miniscule air pockets are revealed in the patch, and I repeat the same procedure as on the upper patch. Having been so focused on the button repairs, I almost forget (again) to clean the stem internal airway.  With pipe cleaners dipped in alcohol, I do that and it does not take long to clean.Putting the stem aside, I pick up the stummel.  I will use Fiebing’s Light Brown Leather Dye to add some unifying hues on this very attractive WDC Milano’s grain.  I like the lighter motif which is what the Milano’s picture included above courtesy of Doug Valitchka.  I wipe the stummel with a cotton pad wetted with isopropyl 95% to make sure it’s clean.  I then warm the stummel with the heat gun after inserting a whittled cork into the shank to serve as a handle.  After the bowl is warmed, helping the briar more effectively to absorb the dye, I apply the dye liberally using a folded over pipe cleaner.  After the stummel is covered, I fire the dye with a lit candle which ignites the alcohol in the dye and sets the pigment in the grain.  After a few minutes, I repeat the procedure concluding with firing.  I then put the stummel aside to rest. While the stummel rests, the stem is ready for the micromesh pad cycle.  I wet sand with pads 1500 to 2400, then dry sand with pads 3200 to 4000 then 6000 to 12000.  After each cycle, I apply Obsidian Oil to rejuvenate the vulcanite, and my how it likes it!  The pop of a newly restored stem is wonderful to behold! The next day, I’m home from work, and it’s time to ‘unwrap’ the stained and fired bowl.  I mount the felt buffing wheel on the Dremel, which provides more abrasion to the surface, helping to remove the crust.  I used Tripoli compound with the Dremel set at 20% speed – slow because I don’t want to generate too much friction. Using the Dremel’s adjustment wrench, I purge the old compound off the felt wheel to clean and soften it.  I work the felt buffing wheel applying the abrasive Tripoli compound over the stummel.  I am not able to reach the bend curve between the shank and the bowl with the felt wheel.  I change to a cotton cloth buffing wheel again, only dedicated to Tripoli compound.  Each compound has its own dedicated Dremel buffing wheels.  With the cotton cloth wheel, I’m able to reach into the harder to get places.  I run the wheel over the entire surface.  I take a picture showing the completion of the ‘unwrapping’.  One of the helpful aspects of aniline, or alcohol-based dyes, is the ability to wipe it with alcohol to lighten the application as well as blend the dye.  I want to lighten this WDC Milano so I wipe it down with cotton pad wetted with alcohol.  I take a picture before and after.  Immediately after wiping down the surface, the surface clouds with the alcohol.  Then I remove the alcohol wipe clouding effect with Blue Diamond compound, with a cotton cloth wheel mounted on the Dremel at 40% speed.  Following the Blue Diamond application, the true ‘after’ picture is taken.  I also reunite the stem with the stummel for the Blue Diamond buffing.  Well, the third picture below represents the lighter ‘after’ picture, but I don’t believe the picture does justice to what my eyes are seeing.  The lightening and blending of the surface hue is showing off the grains quite nicely.  I’m liking it!  I think this, “Lady’s Choice” is going to like her choice too! I give the pipe a hand buffing with a felt cloth, not so much to buff up the shine at this point but to remove the compound dust from the surface.  The compounds are abrasives and the dust is the residue left over.  After this, I mount the Dremel with a dedicated cotton cloth buffing wheel, leaving the speed at 40%, I apply the carnauba wax evenly over the stummel and stem.  I finish with a hefty hand buffing of the pipe with a microfiber cloth to raise the shine more.

This WDC Milano Swan Neck Billiard is a lady’s choice.  I hope she likes it.  It is an elegant pipe and showcases beautiful flowing grain.  I’m pleased with the button repair that blended very well – without knowing it’s there, most people would not see it.  The repaired rim also looks good – forming the beginning of the long elegant lines carried through to the swan neck stem.  Nice.  Each pipe I restore benefits the work we do with the Daughters of Bulgaria – helping women and girls who have been sexually exploited and trafficked.  For more information about this and pipes I have available, check out the store at The Pipe Steward.  Thanks for joining me! 

A Small C.P.F. French Briar Horn captured my attention

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe I chose to work on from the lot of pipes my brother and I picked up on our virtual pipe hunt in Montana is another C.P.F. French Briar. This one is a classic horn shape with a chubby shank and a horn stem. It is delicate in terms of size (4 inches long and 1 ½ inches tall) but chunky feeling at the same time. Like the other banded pipes in this lot the band on the shank is loose and has turned so that the faux hall marks are on the other side. The finish is very dirty and the rim is damaged around the inner and outer edges. The horn stem is worn and there is tooth chatter on the top and underside of the stem near the button. The stem is overturned in the shank. The photos below show what it looked like before my brother did his clean up on it. If you would like to read about some of the others I have restored I have written about them in individual blogs. They include a CPF horn stem bulldog, a CPF French Briar bent billiard, a CPF Remington French Briar military mount billiard and a CPF French Briar Rhodesian. Just a reminder – CPF stands for Colossus Pipe Factory. The brand was made in the late 1880s and 1890s.Jeff took the above photos as well as the photos that follow to show the condition of the pipe before he cleaned it up. This sad little Horn comes from the same era as the other pipes in this find – the late 1880s – early 1890s. The finish was worn dirty but the grain underneath showed promise. There one large sandpit on the bottom left side of the bowl toward the front. The rim of the bowl and top edge of the pipe were in rough shape. The outer edge had been beat up pretty good by someone knocking their pipe out against something hard (if you are tempted to knock out your pipe on a railing or a garden rock please think twice before you do so). The inner edge of the rim appeared to be out of round and carved up by the same person who had used a knife to ream the others in this lot. There was a thick, crumbling cake buildup in the bowl and the lava from the bowl overflowed onto the damaged top of the rim. The band on the shank end was oxidized and the stamping on it was almost illegible. The horn stem had tooth marks on the top and underside near the button. Jeff took close up photos of the rim top to show how bad it looked before he started the cleanup. The thick cake and lava overflow on the rim filled in a lot of the damage. The full extent of the damage would be revealed once the cake was removed and the lava was cleaned.The next photos show the condition of the bowl sides and the flaking finish. The damage on the rim edge also can be seen in the pictures. The third picture shows the sandpit on the bottom left side of the bowl. You can also see the potential in the lovely grain that is peeking through the grime and flakes of old finish peeling off. The stamping on the left side of the shank is readable – it has the C.P.F. logo in an oval with the words French Briar above and below the oval. The stamping on Briar is fainter than the rest of the stamping. The silver band on the shank has the faux hallmark stamps that I have come to associate with C.P.F. pipes. The horn stem had some great looking striations and colour underneath the wear and tear. There was some tooth chatter and bite marks on both the top and underside at the button. I am very spoiled due to the excellent cleanup work that my brother Jeff does on these old pipes before I ever get them here in Vancouver. He has a pattern to his work and it rarely varies. Jeff thoroughly cleaned the pipe reaming the bowl with a PipNet reamer and tidying up with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. He scrubbed the exterior of the pipe with Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime and grit on the bowl. He scrubbed the rim top with a tooth brush and the oil soap. He scrubbed the band and stem at the same time to clean it. I took photos of the pipe to show the condition it was in when it arrived in Vancouver. I took a close up photo of the rim top and the sandpit on the lower left side. You can see the damage along the inner and out edges of the rim and the size and location of the sandpit in the photos. The general condition of the briar is rough though the grain patterns are promising.The horn stem is dry and lacklustre but it seems to be solid. There was no delamination happening along the sides or length of the stem and the tooth marks and chatter at the button were relatively minor. This horn stem was in the best condition of all of the horn stems I have worked on in this lot from Montana. The stem was overturned to the right due to wear on the mortise and the threaded bone tenon.I repaired the sandpit with a few drops of super glue and let it dry. Once the glue had dried I sanded the repair with 220 grit sandpaper to blend it into the surface of the briar.I topped the bowl on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the damage and minimize the damage to inside and outside edges of the rim. I did not have to take off too much so I checked as I worked over the rim. Once I had the rim smooth I stopped sanding and wiped the bowl down with alcohol on cotton pads to clean off the dust from the surface. I filled in the nicks around the outer edges of the bowl with clear super glue. I carefully over filled the spots around the rim so that I could sand it smooth and leave a smooth flow to the rim. I sprayed the repairs with an accelerator so that I could sand it sooner. The next photos show the repair process and the end results.I gently topped the rim again on the topping board to smooth out the repairs on the rim top and sanded the outer edge of the bowl and inner edge of the bowl with 180 and 220 grit sandpaper. I was able to remove the excess repair material and smooth out the rim edges on both the inside and outside. The overall look was far better than when I started the restoration and it was minimally intrusive.I polished the band with a 1500 grit micromesh sanding pad to remove the tarnish and corrosion (I would use the other grits of micromesh pads later in the process to polish the band). Underneath the film and corrosion the band was gold in tint just like the other C.P.F. pipes that I have been restoring. I coated the shank end with white all-purpose glue and pressed the band in place. I aligned the faux hallmarks with the stamping on the shank. I wiped down the glue that squeezed out around the edge of the band before it dried so that it would not hamper staining the shank end when I was ready.I carefully heated the bone tenon with a Bic lighter, moving the flame constantly and not letting it get to hot. My purpose was to loosen the tenon and turn the stem straight once again. I repeated it several times and was able to get quite a bit of turn on the stem but not enough. I backed it off and let the glue in the stem harden again. I would need to come up with another method to address the worn threads in the mortise and on the tenon.I set the stem aside for a bit and turned my attention to polishing the briar in anticipation of staining it. I went through the full range of micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down with a damp cotton pad between pads. The pictures show the way the polishing brings the grain out on the bowl. I needed to stain it to blend the repairs into the rest of the bowl surface. The trick would be to stain it with light enough colour to highlight the grain and not mute it. I mixed 1 part of dark brown aniline stain with about 3 parts of isopropyl alcohol to make a medium brown wash for the bowl. I stirred it to get a good mix. I heated the briar and applied the mixture to the bowl. I flamed it and repeated the process until I was happy with the coverage on the bowl.Once the stain dried I wiped it down with alcohol and cotton pads to remove the excess and make it more transparent. I still found that the colour was too dark so I decided to polish it with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and wiped it down with alcohol on cotton pads to remove the finish I had sanded free. I touched up the shallow gold stamping with Rub’n Buff European Gold using a cotton swab. I rubbed of the excess with a cotton pad. I finished polishing the bowl by dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with alcohol after each pad to clean it. The pictures tell the story of the process and the end. With the bowl finished it was time to work on the stem. I sanded the tooth marks out and smoothed the flow of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper. I polished it with micromesh sanding pads – wetsanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each pad. After the last pad I gave it a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry. I painted the tenon with clear fingernail polish to build up the threads. I layered it on until the threads sat well in the mortise. I put the stem on the shank and it lined properly. I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel to polish out the scratches in those surfaces. I buffed the brass coloured band with Blue Diamond as well. I gave the pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect the aged briar and the horn. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It is a beautiful piece of pipe history and I only wish it could tell its story so I could know a bit of its travels. Until such a time that pipes can talk I am left to my own imagination. Thanks for walking with me through the process of the restoration.

This Old CPF French Briar Rhodesian was in rough shape

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe I chose to work on from the lot of the lot of pipes my brother and I picked up on our virtual pipe hunt in Montana is another C.P.F. French Briar. This one is a Rhodesian shape with a chubby shank. It is an interesting shape and the carving around the band separating the cap from the body of the bowl. The band on the shank is loose and has turned so that the C.P.F. stamp on the band is on the other side. The finish is very dirty and the rim cap and top is heavily damaged. The horn stem is worn and there is tooth chatter on the top and underside of the stem near the button. There is a wrinkle in the horn on the underside mid stem. The stem looks like someone has either wrapped it or there is a gasket to keep it in place. The photos below show what it looked like before my brother did his clean up on it. If you would like to read about some of the others I have restored I have written about them in individual blogs. They include a CPF horn stem bulldog, a CPF French Briar bent billiard and a CPF Remington French Briar military mount billiard. (You can access them by clicking on the CPF Name above for a hyperlink to the blog). Just a reminder – CPF stands for Colossus Pipe Factory. The brand was made in the late 1880s and 1890s.Jeff took the above photo and the photos that follow to show the condition of the pipe before he cleaned it up. This sad little Rhodesian comes from the same era as the other pipes in this find – the late 1880s – early 1890s. If I thought the silver mount billiard was in bad shape this one was in worse condition than any of previous pipes I had worked on from this lot. It was worn and was in rough condition. The finish was worn off and appeared to be flaking in place. There were a lot of nicks, scratches around the outside of the bowl. The outside of the bowl was covered with grime, grit and was peeling. The rim of the bowl and top edge of the pipe were in abysmal condition. The rim had been knocked out on hard surfaces and burned. There were huge chunks missing all around the rim top. The front of the bowl was in worse condition than the back and sides. The height of the top cap was different all the way around. Once again there was a thick, crumbling cake buildup in the bowl and the lava from the bowl overflowed onto the damaged top of the rim. The band on the shank end was oxidized and the stamping on it was almost illegible. The horn stem had tooth marks on the top and underside near the button. There is a wrinkle in the horn on the underside mid stem.Jeff took close up photos of the rim top to show how bad it looked before he started the clean up. The thick cake and lava overflow on the rim filled in a lot of the damage. The full extent of the damage would be revealed once the cake was removed and the lava was cleaned. The third photo below shows the rim from one side and you can see the damage on that side. The next two photos show the condition of the bowl sides and the flaking finish. The damage on the rim edge also can be seen in the pictures.The stamping on the left side of the shank was readable – it had the C.P.F. logo in an oval with the words French Briar above and below the oval. The band on the shank end had the faux hallmark stamps that I was familiar with as well as the C.P.F. oval. The second photo shows something in between the shank and the stem. The first photo below shows the stem and the wrapping or gasket between the shank and stem. It is followed by photos that Jeff took when he removed the stem showing the wrapping – a thread of twine wrapped around the tenon to hold it in place in what appeared to be worn out threads in the mortise itself.The horn stem showed some tooth chatter, bite marks and what looked like wrinkles on the underside, but it was in better condition than the other previous horn stems I had worked on.Following his usual pattern, Jeff thoroughly cleaned the pipe. He reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and tidied up with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. He scrubbed the exterior of the pipe with Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime and grit on the bowl. He scrubbed the damaged rim top with a tooth brush and the oil soap. He scrubbed the band and stem at the same time to clean it. I took photos of the pipe to show the condition it was in when it arrived in Vancouver. You can see the damaged rim top and edges and the fill on the right side of the bowl. The condition of the briar is rough and the stem is oxidized. The band was loose so I removed it from the shank to clean it. I took a photo of the pipe parts.I took a close up photo of the rim top to show how great a job my brother did on it but also the extent of the damage that would need to be addressed in the repair.The stem was clean in decent shape. Very few tooth marks were on the top and bottom sides and those would be easy to deal with. The button was in excellent condition.I mixed a putty of super glue and briar dust to use for rebuilding the rim on the bowl and the top edge. The damage was quite significant so the repair would be extensive. I was hoping that it would work. Once it dried I topped the bowl on the topping board with 220 grit sandpaper and worked the inner edge with a folded piece of the same sandpaper. The repair came out quite well and gave me something to work with in the finished pipe. I polished the band with 1200-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads to remove the tarnish and corrosion from the surface. It worked really well and left behind a polished brass band. When I finished polishing the band I used an all purpose glue to glue it in place on the shank with the stampings aligned with those on the briar. I wiped down the bowl with alcohol on a cotton pad to remove the remaining sanding dust from the bowl and any grit that had accumulated in the carvings from my sanding. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down with a damp cotton pad to remove the dust after each set of pads. I stained the bowl with a dark brown aniline stain mixed with isopropyl alcohol in a 50/50 ratio. I flamed it and repeated the process until I was happy with the finish. I wiped the bowl down with cotton pads wetted with isopropyl to thin the stain and give it more transparency. When I finished that I buffed it with red Tripoli and sanded it down with 1500-12000 grit micromesh pads to polish it and give it the look that I was aiming for. The pictures tell the story. With the bowl done, except for the final buffing I turned my attention to the stem. The first thing I had to deal with was the worn threads in the mortise. I decided to fill in the threads on the tenon with super glue and make the stem a push stem. I could have removed the threaded tenon and inserted a new push tenon like those on meerschaum pipes but I wanted to keep the original look of the tenon and mortise so I figured that I could convert the stem to push status by simply building up the threads. I layered on clear super glue until I had the build up shown in the photos below. I still needed to sanded it smooth and reapply a final coat but you can see the process.I sanded out the tooth marks in the stem and worked on the “wrinkles” in the underside of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper until they were smooth. I worked on some of the marks at the tenon end of the stem at the same time as it seemed rough to touch.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 to give the horn some needed oil to help with the dry feel that it had after over a hundred years of smoking. You can follow the development of the shine in the photos that follow. I love the feel and look of polished horn. There is nothing quite like it for translucency and feel. I had forgotten to touch up the gold leaf in the stamping on the shank up to this point so I applied some Rub ‘n Buff European Gold to the stamping with a cotton swab and rubbed off the excess. The stamping on this pipe was in excellent condition so it came out really readable.I buffed the pipe and stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel to polish out the scratches that remained and to give it a shine. I was careful to avoid damaging the gold stamping on the shank. I gave the pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect the horn and the briar. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine on the horn and the stem. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown below. I am pretty happy how it came out considering what I started with. The rim and cap look the age of the pipe but the damage is gone and the pipe is ready for another 100 years. Thanks for going through the process with me on this challenging restoration.