Tag Archives: fitting a stem

Kaywoodie Connoisseur 49 Large Oom Paul

Blog by Andrew Selking

It is an honor to once again write an article for Steve’s blog. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Andrew and a bit obsessive about Kaywoodie pipes and the entire Kaufman Brothers and Bondy’s (KB&B) family. Until recently my favorite pipe has been a four-digit Yello Bole 2062 small Oom Paul. I’ve had this large Oom Paul in the drawer, waiting for restoration, for over a year. (Sorry I forgot to take a before picture).I start this pipe as always by soaking the bowl in the alcohol bath. Here is the pipe right after it came out.Next I reamed the bowl. As you may have noticed this is a rather large bowl, my reamer barely reached the bottom. This also accounts for the reaming damage done to the rim.The pipe has a replacement push stem, which initially caused me to think it was an export model, but looking at the shank you can see the groves that the stinger originally screwed into.I find that the alcohol bath does a nice job of softening any protective coating or wax. In order to remove the rest, I used 0000 steel wool and acetone.Here is what the pipe looked like after removing the finish.My next step was to further clean the insides of the pipe and stem using a retort.The average bowl takes two cotton balls to fill it, three if it’s kind of big. This bowl swallowed four cotton balls. Here is a picture of them after the retort (notice how the boiling alcohol pulled the tar out of the wood).As you may have noticed in previous pictures, the rim on the bowl was in rough shape; scorching, reaming damage, and deep dents. I planned to top the rim and the end of the shank to remove some of the worst damage, but I decided to leave the dimensions as close to original as possible; so I refrained from getting crazy with the sand paper.

I used 150 grit sand paper on a piece of glass to top the rim and shank, followed by some 400 grit. A note of caution when topping an Oom Paul, the shank and the bowl are close to each other. Be sure not to take off wood where you don’t intend to.Once the rim was to my liking I started on the bowl with the 400 grit wet/dry. I sanded around the marking on the shank and kept the stem inserted while working on the end of the shank to prevent rounding. Here is the bowl after the 400 grit.After the 400 grit I turned to a progression of micro-mesh pads (1500-12,000 grit) to polish the wood.I used the same progression on the stem. I polished the stem using a rotary tool set on the lowest speed with white rouge and carnauba wax. I used my buffing wheel (aka heartbreaker) with white rouge and carnauba wax on the bowl. I reassembled the pipe and wiped on a couple of light coats of Halcyon II wax. Here is the finished result. Just to give some perspective on the size of this pipe, here is my four-digit yellow bowl for comparison. Normally I wait to smoke a restored pipe until after taking pictures, but we were without power this morning so I loaded the bowl with some Dunhill Early Morning Pipe and commenced to smoke. The draw is fantastic! After about an hour I thought I must be getting close to the bottom of the bowl so I got my pipe cleaning tool and started to clean the bowl. I had only smoked half the bowl! This the first pipe I’ve encountered that has a basement!

I now have two Oom Paul pipes in my collection. I imagine they will vie for my attention for a very long time.

Identifying, Categorizing and Refurbishing a Masta Diplomat

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Blog by Robert M. Boughton

Member, International Society of Codgers
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
Member, Facebook Gentlemen’s Pipe Smoking Society
https://www.facebook.com/roadrunnerpipes/ Now Open!
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author except as noted

“Who are you?” [Inigo Montoya screamed to the man in black.]
“No one of import. Another lover of the blade.”
“I must know!”
“Get used to disappointment.”

— William Goldman (b. 1931), U.S. novelist, playwright, screenwriter, in The Princess Bride, Ch. 5, 1973

INTRODUCTION
Having a firm belief that no one and nothing in this world exists without importance and consequence, although whether for good or bad is debatable, I have developed a certain passion for inquiring of those I think might have the answers I seek. When on frequent occasions that approach fails, I research. By no means do I always find conclusive documentation, but I’m with Inigo Montoya in the great story of the power of true love referenced above, rejecting the worldview of growing accustomed to disappointment. When successful, I tend to be thorough; when I strike out, it’s more like crashing and burning.

By way of an example of a success story, I found myself unable to make out any nomenclature on the pipe this blog concerns other than Made in London above England, and below that what looked like 140. I went on a hunch that it might be a Comoy’s and consulted a meticulous list of that maker’s shape numbers. They skipped from 133 to 158. At this early, eyes-on exam stage of the refurbish, I was not even convinced the first digit of the shape was a 1 – it might have been a mere scratch – and so I looked for just 40. Both that and 41 were missing. Thus, for the sake of pure curiosity, I made my way all the way up through the 800s and discovered that Comoy’s has a 340 and a 440, both straight and with an M denoting Medium (the former a billiard and the latter a Rhodesian, FYI).

Nowhere near the point of declaring defeat, I took what some Internet search engines refer to as the “I’m Feeling Lucky” approach and Googled “tobacco pipe 140 shape number.” I should have been in Vegas with the hit I got that was luckier than my wildest dreams, for at the top of the list on the first page was “Images of tobacco pipe 140 shape number.” The third of these in the preview window was the spitting image of my pipe, albeit a sandblasted version. Armed with a brand name, I looked first in Pipephil, where I read of Masta being a British pipe brand founded in about 1900 that was “integrated to Parker-Hardcast[le] Ltd in 1967.” Pipephil, as it turned out, had a shape chart that was not savable. That’s why I tracked down this copy elsewhere, showing shape 140, a Diplomat, relegated to the end under “Other Shapes.” Here is a 1938 bill of sale from the Masta Patent Pipe Co. Ltd. to Las Vieilles Bruyères de Corse. (Old Briars of Corsica). Once again I found discordant information on a brand, and this time differing views of its quality. Moving to Pipedia provided the fullest overall account of Masta’s lineage, with the same approximate information as Pipephil, but noted the complete full name as the Masta Patent Pipe Company Ltd. Pipedia goes still further in pointing out that the brand seems to be out of production, and since Dunhill owns Parker/Hardcastle, it is therefore a big part of the picture. Claiming, without source citation, that as part of Parker/Hardcastle, Masta was produced “primarily for the Scandinavian market,” the Pipedia entry concludes with an unfortunate appraisal that “Masta was at the end rarely the equal of a Parker.”

This last rather snarky comment, which paints Masta as inferior rather than superior to Parker (but leaves Hardcastle unmentioned), is also vague and raises several issues. One, when indeed did the manufacture of Masta pipes end? Two, in what way or ways was the brand somehow less than the implied superlative qualities of a Parker? Three, given Dunhill’s standards during the period of time in question, which I acknowledge is uncertain but clear enough, why would that great pipe maker assign an insignificant brand to Parker/Hardcastle, much less make such a careless purchase in the first place? Four, for argument’s sake (and I am not making this argument), let me throw in the key question: if Pipedia is right, could an antipathy of the two proud old British pipe houses toward the perceived interloper, Masta, have affected a decline in the quality of the new kid on the block? The last part is thrown in as something to chew on, that’s all.

I propose the following answers to these basic questions.
1. The end of the line for Masta remains undetermined, but the probable answer is sometime in the early to mid-1970s.
2. In no way whatsoever are Masta pipes either inferior or superior to Parker. Both brands are often sandblasted to hide blemishes or stained dark enough that any irregular grain is obscured. There are, of course, gorgeous exceptions in both brands.
3. Dunhill’s acquisition of Masta was anything but uncalculated. The reasons Dunhill purchased Masta were premeditated to cash in on the market for well-made pipes that could be offered at lower prices, and to eliminate one more of the many competitors of the day.
4. Addressing the possibility that an overblown and unwarranted competitive drive could have existed, with Parker and Hardcastle gunning to discredit and eliminate the hapless Masta, all I can do is resurrect the great line from “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in”: You bet your sweet bippy it could have. But to be fair, there is a lack of strong support for this theory.
An account of the – ahem – sticky history between Dunhill and Hardcastle comes from the trustworthy source of Iwan Ries and Co. Ltd., tobacconists since 1857. Founded in 1908, Hardcastle made for itself a solid reputation “among the numerous British mid-graders.” [Emphasis added on the final word.] Then, in 1935, Dunhill made a somewhat bold challenge to Hardcastle, throwing down the glove as it were, by commencing construction of a new factory smack next-door. Within a year, the Hardcastle family had sold 49% of the interest in its business to Dunhill.

In 1946, Dunhill delivered the final blow to Hardcastle, buying its remaining shares and consuming it altogether into a mere Dunhill subsidiary. Members of the Hardcastle clan were allowed to continue serving on its board and retain a semblance of independence that came to an end in 1967 when – you guessed it – Hardcastle was put to the final indignity of being merged with the likes of Dunhill’s Parker Pipe Co. created in 1923. On top of everything else, being forced to tolerate close-quarters with a riff-raff commoner such as the Masta Patent Pipe Co. Ltd. must have been the harrowing final straw for both Parker and Hardcastle.

Now we come to another authority concerning Masta: a British seller of estate pipes called Reborn Briar (no relation to this forum). Call me biased if you like, but this site being situated in the same country of manufacture of all four of the related brands mentioned, I suspect it might have an upper hand as far as insights are concerned.

According to Reborn Briar, Dunhill acquired Masta in 1960 as one of its own seconds, seven years before the Parker/Hardcastle additions and reassignment of the Masta name. A splendid-looking Masta Patent Pipe Co. natural tall billiard sitter that was sold by Reborn Briar for GB£40 (a tad more than US$51 at today’s exchange rate) can be seen at the first source link below. An obvious smooth version of the sandblast pictured above, the pipe has beautiful birds-eye grain and a sleek but sturdy look to it, by every angle shown ready to provide a cool, pleasant tobacco enjoying experience. I would, in fact, be happy to add the pipe to my own collection at that price.

Last but not least is the telling information about Dunhill’s low view of Parker pipes that is related with chilling, blunt eloquence by Cup o‘ Joes. To begin, consider Dunhill’s word for the pre-worked stummels it passed on to Parker as “its failings,” rather than the standard term seconds, for stummels deemed less than ideal for use with its own name under the quintessential English pipe maker’s exacting standards of excellence. In fact, during the early relationship between Dunhill and Parker, many of the unfinished pipes it dumped on Parker bore a large X over the Dunhill stamp. Even “Damaged Price” with the actual revised amount was made a permanent imprint in the wood. What’s more, not just a minor flaw or two separated a pipe destined to be a Parker instead of a Dunhill. The crude shapes passed off to Parker would have been rejected altogether after the initial turning process because of significant flaws. Perhaps most telling of the Dunhill-Parker unhappy connection is a lack of any documentation that Dunhill ever marketed or advertised Parkers in its catalogs or stores. For more details on this no-doubt stressed liaison, see the last source link below.

Nuff said about that.

RESTORATION
The first order of business was scooping out old tobacco that had the unusual appearance of being better suited for cigarettes. I ran a few Everclear-soaked cleaners through the shank and bit before giving most of the stummel a nice, long soak in alcohol, careful to an almost neurotic state not to leave the shank submerged. I will never forget the GBD Prestige debacle in which I obliterated the last remaining revenant-like nomenclature, and was determined to avoid the same mistake. I made periodic turns of the bowl in the Everclear to keep the stripping of old finish even. I have heard that using strong alcohol to clean Lucite air holes can lead to severe damage to the polymethyl methacrylate plastic (the same as Perspex). Perhaps that is so, but in my experience a quick job of it is safe and effective. No harm was done to this bit in its refurbish. After about an hour and a half, I removed the stummel from the alcohol, worked one regular pipe cleaner (not bristled and not extra fluffy) through the shank and another through the bit, to dry the inside of the plastic and ensure no damage; stuffed a small soft cotton gun cleaner cloth into the chamber and scrubbed that area dryer while doing the same to the outer part of the wood. I took off the remaining stain with 320-grit paper. The bit, while a good match for the easy bent Diplomat shape of the original Vulcanite one that came engraved with an M on the pipe, was not an even fit to the shank. Note the gap. Holding the bit and the opening of the shank side by side up to a light, I saw the problem was in the bit that was uneven on the right side of the second picture below (the left in the photo). I admit I still have trouble with the counter-intuitive nature of thinking my way through how to adjust this kind of misalignment, but I used 150-grit paper in slow, patient steps until it fit. Then I reamed the chamber and sanded it with 150-, 220- and 500-grit paper. Micro meshing the stummel all the way from 1500-12000, the briar took on a nice, darker shine. After applying Fiebing’s medium brown boot conditioner and flaming the alcohol out of it, I progressed from 3600-12000 micromesh before achieving the lightness I wanted with superfine “0000” steel wool. The tenon was undersized, making the bit spin, and so I added a small layer of Black Super Glue. After it dried, I retorted the pipe – again violating established practice by boiling the Everclear through the Lucite bit and into the chamber, but also again with complete success. Very gentle turning of the steel wool around the tenon took it from an over-tight fit to just right, twisting onto the bit with ease. When the retort was finished, I once more ran a cleaner through the bit’s air hole to assure it stayed in shape, and both ends of two more in the shank until they came out clean.

Thinking the bit was done, upon closer examination I noticed very fine scratches. I decided to see if an OxiClean soak would work those out, and indeed it did. I completed the project by running the bit on the clean electric buffer and the stummel using brown Tripoli and carnauba, alternated on the “clean” buffer, which, by the way, I do in fact clean on a regular basis.
CONCLUSION
Masta pipes, before and during their affiliation with Dunhill/Parker/Harcastle, were well-crafted instruments for enjoying tobacco and, in many cases, beautiful pieces of work. Whatever the reason for its eventual demise, the Masta Patent Pipe Co. Ltd. name should be remembered, and the examples of its creations available for purchase today are more than worthy of consideration by pipers in general and collectors in particular. Or maybe vice-versa.

SOURCES
http://estatepipes.co.uk/shop/Masta-Patent-Standard-Tall-Billiard-588
http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-m3.html
https://pipedia.org/wiki/Masta
http://www.iwanries.com/Hardcastle_C1516.cfm
https://www.delcampe.net/en_GB/collectables/invoices-commercial-documents/united-kingdom/facture-de-la-manufacture-de-pipes-the-masta-patent-pipe-coy-ltd-st-georges-works17-eden-grove-holloway-london-n-7-216950551.html
http://www.cupojoes.com/pipes/parker/

A Bleak Looking Royal Danish with an indistinguishable shape number

A unique old WDC Turin Rustic Volcano

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Blog by Steve Laug

When I saw this one on eBay I sent a message to my brother and asked him to bid on it. He did and we got it. I love the rustication on the Turin Rustic series. It is rough and yet dignified at the same time. The seller billed it as restored/refurbished and clean. By and large that was true. The shank and the inside of the stem were very clean. The rim had been knocked about a bit and the inner edge of the rim was rough and uneven. The bowl had been reamed. The stem was polished though there were deep tooth marks on the top and underside of the stem next to the button. My brother took the above photos and the following ones before he cleaned the pipe. You can see the damage to the rim top and the inner edge in the next photo. The second photo shows the stamping on the left side of the shank.Though I knew a bit about the WDC pipe maker and the William Demuth Company I thought it might be good to review the history before I started restoring the pipe. I googled the Turin Rustic to see what I could find. It immediately referred me to a post on the Kaywoodie Forum that in turn was an excerpt from pipedia.org. Here is the link.

http://kaywoodie.myfreeforum.org/archive/w.d.c.-master-list__o_t__t_191.html

William Demuth, a native of Germany, entered the United States at the age of 16 as a penniless immigrant. After a series of odd jobs he found work as a clerk in the import business of a tobacco tradesman in New York City. In 1862 William established his own company. The William Demuth Company specialized in pipes, smoker’s requisites, cigar-store figures, canes and other carved objects.

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

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

In 1897 Ferdinand Feuerbach joined the Demuth Company and by 1903 had become the production manager. Feuerbach is credited with developing Demuth’s popular Royal Demuth and Hesson Guard Milano pipelines. He left in 1919, when Sam Frank Sr. needed an experienced pipe man to run his pipe factory, located at 168 Southern Blvd., in the Bronx. Feuerbach and Frank had been close friends since Frank started his own business in 1900 and was closely associated with the sales staff of WDC, selling their line of pipes.

In early 1937, the City of New York notified S.M. Frank & Co. of their intent to take by eminent domain, part of the land on which the companies pipe factory was located. This was being done to widen two of the adjacent streets. As a result of this, Frank entered into negotiations to purchase the Wm. Demuth Co.’s pipe factory in the Richmond Hill section of Queens. It was agreed upon that Demuth would become a subsidiary of S.M. Frank and all pipe production of the two companies would be moved to Demuth factory. New Corporate offices were located at 133 Fifth Avenue, NYC.

Demuth pipes continued to be made at the Richmond Hill plant till December 31. 1972. Then the Wm. Demuth Company met its official end as a subsidiary company by liquidation. Demuth’s mainstay pipe, the Wellington continued to be offered in the S.M. Frank catalog until 1976. In the mid-80’s, the Wellington even made a brief return as a direct to the consumer offer.

When the pipe arrived from Idaho it was quite clean and ready to work on. I took some photos of it before I started. The next photo shows the rim and the damage to the surface. There were a lot of dents and dings as well as some roughness on the right side toward the front of the bowl. The inner edges was also worn and rough.The next photos show the condition of the stem – it had some deep tooth marks on the top and underside that are visible in the photo below.I “painted” the surface of the vulcanite with the flame of a Bic lighter to lift the dents and I was able to raise all but one of them completely. Even the worst one on the underside came up so that is only needed a little patch. The rest of them I was able to sand smooth with 220 grit sandpaper.I cleaned the sanded area on the underside of the stem with alcohol and then filled in the remaining tooth mark with a spot of clear super glue. Once it dried I sanded it smooth with 220 grit sandpaper and blended it into the surface of the stem.I rolled a piece of sandpaper and sanded out the inside of the bowl and the inner edge of the rim to smooth out the damage.

I touched up the rough spots on the inner edge with a piece of 220 grit sandpaper and smoothed out the edge until it was back in round. In the photo below you can see the damage to the top and outside edge of the bowl toward the front. It looked like it had been knocked out on concrete.I decided to lightly top the bowl on the topping board with 220 grit sandpaper until the rim top was smooth and clean of damage.I sanded the rim top with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12000 grit until the surface of the rim was clean and smoothly polished.I used a light brown stain pen and touched up the rim top. The next four pictures show the bowl after I had rubbed it down with a light coat of olive oil. I love the rustication on the bowl sides and bottom. It really is a unique pattern. 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 set of three pads. After the final rub down I set the stem aside to dry.

I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand wax the bowl with Conservator’s Wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The finish shines and the pipe belies its age. It is a beauty. Thanks for looking.

Restoring a Long Diamond Shank Aldo Velani Grande 39

16 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

This pipe came to me through my brother. I am not sure if it was one of his eBay finds or his pipe hunting adventures. Either way it is a unique and unusual pipe. It has a long diamond shaped shank ending in a tapered diamond shaped stem with a slash of briar inserted into the Lucite. The bowl is a variation on a Dublin shape with the diamond shape of the underside of the shank carrying through to the bottom of the bowl. The rim had been obviously tapped out on some hard surface and the top and the outer edges of the rim had nicks and dents. Somewhere along the way someone had cracked the shank and put on a poorly installed Sterling silver band. The stem had some slight tooth chatter on the top and the bottom near the button and there were several small tooth marks on the underside.It is stamped Aldo Velani Grande on the left side of the shank. The centre portion of the top line of the stamp is faint. It is stamped on the right underside of the shank with the shape number 39. There was no other stamping on the shank. The stem bore an AV stamp that had originally been gold in colour but had faded. In the second photo below you can see the glue from the band oozing out onto the shank. It was that way all the way around. Someone had carelessly used the glue and not cleaned up the overflow. You can also see that the stem does not fit properly against the shank end.The stem listed to downward and to the left side of the shank and was crooked. Once I pulled the stem out I could see that the tenon was no longer straight.The next two photos show the top of the rim and the bottom of the bowl respectively. You can see the light cake and the rounding of the outer edges of the rim in the first photo. The underside of the pipe looked pristine. The finish was dirty and a bit spotty.

My brother, Jeff cleaned up the pipe. He scrubbed out the internals and the external of the pipe. When it arrived in Canada it was very clean and the finish had basically been removed. I am really growing to like having these pipes arrive cleaned and ready to restore. Thanks Jeff! The next photo shows the rim after he had cleaned up the surface. There was a burn mark on the front edge of the rim that would need to be addressed. You can clearly see all the nicks and chips in the rim edges in this photo.Once I removed the stem the band fell off in my hands. I could see the band covered a sloppy crack repair. Though the repair held and the crack was sealed there was a lot of glue. I am not sure whether it was for the crack or for the band. Either way it was over kill. The glue had hardened and somewhere along the way the silver band had picked up the ridges and valleys of the hard glue underneath.I sanded the glue until it was smooth on the shank end. I squared up the band and made the angular corner of the diamond shape more sharp. I smoothed out the dents in the band as much as possible from the inside of the band. I slid band on the shank and used a small ball-peen hammer to carefully tap the band flatter from the outside. I was able to remove much of the damage to the silver band with this process. I used a small bit of glue to hold the band snug on the shank.To take care of the rim damage and to reduce the damage to the outer edge of the rim I topped the bowl on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper. I sanded until the edge was clean and then worked on the outer edge of the rim with sandpaper. In the second photo below you can see the area where the burn has affected the outer edge at the front of the bowl.I wrapped a KleenReem pipe reamer with 220 grit sandpaper and used it to sand the interior of the bowl and clean up the inner edge of the rim.On the right side of the bowl there were two larger chips in the outer edge. I used crazy glue and briar dust to fill in the divots. Once the repair dried I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to reshape it.I heated the tenon with a Bic lighter until the tenon was flexible and then carefully inserted it into the mortise and aligned it with the shank. I held it in place until the tenon cooled. That repaired the fit of the stem to the shank.Since I was working on the stem I decided to finish polishing it. I sanded out the tooth marks and tooth chatter with 220 grit sandpaper. I polished it by wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads. I dry sanded it with 3200-12000 pads. I wiped the stem down with a damp cloth. Once the pipe was finished I would buff the stem and pipe together. I used European Gold Rub n’ Buff to touch up the AV stamp on the side of the stem and hand buffed the stem.I stained the bowl with a dark brown aniline stain cut by 50% with isopropyl alcohol. I flamed it and repeated the process until I got an even coverage.I took the next set of photos to show the bowl after the stain had dried. It was too opaque for me and hid the grain on the pipe but I would deal with that in the morning. I set the pipe aside of the night and let the stain dry. In the morning I wiped the bowl down with alcohol on a cotton pad to thin the stain coat and make the grain stand out. With the stain looking good and the stem finished I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel and gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine and then by hand with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the pictures below. It is a beautiful pipe. It is ready for whoever wants to add it to their rack. Send me a message or an email at slaug@uniserve.com if you are interested in this beauty. Thanks for looking.

I love the shape of this Comoy’s Regent’s Park London Made Canted Volcano

3 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

This pipe takes advantage of the grain to the maximum. The shape has flame, mixed and stunning birdseye on the sides, top and bottom of both the bowl and the shank. This is another of the pipes that my brother Jeff found. The stamping is faint but readable with a lens. It is stamped on top of the shank with the words Regent’s Park over London Made. On the underside of the shank stamped diagonally from front to back it reads Made in England. From the photos that Jeff set me the pipe was in decent shape. The finish was spotty and dirty. The rim was clean and undamaged with a light and spotty lava coat. The stem was lightly oxidized and there was a deep and large tooth mark on the top side near the button. I have learned that there is usually a match to that on the underside of the stem. The canted volcano shape is very nice. In the photo below it appears that there were some small pin prick fills on the back side of the bowl just above the shank.From what I can find online the pipe is made by Comoy’s. They made the Hyde Park brand and it appears they also made the Regent’s Park brand – both which are Comoy’s seconds and are named after London Parks. I found this Comoy’s Shape Chart on-line which shows the pipe as a Modern 625. I have circled it in red – it is shown on the bottom of the right column, last pipe.As usual now, my brother did a stellar job cleaning up the pipe before he sent it to me. He reamed it and scrubbed the exterior with Murphy’s Oil Soap so the finish was very clean. He cleaned out the internals as well. The pipe was ready for me to work on the finish and stem repairs when I received it. The next four photos show what the pipe looked like when it arrived to my work table. I took a close up photo of the rim to show the slight damage – almost cut marks on the top of the rim surface. The inner and outer edge of the rim is fairly undamaged though so it will not take much to clean up this rim. I also took close up photos of the stem to show the large bite/tooth marks on the top and bottom sides near the button. I cleaned up the tooth marks with sandpaper, a dental pick and alcohol. I filled in the deep dents with black super glue and let it cure. I forgot to take photos of the repairs before I sanded them out. Once the glue had cured I sanded both sides of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the repair to match the surface of the rest of the stem.I also filled the pin holes in the back side of the bowl with clear super glue and briar dust. Again I forgot to take a photo of the glue and dust mixture. Once it dried I sanded the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper and blended the repairs into the surface of the briar. The surface was smooth to touch .I sanded the slash marks on the rim with 220 grit sandpaper to minimize them. It did not take too much sanding to remove them. I also sanded the inner beveled edge of the rim to clean it up and remove the darkening.I sanded the bowl and rim with a medium and a fine grit sanding block. I worked to remove the scratching left behind by the 220 grit sandpaper. I carefully avoided the areas on the shank that held the already faint stamping. I sanded the stem with the sanding block as well.I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded it with 3200-4000 grit pads and gave it another coat of oil. I finished sanding it with 6000-12000 grit pads, gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry.There were some scratches on the top of the stem. I would need to work on them some more at this point. Once I buffed the stem with Blue Diamond the scratches would be blended into the stem surface. I gave the bowl a coat of Danish Oil and Cherry Stain to highlight the red of the briar. I set it aside to dry for about twenty minutes.I wiped the bowl off with a soft cloth and hand buffed it lightly to get a clear picture of the finish and the grain on the bowl. I polished the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I buffed out the scratches in the stem and the briar. I gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect it. I buffed it with a clean buffing wheel to raise the shine. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below.

An Old Timer Horn Stem, Cherrywood Shank and Briar Bowl BBK Bosshardt Luzern

2 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

This old pipe came to me from my brother. He picks up some interesting pipes in his hunts and eBay purchases and this is a unique one. The bowl is a really nice piece of briar with some amazing grain – a mix of flame and birdseye on the bowl. The rim cap and bowl cap are brass coloured. The hinge on the back of the rim connects the rim cap and the bowl cap. There is a curved spring piece of brass on the front that fits over a ridge on the front of the rim. The end of the briar shank has a brass shank cap/ferrule. It was tarnished to almost copper coloured brass. The shank extension is cherry wood and is pressure fit into the mortise. The top of the cherry wood extension has a brass ring that is pressure fit on the end of the extension. The stem is horn. The end of the cherry wood has a threaded end that the horn stem screws onto. The stem had some tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside of the stem next to the button. The shank of the pipe is stamped on the left side with the words Bruyere over Garantee. On the right side of the shank it is stamped BBK in an oval over Bosshardt over Luzern.Through the years I have cleaned up several BBK pipes. The last one was a rusticated hunter pipe with a windcap. Prior to that, I restored a square shanked panel billiard. I have written about both them on rebornpipes at the following links: https://rebornpipes.com/2012/09/21/refurb-on-a-bbk-panel-billiard-swiss-made/, https://rebornpipes.com/2014/08/31/restoring-an-old-bbk-hunter-pipe/.

When I worked on the BBK Hunter I researched the brand. The BBK was a Swiss made brand as the shanks of all the pipes I had cleaned up and restored were stamped that way. Pipedia was my primary reference in that blog. Here is the link: http://pipedia.org/index.php?title=Bru-Bu. I have included the material from the previous blog below.

“Josef Brunner, oldest son of the farmer Konstantin Brunner from the hamlet Nieder-Huggerwald, belonging to the community of Kleinlützel (Canton Solothurn), was sent in 1871 to a pipe turner in Winkel/Alsace for his apprenticeship. As was usual at that time, Brunner wandered as a journeyman after ending the apprenticeship. Eventually, he went to Saint-Claude, France which was then the world’s stronghold of briar pipe manufacturing. There, Brunner was able to increase and deepen his knowledge in the field of industrial pipe making. When he returned home in 1878, he installed a small turner’s workshop in the house of his father. With the energetic support of his two younger brothers, he began to produce tobacco pipes of his own calculation, taking them to the markets in the surrounding area. In 1893, Bernhard Brunner’s wife inherited the mill in Kleinlützel. At this point, the pipe fabrication was transferred to an annex belonging to the mill. Now it was possible to drive the machines by water power – an important relief to the workers and a considerable innovation compared to the previous pedal-driven system.”

“The business developed so well after the turn of the century even when a lack of workers in Kleinlützel occurred. The problem was solved by founding a subsidiary company in the small nearby town Laufen an der Birs in the Canton of Bern. This plant didn’t exist too long. The disastrous economic crisis in the 1920’s and early 1930’s forced the Brunner family to restrict the fabrication of pipes dramatically. In addition the big French pipe factories in Saint-Claude – although suffering from the same circumstances – flooded the Swiss market with pipes at prices that couldn’t be matched by Swiss producers. By 1931 approximately 150 of 180 Brunner employees had been sacked – the rest remained in Kleinlützel, where the cheap electric energy ensured a meager survival.”

“In 1932, Mr. Buhofer joined the Brunner family. The company was named Brunner-Buhofer-Kompagnie, and, shortly thereafter, Bru-Bu. Buhofer had made his fortune in the United States but, homesick, returned to Switzerland to search for a new challenge. Bru-Bu’s fabrication program was expanded with many handcrafted wooden art articles: carved family coats of arms, bread plates, fruit scarves, and – more and more – souvenir articles for the expanding Swiss tourism industry. Pipes remained in the program continuously, but the offerings changed from traditional Swiss pipes to the more standard European shaped pipes. Bru Bu is widely known as BBK.”

The last paragraph of the Pipedia article linked BBK pipes to Former Nielsen. I have two of Former’s pipes so this stood out to me. “At some point in the late 1970’s, Bru-Bu went out of business. Some of the Brunners, as far as known, continued as timber traders. But in 1986 new life filled the old Bru-Bu pipe workshop, when Dr. Horst Wiethüchter and “Former” Nielsen started to produce the high-grade Bentley pipes there.”

My brother cleaned up the pipe and reamed the bowl. He scrubbed out the wind cap and the brass rim cap. He cleaned out the shank and the airways in the stem, shank extension and the mortise. It turned out that the cherry wood extension was loose fitting in the shank. The wood had worn enough that it was no longer snug. The horn stem was clean but had tooth chatter and a deep tooth mark on the underside of the stem near the button. The brass rim cap was dented and worn but the wind cap still fit tightly against it. The next set of four pictures show the condition of the pipe after he had cleaned it up. I took the pipe apart to show the various components of the pipe. The cherry wood extension in the centre of the photo has a tapered end that fits into the shank and a threaded end that the stem screws onto.I took a close up photo of the rim cap and the inside of the wind cap. You can see from the photo that the rim is badly dented and quite dirty. The inside of the wind cap is pitted and has some rust. The edge of the rim on the front had lifted slightly from the inner edge of the bowl and was dented on the front. The ridge on the edge was still there and held the front spring on the wind cap in place.I took some photos of the stem to show the tooth chatter and worn surface of the stem near the button on both the top and the bottom near the button. There was also some deeper tooth marks on the underside of the stem.I used a small ballpein hammer to flatten the rim cap to the briar rim underneath. I worked on it to minimize some to the dents and dings in the brass rim.I cleaned out the remaining debris in the bowl with a Savinelli Pipe Knife. My tapping the hammer on the rim knocked some pieces of cake free so the knife cleaned up what remained. I used a brass bristle wire brush to clean out the inside of the wind cap. I was able to remove some of the rust on the inside with the brush.I scrubbed the shank with alcohol and cotton swabs to remove any of the dust from my quick ream clean up. It was amazingly clean. I also ran pipe cleaners and alcohol through the shank extension and the stem.I sanded the tooth chatter and the tooth marks on the horn stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove them and blend them into the material. I also wanted to smooth out the roughness of the stem at those points.The cherry wood shank extension was dirty so I wiped off the exterior with an alcohol dampened cotton pad. I noticed that the end of the pressure fit tenon had a horn end cap to seal the end of the wooden tenon. I believe that addition preserved the tenon from shrinkage and splintering. The threaded tenon on the other end of the extension fit snug into the end of the horn stem.I polished the wind cap, rim cap and the shank cap with 1500-4000 grit micromesh sanding pads. I took some photos the pipe after the polishing was completed. It is a beautiful piece of briar. I polished the horn stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads. I gave it a final rubdown of oil after sanding it with the 12000 grit pad and set it aside to dry. I stained the bowl with a Danish Oil and Cherry stain mixture. After it sat for about 20 minutes I rubbed it down with a soft cloth to polish it. After the hand rubbing the grain stood out more clearly. The red stain and the brass caps really looked great together. I gave the wooden friction fit tenon several coats of clear fingernail polish, being careful to keep it off of the horn cap on the end. That did the trick and the extension sat snug in the mortise. I gave the bowl, shank and stem a thick coat of Conservator’s Wax and let it dry. I hand buffed it and gave it a second coat of the wax.I buffed the pipe by hand with a microfibre cloth and polished the metal with a jeweler’s cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I love the way the grain just pops on this old pipe. The cherry wood shank extension adds not only length but also a touch of rustic to the pipe, though this particular piece of cherry wood has bark that is quite smooth. The dark striations of the horn stem also go well with the wood. The brass bands at the stem and the shank as well as the rim cap and wind cap give this old timer a real look of class. The finished pipe is shown in the photos that follow. It is a beautiful pipe to my eyes. Thanks for looking.

A 9438 Rhodesian Stamped Tobacco Town

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Blog by Steve Laug

This is one of my favourite pipe shapes – the classic GBD 9438. There is just something about the way the lines flow and the way the pipe sits in the hand that make this an all-time favourite from me. This one is somewhat unique in that though it bears the London England over 9438 stamp on the right side of the shank on the left side it is stamped Tobacco Town. The stem bears no GBD roundel but it is definitely the original stem. The finish is dark and the briar has some amazing grain. Tobacco Town is a chain of tobacco shops in the Northwestern United States and it also is the name of a few shops across the Southwest and the Midwest. Here is a link to the shops in Portland, Oregon: http://tobaccotown.com/. I think that because of the wide use of the name that identifying the shop that had this line of pipes made for them by GBD will not be possible. The two photos below show the pipe as it was when my brother received it.The rim had a heavy tar buildup with the cake overflowing the bowl onto the rim top. The twin rings around the cap on the bowl also were filled with dust and debris. The stem was oxidized and there were some deep tooth marks on the top and underside near the button. The topside of the button was worn thinner than the underside and there were some tooth marks on it as well.My brother Jeff has developed his own cleaning regimen that really delivers a clean pipe to me. By the time I receive it the bowl has been reamed and the finish scrubbed clean with no dirt or debris in the rings. The stem was clean and the damaged areas very visible. The rim top was free of the lava overflow but still was slightly darkened. The next set of four photos show what the pipe looked like when I started working on it. Before I began my work I took a close up photo of the rim top and the bite marks on the top and bottom of the stem near the button. The rim had the majority of the tars removed but under the bright light I could see some residual stubborn bits. The inner edge of the rim also had some damage from what looked like someone’s reaming the bowl with a knife. I have circled the bite marks in the photos of the stem surfaces with a red circle to clearly identify the issues there. I scrubbed the exterior of the bowl and the rim with acetone on cotton pads to try to remove more of the residue on the rim and to remove some of the darker spots of stain on the bowl. I wanted the grain to really stand out. I worked on minimizing the damage to the inner edge of the rim by sanding it with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper.I decided to lightly top the bowl to remove the stubborn residue that remained and to lighten the smoke darkened rim at the back of the bowl.I noticed that the inside of the shank had been stained with the same brown stain as the exterior of the bowl so I scrubbed it out with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and alcohol. I was able to remove the stain. As I scrubbed it I notice that against the end of the mortise there were still some tars that kept coming out with the cotton swabs. I used a dental spatula to scrape the end of the mortise to remove these hardened tars. They are visible on the paper towel in the second photo below. I followed that up by swabbing out the mortise with cotton swabs and alcohol. I also scrubbed the airway in the stem. There was some debris trapped in the slot in the button that I worked out with a dental pick. I wiped the exterior of the stem down with alcohol on a cotton pad and worked on the tooth dents to make sure the surface was clean. I used a dental pick to apply the black super glue to the dents on both sides of the stem and sprayed the glue with accelerator. I followed up with applying a second layer of the glue to fill in the air bubbles on the surface that seem to always follow using the accelerator and set the stem aside to dry.When the glue had cured I used a flat blade needle file to smooth out the patch to the surface of the stem and to recut and reshape the button. I sanded the repair with 220 grit sandpaper and then refiled it with the needle file. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads using my normal routine – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down between each set of three pads with Obsidian Oil. I gave the stem a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry. I rubbed the bowl down with Watco Danish Oil with Cherry stain and let it dry for about 30 minutes. After 30 minutes I rubbed the bowl down with a soft flannel cloth.I buffed the bowl and the stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel and then gave the pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. This is one of my favourite shaped both in terms of the shape and the hand feel of the bowl. The red colours that are highlighted by the cherry stain show the grain beautifully. Thanks for looking.

An Interesting Brebbia Silver AS1 Square Shank Brandy

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Blog by Steve Laug

Over the years the only Brebbia pipes I have worked on have been the Iceberg Pipes. They have a beautiful rustication that just speaks to me. The rugged roughness looks like the briar came that way and I have always like the feel in the hand. However, every one of the pipes, Iceberg or otherwise have either belonged to someone else or were too big for my liking. I have never seen a pipe like the one that my brother Jeff found and sent my way. First it is a smooth briar not rusticated and second it is a brandy shape with a square shank and square saddle stem. I have not seen one like it before and I have looked around a fair bit and have not found another. In the photos of the pipe that my brother took before he began the cleanup it looked to be in good condition. The finish was a little mottled but it still looked to be decent. The bowl appeared to have a light cake so it potentially would be an easy clean up. My brother scrubbed the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and removed most of the finish but the stubborn spots on the shank. The stem was lightly oxidized and had some light tooth chatter on the top and bottom near the button. The next set of four photos show the pipe when it arrived here in Canada. Once again my brother did a great job cleaning this one up. I can’t believe how much time it saves to be able to begin with finishing rather than cleaning. Thanks Jeff. I took a close up photo of the rim to show how clean it was and how the bowl was in round and the edges were not damaged.The stem was a bit of an oddity to me. I have not seen a stem with the kind of built in tube that this Brebbia sported. There is an end cap on the tenon with the tube protruding out. When the stem is in the shank the tube sits in the airway between the mortise and the bowl.To remove the stubborn finish on the shank I scrubbed the bowl and shank with acetone on cotton pads. It took a bit of elbow grease but the shank finally let loose of the finish. I took some close up photos of the stamping on the shank as they were very clear. The left side of the shank reads Brebbia over Silver over AS_. I am assuming that the AS_ was probably AS1. The right side of the shank has a gnome stamped on it. The gnome was the logo Brebbia used to put on its stems from 1953 to 1956. On the underside it is stamped Italy 798.The stem was very tight in the shank so I examined it with a light and saw that there was a thick hard coat of tars on the walls of the mortise. I scraped the mortise with a dental spatula and removed the heavy coat of tars and then scrubbed it with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol.I put the stem back in place and it fit snugly but the tightness was gone. I took some photos of the pipe at this point in the restoration. I removed the stem again and worked on it with micrmesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. Between each set of three pads I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and also gave it a final rubdown after the 12000 grit pad. I set the stem aside to dry while I worked on the bowl. I stained the bowl with a dark brown aniline stain thinned by 50% with isopropyl alcohol. I applied it to the bowl with a folded pipe cleaner and flamed it with a lighter. I repeated the process until the coverage was even.I hand buffed the bowl with a microfibre cloth to polish the stain and even out the look of the finish. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the entire pipe several coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I finished by hand buffing the pipe with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. Thanks for looking.

Restemming and Restoring a Tiny KBB Rocky Briar 1540B Salesman’s Pipe

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Blog by Steve Laug

In the box of pipes my brother sent me was a beat up leather pipe and tobacco pouch. I pushed it aside and cleaned up the rest of the pipes in that particular part of the box. The other evening I was doing a bit of sorting and I took out the pouch and looked it over. It had a large tear on the bottom edge. The zipper was worn and hard to work and the leather was brittle. I almost tossed it in the bin but felt something inside of the pouch. I looked at the inside of the underside of the pouch and there was nothing there. I open the broken zipper on the top of the pipe and inside was a very small – tiny if you will – pipe. The tenon was broken and the stem and bowl sat in the pouch. I took it out of the pouch to have a look. It was a KBB that was stamped Rocky Briar. Why it bore that stamp I have no idea as it is a smooth briar. There is no rustication or and carving on the bowl at all – just very smooth. Underneath the KBB in a cloverleaf stamp and the Rocky Briar on the left side of the shank it read Reg. Pat. No. 298978. On the right side of the shank it reads 1540B which it was the shape number. All of that seems very normal but did I say that this pipe is tiny? It is only 4 ¾ inches long, 1 1/8 inches tall. The diameter of the bowl is 5/8 inches and the chamber is 7/16 inches in diameter. All is proportional and well laid out. It makes me wonder if it was not a salesman’s pipe.The tenon was snapped in the shank but no damage had been done to the shank itself. Really the pipe looked quite good other than the broken tenon.Obviously the pipe had been smoked and quite often. There was a fairly thick soft cake in the bowl and the rim top had a coating of tars and oils. The back left side of the rim had a burn mark on it that was quite large.I took a photo of the pipe before I began to work on it. The finish was very shiny – like it had been given a coat of varnish. The rim was obviously rough as you can see from the photos but the rest of the pipe looked good. The stem had tooth chatter on the top and the bottom of the stem near the button. The logo on the shank was a clearly stamped circle within a circle. The broken tenon would need to be pulled and if possible the stem given a new tenon.I used a drywall screw to pull the broken tenon. I screwed it into the broken tenon in the shank and wiggled it free. Before I pulled it out of the shank I took the following photos. I pulled the piece of tenon out of the shank and reamed the bowl with the only reamer that would fit in the tiny opening – a Savinelli Pipe Knife. I scraped back the cake to bare briar.The burned area on the top of the bowl made it necessary to top the bowl on the topping board using 220 grit sandpaper.I scrubbed off the briar with acetone on a cotton pad. I wanted to clean off the sanded rim and the shiny coat on the bowl so that it would be easier to stain the bowl and rim to match.I used the Dremel and sanding drum to flatten the face on the stem and then set up my cordless drill to drill out the end of the stem. I hand twisted the stem onto the drill bit. I started with a bit slightly larger than the airway in the stem and worked my way up until I had opened up the airway large enough to hold the tenon in place.I decided rather than trying to turn a small tenon that would fit in the shank I would clean up and use the existing broken tenon. Fortunately on these old pipes the tenon was quite long. I glued the broken tenon piece into the newly drilled opening in the stem with black super glue. I filled in around the tenon piece with the super glue using a dental pick and a piece of paper clip. I smoothed out the glue and aligned the tenon in the shank and set the stem aside to let the glue cure. Once it hardened, I sanded the new tenon with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the excess glue and make the fit in the shank smoother.I put the stem in the shank and sanded the shank and stem to make the transition smooth. Once I had the stem fit adjusted I sanded the shank and stem with a 1500 grit micromesh sanding pad to remove the scratches. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded it with 3200-4000 grit pads and gave it a second coat of oil. I finished sanding it with 6000-12000 grit pads and gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil. I set the stem aside to dry. I gave the bowl a first coat of Medium Brown Stain with a staining pen to serve as an undercoat. I realize that for many of us who read about pipe restoration the measurements of this pipe really do not give a clear picture of the true size of the pipe. To give more of a sense of perspective to the diminutive size of the pipe I decided to take two photos of the tiny bowl with a regular sized Comoy’s long shank billiard. The first photo shows the pipe above the larger one. The second photo shows the bowl fitting inside of the regular sized bowl. Hopefully that helps give you a clear idea of the tiny nature of the pipe.I gave the bowl a second coat of stain using a Danish Oil Cherry stain. I wanted a bit of contrast to the brown and also to enhance the reds in the briar. I rubbed the bowl down with a soft cotton cloth to spread the stain coat out and rub it into the briar. The next photos show the look of the pipe after a quick hand buff.I buffed the bowl with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel to polish it. I gave the bowl several coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth.I gave the bowl and stem another coat of carnauba wax and lightly buffed it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the entire pipe with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It came out really nicely. Looking at the pipe is hard to tell from the photos the tininess of the pipe as all is proportional. The seashell in the photo is the same one that I use in all of the final photos and with this pipe it seems quite large. Thanks for looking.