Tag Archives: fitting a stem

Mission Impossible: Operation Long Shot

This is an old Brigham that Charles and I did together and it was almost Mission Impossible. Wanted to post on both blogs.

The door opened and a man walked into the bar, pausing briefly in the doorway to allow his eyes to adapt to the dim light inside. The place was what optimists would euphemistically call a dive. The establishment was empty except for a few drunks and a large, bored-looking man behind the counter wiping glasses with a rag that was presumably once white but was now an indeterminate shade of grey.

The man walked through the room, turned in at a doorway marked “Gents” and scanned the room – two stalls, a urinal and a grimy sink – before spotting what he sought. Moving across the room, he fed a handful of coins into a coin-operated machine advertising cheap cologne. There was a rattle and then a small rectangular device dropped into a waiting hand. The man pushed his thumb against a small pad on the otherwise blank rectangle. A laser washed briefly…

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Sometimes things happen – restoring a BB&S Londoner 5386 Prince

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Blog by Steve Laug

I received this old BB&S Londoner bowl as a gift from a friend. It came without a stem but it was in very good shape. It had a cake on the bottom half of the bowl that was rock hard and needed to be removed. The finish was decent but dirty. The stamping on the left side of the shank reads LONDONER over London England. On the right side it reads BB&S over 5386. The BB&S stamping tells me that this bowl was a Barling – Benjamin Barling and Sons. I looked on the pipephil site (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-l5.html#londoner) and found that I could at least date the pipe as pre-1962. The link told me that once the family had sold the Barling brand (1962) pipes and especially the seconds of the brand were made in France, Italy or in Denmark… Since my pipe was stamped London England it was made before the sale of the brand and still bore the London England stamping. The shank had dents on the top and bottom sides and the bowl had dents all the way around the sides and bottom. Everything about the pipe signaled an easy task of refurbishing.

The general clean up went quickly. I was able to get the bowl ready to restem with no issues whatsoever. The issues with this refurb have nothing to do with the process of the restoration rather they come with regard to operator error with the camera/computer. It is a pain for me to have to admit that I erased the photos from the camera before I had copied them to the computer. I had taken some great photos! They were probably the best I had taken (at least I can say that because I have no proof or disproof that it is true). There were at least a dozen photos of the pipe from the moment I started the process, through reaming the bowl to the steaming of the dents. They showed the reaming process for the hard cake in the bottom half of the bowl. They clearly depicted the visible dents all around the bowl and then showed the process of using steam from a wet cloth and a hot knife blade to raise the dents. Those are the photos that I erased from my camera this morning. I have tried to undelete them to no avail so I apologize for not having any photos from the early stages of work on this pipe bowl.

With the confession out of the way and leaving behind my foolishness at rushing through a cleanup of the memory card in the camera I will move on to the remainder of the restoration and restemming of this little prince. After the missing reaming and steaming of dents I wiped down the finish of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap on cotton pads to remove the grime. I rinsed off the bowl and dried it with towels. The photos below show the cleaned bowl.

Wondering what else would go wrong with this restoration I proceeded carefully with one eye looking over my shoulder. It seems these comedies of error come in sets. Who knows what would come next in the folly of this clean up. I poured out my can of stems and went through them until I found a stem that was close to the diameter of the shank. I drilled the airway in the tenon end to accommodate the centre pin on the PIMO tenon turning tool and then pushed the stem onto it. I slowly and by stages turned the tenon to fit the shank. My normal practice is to turn it as close as possible with the tool and then fine tune it by hand with sandpaper. I saw no need to invite trouble so I followed that process to the letter. I used a Dremel and sanding drum to cut back the excess vulcanite of the stem. This is handwork and takes a steady hand so as not to nick the shank of the pipe. Whew! I made it without damaging the briar and making more work for myself. I used a rasp to remove more of the excess diameter on the stem at the shank. I worked on it with the rasp until I had the fit close, then I put a plastic washer between the shank and the stem and sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper. I wanted to smooth out the surface and remove the marks left by the Dremel and the rasp at the transition point. I don’t know about you but after all of the detailed Dremel, filing and sanding work my hands need a break. I laid aside the stem and did some simple work. I cleaned out the inside of the bowl and shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. After that my hands were quite rested and it was time to get back to the stem. The fine tuning of the shape of the stem is tedious when it is done by hand. I don’t have a belt sander or power tools to make this go more quickly, so it is just ongoing hand work. I continued to use 220 grit sandpaper to shape and clean up the fit of the stem at the shank.

With the fit finished and being acceptable I breathed a sigh of relief. There were no more gaffes that happened up to this point. The stem looked acceptable and the pipe was taking shape. Not too much work left to do before I was finished and the drama was over. I sanded the stem with medium and fine grit sanding sponges to remove the scratches and rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I took photos of the pipe at this point to make up for the lack of photos due to operator error in the earlier part of the process.

So far no bigger crises than forgetting photos. A few more steps left before I am in the clear on this one. I was moving to the buffer and if something could happen at this point it would be at the buffer. Nothing like getting this far and having the buffer snatch the pipe out of your hand and send it across the room snapping the tenon or cracking the shank. So with fear and trepidation I buffed the bowl and stem with White Diamond before continuing the process of polishing the stem. It worked well and I headed back to the work table. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 micromesh sanding pads and then gave it a coat of Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads and then gave it a final rub down of the oil. I let the oil dry.

One more dangerous trip to the buffer to go and I was home free. I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the wheel and then gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean buff with no drama so I was finished with that part of the work. I gave it final hand buff with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown below. Not too bad – only problem in the process was the photos. Whew! Now one question remains should I give the stem a slight bend or not. What do you think?

Al Jones (upshallfan) commented below regarding what the pipe would look like with a slight bend. I gave it a bend a few moments ago. What do you think? Thanks Al.

BBS24

BBS25

A Sad Lesson from a Botched GBD Repair (by Someone Else) I Tried to Mend

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Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, International Society of Codgers
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.naspc.org
http://www.roadrunnerpipesnm.biz
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
― Thomas Bertram “Bert” Lance (1931-2013), U.S. bank teller to president and Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Jimmy Carter, in the May 1977 issue of “Nation’s Business” magazine

INTRODUCTION
This is a sad tale for all involved: the eBay seller from whom I purchased the GBD straight apple sitter this blog concerns, for $39.99 in April of last year, which the good lady in England refunded five days later; me, as the buyer who requested the refund after receiving the pipe and finding that the photos posted by the seller did not reveal the hidden nomenclature from a previous silver banding to fix an apparent crack in the shank, and at last, in a very real way, the person or persons unknown responsible for the banding itself that, nine months later, I have only just discovered was unnecessary. At least the last of the concerned parties is/are blithely unaware.

That’s right, you read correctly. Although I was justified in asking for the refund, and intended to pay the high postage required to return it to the seller beforehand, she responded, to my gentle but detailed account of the reasoning, with a message that can only be described as hysterical from an obvious sense of unjustified guilt for having “falsely advertised” the GBD. I never used that phrase in my request.

As I recall – though I can’t locate the exchange of emails between the Englishwoman and me that followed my awaiting the arrival of the GBD, with great expectations that were dashed by its clear flaws upon receipt – she wrote back that I should not bother returning it at all, but instead that she would promptly refund my money and I should “keep it, sell it for whatever you can, or throw it away, I don’t care.”

At that point, I was filled with remorse over the anguish in the tone and content of her message that literally rang in my ears, even without an exclamation point. I nevertheless attempted, in a final, unanswered message, to express my intent merely to let her know, in order to sell this pipe or any other (they are not her specialty), that she only needed to add a brief note of the band work and its effect on the nomenclature, as these are important details to collectors and sellers, and perhaps lower her asking price.

After showing the pipe to Chuck Richards, my good friend and mentor, before the emails described above and allowing him to discover on his own the same flaws I detected, he concluded that if I paid more than $10 for it, I should immediately ask for a refund, as I had bought it for my own estate pipe business with the prospect of a quick clean-up for resale. When I told Chuck the actual amount I had shelled out, he was speechless for a moment before all but insisting I seek the refund.

I have been unable to get the shame-riddled emailed words of the kind seller, who as far as I’m concerned made an honest mistake and acted, throughout the transaction, in absolute good faith, out of my mind ever since. I have entertained various options concerning the ultimate disposition of the pipe’s rightful ownership. Of course, I could (A) keep the still beautiful pipe and restore it as best I could to put in my own collection or sell with appropriate disclaimers; (B) clean it up and return it, like a good gentleman, to the grief-stricken lady, with the emphatic suggestion that she give it to a friend who enjoys pipes and would likely treasure this one, if she still didn’t wish to sell it on eBay with a lower price and notices, or (C) complete the work that could be done to fix the damages wrought on the hapless GBD, keep it or sell it but under no circumstances toss it in the trash as the seller advocated, and write the blog now presented as a full and sincere apology to the lady, with the intent of depositing the refunded money back into her PayPal account and forwarding her the link to the blog.

With great effort, I at last located the transaction numbers and dates of the original purchase and refund, and with them was able to obtain the lady’s name and email address.

I will save my final decision for later in this account of the restoration of the GBD Prestige straight apple sitter, which research has disclosed was made prior to the acquisition of GBD (an abbreviation of the three founders of the brand in 1850 in Paris – Ganneval, Bondier and Donninger) by Cadogan of the Oppenheimer group in the 1970s. The imprint “London England” in a straight line on the right side of the shank, almost half of which was obliterated by the band, narrowed the pipe to the pre-Cadogan era and also signified that it might have been made in France despite the nomenclature. GBD was last taken over in 1981 by Comoy’s.

The other nomenclature on the Prestige was critically faint, before I started work on it, and included on the left shank the small letters GBD in an oval, barely visible beside the band, and the model name in cursive that took hours to decipher enough to make out the first uncovered letters, “Prest,” which led the excellent Englishwoman to suspect Presto, but I Googled and found the full correct name. On the right shank, equally as light as the left and below “on England,” were three numbers for the shape, 448, which I understood was 9448. Here is what another version of the pipe looked like. The apple of my eyes in this blog is remarkably similar, discounting the nomenclature.

RESTORATION

[Note the unusual, perfect, pale half oval indentation in the top of the shank in the sixth photo above: I have.no rational explanation for the presence of this mark other than the appearance that it is neither a natural aspect of the wood nor any type of damage, such as a crack. I believe the previous restorer attempted to use a self-made metal band, with the idea of reinforcing the top of the shank without covering any of the nomenclature. If this admittedly crazy-sounding guess is correct, the restorer likely intended to do the same on the bottom of the shank but aborted the idea altogether after failing with the top piece. Call me nuts, but this mark is not an accident.]

Already considering re-banding the apple with a shorter sterling variety, I tugged at the one used in the first place, without much hope that it might be loose, and was surprised when it flew off of the shank and onto my lap. Now that was fortunate indeed, for, upon closer inspection, I was able to see that the tiny line in the shank’s opening, which ignited some daft restorer’s passion to fix something that wasn’t broken, was a mere blemish that led nowhere and, in fact, disappeared with a few seconds of sanding. I have to add an acknowledgement of my simultaneous relief that the shank was not cracked and disgust with the previous restorer who desecrated the otherwise weathered but fine pipe by ruining so much of the invaluable nomenclature. The only remaining imprints were the indentations left from the hallmarks and sterling silver designation on the once tight band. I scoffed out loud after my brain digested this enormous error in judgment that more or less ended any real value – and prestige, so to say – this GBD might have had.

Not yet wanting to deal with the majority of the stummel’s outer area, I decided to start by removing the years of accumulated dirt and whatnot from the wood with small soft white pieces of cotton gun cleaner cloths and much of the rim char with wet micromesh pads and a light touch of superfine steel wool. I followed those tasks by clearing the small amount of excess carbon in the chamber with a 19mm reamer and 200- and 500-grit paper, swabbing with Everclear-soaked cotton cloth pieces, and a retort of the pipe.

The retort turned out to be the hardest part of these preliminary steps, as neither of the two rubber tubes that span the few inches from the boiling Everclear to the lip of the bit would fit the extra wide mouthpiece that was part of the GBD. And so, ad-libbing somewhat, I sought out another bit from my collection with a tenon that fit the GBD and a lip that matched the rubber tube. Of course, the last possible pipe I checked was a match – or closely enough. It was from a favorite Ropp. I had no trouble cleaning the metal inlaid GBD bit with a couple of alcohol-soaked bristly cleaners.

The photos above show the surprising cleanliness of the well-worn sitter, and by inference, the degree of care its fortunate owner once accorded the bijou. The later of two test tubes full of Everclear used in the retort was almost clear, with only a few small, solid pieces of flotsam at the bottom.

Here, alas, is where I erred, and will have to accept the consequences, until the day I die, for the heartbreaking lesson they provided. In hindsight, I suppose I might, at this critical stage, have sought the guidance of Chuck or Steve (my second if unofficial mentor in this ever-evolving process of learning). But, as Jesse Eisenberg’s character in “Zombieland,” Columbus (for the city in Ohio where he was born), repeated slowly as a sort of mantra: “Shoulda-coulda-woulda.” Much as Columbus had come up with rules for surviving a zombie apocalypse, so have I adopted a set of guidelines, from my own experiences and those of others, for pipe restoring.

Sometimes I ignore one of these, for the most part with success, and sometimes I have to learn the hard way, on my own. Still, as I type this, I find myself experiencing emotions I prefer to avoid. Recognizing my harshness with the previous restorer, and my own share of fault for the apple’s present condition, I nevertheless tell myself I did my best, alone, to return the splendid pipe to its potential glory. My mistake, although unintentionally made in the pursuit of correcting one more egregious that I believed necessitated my next step, is on me.

To the point, and in spite of a note in my previous blog that I try my best to avoid full stripping of a pipe’s original stain and waxes with an Everclear bath, that is what I did.

These photos show two things: the wonderful success in removing the remaining rim char and reducing the wood to its natural smoothness, and, as an unexpected result of the latter, also eliminating almost every vestige of the remaining nomenclature. Anyone who loves pipes with all of his heart, as I do, will comprehend the complete hollowness, in the pit of my stomach and consuming my mind, I experienced upon seeing with my own eyes the gaff I had committed. I sat there on my couch awhile, stunned, until I forced myself to snap out of the melancholy reverie and get on with it.

Flashing on memories of a few pipes restored by Chuck, and which I bought despite the blemishes I detected and wondered why he let them remain, I knew the full answer he omitted, in his enigmatic way, when I asked him. Some flaws, as battles, are better left unfought. Before I reached this conclusion – as my mind was still rampaging with thoughts of how I should have approached the same notion of stripping the original stain and waxes from just the bowl and chamber, or could have accomplished the goal better, or would have saved the fragile markings that could now be visible – I had to suffer the unavoidable fact of my misdeed. Shoulda-coulda-woulda.

Thus I embarked on the only course of action I had left – to re-smooth and finish cleaning the chamber with 150-, 200- and 500-grit papers followed by small cotton cloths soaked with alcohol, and returning the sheen of the wood using superfine steel wool and then 3600-12000 micromesh pads. I then re-stained the briar, first trying Lincoln Medium Brown leather dye and flaming it before buffing with 6000 and 8000 micromesh.

I saw that the clear, pale half-oval shape, from the suspected attempt by the previous restorer to use an adornment band to fix the misperceived shank crack, remained stubbornly. And so, having nothing to lose, I sanded the open end of the shank with 150-, 200-, 320- and 500-grit papers before micro-meshing and staining again. I’ll tell you straight out, this was not the end of the struggle to fix the single blemish. Of course, I buffed off the char from flaming the end of the shank with 6000 and 8000 micromesh, and reattached the bit to the shank with the band removed, to check the fit. The bit was still a match with the shank! Grateful to have something go right, I turned in that direction and went after the bit. The photos below show before, as it arrived in the mail, and after I worked on it with the tools displayed.

This blog is nothing if not a cautionary tale about the horrors of reversing someone else’s mistakes – of which mine, unfortunately, cannot be undone. I return to the battle of the pernicious, aborted oval pipe band, at the very moment I concluded that maybe a darker staining, adding Lincoln’s version of burgundy red to the medium brown I applied earlier, would help me be out, out with the foul spot. I was wrong, but here’s what it looked like after flaming the alcohol out of the stain. However, this was, at least, a step in the right direction. I concluded that, despite my deepest desire not to be forced to re-shackle the apple sitter with the excellent but unnecessary sterling band that caused this ruckus in the first place, I had no choice. I Super Glued the band firmly back onto the shank, with the hallmarks on the left side, and it did serve to obscure most of the oval shape. Before I snapped the next photos, I added another spot stain using more of the medium brown, flamed it and buffed with 8000 micromesh. That was pretty much the end of the oval spot!

At long last, I was ready for the final buffing on my electric wheels, which as always involved the clean buffer after each of the waxes. For the bit, I used the regular red and white Tripoli and White Diamond. Having let every other convention fly in the wind, the thought occurred to me to wax the stummel with the red Tripoli as well as white, followed by White Diamond and a slow double-coat of carnauba.

CONCLUSION
The foul spot still remains enough for a good eye to catch, if not the camera for once. I’m going to sum this up with the note that I sincerely hope I succeeded in creating a final result that, despite its one glaring disaster, reveals a more beautiful grain than the original darker version. And one more thing: I have decided to return the money the Englishwoman who gave me this fine GBD refunded to me last April, and then forward the link to this explanation. At this point in the whole experience with the cursed and enchanted apple sitter, I am happy to take a loss for once, and will try to sell the pipe for $25. I have no doubt the lady in England is lovely. How could she not be, given her obvious love of pipes that equals mine?

SOURCES
http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-gbd.html
http://yeoldebriars.com/gbd013.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPIuIfAywvY Zombieland Rules (AC, AL, GL, V)

UPCOMING RESTORES

Replacing a Broken Tenon & Repairing a Cracked Shank on a Radice Brown Canadian

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Blog by Steve Laug

A friend on Facebook messaged me not long ago with a proposition. I had repaired a pipe for a friend of his before Christmas and now he had one for me. He would send it up with some pipes to add to my refurbishing box. The one he had for me to repair was a Radice Brown Canadian with a gold band. The pipe arrived with the broken tenon stuck in the shank. In looking it over I could also see a small crack coming out from under the band that would need to be addressed. I used my usual tenon pulling method and was able to wiggle it free of the shank. The tenon was Delrin and was threaded so that it screwed into the stem. It had broken off leaving two full threads remaining on the end of the tenon. The second photo below shows the pulled tenon and the broken remainder of the tenon in the stem.

I drilled out the broken tenon using a drill bit slightly smaller than the diameter of the hole in the stem. As I drilled it the broken tenon stuck on the drill bit and I was able to unscrew it from the stem. The photo below shows the freshly drilled stem. There was a lot of clutter left behind by the drill that I would need to clean out. I used a dental pick and pipe cleaners to remove all the debris and open up the airway in the stem. I noticed that there was a ridge on the inside of the bowl toward the bottom from whoever had reamed it before I received it. Once I had the tenon out of the shank and the stem drilled and cleaned I examined the pipe carefully. From experience I have seen that when a tenon snaps there can also be collateral damage such as a cracked shank. The band on the pipe was loose so I slid it off and examined the shank. From the end view photo below you can see a crack at about 11 o’clock. It ran up the shank for about ¼ inch and then turned downward along the side of the shank. It extended for almost an inch along the side of the shank. There was a slight crack that split off of it and headed backward toward the end of the shank as well. I used a microdrill bit on the Dremel and drilled a small pin hole at the end of each branch of the crack.

I put a light line of white all purpose glue around the shank and pressed the band in place. I cleaned up the overage of the white glue. I used a dental pick to guide super glue drops into the drill holes and along the crack.

I sanded the repair I had made to the cracked shank with 220 grit sandpaper and then with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. I sanded the repair area with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and then stained it with a light coloured stain touch up pen. The colour matched the rest of the bowl and shank and once it was polished blended in well. The two dark spots on the side of the shank were the filled drill holes. They are smooth to touch. I used a needle file to smooth out the ridge at the bottom of the bowl and blended it in with the sides of the bowl as much as possible. I cleaned out the shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. I used a dental pick to clean out the slot on the stem and then ran pipe cleaners and cotton swabs through it to clean up the threads in the tenon end and the airway throughout the pipe. I set the bowl aside and began to work on the stem. I decided to fill the missing dot on the top of the stem before I replaced the tenon. I screwed the broken tenon in to give me something to hold onto while I worked on the stem. I used a knitting needle that was ivory coloured and cut it down with the Dremel until I had a piece that would fit in the hole in the stem. I glued it in place with super glue and then cut off the body of the needle leaving just a small piece in the hole. I sanded it with the sanding drum on the Dremel and brought it as close to flush with the surface of the stem as possible without damaging the stem.

I sanded the dot flush with the surface of the stem with sandpaper and then with the sanding sponges and micromesh pads. I removed the broken tenon and prepared to cut a new tenon. For the material I used a small stem that I have been cannibalizing for tenon repairs. I cut off a piece of the stem that would give me material to work with using a hacksaw. I used the Dremel and sanding drum and two different rasps to reduce the diameter of the end of the newly cut tenon that would insert into the stem. It had to be the same diameter as the threaded end of the old tenon. When I had the tenon fit I cut the length back to match the length of the previous tenon. I put some clear super glue on the small end of the tenon and pressed it into the stem. I ran a bead of clear super glue around the insertion point of the new tenon to make an air tight fit. The photo below shows the new tenon in place in the stem sitting next to the broken one. I sanded the new tenon with micromesh sanding pads to polish it and readied it for the shank. Once it was clean I pushed the stem into the shank and took a series of photos to show the newly stemmed pipe. I quickly sanded the gold band with 6000-12000 grit micromesh pads to remove the scratching and grooves that had been present when I received the pipe.

I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and wiping down the stem with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads and then gave it another coat of oil. I finished sanding with 6000-12000 grit pads and then gave it a final coat to wipe off the sanding dust.

I buffed the pipe and stem with Blue Diamond on the wheel and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buff. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth and then set it aside for photographs. I hand polished the band with a jeweler’s cloth to give it a shine to match the stem.

Reborn S.M. Frank Bakelite Bent Billiard

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Blog by Pam Otto

This week’s refurbing adventure comes courtesy of an eBay estate lot, for which the seller accepted my “Best Offer” bid. The transaction occurred on a Sunday and by Wednesday the pipes had arrived. This is the photo that accompanied the listing: All of the pipes appeared quite old, with orifice bits, and two of them really jumped out at me: a KB&B Blue Line that would need to be restemmed, but otherwise appeared to be in decent shape, and a C.P.F. Chesterfield that looked to be, and indeed is, positively enormous.

The other two pipes were older S.M. Franks. One is stamped Genuine Amber on the shank but as the stem on it is quite dark I’m going to guess it’s a replacement. The second one is stamped Frank Bakelite on the shank. It has a lovely bent red stem, way overturned, and a metal band stamped EP Silver. A few dings and a couple scratches on the bowl, and no tooth marks on the stem. I’m thinking this one, for whatever reason, was not a favorite.

Even though I’m anxious to get the Blue Line and Chesterfield cleaned up and smokable, the Frank Bakelite, with its simple needs, beckoned. It moved to the front of the queue.

I don’t know old this particular pipe is, but if it dates to the same era as the KB&B Blue Line, it could well be past the century mark. Thoughts, anyone?

At any rate, the stem of this old boy seemed like a logical place to start. I took a couple of pictures of it in its overturned state, then unscrewed it completely to see if an internal problem was to blame. Thankfully, the bone tenon was clean and solid.

Knowing I’d read how to tackle overturned stems, I looked to Steve’s blog and, sure enough, there it was in clear, easy-to-follow directions. Following the steps he listed, I filled a cup halfway with water, leaned the stem against the side of the cup and put it in the microwave. I used the highest setting and, because the cup was only half full, set the time for 1 minute—plenty of time to get the water boiling.

In those 60 seconds, two things happened that I hadn’t really counted on. One, it worked (not that I had any doubts in the recommendation; it’s just that I rarely get things right the first time). And two, whether because of the vigorous bubbling of the boiling water, or because my microwave is a carousel, or even because the Bakelite was so smooth, the stem fell all the way into the water.

The material itself was fine; in fact, some of the debris from the airway got cleaned out by the bubbling water. However, the heat caused the bent stem to straighten.

Reheating the stem to restore the curve was no big deal; all I had to do next was re-bend it over a rounded object. But as I hadn’t foreseen this step, I didn’t have many options from which to choose. Paper towel tube? Nope, too flimsy. Peanut butter jar? Too big.

Then I saw it, sitting amid the excelsior of a near-empty holiday gift basket: a small summer sausage. It had a slightly narrower diameter than I’d hoped for, but it was a solid cylinder and certainly convenient. I heated the stem in boiling water again, laid it across the curve of the sausage, and applied slow, steady pressure.

The results weren’t perfect, but they could be worse. Or wurst, har har. The stem feels good in my mouth, and the curvature looks okay. However, it’s not quite as deep as it was originally, and that bothers me just a wee bit. If I can find the rolling pin I know I used to have, I may try re-curving the stem at some point in the future.

To make the tenon fix on the stem permanent I dunked the tenon-stem assembly once again in boiling water—this time holding onto the stem so it couldn’t submerge completely. I twisted it tightly onto the pipe, counting on the slightly swelled tenon to grab hold inside the shank and the slightly softened glue in the stem to let go. I untwisted and, sure enough, the stem came off while the tenon stayed in the shank.

I dried the tenon with a soft pipe cleaner and applied super glue sparingly to the narrow threads, then twisted it back into the stem. Satisfied with the alignment, I put the pipe down to let the glue cure.
The following evening I unscrewed the stem from the bowl and the tenon withdrew from the shank just fine. I screwed it back in to make sure the repair held, then removed it once again and set it aside.
I took the bowl over to the sink and scrubbed the outside with a toothbrush dipped in Murphy’s Oil Soap. I wiped it down, then took it back to the table and rubbed it good with cotton balls soaked in 91% isopropyl alcohol.

The rim had a pretty good chip—maybe 1mm or so deep–missing at about the 8 o’clock position as you look at the bowl from the shank. While an extreme topping of the bowl would smooth things out, I felt it could also compromise the bowl’s shape. So after sizing it up from all angles, and finding that there really wouldn’t be much chance of tobacco being in contact with that area, I decided to try filling it instead.

Before proceeding with the fill, I thought it might be good to first address the inside of the bowl, which had minimal cake but a troubling bit of what looked like fuzzy mold or fungus. I didn’t want any spores getting into the fill, so I wiped everything down with 190 proof alcohol, then wrapped a piece of 220 grit sandpaper around my finger and sanded the interior thoroughly. More alcohol, then the addition of a flame. Take that, moldy fungus! After another heavy swabbing with Everclear I declared the inside done.

Back to the rim patch… I cleaned the area to be filled with alcohol, then scrubbed it with a green Scotch Brite pad to remove any dirt and debris. I was glad I used a wide pad like that because the briar on either side of the chip was loose and came off when I scrubbed.

The fill would need to be a little wider but not any deeper—not a big deal. I packed some briar dust along the rim, then reached for the super glue to drip onto the patch.

I’ve done this many times but am still perfecting the technique. This time I learned an important lesson: Don’t attempt a maneuver like super glue-dripping, which requires a certain degree of precision, with a parrot perched on your shoulder.

(Time out for a side note: I have a large macaw named Tom who is a frequent observer of my pipe renovations. I don’t let him near smoke or fumes but other than that he’s close by pretty much all the time. He normally sits on his stand and looks down on the proceedings, but this particular night he was on my shoulder.)

Anyway, Tom shifted just as I was letting a little drip drop onto the pipe. I totally missed the briar dust and watched as the dribble made its way down the inside of the bowl. Shazbot.

I tried again, Tom shifted again, and I dripped on the outside of the bowl. Arrrr!

Fool me once, fool me twice… I wiped up the outside drip as best I could and put Tom over on his stand. I sat down and, with steadier hands, I dripped the glue a third time—on target—and after sprinkling on a little more briar dust, set the bowl aside to cure overnight. The next morning I took a flat needle file to the overfilled fill to jump start the removal of material. After that a thorough sanding with 220 grit sandpaper, first with the paper in my hand and then on my topping board, got the fill flush with the side of the bowl as well as the adjoining rim surfaces.

Follow-up sandings with 400 and 600 grit smoothed things out even more, but also revealed a couple of small holes in the fill. I probably had left some small air pockets in the briar dust; I couldn’t pack it down as tightly as I normally would due to its location on the rim. I refilled the fill using minute amounts of briar dust and applying the superglue with a toothpick. While these tiny patches dried, I took on the task of shining up the metal band. I wiped it down with white vinegar, then ran through the sequence of 1500-12000 micromesh pads to make it good and shiny. Using the same pads, I polished the stem as well. To give the patches a little more time to cure, I set about cleaning out the shank. Two—count ‘em, TWO—pipe cleaners, one bristle and one regular, dipped in alcohol was all it took.

I don’t know why the former owner didn’t smoke this pipe much, but as I set about sanding the patches I started coming up with scenarios. One, maybe it’s a crappy smoker. Only time will tell on that one. But other situations came to mind too. Maybe the stem was a problem from the get-go. Maybe it overturned after only a few smokes. Maybe the bend didn’t feel right. (Not that that will be problem any more. Ha.) Maybe it gurgled.

Whatever the reason for its nearly new condition, the pipe was rapidly coming back together again. Even with a 20 minute detour to sand off my super glue mistake inside of the bowl, the end was in sight.

I sanded the outside of the bowl and shank with 400 and 600 grit paper and followed up with the 1500 micromesh pad to take care of some slight scratches and dings. Next I got out the aniline stains to even up the color of the briar. Although much of the bowl was still quite dark, it was lighter on either side of the rim patch. I wiped on some oxblood stain, flamed it, wiped on dark brown and flamed again. A little bit of dabbing here and there with the dark brown and the staining was complete.

I slipped the metal band on the shank, screwed on the stem, smiled when it stopped right where it should, and headed over to the buffer.

(New development here at Casa Otto: Aided by a couple of gift cards from my brother, I invested in a Foredom M.BL—a small bench lathe with a variable speed motor that tops out at 7,000 rpm. I haven’t gone over what I estimate is about 1,200 rpm, based on the intervals marked on the speed control, and the results have been outstanding. Not only is it a fabulous machine, but it’s also small and fits nicely on the kitchen counter. It’s a huge improvement over my jerry-rigged drill press buffing station in the garage, and on a day like today when the outside temp is 2°F, a heck of a lot warmer too. Next step: Setting up the buffer in a spare bedroom. Upside to this will be getting counter space back. Downside is that the spare room is quite a distance from where the beer and snacks that fuel all good pipe projects are stored.)

I first buffed the assembled pipe with White Diamond, wiped it down with a flannel rag, then gave it three coats of carnauba, buffing with a clean wheel after each application.

This old pipe didn’t see much action during its go-around. But today, chip-free, moldy fungus-free and with a stem that sits where it should, it stands ready for a new century of service. Pam15 Pam14 Pam13

A Peterson’s Product 268 Zulu Restemmed and Restored

10 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

This pipe came to me with the Meerschaum Sultan that I restemmed. It is stamped Shamrock on the top of the shank and “A Peterson’s Product” Made in the Republic of Ireland on the underside. On the right side near the bowl shank union it was stamped 268. I looked the number up and it is the shape number for a Zulu shape. The gentleman in Chile wrote: “I only have the bowl (I’m not acquainted with the minor brand) with an inappropriate mouthpiece which makes it impossible to smoke. I don’t remember how it got into my collection and certainly it’s not a pipe I purchased myself. It has a heavy cake and is a second-hand. If a proper mouthpiece could be made and a proper tune-up, it could make a fine pipe.” He included the following pictures. When it arrived I took it out of the box to deal with when I had finished repairing the Sultan Meerschaum pipe. It was a nice piece of briar with mixed grain and a worn finish. The stamping on the top of the shank was clear and sharp. The stamping on the underside showed clearly on the left side as you read it but as you got to the right side it was fainter. The rim was dirty and had a flaky coat of lava overflowing from the inside of the bowl and the thick cake there. The inner and outer rim looked good with no dents or chips. The bowl sides, front and back had some light dents in the finish. The stem was a billiard stem that had been stuck in the shank. It fit snugly but absolutely did not match the oval shank.

I took a close up photo of the rim and the bowl to show the thickness of the cake. Toward the bottom of the bowl it got thicker and reduced the size of the bowl at the airway. I looked at several Peterson shape # 268 Zulus to get an idea of what the stem looked like originally on this pipe. I went through my can of stems and found several that would work on this pipe. The one that was the closest to matching the diameter of the shank of the pipe was a brand new stem blank that still had the castings on the sides and end of the button. The slot was constricted but the length and shape would be easy to match to the shank. I drilled open the airway to accept the rod of the PIMO tenon tool. And then set up the tenon tool on a cordless drill. The current tenon was too long for the tool to cut all the way to the end of the tenon so I used the Dremel and sanding drum to shorten the tenon. I put it on the tool and adjusted the set screws and took off the first round of material. I did three adjustments to turn the tenon down to a fit in the mortise. I fine tuned the fit with 220 grit sandpaper.

The fit in the mortise was snug. The diameter of the new stem was large on the sides and the bottom. The top would take the least adjustment to get the fit correct.

I took off the majority of the excess vulcanite with the Dremel and sanding drum. I put it back in the shank and the fit was better. The rest of the work would have to be done by hand sanding. I hand sanded the stem until it was smooth and the transition between the shank and stem needed some fine tuning then set the stem aside and worked on the bowl. Contrary to my normal pattern I wiped off the outside of the bowl and shank with acetone on cotton pads to remove the finish and the grime that had been ground into the briar. Once it was gone there was some nice grain showing through.

I put the stem in place and took a few photos so that I could see where I stood at this point in the process. The pipe was looking good and with a few tweaks would look even better.

The top of the bowl was caked and the lava was very hard. I tried to scrape it carefully with a pen knife and gave up. I resorted to lightly topping the bowl on the topping board to remove the thick lava build up.

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer starting with the first cutting head. I finished with the second cutting head which was the same diameter as the inside of the bowl. I cut the cake back to bare briar so I could assess the inner bowl walls. They looked very good with little burn or damage. The cake had protected them.

I fine tuned the sanding on the stem and shank fit with 220 grit sandpaper and shaped the stem to match the oval of the shank. The flow of the bowl and stem were looking really good at this point in the process.

I cleaned out the inside of the mortise and the airway in the stem and shank with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. I used the dark brown stain pen to touch up the rim and the end of the shank to match the stain colour on the rest of the pipe. I rubbed it down with a light coat of olive oil to give some life to the dry wood. I gave the bowl a quick buff with Blue Diamond and then gave it one coat of carnauba wax and hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth. The “new” look of the bowl is shown in the photos below.

With the bowl stained and oiled I used a heat gun to bend the stem and get the proper angles that I had found online on the 268 shaped pipes. I heated the stem until it was pliable and then bent it over a round can to get a smooth angle. I took photos of the pipe with a bent stem to give a feel for the finished look.

I fine tuned the fit of the stem to the shank by beveling the inner edge of the mortise in the shank and then cleaning the area around the tenon stem joint. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh and then rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded it with 3200-4000 grit micromesh pads and gave it another coat of oil. I finished sanding with 6000-12000 grit micromesh pads and gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil. I laid the stem aside to dry.

I put the stem on the pipe and buffed the entirety with Blue Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad and then by hand with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It is ready to go back to Chile. Sometime early this week I will pack the two repaired pipes up and make the trip to FEDEX to send them back. I look forward to hearing what the two of them smoke like for the Chilean pipeman. I like the new looks of both of these pipes and I think he will as well. But I have to tell you I am a sucker for the Zulu shaped Petersons. This one is a beauty!

Fixing a Botched Repair on a Bearded Sultan Meerschaum

7 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

I received and email from a pipe smoker in Chile regarding a meerschaum and a Shamrock pipe that he had that needed repairs and he was wondering if I would be interested in working on them. The Shamrock was straightforward in that all it needed was a cleanup and a new stem. The meerschaum though had some real issues. He wrote me explaining the details of the meerschaum’s problems as follows:

Actually – I now realize – the mouthpiece IS broken at the band. Though the slice seems clean, I realize it is not perfect. The band looks nice though I don’t know if it came that way originally or not. It does cover the slice of the stem. The whole mouthpiece is amber; nothing holds it together except the band. Not glued nor cemented.

The misalignment isn’t only due to the slice but even if I make an effort at aligning the pieces once screwed in, it just won’t be straight.

The pipe needs a new mouthpiece, apart from cleaning. I don’t know if a new beeswax dip is a good idea…It seems dry as marble…no glow… There is a small chip on the rim of the bowl, but the rest seems to be OK.

It’s not your everyday meerschaum but it doesn’t seem unsmokable. I did smoke it once years ago and as I said, it leaks, leaves a mess. I realize why now, but I don’t think it’s only due to the broken stem but also at the screw point.

Can you help me? You tell me. He included the next photos. I wrote him back and said I believed I could help.

He sent the package to me by FEDEX and I picked it up this morning. When I opened the package and looked over the meerschaum pipe that was sent repair. I made a list of the issues that I was looking at with this pipe. It was actually far worse and far better than I thought when we corresponded.
1. The stem indeed was broken about one inch up from the shank. It almost looked like it was sliced rather than broken.

2. The broken piece with the metal stinger apparatus obviously had broken into further pieces when the tenon insert was put into it. There were several smaller chips that had come off the broken piece and had been glued on. The smaller cracks still showed.

3. The stem is not amber at all, but appears to be Bakelite or some kind of acrylic material. That explains the clean break on the piece and the rest of the stem.

4. The stem that I was looking at was not the original stem. It is actually an oval stem while the shank of the meer is round. Someone fiddled with the stem to make a poor fit.

5. The “silver band” serves two purposes on this stem – first it is cosmetic to cover the broken stem and secondly it hides the fact that the stem is not round.

6. The shank had been cut off – probably had cracks in it as there are still several that have been repaired showing. Looking at the end of the shank with a lens shows rough meerschaum.

7. Sometime during the lifetime of the pipe someone had threaded a metal mortise into the shank of the pipe. It is like the ones that can be found in Kaywoodie pipes or Willard pipes – those that have a threaded tenon and a metal shank insert. In turning it into the shank the meerschaum had split on one side and slivered on the other. This had been repaired when the insert was glued in place.

8. The threaded tenon apparatus matches the insert in the mortise but is misaligned. It also has been epoxied in place so it is not movable. It is obviously not the correct tenon for this kind of pipe. I am pretty certain that both the mortise insert and tenon are incorrect and were later additions on this pipe. The original would have had either a threaded tenon or I think, more likely in this pipe due to age, a nylon insert and a push tenon. Both were replaced when the original stem was lost.

9. The carving on the face was actually quite nice but the sides and smooth portions were not nearly as well done. The back edge of the turban and beard still had carving marks that are usually removed by the better carvers.

10. The bowl had a chip out of the front edge of the rim as noted and had scratches and rim darkening.

11. The meerschaum itself was actually very dirty and dry. There was a fine metallic dust on the grooves of the turban and the beard. It was silver coloured and gave the meerschaum a grey look.

With that long list of issues with the pipe I wrote to the shipper with my suggestion. I concurred with his assessment that it needed to be restemmed. It would be an interesting challenge as I could not remove the metal shank insert without damage to the meerschaum so I would have to figure out some kind of compromise that would work with that mortise. I suggested a stem that I had that came with a meerschaum pipe similar to this one. It is a yellow unique stem with a push tenon. I tried it with the metal mortise insert to see if it would work and it fits really well. The new stem was about an inch longer than the one that arrived with the pipe and looked really good on the pipe.

I took some photos of the pipe with the stem attached so that you could see the state of the fit of the stem when it arrived. You can see that the band is also quite poorly done – all the edges are not even or smooth.

I also removed the stem and took the pieces apart. The stem was indeed broken under the band. It definitely was not amber. You can see the sliced piece and the remainder of the stem as well as the metal mortise edges in the shank in the photo below. I took a photo of the end of the broken piece to show that it was oval while the shank was round. The second photo below shows the cracks and chips that had been repaired on the piece underneath the metal band. Obviously this is not the original stem. The third photo shows the end of the shank – it is round – and the metal threaded mortise insert.

I took the next two photos to show the damage to the shank and the poorly done job of adding the threaded mortise insert. The small crack is about a half inch long and can be seen running from the metal insert edge about mid-shank edge on the left side. There are also chips of meerschaum that had been reglued.

I went through my can of stems and found a new stem whose length and shape was right for this pipe. The diameter of the stem at the shank was slightly larger than the shank on the right side and top. It would also need to be bent slightly more but I liked the look of the pipe with the new stem.

I used a topping board to flatten the metal disk on the top of the mortise insert as it had curled at the edges and would not allow the new stem to seat against it properly. I sanded the sides of the stem on the saddle with 220 grit sandpaper to align it with the diameter of the shank of the pipe. I removed the push tenon from the stem and cleaned out the airway with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and alcohol to remove all of the tars and staining on the inside. It looked like a dark brown striped up the middle of the stem when I started and when I was finished it looked very clean.

I heated the stem with a heat gun until it was flexible and then bent it to match the curve of the shank and allowed the pipe to sit horizontally when in the mouth. I set the bend with cool water and then pushed it into the mortise insert and took the following photo to show the new look of the pipe. I scrubbed the meerschaum with a soft tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap. I rinsed it carefully with cool water to remove the soap and scum. I dried it off with cotton pads and was able to remove more of the grime in the grooves.

I waxed the meer with white beeswax and hand buffed it with a shoe brush. It has begun to take on the glow that comes to a well waxed meerschaum. I took the full facial photo to show the clean look of the pipe. With the bowl cleaned I turned my attention to the new stem. I had sanded the saddle area with 220 grit sandpaper and needed to polish that portion. I used a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh and then dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads.

I buffed the stem with Blue Diamond and hand buffed the pipe with some beeswax and a shoe brush. I took the photos below of the finished pipe. Considering the many issues of this pipe when I started working on it, the finished pipe looks really good. I left many of the gouges and scratches in the meerschaum as they add character and to remove them would change the shape of the carving. I like the new stem – the bend is perfect for it to hang effortlessly in the mouth when smoking. The draw is wide open and should smoke really well. The push tenon works well with the metal mortise and sits snug against the shank. Soon it will go back to Chile and it owner. He will have the pleasure of finally smoking this old pipe and enjoying it.

Restemming and restoring an oval shank billiard with issues

1 Reply

Blog by Steve Laug

I was gifted an oval shank billiard with a broken tenon and no stem by a fellow pipe refurbisher. He knows I like a challenge so he thought that maybe this would be a fun one for me to fiddle with. I looked at it when I unpacked it and spent more time looking at it over the weekend. When I first picked it up I put it in the bin of pipe to be refurbished and pretty much figured it would be one of those that I picked up when I had nothing else to work on. I have a few of those sitting in the bottom of the box. On Sunday I was going through the box trying to decide which pipe I would work on next and picked it up. There was something about it that drew me to work on it next. I can’t tell you what that was; I have no words to describe it. I know though that those of you who refurbish pipes know the feeling and the call of certain pipes. This was one of those. So it came to my work table.

Now that I had made a decision to work on it I took time to look it over and assess it. That is what I always do when I work on a pipe. I look it over and list out what needs to be addressed if I am to bring this pipe back to life. I like to enter into the work with a clear idea of what needs to be done. Doing this keeps me from finding those issues that surprise you in the process – at least most of the time it does. There will always be exceptions to the rule. For this pipe it was pretty straight forward.
Here is a list of the issues:

1. The finish was very rough and the darkening of the briar around the middle of the bowl was worrisome. It was hard to tell if it was potential burnout starting to happen – thus darkening the briar or if it was dirt and grime. I was pretty sure it was just soiled and stained but could not tell for sure until I had reamed the bowl.

2. There were scratches and dents all over the surface of the bowl.

3. There was one large fill on the right side of the bowl, mid-bowl that would need some work. I would either need to pick it out and refill it or repair it.

4. There was a burn mark on the underside of the shank mid-shank.

5. There appeared to be a small crack on the bottom of the shank at the place the stem and shank meet. It extends inward about a quarter inch. It was hard to see as it was hidden in the dings on the bottom of the shank from when the pipe had been dropped and the stem broken.

6. The bowl had a thick cake in it to the point that the tip of my little finger was about all that would fit in the bowl.

7. The rim had nicks and damage to the surface as well as a lava overflow from the cake in the bowl.

8. The stamping was virtually nonexistent. All that remained was a faint stamp on the left top side of the shank near the end – it read Made in London. It would definitely disappear if I banded the pipe to deal with the crack.

9. The airway in the shank and mortise was dirty and clogged. I could push air through it but barely when I blew through the end of the shank.

10. There was a broken tenon stuck in the shank. Generally these are pretty straight forward so I was not too worried about removing it.

11. There was no stem to work from as a model and the oval shank would make matching it a challenge.

Here is what the pipe looked like when I brought it to the work table.

I started the cleanup by pulling the broken tenon. I used the normal drywall screw and had the tools handy. In this case I threaded the screw in gently and was able to pull the tenon out by hand very easily.

I turned to my can of stems for a potential stem. I actually had one that was a decent fit. The tenon was perfect and the fit against the shank end was ideal. The diameter of the stem on the bottom of the oval was too big and would need to be sanded to a correct fit. It happened to be the only oval stem I had at the moment and it was a twin bore bite proof stem. I was careful in fitting the stem because of the small crack in the shank.

I used the Dremel and sanding drum to take off the excess rubber on the bottom of the stem. This may be a funny thing to say but as I examined the stem after I fit it to the shank I noticed it had a small hole near the button. When I turned it over to check it out then I noticed that I was dealing with a bite proof stem – a stem with two airholes coming out of the button from the single airway in the stem. Picture the letter Y and you have a good picture of the stem. I inserted a greased pipe cleaner in the airway on left airhole and then repaired the hole in the underside of the stem. I used black super glue to fill it and built it up to give a good base. When it dried I sanded it smooth with 220 grit sandpaper to blend it into the surface of the stem.

Reaming the bowl took some effort and several different reamers. I used the PipNet reamer to start and then worked on the bowl with a KLEENREEM reamer. I finished by using a pen knife to clean out the last remnant of carbon in the bowl. I cleaned out the airway in the shank and the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol.

I topped the bowl on my sanding board and lightly sanded the cracked area and damage on the bottom of the shank end.

I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and then with a medium sanding sponge to smooth out the scratches. I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to remove the grime and the remaining finish. The new stem fit really well and I only wished that the shank did not have the small crack that mad banding a necessity.

I cleaned the area around the fill on the right side and repaired it with super glue. I sanded it smooth and then sanded the bowl with a medium grit sanding sponge. I heated the briar with a heat gun and then applied a coat of cherry stain to it. The stain took well and sat deeply in the grain of the bowl.

With the stain in place the crack on the underside of the shank was very visible. It was mid shank and extended about ¼ inch. At this point I had to decide how to address this crack. I could do a shank insert and do an internal repair or I could band it. In looking over the shank I realized that the tenon was already quite thin and I would be hard pressed to make it smaller to fit inside of a shank insert. I would need to band the pipe. I had a round band that would fit once I flattened it. I opened the crack with a dental pick and filled it with glue to repair the crack and then pressed the band into place on the shank.

I lightly sanded the tenon as the band made the fit in the shank too tight. I put the stem in place and took the next photo to get an idea of the new look. I set the bowl aside and worked on the stem. I sanded it with micromesh sanding pads. I did my usual routine with the micromesh pads – wet sanding with the 1500-2400 grit and dry sanding with the rest of the pads up to 12000 grit. I used Obsidian Oil as usual.

I buffed the nickel band with a jeweller’s cloth and buffed the pipe on the wheel with Blue Diamond polish. I gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it on a clean flannel buffing wheel and then by hand with a microfibre cloth to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown below. I think that taking the time to recondition and restore this pipe paid off with a beautiful oval shank billiard. Thanks for looking.

A DadsPipe is Reborn! – Reinventing a Fletcher Billiard

5 Replies

Blog by Charles Lemon

I was just putting the finishing touches on this pipe refurb when Steve Laug invited me to write a guest blog for rebornpipes. Timing couldn’t have been better, as the restoration of this old Fletcher billiard epitomizes for me the spirit of rebornpipes – taking an old, worn pipe and creating from it a beautiful and functional smoking companion.

Thanks for having me drop in on rebornpipes, Steve. I hope you and your readers enjoy this restoration journey.
– Charles
—–
I’ve had this old billiard pipe in my refurb box for a while now, so I decided that it was time to do something with it. It’s stamped “Fletcher, Genuine Briar, 4” on the flat bottom. A search online turned up absolutely nothing about the brand, though I can surmise that it was made somewhere in the USA circa 1950 to 1970 or so.

The bowl had a worn sandblast finish, and though covered in dirt, appeared to be in decent shape. There was a bit of cake buildup and tar on the rim that would clean up easily enough, but the stem was another matter. At some point in its history, the button had broken or been bitten off, and the remaining stem had been crudely “MacGuyvered” to allow the piper to continue smoking it. A file had been used to roughly gouge a line across the top and bottom of the broken bit to give at least some purchase in the teeth, and it had been left like that until the piper again bit through the stem, this time removing a chunk from the bottom of the “new bit”. This guy was a real pitbull!

I decided that, with about 3/4 of an inch missing, the mangled stem was too far gone to attempt to save it so I dug about in my stem box and came up with a replacement that fit the bill. This stem is brother to the one I used on my first parts pipe. They were both salvaged from estate pipes with ruined bowls, and both have the large silver dot on the side. The tenon on the replacement stem needed only a bit of tweaking with sandpaper to fit snugly in the mortise. As you can see in this pic, the shank diameter is a bit larger than that of the stem, so there will be some reshaping to do to get the flow right from bowl to button, but I like the shape of things to come. With the stem problem sorted, I got to work cleaning both stem and stummel before I got too far ahead of myself. I used my Castleford reamer to take the cake in the bowl back to bare wood. Luckily there was no damage hiding underneath, so I moved to the exterior, scrubbing the sandblast finish with Murphy’s Oil Soap and an old toothbrush. This lifted an inordinate amount of gunk from the stummel, leaving the briar quite patchy in places. I decided that a complete stripping of the old finish was in order, so I dropped the stummel into an alcohol bath, the stem into a Oxyclean bath, and left them to soak overnight.

The following day I retrieved the stummel from its soak and rubbed it in an old towel. To my surprise, most of the black topcoat came off on the towel! My guess is that our intrepid DIY piper “fixed” his pipe’s worn finish with a liberal application of black shoe polish….. I wiped the stummel down with acetone to remove as much of the loose colour as I could and then finished the basic cleanup of the stummel by scrubbing the airway and shank with alcohol & pipe cleaners.

The stem cleaned up easily enough after its Oxyclean soak with a run of 600 – 2000 grit wet sandpapers and a few pipe cleaners dipped in alcohol. Removing the built-up wax and dirt from the stummel had revealed a flaw in the briar. A “fault line” of sorts wound its way across the lower front face of the bowl. There was no indication that the flaw extended through to the tobacco chamber, but I flowed some CA glue into the line anyway. This may or may not have been necessary, but at least this way I hope that the line won’t expand to a crack the first time I light the pipe.

I also found a small flaw in the rim, which I filled with CA glue and briar dust. I topped the bowl lightly after the fill cured to sand it down flush with the rim and remove a few small rim dents at the same time.

As I pondered how to refinish the pipe, I worked on the shank with various grades of sandpaper to reduce the diameter to match that of the stem and generally improve the flow of the shape from shank to stem. This smoothed out the sandblast on the shank, so I decided to rusticate the entire stummel to replace the texture and hopefully disguise the stabilized fault line on the bowl face. For this I used a round carving burr mounted in my rotary tool, working my way around the stummel until the entire surface had been carved, eradicating the sandblast. I then made a second pass with the burr, carving deeper lines and pits into the briar to give a chunkier finish and help blend in a few deeper pits left from the sandblasting process. I finished up the new rusticated finish by going over the entire stummel very lightly with a wood rasp to knock off a few sharp points and rough edges.

I left the stummel at this point and went back to the stem to address a few issues there. The bite area had several deep tooth dents top and bottom and the button was quite worn. I dealt with both issues by mixing up some CA glue and activated charcoal powder and layering this mixture onto the stem, filling the tooth dents and building up enough material to carve a new button.

This repair always looks plain nasty at this point, but quickly improves once the CA has cured and I can get at the rough lumps of material with a file. I start by cutting the sharp leading edge of the button. This establishes the demarcation point between button and stem. After I have a nice sharp line all the way around the stem, I use files and sandpaper to remove excess material and create an even button height that matches the curvature of the stem.

Now in the home stretch of this restoration, I cleaned up the dust generated by the stem repair and set up my workbench for staining the pipe. I applied a two-step finish to the briar, starting with a diluted mixture of Fiebing’s Saddle Tan and Brown leather dyes. This matched the original colour of the smooth area on the bottom of the stummel, which will help tie this area in with the new smooth area on the bowl rim. When the first stain coat was dry, I rubbed off the excess colour with an old towel and applied a topcoat of stain made with Dark Brown and a little Black dye mixed together. I let this dry fully before scrubbing the stain off the high areas with 0000 steel wool. This exposed the lighter tan colour underneath, but left the black in the low areas of the rustication.

I finished the staining by wiping the stummel with mineral oil to add depth to the finish and moisturize the briar. Then it was off to the buffer for a run of White Diamond and several coats of Carnauba wax. This old Fletcher pipe is unrecognizable as the pipe I started with. I rather like the chunky rustication and the new stain. The grain on the rim and flat bottom really pops. A side benefit of old briar like this is the light weight. The pipe tips the scales at a mere 32 grams or 1.1 ounce. This rejuvenated old soul will be a comfortable all-day companion to its next piper. Here’s the finished pipe:

Breathing New Life into a mystery pipe and in the process finding out that it is a GBD

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Blog by Steve Laug

I picked up this bowl in a purchase of bowls on EBay recently. All of them had a broken tenon in the shank and this one was no different. All of the bowls had stamping that was pretty unreadable or not present at all. This one had very faint stamping. When I first looked at it I put it aside and was in no rush to restem another bowl. Yesterday I took it out of the box and had a look at it through a lens with a bright light. I was pretty surprised to see that there was a faint GBD in an oval and underneath that it was stamped PREMIER and under that London Made. The shape number on the other side of the shank and any other stamping was gone. In the next three photos below it is circled in red – in the first it is the second bowl down in the left hand column. In the second it is the second one down and in the third it is at the top of the photo in the middle.

It was in pretty rough shape but underneath the grime there was a classic shaped billiard that was just waiting to be reborn. The finish on the bowl was worn, tired and water spotted. The rim was very rough from tapping out and was rounded on the edges. The bowl was caked but it also had about a half bowl of unsmoked tobacco. It also had the tenon broken off in the shank of the pipe. It almost looked as if the owner had dropped it mid smoke and the stem broke off and he just laid it aside. There were some serious deep gouges in the bottom right side of the bowl. It looked as if it was part of the fallout when the pipe was dropped. The photos below show what the pipe looked like when I received it. You can also see why I missed the stamping on the side of the shank.

When it arrived I used my usual process and pulled the broken tenons from all of the shanks. I used a screwdriver, pliers and a drywall screw. I thread the screw into the airway on the broken tenon and then use the pliers to wiggle it free. You can see how it works in the photos below. I removed five broken tenons in a matter of moments.

At this point I put all five bowls away and did not look at them for almost a month. The past two days I have been through them and already restemmed the tiny apple. This one came out next from the box. I wet the stem and looked at it through a lens with a bright light. That is when I discovered that the mystery pipe was a GBD. There was no shape number but it was a petite billiard. I had a stem in my stem can that was nearly perfect for the pipe. It did not have a GBD logo but it fit really well. I only needed to shorten the length of the tenon and the left side of the stem to get a perfect fit.

I wiped down the bowl with acetone to see what I was working with under the grime. I took a few photos of the bowl to show what it looked like.

I shortened the tenon and the fit was great against the shank. Now all that remained was to sand and clean the stem. I used a dental pick to remove the dottle from the bowl. You can see the amount of unburned tobacco that remained in the bowl. I think my theory of being dropped mid smoke was pretty accurate. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and took the cake back to bare briar. The bowl was between the smallest sized cutting head and the second one so I could only do a part of the job with the reamer. The round bowl made it not feasible to work with the KLEENREEM reamer. I cleaned up what remained with a pen knife to smooth out the walls of the pipe.

In the photo above shows the damage to rim top and the inner and outer edge of the rim. I decided to top the bowl to clean up as much as possible of the rim damage.

I repaired the deep gouges on the right side of the bowl with superglue and briar dust. I would have tried to steam them out but they had sharp edges on all of the marks and steaming would not have raised them. I sanded the dried repairs with 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surface of the briar. You will see in later picture what that looked like. I started to clean out the shank and stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol and soon began to realize that it was far dirtier than I initially expected.

I put the stem on the shank and set up the pipe retort. I boiled three test tubes of alcohol through the bowl and stem until it finally came out clear. The second photo is a cool picture of the boiling alcohol. I had to include it!

I ran pipe cleaners, a shank brush, cotton swabs and alcohol through the stem and shank to remove what was left behind by the retort and was pleased to see how clean it was. One surprise to me was the red stain that came out of the shank. Evidently the pipe had originally been stained with a oxblood stain. You would never have guessed that looking at what I started with. Now that the internals were clean I took a series of photos of the pipe to show where it stood at this point. In these photos you can see the repairs on the right side of the bowl.

Now it was time to polish the stem and work on the finish of the pipe. I worked on the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to remove the grime and the oxidation on the stem. I don’t know what was on this stem but it was tacky, gummed up the sandpaper and was hard to clean. I wiped it down with alcohol and then repeated the sanding. I was able to remove the oxidation and the tooth chatter at the button. I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and then giving the stem a coat of Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads and gave it another coat of oil. I finished with 6000-12000 grit pads and gave it a final coat of the oil. I let that dry.

I sanded the bowl with 1500-4000 grit micromesh to smooth out the sanding marks. I wiped the bowl down with a tack cloth and then gave it a coat of Cherry stain mixed with Danish Oil. I buffed it by hand and gave it a second coat. I set it aside to dry. Once it was dry I buffed it by hand with a soft microfibre cloth.

I put the stem on the pipe and then buffed the stem and bowl with Blue Diamond on the wheel and then gave the bowl and stem several coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buff to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to give a deeper shine to the pipe. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below.The cherry stain brings out the grain and at the same time hides the repairs. While the pipe will never win any contests for beauty or perfection that must have once accompanied the PREMIER it is nonetheless fully functional and should deliver the next pipe man who owns a decent smoke at a decent price. Thanks for looking.