Tag Archives: fitting a stem

The Screwy Nature of the Jenkins Truly Dry System Billiard – Robert M. Boughton

Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.roadrunnerpipes.com
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
— Confucius (551-479 BC), Chinese philosopher, teacher, editor and politician

INTRODUCTION
I had two main concerns when another pipe lot arrived in the mail and I turned one of the diverse examples in my hands: the head of a screw tightened flush with the draught end of the bottom of the shank, just before the chamber, and my serious doubts that whatever purpose a screw might serve could be legitimate. In other words, I was afraid to remove the thing for fear the pipe, which otherwise had potential for elegance, would fall to pieces if I did so. Before attempting to remove the ominous screw, I tried blowing through the open end of the shank, only to become red in the face and breathless with failure. Then I turned to running an alcohol-soaked pipe cleaner through the shank and found that it, also, was blocked, although the cleaner came out with only a light rusty color, a fact I told myself was promising. For the first time in my restoration experience, I had a structural problem with which to deal. I was elated.

Now, don’t go and think I’m some sort of nut who gets his jollies working on broken things. For the most part I satisfy myself making old, abused or “well-used” pipes beautiful again. From upcoming photos, the need for this treatment on the bizarre Jenkins billiard this blog is about will be obvious. It’s just that until this pipe, the only kind of restoration I had done was of the basic variety. At last, I had an opportunity to tinker around and make adjustments to a pipe’s infrastructure, if you will. Hence, I felt the butterfly effect in my stomach.

Before touching whatever was screwed into the bottom of the pipe – I only describe the device this way now, as at the time I had no reason to suspect it might be anything but an average screw – I thought it advisable to see if I could find a Jenkins Pipe Co. or the like anywhere online. I started with pipephil.eu, my favorite first stop, but found no mention of the brand. And so I resorted to pipedia.com, which, as a user-generated source of information, can be more dubious in its reliability. Still I found no mention of the maker, despite the crisp, clear nomenclature including an elaborate brand stamp. Having spent two days using more than every word combination in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy to track down the pipe’s origin, with both Google and Yahoo search engines, and finding everything but a plausible reference to the Jenkins who made this beautiful if weird pipe, my patience, wits and research skills (short of doing something crazy like going to the library) were exhausted. I must now hope for knowledgeable feedback from readers of this blog, or maybe our host.

The closest I came was a patent issued to one Eric G. Jenkins in 1959 for a wild but unique spring contraption to be used for tamping the spent ashes of pipe tobacco from the chamber into a suitable receptacle, without risking damage to the pipe or staining of the fingers, to which I gather pipe enjoyers back in the day had no other way to avoid. [See first hyperlink at the end of the blog. Thinking about it, the idea occurs to me that this is just the sort of Jenkins who could design the device used in the Ever Dry.

Remember, this was before the now ubiquitous three-piece pocket pipe tool was patented in the early 1970s.

RESTORATION
My routine in these blogs has been to take a linear path showing, with words and photos, what it was like, what happened, and what it is like now. But this restore was far more indirect, and so to guide me in my description of it I organized my photos to prompt my memory of just what it was I did, and when, to fix this Jenkins TrulyDry system pipe. That noted I will nevertheless begin with what it was like: As some may have noticed in a few of the photos above, the stem and shank were uneven. In fact, I had to place the entire pipe in the refrigerator for close to an hour before I could even make the stem budge much less remove it. That feat came with more time in the cooler. The problem with the alignment, I soon learned, was remedied without trouble by cleaning off the buildup of some substance, with which I am not familiar, from the tenon. Confident enough to continue with the removal of the screwy, old-fashioned tenon attachment-like gizmo that was over-tightened into the bottom of the shank, I did so with extreme care and slowness, listening all the while for something like a nut to come undone inside. But there was no such sound. Right away, it was apparent that the object removed from the shank was not a regular screw employed in an ad lib repair but something designed for a purpose, however inexplicable. Able to blow through the shank, at least, I decided it was time to clean the pipe after reaming and sanding the chamber and using super fine steel wool on the rim to remove the blackness there.

Without much hope that the pipe would have any draw on it when I replaced the screw, I was, therefore, not disappointed to find I was correct. But an idea came to me, and I loosened the screw just one full turn, allowing me to blow and inhale through the intact pipe. I removed the ventilator again and set it aside for the remaining work on the wood.

I cleaned up most of the scattered scratches either with 1500 micromesh or 400-grit paper and then rubbed the entire area of wood with the 1500 followed by 3600. The result was, as one reader of another recent blog commented, baby smooth. I also only had to re-stain a few small patches of the wood, not counting the rim.The stem required heavy sanding with 400-grit paper to fix all of the scratches, teeth chatter and uneven bit, followed by 1500 and then 3600 micromesh.

When I had prepped the pieces better than I had ever done before, the buffing brought out a brilliant, dark reddish luster. CONCLUSION
I emailed my blog-in-progress to a retired engineer friend of mine, who looked over the text and photos and called me to arrange a meeting at McDonald’s the next morning. Armed with my laptop, an iced coffee and two printouts of the ash removal system patent that even I could see did not match the device used in the Ever Dry, I was relieved when I saw my friend walk through the door.

Confirming my conclusion concerning what the valve was not, my friend determined by the design and placement of the device that it was some sort of ventilator, however obtuse in planning and execution, that was intended to release heat and maybe even to collect moisture and small pieces of tobacco with the valve extended almost all the way. The engineer’s analysis made sense, and, happy to have an explanation of the atypical screw valve to present in this blog space, I embraced it.

At that time, I experienced another one of my moments of clarity. Seeing the intentional groove cut into the wood, I suggested that it would accommodate storage of the device with the valve retracted at times when the pipe was not being enjoyed. The engineer concurred.

Still later, while making the extensive but necessary revisions to my original version that had been debunked by the good engineer, I recalled an enlightening and lengthy online article concerning and titled “The Revolution of the System Pipe,” by Don Duco. The general knowledge and research behind the study of the evolution of system pipes around the globe is exhaustive.

I flashed on a description of the original Kirsten metal pipes with screw-on briar bowls and their inclusion of a closure system between the bowl and the shank that accomplished the same result of the screw valve on the Jenkins, and realized the design of the mechanism in the Jenkins pipe was nothing more than an adaptation of the early Kirsten, despite the newer, cruder method.

Still, whoever owned the Jenkins pipe brand must have been a frustrated engineer, if only by the aesthetic evidence, for being inspired by the notion of screwing something that, when the pipe is being enjoyed, dangles downward with an obvious and alarming attraction of attention. Besides, anyone, whether or not a connoisseur of pipes but not familiar with the Jenkins system, seeing one with the head of a screw in the bottom of it, would think it some sort of jury-rigged attempt to hold the pipe together.

As my father often pointed out, it takes all kinds.

WEBSITES TO VISIT

http://www.google.com/patents/US2886044 (Click on View as PDF for official USPTO document.)

http://www.pijpenkabinet.nl/Artikelen/Systeempijp/art-E-systeempijp.html

Reclaiming a Kaywoodie White Briar Medium Pear 09B

2 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

The last pipe in my box is now finished! It is a Kaywoodie White Briar pipe. Among the many White Briar pipes I have found this one has the distinction of actually being in pretty decent shape. All of the others I have found had many chips in the paint and the paint itself was dull and worn through. Not this one. The finish was in pretty decent shape with only a few nicks on the bottom of the bowl and some that might show up under the thick tars on the rim. It is stamped Kaywoodie over White Briar over Imported Briar on the left side of the shank and 09B on the right side. Looking up the shape number I found that the shape is known as a medium pear which was available on the market from 1936-1972. I have no idea when this one was made as the stem that is shown below came from my can of stems. It fits perfectly and it is an old four hole stinger stem. It was worn and oxidized by the fit was correct. It has some calcification that would need to be cleaned and it was clogged. The bowl had a thick cake that I reamed out with a PipNet reamer. The shank was dirty and the aluminum face plate on the end of the shank was oxidized. I scrubbed the rim with spit and cotton pads and then used Meguiar’s Scratch X2.0 on cotton pads to remove the tars and oils on the top of the rim. The worn spots shown in the photo below are actually spots where the tars still remain. More scrubbing removed most of them.I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the oxidation, calcification, and tooth chatter that was near the button on the top and bottom of the stem. I used a needle file to sharpen the crease of the button and then sanded the repair with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the file marks. I sanded the stem with medium and fine grit sanding sponges to minimize the scratching left behind by the sandpaper.I cleaned out the shank and the stem with alcohol and cotton swabs and pipe cleaners until they came out clean. I used cotton pads and alcohol and a brass bristle brush to clean up the stinger apparatus and polish it. I gave the aluminum shank end a quick sand with a 1500 grit micromesh sanding pad to polish it up. I scrubbed the surface of the bowl with Scratch X2.0 on cotton pads to remove the grime and polish the painted surface of the bowl. I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. As has become my habit, I rubbed down the stem with Obsidian Oil between each set of three sanding pads and then gave it a light buff with White Diamond before rubbing on a final coat of oil. The photo below shows the cleaned up internals of the pipe and stinger. The aluminum took on a shine once it was clean.The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It is cleaned and ready to smoke. The White Briar KWs were never favourites of mine but this one turned out very well. I am sure that it will make a great rack mate to someone who collects KW pipes and wants to add a shape 09B. Feel free to contact me if you would like to have this one. We can certainly work something out. I am sure it will smoke great and last for many more years to come.

Bringing an acorn shaped bowl back to life – wondering if there was a point to this exercise.

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Blog by Steve Laug

When I took this old bowl out of the box – last of two pipes to refurbish in my box – I looked at it and wondered what the point would be to clean it up. It had three large and visible fills on the bowl back left side and bottom of the shank and bowl. The finish was shot and it did not have a stem. I sorted through my can of stem and found a threaded Kaywoodie stem that had a short stinger and some scored threads. I tried it in the metal mortis on this pipe and it actually fit perfectly with no overage. The stamping on the old bowl remains a mystery to me – it is stamped on the left side of the shank as follows: HHG over Imported Briar. There is no other stamping at all on the pipe. So far I am unable to find any information on it at all. Who Made That Pipe has the listing but says maker unknown. I do know that the Imported Briar stamping makes it likely that the pipe is an American made pipe post WWII. Other than that I am at a loss. The two fills were solid and undamaged and the putty was a light brown. The finish was shot and opaque. It was hard to see what the grain looked like underneath. The rim was darkened but undamaged. The photo below shows the three fills that were very present on the bowl. The potential grain shows through on the bottom of the shank and led me to have a little hope that underneath the opaque ruined finish would be some nice grain.I screwed the stem in place on the shank to have a look at the shape and fit with the pipe. It actually looked quite good with the long, slender stem. The stem had oxidation and calcium build ups on the top and bottom but would clean up nicely. I wiped down the bowl with alcohol (ran out of acetone) and scrubbed the surface to remove the finish. Without the acetone I would need to sand the bowl. I set up a topping board and used 220 grit sandpaper to remove the thick darkening on the rim. I lightly topped it so as not to change the profile or look of the pipe. I sanded the bowl and stem with 220 grit sandpaper and then with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to remove the remnants of the old finish on the bowl and the buildup of calcium on the stem. Some nice birdseye grain was underneath the finish on the right and left sides of the bowl. I cleaned the metal tenon with alcohol and then sanded the rough areas on the threads to clean up the aluminum damage. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and medium and fine grit sanding sponges to remove the tooth indentations that were underneath the calcified buildup. I used a Bic lighter to paint the surface of the stem and lift the tooth dents. Once they had lifted I redefined the crease of the button with needle files. I sanded it with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three sanding pads. When I finished sanding with the 12,000 grit pad I buffed it lightly with White Diamond and gave it another coat of Obsidian Oil. I set it aside while I worked on the bowl. I wiped down the bowl one final time with alcohol before staining it with a dark brown aniline stain. I applied the stain and flamed it and repeated the process until the coverage was even. I wiped down the bowl with alcohol on cotton pads to remove some of the dark heavy colour of the brown stain and to make it more transparent. Once I had it to the point where I could see through the stain to the grain I quit wiping it down. The trick was to make the stain transparent enough to highlight the grain but at the same time minimize the three fills. Once I had the stain at the place I wanted I put the stem back on the pipe and took it to the buffer. I buffed the bowl with red Tripoli to polish and buff through the dark areas that remained on the stain coat. I buffed the bowl until it met the look I was aiming for. I then buffed the bowl and stem with White Diamond and gave them multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it finally with a soft flannel buff to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown below. It actually came out quite well and should provide a great yard pipe for someone down the line. I expect this will be another pipe that I gift to a pipeman I meet along the way. If anyone has some clues as to the maker of this pipe let me know. It turned out to be worth working on after all. I am pleased with what came out of an otherwise ignoble old pipe bowl without a stem that had been sitting in my box for quite awhile as I ignored it and worked on other bowls and stems.

The Sentimental Journey Continued – Restoring a Second Medico, a Smooth Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

In a previous post called a Sentimental Journey I wrote of why Medico’s always get attention when they cross my desk. Last evening I reached into my box of pipes to be refurbished and pulled out the next pipe to clean up and it too was Medico – this time it was a smooth billiard. The finish was worn and the varnish was peeling off the bowl. The rim was badly knocked around so there was damage on the outer edge at the front of the bowl and the back. There was a heavy build up on top of the damage and the bowl had a thick cake at mid bowl – not much at the top or bottom. The stamping was the same as the previous pipe – MEDICO on the left side of the shank and Imported Briar Italy on the right side. A bonus for me was that the stem I had work on for the little Rhodesian fit this one and only needed adjustment in the diameter of the stem. It had the metal tenon that was generally on Medico pipes and would hold the Medico paper filter as per design. The rest of the stem was vulcanite not nylon which was a bonus. I cleaned out the shank and fit the stem in place to see how much sanding I would need to do to match the diameter of the shank. It did not look like it would take very much to bring it in line. I would need to sand the aluminum band on the stem at the same time so I would need to be careful to not create dips or valleys next to it on the softer vulcanite when sanding. I sanded the stem with 150 grit sandpaper to reduce the diameter of the stem.I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer using the smallest cutting head to clean it out.To clean up the rim damage I topped the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper to take down the rim and reduce the rough pitting on the outer edge. I also sanded around the edge of the rim to smooth out the remaining roughness.I wanted to get rid of the peeling varnish on the bowl so I wiped it down with acetone on cotton pads to remove it. It took a lot of scrubbing as the varnish was very stubborn.I sanded the bowl and the rim with 220 grit sandpaper and then with medium and fine grit sanding sponges to remove more of the finish and reduce the scratching on the bowl. I sanded it with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge before wiping it down one last time with alcohol. I decided to stain it with an aniline based oxblood stain. I applied it and then flamed it to set it in the grain. I rubbed the excess stain off with an alcohol dampened cloth and then hand buffed it with a shoe brush. This old Medico had some really nice grain and was a far better piece of briar than I had expected. I sanded the bowl with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and then buffed it with White Diamond to smooth out the bowl further. I gave it a coat of carnauba wax and buffed it lightly. I finished the work on the stem fit and then sanded it with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil and moved through each successive set of three pads. Once I had finished sanding it I rubbed it down a final time with the oil and gave it a buff with White Diamond. I put the pipe back together and gave it a final buff with White Diamond and then multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a soft flannel buff to finish and polish the wax. The finished pipe is shown in the next series of photos. It is a small light weight billiard with fairly decent grain and a few character marks. The new stem fits well and it looks better than it did when it left the factory. It should provide a great smoke to another pipeman. This is one that I will inevitably gift to someone along the way.

A Sentimental Journey – the Restemming and Restoration of a Medico Rhodesian

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Blog by Steve Laug

For years now I have had a special spot in my heart for Medico pipes. I don’t like the paper filter system, or the cheap stems with the split aluminum tenon, or the heavy varnish on the briar, or the fills that are hidden below the thick varnish, or any endless number of complaints that come to the surface with these old US made briar pipes. But I can’t get past the fact that the first pipe I ever owned was a Medico – paper filter and all, and that the first pipe I picked up when my first daughter was born years later was a Medico as well. Because of that whenever I am given an old Medico bowl I restem it and restore it. I strip away the varnish and rework the fills, make a new stem and bring it back to life in even better condition that it was when it was first sent out.

The Medico that I worked on in this restoration was a straight shank Rhodesian that came to me in a gift box of bowls. It was stemless and I had two potential stems that would work for it. There truly was nothing particularly redeemable that I saw in the bowl so the reason was as stated above solely sentimental. The bowl was dirty and worn with a thick cake. The rim had been battered and had deep nicks on the outer edge. There was a thick dark red varnish on the briar. It was stamped MEDICO on the left side of the shank and Imported Briar Italy on the right side. On the left side of the bowl was a large brown putty fill that stood out like a sore thumb. The first stem I tried was a split metal tenon Medico style stem. It was worn but usable. It fit the shank perfectly and looked good on the pipe. I thought for sure this would be a simple and quick restoration. I should have learned by now that whenever I think that problems would pop up on the way to the finish. I cleaned the shank with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and isopropyl alcohol.The top of the bowl was badly damaged with large dents and missing chunks on the outer edge of the rim so I decided to top the bowl. I used the topping board with 220 grit sandpaper and worked on the rim until it was smooth and clean. There were still several places on the outer front edge that would need to be worked on but the finished look of the topped bowl was far better than when I had started. I wiped down the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to remove the thick varnish coat and clean up the finish on the bowl. I wanted to remove it back to the briar. In the process the dark red stain coat also was removed from the bowl.Once the stain coat and varnish were removed I could see several problems that I would need to address. The front edge of the bowl needed to be sanded and the slope on the cap would need to be modified by hand sanding to remove the damage on the front edge and face of the cap. There was also a fine crack that had seeped tobacco oils on the top right edge of the shank. It had been hidden by the dark stain. When I move the stem it was not visible and did not open or spread but it was definitely present. I would need to clean up the shank, band it and with the band a different stem would need to be fit to the shank. The stem I had previously chosen had a metal face that would not work against the band. I scrubbed the bowl and shank until all the red stain that I could remove was gone. I used a Dremel with a sanding drum to sand back the shank so that I could fit a band on the shank. I also wanted to smooth out the surface of the rustication pattern and clean up the crack so that I could glue and clamp it before banding.I put the band around the end of the shank and then heated the metal band with a Bic lighter until I could press it into place on the shank. It took several reheats with the lighter before I had a flush fit on the band. At that point I took the second stem I had chosen and lightly sanded the tenon to get a good tight fit in the shank and pushed it in place. I reamed the bowl with my PipNet reamer and the smallest cutting head until I had taken the cake back to bare wood. I wanted the bowl to be clean so that I could see if there was any damage to the interior of the bowl.Once I had reamed the bowl I reshaped the angle on the cap with 220 grit sandpaper and medium and fine grit sanding sponges. Once I had the angle correct around the entire rim and had removed the damage on the front of the cap I sanded the entire bowl with the sanding sponges. I also sanded the stem with the same sandpaper and sanding sponge combination to remove the oxidation and tooth chatter near the button. The newly shaped bowl and freshly sanded stem is shown in the next series of four photos below. I stained the bowl with some oxblood aniline stain and flamed it. I wanted the red colour of the stain but I did not want it to be as opaque as the original stain had been. The aniline stain seems to be more transparent. It did however, do a great job in hiding the big fill on the left side of the bowl. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper, then a medium and fine grit 3M sanding sponge. I followed that with my usual array of micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down between each set of three pads with Obsidian Oil before moving on to the next three pads. I finished by giving it a final rubdown with the oil before taking it to the buffer. I buffed the entire pipe with White Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect and polish both bowl and stem. With that completed my sentimental journey with this old Medico was complete and it was ready to go back into service. I am sure I will gift this pipe to some new pipeman somewhere along the way as it should smoke very well and give many years of service. It is not a thing of beauty and never will be but it is a good serviceable pipe that will deliver a good smoke. The finished pipe is pictured in the photos below.

A Note of Clarification on the Monarch Apple Fiasco – Robert M. Boughton

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Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.roadrunnerpipes.com
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

Last week, a blog of mine called “Giving It the Old College Try, As a Favorite Substitute Teacher Used To Put It” [https://rebornpipes.com/2014/09/24/giving-it-the-old-college-try-as-a-favorite-substitute-teacher-used-to-say-robert-m-boughton/], about a Monarch apple with an absurd tenon contraption that screwed into the shank with more or less permanence. Really, the nice-looking briar apple, as it was designed, was the worst example of pipe engineering I can imagine – and the maker even had the nerve to patent the monstrosity.I described my great difficulty trying to keep the pipe intact with its worse than useless tenon and my eventual semi-success by removing an obnoxious, bulbous extension that protruded from the shank to connect to the stem, much as a Space Shuttle docks with a station way up beyond the limit of the Earth’s atmosphere. However, at the time, I was so caught up with the notion that the tenon was necessary as to miss the obvious. Here was my final effort, which was far from perfect in its sturdiness.After writing that I wouldn’t even give the ridiculous pipe away to anyone who purchased another one on my Web store, I became more and more fixated on finishing the project some unknown right way – using the right stuff, so to speak. I considered all kinds of possibilities, including tracking down a replacement rod of appropriate length and design to replace the original. Now that, I must admit, was stupid.

Then I showed the pipe with all due meekness to Chuck Richards, my friend and mentor, describing its imperfections and showing him the reason. But all he had to say was that the stem had a minor crack in the lip anyway, and it would break altogether in time. I figured that meant sooner than later. And so my immediate brainstorm was to go ahead and offer the pipe for free with another purchase and include both the original and a prepared replacement stem.

Still, the only real solution eluded me! But at last, by George, I got it! Remove the whole wretched tenon and replace the stem!

And so, that I did, spending hours sanding down the new stem’s tenon to fit. I even added a brass band to make up for the dorky faux band that was attached to the original tenon-lunar module piece.Satisfied of a job done right, I filled the bowl halfway with some good Gawith Full Virginia Flake and spent the next hour or so puffing away in delight. I could taste the natural sweetness of the Virginias all the way through. Minus the tenon and with a stem that attached without it, the old Monarch became a good pipe after all.

I have decided either to keep the unique but dreadful tenon as a souvenir or maybe donate it to the local space museum.

That is all.

Restemming and Restoring a Diamond Shank Commodore Canadian

3 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

This pipe bowl came up on eBay and I bid on it. I really liked the diamond-shaped shank and the pipe looked to be in great condition. I did a bit of research and found that the brand was either made by Comoy’s or Charatan. The style of the stamping, which read Made in London over England, made me more inclined to think it was a Charatan made pipe. The diamond shank and the overall style of the pipe also seemed to point to it being Charatan made. The photos below were the ones included by the seller. The sandblast was very rugged and craggy. The rim had a lighter blast and the shank had a blast about 2/3 of the way back from the bowl toward the stem. The last 1/3 was rusticated to match the blast of the first portion of the bowl. The diamond shank was flattened – it was wider from side to side than it was tall. The sides of the shank were sanded smooth and the bottom left side of the shank was smooth and stamped COMMODORE over Made in London over England. The bowl had a light cake and some shards of tobacco still in the bowl. The finish was in very good shape other than the sides next to the shank end – it was worn and the stain was worn. The rim had some tars on it and a light build up. There was not a stem with this bowl.

The first steps I took in this process I forgot to document with my camera. The battery was dead when I did remember so I will have to describe it with words. I went through my can of stems to see if any of the diamond-shaped stems would fit this shank. None of them were wide enough for the width of the shank. I had several oval stems that were close in width and height. I looked through the stems until I found one that was the right height and width for the shank. I turned the tenon on a PIMO Tenon Turning Tool until it was a close fit and then sanded it by hand until it fit snuggly in place. The end of the shank was not quite square so there was a slight gap on the side corners. Filing and shaping the stem would help with the fit. I shaped it with a Dremel and sanding drum as well as hand sanded until it was a flattened diamond. I sanded the stem in place on the shank to make the transition smooth between the shank and stem. It took a lot of sanding to shape it correctly. The photo below shows the shape of the finished stem. There was still a lot of work to do to smooth out the end of the tenon to remove the casting marks and to smooth out the diamond shape of the stem but the diamond shape was basically finished.I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer to remove the slight cake and the tobacco shards that were stuck to the sides of the bowl.I used a brass bristle tire brush to clean the rim top and remove the overflow of cake on the top. I wiped it down with a cotton pad and alcohol to remove the dust and clean out the grooves in the blasted rim. I wiped down the bowl and shank with cotton pads and alcohol to remove the dirt in the finish and prepare it for working on the shank. I used a dental burr in the Dremel to re-rusticate the shank area where I had sanded it smooth. I ran the Dremel at a slow speed to match the pattern on the rest of the shank. I wiped down the rusticated shank area and wiped down the dust on the rest of the bowl to prepare it for the new stain coat. I used a black aniline stain for the stain on the newly rusticated areas and also gave the entire bowl a coat of the black stain to cover the worn areas. I applied the stain, flamed it and repeated the process until the coverage was even on the bowl. I hand buffed the pipe with a rag I use for that purpose. It picks up the stain coat and evenly spreads it across the bowl and rim. I buffed the pipe with White Diamond to polish the new stain and to blend it better with the rest of the bowl colour. The next series of four photos below show the pipe after this initial buffing. I decided to give the bowl a coat of wax to see what black looked like when polished. I wanted to see if I would need to give it another coat of stain to highlight the higher spots on the sandblast. I applied it by hand and then buffed it with a shoe brush. I set the bowl aside to work on the stem. I sanded it some more with the 220 grit sandpaper and then with the medium and fine grit sanding sponges. I followed those up by sanding with my usual array of micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each group of three pads. I buffed the stem with White Diamond to polish it. I decided to give the pipe a second coat of stain to highlight the black. I used a oxblood stain to give it the contrast that I was looking for. I applied the topcoat of stain and wiped it off. I buffed the pipe and stem with White Diamond again to polish the stain coat and stem. I waxed it with several light coats of carnauba wax. I use a light touch so as not to gum up the wax in the sandblast. At the same time I want the shine that a good coat of wax gives the bowl and stem. The finished pipe is shown below. The new stem works well with the shape of the shank and gives the pipe a quiet, understated elegance. I hope to load up a bowl and give it an inaugural smoke tomorrow out on the front porch and relax with a good bowl of aged Virginia.

Giving It the Old College Try, As a Favorite Substitute Teacher Used To Say – Robert M. Boughton

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Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.roadrunnerpipes.com
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

“What is the real purpose behind the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus? They seem like greater steps toward faith and imagination, each with a payoff. Like cognitive training exercises.”
— Author Chuck Palahniuk, in a Seattle Times interview, November 18, 2005

INTRODUCTION
Attention, working memory, processing speed, long-term memory, visual processing, auditory processing, logic and reasoning are the primary aspects of cognitive thinking, or the ability to learn. That’s why I kicked myself, in the figurative sense of course, the other day when I finished this restoration project and discovered I had deviated from my normal habit of photographing each part of the project – in this case, the pipe before it was restored. I mean, that’s not really an important step, after all, only the key to understanding the significance of the end product.

My excuse is that I bought a lot of eight pipes on eBay, knowing they were in foul condition but rather desperately needing more ware for my online store, and in the repetitious task of documenting all of their original conditions from every angle, the one slipped past me. However, being more attentive by nature, I have managed to forgive myself, if not without some wicked self-chastising.

Anyway, I bought that particular set for several reasons: nobody seemed to see what I did, that hidden in the apparent wreckage (at least to someone with an eye to get past all of that) were an unusual Savinelli huge billiard, a Ropp cherry wood, a smooth and well-colored old meerschaum bulldog and a Longchamp pigskin billiard, all of which appeared to be vintage; the bidding was low, I thought – I won for $32.50 with free shipping, more than the price for any one of them with careful work – and I was determined to have them, without sniping, at a sane cost I was confident of achieving by scaring off the competition with a max bid that had to seem outrageous to the others who were watching. I wonder if any of the unfortunate amateurs even took another look to see who won. And, oh, the thrill of victory in the best example of the open market that is eBay, even at its downright dirtiest.

Only one of the eight, a very old corncob, was burned out. In fact, that is putting it over nicely, for there was a glaring hole in the bottom that I confirmed with a poke from my pocket three-in-one pipe utility tool, but even it offered an excellent age-browned stem and gold-colored shank plate that fit an old restore with a crack I’ve been working on. The beautiful Savinelli Punto Oro marked “Herman Marcus” – which the eBay seller misidentified in the ad as a “Neiman Marcus” – on the right shank is very badly caked like the others and has an original short stem that for whatever hair-brained reason was bent up and back and not surprisingly has a chunk out of the lip. Call it foolhardiness or even plain arrogance, but I think I can fix the chunk. The other six pipes are finished, but this account concerns only one.

THE PIPE RESTORATION
My blog today is about a lesser-known pipe brand called Monarch, which was established in Hartford, Connecticut in the 1930s and also distributes the Carey Magic Inch and Aerosphere pipes. Specifically, this concerns an apple shaped sitter with a bizarre patented tenon that screws into the shank. Once inserted with great difficulty, the tenon leaves a jet engine-like protrusion with a tiny piece of the rod that snaps onto the stem. At the time I believed my greatest problem would be disassembling the pipe, as something within the complex tenon system went awry and left the stem and cap spinning out of control with no purchase whatsoever. Naturally, I consulted my friend and mentor, Chuck Richards, first. He examined the pipe, sighed, made a doubtful face and suggested I give the whole thing a hot alcohol flush to see if that might loosen things up. But he was making no promises. And so, just for backup, I emailed our host, Steve, and posed my question. He said he had encountered the same problem once or twice in the past, and the only way he was able to get the pieces apart was to wiggle the stem carefully back and forth for as long as it took to do the job. Steve suggested the process could take some time and be quite tiring.

And so I decided upon a course of compromise. I gave the pipe a normal cold alcohol flush just to remove some gunk, which it did, and as I was quick to wipe up the overflow, it cleaned the bowl and shank well also. Then I commenced the wiggling. Steve was correct. The darned thing wanted to put up a fight. But maybe I lucked out, or the pipe just felt the negative vibes beginning to emanate from my psyche, because after about a half-hour of this nonsense the stem popped off. I was sure I had broken it!

Uncovering something out of a sci-fi comic book from back in the day, before anyone from Earth at least had ever traveled into space, or perhaps more like a diagram one might see in an old tech manual on airplane engines, I grasped the bowl and shank firmly in one hand and seized the curious bulb with two fingers of my free one and tried my hardest to twist. This approach got me nowhere but hot and sweaty.
Acutely aware of how easily I might demolish the entire pipe with one fell move but needing in the worst way to get that thing out of the shank, I wrapped the extending end of the tenon in a few small pieces of cotton and found some pliers. I started with the least necessary force and worked my way up a few notches before thinking better.

Sitting down and applying all of that processing (in particular visual), logic and reasoning I mentioned in the beginning, I noted the small opening in the exposed end of some sort of rod as yet unknown to me but most certainly to become so. And I remembered something (learning) I had done before to extract similar parts jammed in admittedly more sturdy objects. Rummaging through my toolbox, I found a small screw and screwdriver and with all due respect for the frail pipe, not to mention the unknown integrity of the odd tenon, forced the screw a short distance into the hole, where it jammed as I had intended.
Reversing the turn of the screw, no pun intended, I was rewarded almost at once with movement of the rod. Soon it became loose enough to finish by hand, and then the whole, approximately two-inch, grimy rod, along with the bulbous end and the stem cap, were in my hands. I know pride is supposed to be a sin, but not in all cases, and at any rate, there it is.

The patented supertenon, which appeared not to be intended for removal in order to accomplish such trivial tasks as cleaning the pipe now and then, suddenly told me, as clearly as if it spoke the words, why I found it and the inner shank coated with vile muck accreted over the decades. Intense alcohol scrubbing with stem cleaners corrected that problem.

But then there were the bowl and rim to make right again, and I emphasize that term. The iniquitous conditions of the two, un-photographed as they may be, can be approximated by a shot I took of those areas of another pipe from the same lot:Although clearly not even the same material as the Monarch apple, the rim scorching and cake buildup in the bowl are for all intents and purposes identical.

I reamed that bowl with vigor and then sanded it, first with 150-grit paper and then 400, for about 40 minutes, until it was completely clear of carbon and down to the briar at the top. I used 220 on the rim, then micro-meshed it with 2400.

In this way time flew, and the hour arrived to reassemble the pipe. I really had no idea how that would go, but after a few tries I managed, with the rod inserted through the holes on either end of the bulb and decorative cap that was attached to it, to turn the crazy tenon as far as it would go back into the shank. Relieved that the cap was snug in place, I made several tries to line up the tiny exposed end of the rod with a space station-like dock deep inside the hollow stem. For some odd reason I felt like Major Tom floating in a tin can. At last I heard a happy click of connection, and the pipe was as whole as it could be.
You see, that was the problem right there. Even after I buffed up the stem with red Tripoli and White Diamond, and the briar with the works, I just was not satisfied with the wicked little Apollo 13 shimmy thing going on between the stem and the tenon. My attention, working memory, processing speed, long-term memory, visual processing, logic and reasoning were all whirring at full capacity as I tried to rationalize putting this piece of horse pucky up for sale on my new Web store, but something in my subconscious still refused to learn this new trick.

Therefore, I went to the Google chalkboard to see if I could work it out by looking up “Monarch tobacco pipe tenons,” which was actually a suggested search, and found images of them. And what do you know, but right there, number one, was my hideous creature. Take special note of two items of intelligence we can gather from this photo: the significantly greater length of the rod sticking out of the bulb, and the still far too big of a gap between the exposed rod and the connector in the stem of my Monarch. The first thought I had was to disassemble the doggone thing again and see if I had somehow made a mistake – which does happen sometimes – and perhaps the tenon was screwed in too tightly. I’m sorry to say it wasn’t.

Still, the exercise in self-doubt was a success in that without it I might not have observed the length of the tenon loose in my hand again and imagined it re-inserted into the shank without the bulb and cap in the way. I mean, I never really liked it from the beginning, let’s face it, and so the notion of tossing it into my growing assortment of pipe odds and ends was rather appealing.

I made a battlefield decision and thought, what the heck. I’ve already spent too much time on this fanciful, vintage and even patented experiment in pipe making, so what are a few more minutes? After re-screwing in the rod without the bulb and cap, I snapped on the stem – and it indeed was a much better fit.
CONCLUSION
Now that all is said and done, I am happy that I did the work of making this sad example of pipe craft look beautiful again and ready to smoke in some fashion. But the bottom line is, I don’t even want to keep it around to use for my own enjoyment, so I certainly won’t sell it to anyone. First thing after finishing this blog and dispatching it, I intend to remove the pipe from my online store, where I have already posted it for $35. To me that would be the same as robbery, and even offering it free with the purchase of another pipe would be a cruel joke to play on some unsuspecting customer. Besides, it would only come back to me by the power of three times three. Maybe I’ll give it to a friend who is particularly fond of apples, with a copy of this blog. At least I have made it reasonably easy to remove the so-called tenon now.

To me, this is the real purpose behind the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. Learning.

Got Today’s Apple! Restoring an Imported Briar Apple

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Yet another gift pipe bowl that I had in my box was a no name Imported Briar Apple. It had a threaded tenon and I just “happened” to have a stem that fit it perfectly in my can of stems. (One day I need to get the stems sorted and organized more. Currently I have a can of round stems and a can of everything else stems. This necessitates emptying the entire can on the work table each time I need them and sorting through to find what I need.) The stem was a used Grabow stem that was missing the stinger but the tenon was intact. It was oxidized and dirty but very functional. There were no tooth marks or bite marks on the surface. When twisted onto the pipe it was slightly overturned. The bowl had an interesting finish in that the briar was smooth around the rounded rim and down the bowl. Then there were grooves or what I call worm trails cut vertically down the sides of the bowl and horizontally on the shank. The all culminated in rusticated pattern on the bottom of the bowl. The finish was shot and the worm trails had all nature of detritus packed into them. The grooves were full in some places. The stain was present but worn. If there had ever been a varnish coat it too was gone. The aluminum mortise insert was well oxidized. The bowl had a thick buildup of cake and loose pieces of tobacco handing on the sides. The rim was dirty but did not have any damage. I heated the tenon with a Bic lighter and straightened the overclocked stem. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and then scrubbed the bowl down with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I rinsed it with lukewarm water and dried it off. I scrubbed the buildup on the rim with a cotton pad and saliva and then used isopropyl alcohol on a cotton pad until I had broken through the tough outer coat. I used a medium grit sanding sponge to sand off the rest of the buildup and then wiped it down again with alcohol. I wiped down the exterior of the bowl and shank with acetone on cotton pads to remove the remaining finish. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the oxidation and the calcification buildup at the button. I worked in the creases with a sanding stick. Once I had cut through the oxidation I sanded the stem with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. Once I had removed the finish and did the initial sanding on the stem I cleaned out the shank and stem with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and alcohol until they were clean. I sanded the aluminum mortise insert with medium and fine grit sanding pads. I stained the bowl with a Danish Oil Walnut stain. After I had stained the pipe I put a cork in the bowl and set it aside in an old candle stick holder to dry while I worked on the stem. I sanded the stem with my usual array of micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three sanding pads and gave it a final coat of the oil after sanding with the 12,000 grit pad. I took it to the buffer and buffed it with White Diamond. When the stain on the bowl had dried I put the stem on the pipe and then gave the entire pipe another buff with the White Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I finished by buffing it with a soft flannel buff to raise the shine on the bowl and stem. The finished pipe is shown below. The stem actually looks like it is the original stem and the pipe looks as good as new. It is ready for a long life in the hands of the next pipeman who takes it home to join his/her rack.

Rebuilding a Dr. Grabow Regal Adjustomatic Patent Billiard

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One of the few pipes with a stem included in my gift box of bowls was a nice little Dr. Grabow Billiard. It had a long stem that clearly fit the shank of the pipe and gave it an elegant look and feel. At first glance I figured this one would clean up quite easily. The varnish finish on the bowl was worn and spotty with pieces of the varnish coat peeling off the surface of the briar. The rim was coated with a thick layer of tars and oils but looked sound. The bowl had a thick cake particularly from mid bowl to the bottom of the bowl. It was very hard and was not crumbling at all. It had however, closed the bowl to a large degree. The mortise was part of the aluminum band on the shank. It was a threaded cast piece that was fitted against the briar and was oxidized. The internals were quite clean. The bowl was stamped on the left side: REGAL over Dr. Grabow. On the right side it was stamped Imported Briar over Adjustomatic over PAT. 2461905. I have written about the patent on the Adjustomatic tenon/stem in an earlier post on rebornpipes: https://rebornpipes.com/tag/dr-grabow-adjustomatic/ I included patent information and diagrams on that page so I will not repeat that material in this post. The stem had thick calcification on the top and bottom sides of the stem and looked like it had one time sported a softie bit. When I turned the stem over there was a large hole in the underside from the button forward. I wiped down the bowl with acetone on a cotton pad to remove the damaged varnish and prepare the bowl for possible restaining once the rim had been cleaned off. It took some scrubbing but I was able to get rid of the varnish from the surface and out of the grooves in the carved leaves on both sides of the bowl. It turned out that underneath the peeling varnish there was some very nice grain on the pipe. The top and bottom of the shank and the front and back of the bowl were really nice cross grain. There was a small nick in the back of the bowl near the top of the rim that had a small fill otherwise the briar was flawless. The sides were very nice birdseye grain. This was going to be a stunning pipe once it was finished. I wiped down the buildup on the rim and was unable to even dent the hard tar. I lightly topped the bowl on a topping board to take of the buildup and not affect the rim itself. I carefully removed the tars, checking every move across the sandpaper to make sure that I was not damaging the surface of the rim. Once I had cut through the buildup the briar was in very good shape. I used a PipNet reamer with the smallest cutting head to remove the carbon cake in the bowl. Even the smallest head was hard to turn against the rock hard cake of this bowl. I carefully worked it back and forth, being careful not to tip the cutting head to either side and lose the roundness of the bowl. Once I had gotten the head in as far as possible I used a pen knife to work on the bottom portion of the bowl and then reworked the reamer in that area. I decided to try to patch the hole in the stem. I cleaned hole and put Vaseline on a pipe cleaner. I inserted it in the airway then sprayed accelerator on the stem, put black superglue on the hole and let it sit. The hole was quite large and I was not sure that the repair would hold. I applied the glue in several layers building up the patch until it was quite thick. I sprayed it with the accelerator each time to speed the drying time. I sanded the patched area with 150 and 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the patch and then reapplied more black super glue and accelerator. I set the stem aside and let it cure. In the morning I sanded the stem patch until it was smooth in the process my fingernail went through the stem above the patch. I explored the thickness of the stem up the stem and found that I could push through the airway quite a distance up the stem (Photo 1 below). After that fiasco I noticed that the patch was also quite unstable. I was able to push out the patch with my fingernail. The stem after patching and pushing through the repair is shown in Photo 2. At this point it was clear that a stem patch would not work on this stem. With the thinness of the vulcanite extending up the stem about an inch it was not clear how far that would go. I was going to need to do something different. I cut off the stem with a Dremel and sanding drum. After cutting it off I could see the problem – airway was drilled very high in the stem. There was no room for cutting a new button on the stem and opening up the slot. The top of the stem was thin for another inch toward the tenon. I had to come up with something very different to address this issue. I had an old Kaywoodie stem in my can of stems that was about the same diameter as the damaged one. It was missing the club logo in the side of the stem but had a club shaped hole. I heated the stinger on the KW stem with a lighter and then was able to remove it with a pair of needle nose pliers. I also heated the Grabow stem with the lighter and worked on it with the pliers. It came out slowly. I finally screwed it into the bowl and turned it until the stem came off. I then unscrewed the tenon from the bowl. I tried it in the KW stem and it was just a little bit bigger than the hole in the stem. I would need to drill it one size larger to get a fit. I used my cordless drill to drill it out. It had to be slightly larger and slightly deeper than the KW stinger apparatus. To make room for the lip on the aluminum piece I used a sharp knife to bevel the inner edge of the hole to accommodate the lip. The Grabow tenon/adjustomatic apparatus fit in the shank and I pressed it into place to see if the fit was correct. I then removed it and used a white all purpose glue to hold it in place. There was a removable stinger end for the tenon so I reinserted that in place and the new insert was ready. The fit of the stem against the shank was perfect. The diameter of the stem was slightly larger than the diameter of the shank so I would need to sand it to make them match. I tried to remove the Grabow insert from the old stem so that I could use it on the new stem. I tried to pick it out with a dental pick but was not able to remove it. I filled the club hole with black superglue and then sanded it smooth. I used 220 grit sandpaper to work on the diameter of the stem. I also sanded the end of the stem around the button to remove the tooth marks and chatter. The next series of four photos show the stem after all of the sanding and shaping. The new stem looked quite good with the bowl. The fit was perfect and the lines and flow of the angles was exactly what I was looking for when I started. I sanded the stem with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge and then refilled the small holes around the patched club logo with more superglue. I sanded the patch down with 220 grit sandpaper and resanded it with the sanding sponges until it was smooth. The photo below shows the two stem side by side. I sanded the stems with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three grits of micromesh. I buffed the stem with White Diamond and then gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to work on the bowl. I buffed the bowl with White Diamond and carefully buffed around the stamping on the sides. I polished the aluminum shank band with the higher grades of micromesh pads and then a polishing cloth to remove the scratches and bring up the shine. The next series of four photos show the polished bowl before I worked on it with some 8000-12,000 grit micromesh pads. I gave the bowl a wiped down coat of Danish Oil and walnut stain. I wanted to give the briar a shine coat but not add much colour to the finish. It really made the grain pop on this one. Once the oil had dried I buffed the bowl with White Diamond and then gave it several coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a soft flannel buff. I put the stem back in place and gave the bowl and stem several more coats of wax and buffed to a shine. The finished pipe is shown below. The look and feel of the pipe is like new. It is cleaned, restemmed, refinished and ready to fire up with its inaugural bowl of tobacco. It should last a long time and serve its owner well – whether I keep it or pass it on to another pipeman. (I decided to take these final photos on a piece of marble counter top to see if I could get a good contrast on the photos.)