Tag Archives: fitting a stem

Reworking a WDC Wellington – Removing a Finish and Restemming the Bowl

The second bowl I decided to work on from the box of bowls I was gifted was an old Wellington bowl that was actually in decent shape. The bowl is 2 inches tall and 1 3/8 inches in diameter. The bowl has an internal diameter of 7/8 inches. It is quite a large bowl. The nickel ferrule was in good shape but slightly oxidized with a few small nicks and dents. There was an uneven cake in the bowl and the sump area was filled with tars and oils. The finish was varnished but peeling as can be seen in the photo below. The rim had a tar build up and the varnish was peeling under it. The inner edge and outer edge of the rim was in excellent shape. The stamping on the bowl was on the left side of the shank and included the WDC inverted triangle and letters and next to that Wellington in script over the words IMPORTED BRIAR. There was no other stamping on the bowl. The stem did not come with the bowl. I had an old Yello Bole stem from the same era as the Wellington and with the same structure at the tenon and the P-lip. It was scratched and oxidized and had some tooth marks on the top and bottom sides just ahead of the button. The stem has a bright yellow “O” on the top. The bend in the stem had straightened so it would need to be re-bent to work well with the bowl.

I have several WDC pipes and have done quite a bit of research on the brand that I have written about on the blog. I have even repaired and given away quite a few Wellington’s over the years. This one appeared to be a great piece of briar so I wanted to repair it. I also wanted a quick refresher about this line of WDC pipes and how it fit within the hierarchy of WDC lines. The following is a brief excerpt from the pipedia.org article on WDC pipes.

“William Demuth, a native of Germany, entered the United States at the age of 16 as a penniless immigrant. After a series of odd jobs he found work as a clerk in the import business of a tobacco tradesman in New York City. In 1862 William established his own company. The William Demuth Company specialized in pipes, smoker’s requisites, cigar-store figures, canes and other carved objects.
The Demuth Company is probably well known for the famous trademark, WDC in an inverted equilateral triangle. William commissioned the figurative meerschaum Presidential series, 29 precision-carved likenesses of John Adams, the second president of the United States (1797-1801) to Herbert Hoover, the 30th president (1929-1933), and “Columbus Landing in America,” a 32-inch-long centennial meerschaum masterpiece that took two years to complete and was exhibited at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

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

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

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

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

The two leaflets below give some of the details on the Wellington pipe. The first one is a sales leaflet that speaks of the assets of the pipe and what it has to offer the pipe smoker. The second one is a cutaway picture of the Wellington pipe that clearly shows the details of the drilling both of the airway and the sump or well in the heel and shank of the pipe.

With the above diagram and information I was better equipped to work on the internals of the pipe and give it a thorough cleaning. I really like digging out the information and some of the diagrams of the pipes that I work on so that I can get a feel for the design and an appreciation for the work.

I fit the stem on the bowl and the overall look and feel was the same as the Wellington. The shoulder or ridge that formed the saddle was not as sharply defined as in the original stem but the look was close. The P-lip was the same and the tenon insert end was a match to the diagram above. Once the stem was re-bent the look would be even closer to the original.

I cleaned the top of the rim with a cotton pad and alcohol to remove the tars and oils. I then reamed the bowl with a PipNet Reamer – a tool that I use on virtually every pipe I work on. The interchangeable heads allow me to use various heads to careful trim back the cake. In this case I took it back to bare wood to clean it up and remove the uneven buildup.

I scrubbed down the finish with acetone on cotton pads. The varnish came off with scrubbing. Underneath the peeling varnish the stain was in good shape. The briar was very clean with no fills. The grain was quite nice with a mix of cross grain and birdseye.

I scrubbed out the sump and the internals of the pipe with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and isopropyl alcohol. Once the cleaners came out unstained I stuffed cotton balls in the shank and the bowl and then used an ear syringe to fill both with isopropyl alcohol (99%).

I put the bowl upright in an ice cube tray that I use for a stand when sweetening the pipes I clean. It works very well in wicking out tars and oils. I let it sit overnight. The first photo below shows the bowl after filling. The second photo below shows the bowl after 12 hours of soaking. Once I remove the cotton and re-clean the bowl and shank the smell of the pipe is fresh and clean.

Over the weekend I picked up a few new tools to make the clean up simpler. One set of tools was the sanding sticks shown in the photo below. The various grits are clearly on the sticks. These work exceptionally well in the crease next to the button and on the shelf on the underside of the P-lip stem. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and with medium and fine grit sanding sponges.

After the initial sanding was finished I used a heat gun to heat the stem and bent it over a rolling pin covered with a thick cardboard tube to give the stem a clean bend and avoid kinking the airway. I have been using this for quite a few years now and have not experienced trouble with damaging the airways in the bending process.

I sanded the stem once again with a fine grit sanding sponge. I generally do this before moving on to the micromesh sanding pads.

I wiped down the bowl with a damp cloth to remove any dust and to get an idea of whether I would give it a coat of stain. Once it was clean it looked good to me. No stain would be necessary on this old timer. The colouring once it was buffed would be perfect.

The rim needed a bit more sanding with the micromesh to clean up the top and then a folded piece of sandpaper on the inner edge to smooth things out.

I worked on the stem with the micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads. Afterwards I noticed the oxidation that still remain at the saddle so I sanded it again with the medium and fine grit sanding sponges and repeated the micromesh wet sanding.

I sanded it with the 3200-4000 grit pads and still saw some oxidation in that area. I repeated the process above with the sanding sponges and the six grits of micromesh to clean it more deeply. I then buffed it with Tripoli and then finished the final three grits of micromesh from 6000-12,000 grit. I buffed it with White Diamond.

I polished the nickel ferrule with silver polish and a polishing cloth and then buffed the bowl and stem a final time with Whtie Diamond. I gave the entire pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax, buffing in between coats with a soft flannel buff. The finished pipe is shown below. I am quite pleased with the new look. The old Yello Bole stem works well with the pipe.

Restemming and Restoring a John Bessai Special Diamond Shank Bent Brandy

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Blog by Steve Laug

I was gifted a box of pipe bowls that needed varying degrees of work and a few odds and ends of pipe parts that now reside in my cans of parts. The bowls have refilled my refurbishing box. The first of these that I chose to work on is a beautifully grained, flawless piece of briar made into a diamond shank brandy. It is stamped on the left underside of the shank – John Bessai over Special. There is no other stamping on the pipe at all. The rim of the bowl is rounded. The pipe bowl is in excellent condition with no problems with the finish. The bowl needed reaming as it had an uneven cake on one side and on the upper portion. The shank is dirty with tars and oils but otherwise in good shape. The drilling and finish on this pipe is perfect. It is a beauty. From a previous Bessai pipe that I had found nearly three years ago I knew a little bit of history. I had hunted to gather information at that time.

HISTORY & BACKGROUND
I started out with what I had found previously and written about on the blog. I quote the following paragraph from Pipedia http://pipedia.org/index.php?title=Bessai

1. “John Bessai was a long time pipemaker, repairman and tobacco shop owner who operated his pipe shop at the “Old Arcade” in Cleveland, Ohio. The shop was opened in approximately 1898. It was a small 2-room shop where he hand-crafted his own pipes in the back room and could work when customers were not there. Like so many other shop made brand, John Bessai’s limited production was quickly acquired by regular customers and thus his craftsmanship remained little known outside of Ohio and the Midwest. While his name is known by pipe collectors in the Midwest, his work is seldom seen elsewhere! He died before 1969. Nevertheless, John Bessai left behind a small number of classic shaped pipes; all were made on-site. They are praised worthy of collecting and reflecting skills well beyond most American pipe makers. John Bessai’s logo “JB” appeared as one letter as the “back” of the “J” and the “back” of the “B” share a single line. The logo was stamped on the stem and on the left side of the shank. His son Herb Bessai took over the business and also continued making pipes. He closed the shop in about 1978.”

I suspected that there would be more information three years later. I did some further research and came across the information found in the paragraph below on one of the pipe forums.

2. “John Bessai was located in the Colonial Arcade at least into the late 1980s. After his death, his son Herb ran the shop. It was taken over after Herb’s retirement by a male and then name was changed to “Old Erie Pipes”. This was then located in the Erieview Plaza and when that mall closed, taken over by Cousin’s Cigars which has a store on Euclid Avenue near CSU, and a store on Chagrin Boulevard in Woodmere Village.”

That small quotation gave me a bit more information of the state of the store after John’s death and Herb’s retirement. But I still wanted more information. I wanted to know about the history of the brand and if there was any information on the various grades in the brand and the stamping on the pipes. I wanted to know a bit of a timeline for the brands. Finally my digging paid off. ON one of the pipe forums I came across a link that led me to a gold mine of information gathered by a man after my own heart, Andrew Hross. He has a blog call Classic Pipe Shop on Blogspot. I have included the link below for those who want more information. Andrew has done an amazing job of gathering information on the Bessai Brand so rather than rewrite the history I am quoting portions of Andrew’s work on The John Bessai Pipe Clinic.

http://classicpipeshop.blogspot.ca/2014/04/the-john-bessai-pipe-clinic-information.html

3. The John Bessai Pipe Clinic, 35 Colonial Arcade, Cleveland, OH 44115 – by Andrew Hross
a. Owner(s):
**John Bessai 1920s until his passing in 1969
**Herb Bessai ~1962-1983
**Daniel Gottschall 1984-~1993
**Purchased by Dad’s Smoke Shop / Cousin’s Smoke Shop and rolled into the Old Erie Smoke Shop about 1993.

Cousin’s Cigars purchased the remaining stock of Bessai pipes near after Herb Bessai passed away in 2002.

b. Years of Operation:
1920s (unkown specific date at this time) – 1983. After 1983 the business was sold to Daniel Gottschall who later sold it to Cousin’s Cigar (Euclid Ave) around 1993. The name was changed to “Old Erie Tobacco Company”. They were forced to move to the Galleria when all the tenants of the Old Arcade were cleared out to make room for renovations. Their new address was The Galleria at Erieview, 1301 East 9th Street in Cleveland.

After this move the location wasn’t as busy as they had hoped and Cousin’s moved all the Old Erie Tobacco assets to their Euclid Avenue Store. The store has since moved to a St. Clair location after Cleveland State forced them out due to anti-smoking regulations on campus. Their St. Clair location offers many of John Bessai Pipe Clinic’s old tobacco blends.

Their new store opened in the Merriman Valley area in Akron, Ohio where the store manager John Coleman oversees the day to day operations. John was instrumental in helping me piece together a lot of loose ends during Bessai Pipe Clinic’s transition years.

My father visited their shop several times in the early 60s as he attended Fenn College (now Cleveland State University) as an undergrad before moving on to Ohio State University for his Masters. He’s way smarter than I am so I just go with the flow…

He mentioned meeting John at that time who quickly gave my father some pointers on smoking a pipe and how to take samples from the shop’s expansive sample jar collection. His pipes were on display in the shop although I don’t believe he had a lot of pipes on display at any given time due to production in-shop.

John’s son Herb took over the shop in the early 60s after he graduated from Cleveland State University / Fenn College (unclear) as he is listed as having played Basketball for CSU. Herb was also a helpful, informative and friendly individual. Articles exist from the Herald in 1962 where they interviewed Herb (with photograph) about the state of smoking in the new age of the early 60s. I visited the shop in the late 70s / early 80s with my father during a trip to Cleveland and couldn’t tell you much about the shop other than the guy working was very friendly. Back then it wasn’t unusual to be a kid and walk into a smoke shop with your father. Clearly I didn’t purchase anything but my father probably picked up some tobacco but I remember him looking at pipes displayed on a back wall. The shop was small but impressive.

If anyone has any pictures of the shop or old catalogs, I would love any additional information as it’s tough to come by 30+ years later!

c. Pipes offered by John Bessai Pipe Clinic:
Most of the pipes that were offered by the John Bessai Pipe Clinic were fairly standard in shape… I would say most of the pipes Bessai offered were smooth pipes. My assessment would be 90% smooth and 10% rusticated / sandblasted…

…The story is that John crafted pipes in the back room or off site and finished them in house while the store wasn’t busy. Very little information is available on the accuracy of this statement. Some of his pipes from the late 1960s through the 1970s (John passed away in 1969) I feel were left over stock from previous turnings and sometimes showed fills or sand pits. Some of these pipes even carry Herb’s markings (see below). These pipes still smoke very well but are not as eye-appealing as other earlier pipes from the store’s career.

d. Stampings and rough dating of John Bessai Pipe Clinic Pipes:
Which pipes did John make and which ones did Herb make/finish? All Bessai pipes carry his standard large JB stamp either on the stem or shank or both. Typically the JB on the stem is within a circle.

All pipes created by John Bessai’s hands reportedly contain the miniscule ‘jb’ stamp on the shank or body of the pipe. I have older pipes in my possession that do not contain this stamp (condenser, old stamps, etc) that were clearly shop made pipes. I feel he started using the tiny ‘jb’ stamp in the 50s to early 60s.

An interesting note about John Bessai’s stems – they always clean very nicely and aren’t prone to as much oxidation (that brownish / green color) as most dunhill and Charatan pipes tend to oxidize. His cuts to his stems were very impressive and often transitioned from diamond-shaped shanks almost architecturally. Very comfortable to smoke.

John Bessai Special Pipes:
… I have a couple Bessai Special pipes. These stand out either by large size, graining or possibly shape. Most Specials are unique pipes and are rare to find in comparison to his regular issue pipes.

John Bessai Special X pipes:
I only have one of these and it’s a beauty. This one is a larger bowl (around a group 4 dunhill) with deep colored grain and a hefty substantial shank. Special X pipes are probably the rarest of John Bessai pipes and should be sought out if possible. I’ve smoke mine roughly 4 or 5 times and it performs with the best of my pipes…

Herb Bessai Pipes:
Unfortunately none of these pipes that I’ve seen have astounded me with grain or general appearance. Having said this, these pipes smoke nicely and are a great value if you can find them. I have one that my father found at an Antique Show in the South. There’s another author shape on reborn pipe’s blog that someone refinished because of the amount of fills in the pipe. He also states it’s a wonderful smoker (Editor’s note: This is my pipe and the write up I did on the blog). These pipes are likely from the late 60s through the early 70s. I believe many pipes after this period were created en masse at a factory in the US. It is unclear what stamp was used on these later pipes…

e. Dating / Circa era Bessai Pipes:
If the pipe carries a stamp stating Cleveland, O U.S.A. it’s considered an older production pipe (pre1960s). I’ve not seen any newer pipes with that stamp.

Bullseye stamping usually indicates an earlier pipe as that stamp seems to have been abandoned pre1960 as well.

Most of the earlier Bessai pipes have an unusual ‘stinger’ or condenser at the end of the tenon which is unique to Bessai pipes. They are either a hard plastic or created out of wood. They are typically easy to remove and could have been easily lost if misplaced. These pipes I would consider pre-1960 and possibly 1940s-early 1950s production based on their stamps and patina of the pipes.

1970s 1980s and beyond: My feeling on these pipes after John’s passing is that they purchased finished pipes from a large manufacturer and stamped them with the John Bessai or Bessai stamp (on shank and/or stem). Most of these shapes are standard among many stores from that period and offer less than spectacular grain (and sometimes fills). Stamps on these pipes are probably fairly plain and don’t have the tiny ‘jb’ stamp on the shank indicating it was produced by John Bessai.

RESTORATION
I went through my can of stems and found an older diamond-shaped saddle stem that fit quite well in the shank of the Bessai. The tenon was a little big so I sanded it with the Dremel and sanding drum until it fit snugly in the shank. The stem was an estate stem so it was dirty and had tooth chatter and some small indentations from teeth on the top and bottom of the stem near the button. It was slightly larger than the shank so that it would need to be sanded until it fit the line and shape of the shank.

I sanded the stem and shank with 150 and 220 grit sandpaper to bring all sides and angles to match the shank angles and sides. I sanded the stem to remove the tooth marks and the tooth chatter in the process.

I sanded the stem and shank with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratch marks left behind by the sandpapers.

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer to remove the uneven build up of cake in the bowl.

I wiped down the surface of the briar with acetone on cotton pads to remove the finish on the bowl and make restaining it simpler.

I cleaned out the bowl and the shank with isopropyl alcohol (99%) on cotton swabs and pipe cleaners until the bowl and shank were clean. I cleaned out the stem with pipe cleaners and alcohol as well. I also beveled the airway on the end of the tenon to make the flow more open.

I set up a heat gun and heated the stem to bend it to fit the shape of the pipe. I inserted a pipe cleaner in the stem and then bent it over a rolling pin and set the bend with cool tap water.

I wiped down the bowl and stem with isopropyl alcohol. The grain on this pipe is quite stunning so once it is restained and the stem finished it will be a beautiful pipe.

I stained the bowl with a medium brown aniline stain and flamed it, I gave it more stain and flamed it again. I then sanded the stem with medium and fine grit sanding sponges and then with my usual array of micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. Between each set of three pads I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil.

When I finished sanding with the final grits of micromesh I gave it another coat of Obsidian Oil and then buffed the stem and bowl with White Diamond. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and used a soft flannel buffing pad between coats to polish it. The finished pipe is shown below. The new coat of stain and the shine on the stem give the pipe a new and clean look. It is ready for its inaugural smoke. The background history sets the stage for a deeper appreciation of the pipe once I fire it up. It should smoke very well.

Restoring and Restemming a Peterson’s Kapmeer 999S

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Blog by Steve Laug

I just finished working on the second of the three pipes that I picked up on Ebay in the lot of three Petersons. It is the third bowl in the photos below. It is stamped Peterson’s over KAPMEER on the left side of the shank, 999S on the underside of the shank and Made in Great Britain on the right side of the shank. It is actually the reason I bid on this lot of pipe bowls. I love the older 999 shape with the thick shank. I like the way it feels in hand and the look of it. As you can see it was in rough shape. There was no stem for it. The finish was rough and worn, the bowl had a thick uneven cake in it and the top of the rim was thick with a cake build up. From what little I knew the KAPMEER was a meerlined pipe. There was something unique about its design but that escaped me at the moment.

While I waited for it to arrive I did a bit of digging into the KAPMEER line. The first thing I found was a quote that said, “The line was introduced for those who preferred to smoke their tobacco in a meerschaum bowl, but still have the looks and advantages of a briar pipe”. That was not altogether helpful to me. It is much the same advertizing info that is included in most of the sales material for meerlined pipes. What was the difference between those pipes and the KAPMEER? The meerschaum lining ended just before the draw hole, so you do not have the problem of deterioration in the bottom of the meerschaum insert in the tobacco chamber. It was believed that this would reduce the possibility of a burn out on the sides of the bowl. I found the two photos below online that clearly show the design of the KAPMEER bowl. The first photo shows the bottom edge of the insert just above the draught hole. The bowl bottom is briar. The second photo shows the contrast between the meerschaum lining and the briar on the bottom of the bowl. In looking at these photos I think I understand the idea of combining the best of meerschaum and briar pipes. The theory would be that the meerschaum lining would deliver a meerschaum style cool smoke and the briar bottom would give the durability and strength of briar.

or early 1970s. The pipe in the second photo is a later design. The early pipes had a regular stem/shank junction rather than the faux military stem. The one that I had came from a period in time where the stem was most likely a tapered stem with an aligned fit. The pipes were made in Great Britain on the Isle of Man. I found out that though Peterson had maintained a factory in London since 1899, the ‘Made in England’ stamp was discontinued with the closing down of the London-based factory (1969/70). That puts my bowl pre-1970 in terms of date. The thick shank on the 999 bowl dates it earlier than that period.

I gently reamed the bowl, being careful to not damage the meer lining. I wanted to take the cake back as far as possible with the reamer and would do the rest with sandpaper. I sanded the meer lining with 220 grit sandpaper until the entire cake was gone and the meer was once again smooth. It was darkened and would not be white again do to use. I gently topped the bowl with a topping board to remove the cake and smooth out the rim damage before working on the rest of the bowl. I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads, carefully avoiding the meerschaum lining on the top of the rim. The acetone removed the grime and the spotty stain on the bowl and would form the base for restaining the bowl later.

The bottom of the bowl had been over reamed and the briar damaged with deep gouges on the bottom. The bottom was still thick so there were no worries about burn out. I mixed a batch of pipe mud from cigar ash and water and applied it to the bottom of the bowl to bring the bottom up to the airway entrance. I tamped it in place with a pipe nail. I put some mud on the side walls below the end of the meerschaum lining. I set it aside to cure.

Once the mud had cured I wiped out the inside of the bowl with a damp cotton pad to clean any of the mud that had gotten on the meer lining. I wiped down the outside of the bowl with acetone and cotton pads a final time. I had a stem set aside from my can of stems that would fit the shank once the tenon was turned and the diameter of the stem reduced. I turned the tenon with a PIMO Tenon Turning Tool slowly until it fit the shank. I sanded the tenon with a sanding drum on a Dremel to finish the fit. I sanded the casting marks on both sides of the stem and on the end of the button with the Dremel as well. When all was finished the fit against the shank was snug and clean.

As can be seen from the photos above the diameter of the stem was bigger than that of the shank. I used the sanding drum on the Dremel to take it down as close as possible to the shank diameter without damaging the shank. Once I had it close I did the rest of the work with 150 grit sandpaper and followed that with 220 grit sandpaper. When the transition between the two was smooth to touch I used a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratch marks from the stem. Since I was planning on restaining the pipe I sanded the shank gently to make sure that the transition would be smooth and the flow correct. I have found that this is the only way to keep the stem and shank matching without and shift in height on either material.
I wiped off the sanding dust with a damp cloth and gave the stem a wipe down as well. The photos below show the look of the stem and shank union at this point in the process. I also gave the rim a light sanding with the sanding sponges as well. There is one small sandpit in the top left side of the rim. I decided to leave it rather than fill it.

I sanded the shank with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads to remove scratches in the finish and wiped the bowl down with alcohol on a cotton pad. Greg sent me a set of staining pens to work with so I decided to try them out on this pipe. I tried the light and medium pens and found that they did not match the stain on the pipe so I settled for the dark pen. I drew on the unstained surface of the shank and then blended it into the rest of the bowl. I also did the same on the rim, blending it downward into the sides of the bowl. The pen was very easy to control and keep off the meer lining on the inner edge of the rim.

When the stain had dried I buffed the bowl with White Diamond and then gave it a coating of carnauba wax to seal it and give it a shine. I had done enough of the early sanding on the stem by that point to set up a heat gun to heat and bend the stem. I held it over the heat until the stem was soft and then bent it over a rolling pin that I use for bending stems. I have a thick cardboard tube that I slide on the rolling pin to provide a softer surface than the old rolling pin when I am bending the heated vulcanite.

The photo above shows the first attempt at the bend in the stem. It was not bent enough to my liking so I reheated it and bent it again. Once the bend was correct I set it in cool water.

I took the pipe back to the worktable to sand the stem. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down between each of the three grits with Obsidian Oil and let it soak in before moving on to the next series of three grits.

I rubbed it down a final time with the Obsidian Oil and then buffed the pipe and stem with White Diamond on the wheel. I gave the pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax and between each coat buffed it with a soft flannel buff. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. All that is left is to load a bowl of some aged Louisiana Red and enjoy a bowl.

For comparison sake, I have included a photo of the newly reworked KAPMEER with the earlier KILDARE that I restemmed from a piece of Cumberland rodstock that I purchased from Todd Bannard of Briar, Sweat and Tears Pipes http://www.briarsweatandtears.com/ . Todd cut the length and did the drilling and shaping on that piece before sending it to me to finish. As you can see both have the thicker old style shanks that are no longer used on Peterson 999 pipes. This pipe is the third one that I have from that earlier time period. It is the shape of the 999s that I favour.

Resuscitating a Peterson Donegal Rocky 338 Bent Billiard

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A few weeks ago one of the EBay sellers that I have bought several pipes from over the years had three Peterson bowls, sans stems listed for sale. They were in rough shape but I decided I wanted to give refurbishing them all a try. Besides one of them was a 999S and I love the 999 shape. That alone would have pushed me to make a bid on this lot. I ended up buying the threesome for more than I usually pay for pipe bowls but I figured it was worth the effort. This is the photo of the threesome from the sale listing.

The first of the three Peterson bowls is on the worktable at the moment. The finish was very rough on the pipe. It had built up grime in all of the grooves of the rustication. The inside of the bowl was caked almost to the top of the rim. The shank was one of the foulest things I think I have seen before. It was caked with oily tars from just inside the edge of the mortise to the bottom of the mortise. The rim was badly damaged with the front edge burned down lower than the rest. The rim was ragged looking and uneven all the way around. It looked to be solid though underneath the damage. The stamping on the underside of the shank said Petersons Donegal Rocky with the shape number 338. All the stamping is quite faint but still readable with a lens.

I cleaned and reamed the bowl. It is funny how short and easy that sounds but in this case that was not true. The cake in the bowl was like concrete and had totally closed off the bottom half of the bowl. The remaining top half had a slight slice to the airway but that effort was useless as the shank was completely clogged and no air could go through. I reamed as much of the bowl as I could with a PipNet reamer, not even getting as low as the airway. This stuff was very hard. I cleaned the shank with alcohol and cotton swabs. I tried to push a pipe cleaner through the clogged airway in the shank and was unable to get it to through. I decided to throw the bowl in an alcohol bath to soak for several hours to loosen things up.

When I took it out of the bath the alcohol soak had done its work. I was able to ream the rest of the way to the bottom of the bowl and completely remove the cake. I was able to push a wire through the airway and then cleaned out the airway and shank with cotton swabs and some assorted dental tools (thanks Joyal).

I scrubbed the rusticated finish of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I used a soft brass bristle brush to work on the rim and clean up the loose build up. Once I had scrubbed it I rinsed it with warm water. I dried it off and still had to do some more scrubbing. I cleaned the inside of the bowl and shank with the dental tools and cotton swabs and alcohol.

The rim was so badly damaged and uneven with the burned area that I topped it using the topping board and 220 grit sandpaper until it was flat.

I went through my stem can and found a three inch long stem that was approximately the same shape and length as the original stem. I turned the tenon with the PIMO Tenon Turning tool and removed the castings on the sides and the end of the stem. I further shaped it with the Dremel and sanding drum.

I wanted the top of the bowl to have the same rustication that it originally had before all the rim damage. It had a pattern that was similar to the rustication on the bowl itself. I looked on line to find photos of the rim of a Donegal Rocky that would be a pattern for me to copy. I put a dental bur that Joyal has given me on a Dremel tool and set the speed to a slow speed and used it to rusticate the rim to match the pattern in the photo of the bowl.

I wiped the bowl down with a cotton pad and alcohol to clean off the dust from the rustication and then stained the whole bowl with a dark brown aniline stain. In the photos below the rim is obviously much lighter in colour than the rest of the bowl so it took five coats of stain before it matched the bowl. I applied the stain and flamed it with a lighter to set the stain repeatedly until the coverage was correct.

The brown was very dark and the original contrast look on the Donegal Rocky was not evident. I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to lighten it and bring back some contrast to the rusticated finish. In the photos below the properly darkened rim is visible.

I lightly buffed the bowl and rim with White Diamond and then applied some Halcyon II wax on both and then buffed with a soft flannel buff. I knew that I would have to wax it again once I had finished but I always put a coat of wax on the bowl to protect the finish when I give it a more thorough clean. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the casting marks and the Dremel marks. Once I had the initial sanding finished I decided to bend the stem. I heated it over a heat gun until it was pliable and bent it over and old rolling pin. I used a photo of 338 I found on the net as a template for the bend in the stem. I made the photo life sized and laid the pipe against the computer screen to match the bend. Once I had the bend correct the rest of the stem work could begin.

I removed the stem from the bowl, stuffed cotton bolls in the bowl of the pipe and used an ear syringe to fill the bowl with isopropyl alcohol. I set the bowl in an old ice cube tray that keeps the bowl upright. I set the tray aside to let the alcohol sweeten the pipe and draw out the oils in the bowl and shank.

Four hours later the alcohol had begun to pull out the tars and oils into the cotton.

Twelve hours from the starting time, the cotton was a dark brown and most of the alcohol had evaporated. I pulled the cotton out of the bowls and wiped them dry with a cotton swab soaked in clean alcohol and they came out clean other than a little bit of the detritus that had collected in the bottom of the bowl. I swabbed out the shank and airway as well with pipe cleaners and cotton swabs dipped in alcohol and the shank was clean. The pipe smelled sweet and ready to smoke.

I turned my attention to the stem and sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. It removed the majority of scratches from the surface of the stem left behind by the 220 grit sandpaper (I believe these sponges are equivalent to 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper).

The rustication that I did on the top of the bowl rim is very clear in the next photo.

I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. Between each set of three grits I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil and let it soak into the vulcanite.

When I had finished sanding with the 12,000 grit pad I rubbed it down with a final coat of Obsidian Oil and when it had dried buffed the stem with White Diamond and a Blue Plastic buffing compound. I then gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax, buffing with a soft flannel buff between coats. I waxed the bowl with Halcyon II wax and hand buffed it with a soft bristle shoe brush and a cotton buffing cloth. I used the 6000, 8000 and 12,000 grit micromesh pads to polish the nickel band and then gave it a buff with a silver polishing cloth. This old Peterson 338, that must have been an incredible smoke to have been smoked as hard as it was, is now ready to enter the next era of its life and provide the same kind of service to me. I look forward to smoking it later in the week once I am sure the alcohol in the bowl and shank has all evaporated. I have to tell you, I am looking forward to having a bowl in this old timer.

Carving Another One from a Pre-Drilled Kit

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When I was traveling in the early spring I stopped by Burlington on Whyte Tobacconist in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to pick up some tobacco and have a look at their stock. In the past I had purchased a pipe kit from them and found it to be a pretty decent piece of briar. It was the last pipe I had carved for myself. I looked through the lot and found one I like this time as well. I purchased it and carried it home. It sat on my desk for the past several months while I tried to figure out what I wanted to do with it. It was drilled to be a three-quarter bent pipe and had a vulcanite stem this time. The last one I has purchase had a Lucite stem. I thought it had potential and I just needed time to let it marinate in my brain until I decided what to carve.

I had a long weekend with rainy days forecasted for the entire time so it was a perfect opportunity to work on the block and see what I could carve. I don’t have many power tools in terms of facilitating carving but I do have files, knives and a Dremel with many sanding drums. I sketched out an idea on the block and began to sand away the excess briar with the Dremel. I had drawn a calabash/acorn shaped pipe. I have an old 100+ year old oak tree in my front yard and every fall I fight the squirrels in picking up the acorns. I was cleaning up around the tree recently and came across one they had dropped. I had the thought that an acorn shape including the cap would make an interesting looking pipe. With that in mind I attacked the work of shaping the briar. I find that I always am reticent to remove briar because I know I cannot put it back once it is gone so it takes me awhile to get the pipe walls and shank the proper shape and thinness. This one was going to be a bit thicker that I wanted when I realized that the shank was drilled for a 9mm filter. That would mean that the diameter of the shank would be larger than I had hoped.

In the photos and words below I plan on taking you with me on the journey from block to pipe. You might well have made different decisions than I did in the shaping of the block. And you probably would use better/different tools to work the shape. However, I worked with the tools I had and really wanted to show that the shaping can be done with a few tools, persistence and lots of hard hand work. Thanks for coming along with me on this journey. If you want to skip the words, feel free to do so and enjoy the process shown in the photos.

I used a Dremel tool with a sanding drum, several different wood rasps and files to cut away the excess material. I find that the Dremel works fairly quickly in removing the briar and the files and rasps work well in the area where the shank joins the bowl. In the past I have tried to do that work with sandpaper and sanding sponges and was not happy with the overall results. The files and rasps facilitate a more defined junction. I also used several carving knives that I have to further define the angles of the junction.

It took a lot of sanding with the Dremel and sanding drum to round out the corners on the block and remove the excess material around the shank. I worked to taper the bowl into the point at the bottom of the acorn and files and the Dremel to cut in the edge of the cap on the top of the bowl. I had spent approximately two hours to get the bowl to this point in the process. The photos below show that the shape is beginning to emerge from the block.

I worked on defining the shape of the bowl and differentiating the shank from the bowl. I continued to use the Dremel and sanding drum to taper the bowl and further define the shank/bowl junction. I also used it to increase the depth of the line between the cap and the body of the acorn as well as the curves of the cap. I was trying to shape the curves to resemble a meerschaum cup in a calabash.

I worked on the block with 100 grit sandpaper to further refine the angles and shape. I used a sharp knife to clean up the shank and bowl junction and give it even a clearer definition.

Before I took down more of the thickness of the shank I decided to make a new stem for the pipe. I wanted to get rid of the 9mm stem and put a tapered stem on the shank instead of the saddle stem. I turned the tenon with a PIMO tenon turning tool on a cordless drill and then hand fit it to the mortise. Once I had a good fit I sanded the shank and stem to get a smooth transition between the two materials. I used 100 grit sandpaper and then 220 grit to smooth it out. I continued to take down the taper on the bowl and round out the bottom of the bowl and the edges around the cap with the 100 grit and 220 grit sandpaper. The bowl was starting to take shape at this point in the process. It was still too thick to my liking and the cap was too blocky. A lot more sanding waits for me.

I used the Dremel and sanding drum to remove more of the briar and then hand sanded with the 100 grit sandpaper to further refine the shape. I used a sanding wedge to work on the angle at the junction of the shank and bowl and clean up the carving marks. I also want to flatten the bottom of the bowl slightly and minimize the dip at the shank and bowl on the bottom.

I continued to remove diameter from the shank and also work on the bottom of the bowl to give it a more rounded look and feel. I used 100 grit sandpaper to work on these areas. I sanded the stem as well to keep the taper and flow even between the two materials. I also sanded the curve on the cap to makes the angles less sharp.

I used a heat gun to heat the stem and bent it over an old rolling pin I use for bending stems. I wanted the angle of the stem to approximate the angle of the curve on the bottom of the bowl so I needed to do a bit more sanding on the bowl. The next three photos show the progress on reducing the point on the bottom of the bowl.

I decided to give the bowl a black under stain to highlight the grain. The right side of the bowl and shank had some great birdseye grain and the top and bottom of the shank had cross grain. The left side of the bowl had a mixed grain pattern but it was still quite nice. The black stain would permeate the grain and make it stand out. I heated the briar with the heat gun and applied a coat of black stain, flamed it and reapplied it repeating the pattern until the coverage was even. Once it had dried I wiped it down with acetone on cotton pads to remove the stain from the harder briar where it had not gone into the grain.

I sanded the bowl with a medium grit sanding pad to remove more of the stain and to help highlight the contrast between the grain and the lighter portions of the briar. I buffed it with red Tripoli. The photos below show the bowl as it stood after the buffing. There was still sanding to do to remove the dark scratch marks in the finish and further remove the black stain.

I wanted to add to the contrast of the grain so I stained the pipe with oxblood aniline stain and then buffed it with White Diamond. The contrast was evident and the grain stood out nicely against the second coat of stain but it was just too red for my liking. I wanted more of a reddish brown colour than the red it was after the stain.

I rubbed bowl down with a cherry stain to lighten the red. It was still too red for me. The pipe in the photo below shows the cherry stain over coat on the oxblood.

I decided to add a coat of dark brown stain to the bowl and give it a deeper, richer colour. I applied the dark brown stain and flamed it, reapplied, flamed it again and then buffed the bowl with White Diamond to polish it and make it more transparent. I wanted the grain to pop through the finish but I wanted it to be less obtrusive than the above photos.

I sanded the bowl with micromesh sanding pads using 3200-6000 grit pads to even out the dark and light portions. I also wanted to polish the finish more before calling it finished. I buffed the bowl with White Diamond and gave it several coats of carnauba wax to give a shine. I polished the stem with the micromesh pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and when dry I buffed the pipe with White Diamond. I gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax, buffing with a soft flannel buff between applications of wax. The finished pipe is shown below. (However, there is one disclaimer – with any pipe I have made in the past I have always gone back after a time and changed the look. The odds are thus quite high that I will modify this one as well somewhere down the road.)

I took the new pipe with me to work yesterday and planned to take a walk and fire it up at my lunch hour. It actually worked out that I did just that! I packed a bowl of Hearth and Home Louisiana Red and enjoyed a good walk and contemplative time. The bowl got warm but not hot, the draw was very good and the feel in the hand and mouth was comfortable. It is bigger than the pipes I usually smoked but surprisingly it is not very heavy.

Thanks for taking the journey with me from block of briar to pipe.

Reworking a Medico Apple – A Save this Pipe Project of My Own!

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The last pipe in my box of pipes to refurbish was a Medico Apple that was stamped Medico over Imported Briar on the underside of the shank. It was a well-worn sandblast bowl that had dark stain marks on the front and back of the bowl. It appeared to be a dark blue India ink type of staining. The grooves in the blast were worn down almost smooth and what was left was dirty with light brown grime that raised the surface of the grooves smooth. The top of the bowl was damaged and worn from being struck against a surface to empty the bowl. The inside of the bowl was badly caked and crumbling when I received and I cleaned and dumped out the carbon and shreds of tobacco before throwing it in the box. The stem had been bitten through on both the top and the bottom sides next to the button. The nylon stem was in rough shape with many deep tooth dents around the holes. At one point I had taken the stem out thinking I would work on it and sanded down the tooth chatter and some of the lighter marks. I had heated the stem to raise them and gotten quite a few of them out-of-the-way. The holes in the stem left me questioning whether I even wanted to work on this poor worn pipe.

After reading Greg’s post about saving a pipe – the Medico VFQ I was moved to go and have a look at the last pipe in the box. I have four days off starting today and it is a rainy cool day in Vancouver. It is a perfect day for working on pipes so I took the pipe to the worktable. I knew all of the flaws that awaited me but the bones of the pipe, the briar was still sound. The damage truly was cosmetic. The stem was another question. But I figured it was worth the effort. I cleaned the surface of the nylon stem and wiped it down with alcohol. I folded a piece of cardboard and coated it with Vaseline before sticking it in the airway to provide a backing for the black super glue patches that I was going to use for the holes.

The super glue had become quite viscous which actually worked for me. It was not the thin liquid it had been when I purchase it several years ago. I shook it well and then applied it to the holes on the stem. I always do the patching in layers. I start quite wide around the edges of the hole and work toward the centre to close off the hole. I decided to work on both sides of the repair at the same time so I put the glue in both holes. I set the stem aside for the repair to cure before adding more layers of glue.

I scrubbed the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime. I used a tooth brush to get into the remaining grooves in the briar. I used the soap undiluted as I find it is less liquid and works better on rounded surfaces as a gel. I wiped off the soap with cotton pads, rinsed the bowl with warm water and dried it off. The next four photos show the bowl after this cleaning. The sandblast was basically worn away and I needed to make a decision on what to do with the finish on this bowl.

The worn finish and the ink stains on the front and back of the bowl made the decision pretty easy for me. To clean and restain the pipe would still leave it worn and the ink stains visible. I decided I would rusticate the bowl with the rusticator I had received from Chris. I wanted the finish to look slightly different from the previous pipe that I rusticated so I had some ideas on what to do once I had rusticated the finish.

Once the bowl was rusticated I scrubbed the rough surface with a brass tire brush to knock of the edges. I carefully rusticated the rim and used the tool to round the edges on the outer rim to hide some of the obvious damage that had been present before. Once finished I stained it with a dark brown aniline stain. I had left the underside of the shank smooth and a portion of the shank next to the stem shank junction. I stained the bowl, flamed it, stained it and flamed it again until the coverage of the stain was even all over the briar.

I buffed the bowl with red Tripoli to further smooth out the high spots on the rustication and give a little contrast to the stain. I used the brass brush a second time on the surface. It still was not quite what I was aiming for but I laid it aside for a while to look at it and think about the options. It was while I was doing that I thought I would see if I had a new stem that would work. It gave me a second option to try should the repair or patches not work well.

I did not have a round taper or saddle stem in my can of stems that was the right diameter for the shank but I did have quite a few square stems that could be modified to fit the shank diameter. I found one that had the tenon already turned for a previous pipe I was working on and put it on the pipe to have a look. I could see some potential in the stem and the look of the wide blade saddle stem. It would certainly be worth a try. If it turned out well and the patch on the other stem worked then I would have several options to work with. The tenon on the square stem was too long but that could easily be adjusted for a tight fit against the shank. I did the adjustment with a Dremel and sanding drum.

With the stem in place against the shank I could see the very evident taper of the shank on the topside and the underside. It was significantly narrower than the rest of the shank. I wondered if the smooth briar at the shank/stem junction was not from a previous refitting of a stem. I looked over the stem I was patching and saw that it actually bore the F stamping on the top rather than the M stamp that I had expected. I had not paid attention to that before but combined with the shape of the shank I was relatively certain that the stem was a replacement and the damage to the shank was caused by a sanding the shank to more readily match the smaller diameter of the replacement stem. That made the stem choice easy – I would refit a new stem to the shank. I would use a nickel band to level the shank out and make the taper of the shank more even. This would also make fitting the new stem quite easy. I set up a heat gun, heated the nickel band and pressed it into place on the shank. The silver actually looked good against the rustication of the bowl.

I used the Dremel and large sanding drum to take off the square edges of the new stem. I worked on it until it was round. I started by taking off all the corners and creating an octagon first and then continuing to round out the stem until it was the same shape as the shank. The bottom of the shank on the pipe was flattened so the pipe would sit upright on its own so I left the bottom side of the stem slightly flattened as well. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and medium and fine grit sanding sponges to get the fit against the bowl and band perfect. I also sanded the rustication on the bowl to soften the high spots and flatten them out. I wiped the bowl down with alcohol after I had sanded. The next series of four photos show the sanded bowl and stem. The rustication is getting closer to the look that I was after when I started.

I continued to sand the stem with the fine grit sanding sponge and also the bowl. I once more wiped the bowl down with a soft cloth and alcohol to remove the dust. Each step in the process is flattening out the rustication slightly more and bringing a shine to the newly rounded stem.

I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads.

I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and when it had dried I buffed the bowl and the stem with White Diamond. I sanded the bowl with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads to further flatten he high points of the rustication and then buffed the bowl a final time with White Diamond. I gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed with a soft flannel buff between the coats of wax. I wiped the bowl down lightly with a coat of olive oil. The finished pipe is shown below. It has come a long way from the worn and tired looking old Medico with the bite throughs in the stem. The rustication came out the way I wanted it to with the high spots showing a lighter brown and the valleys in the rustication holding the dark brown stain. It is finished and ready for an inaugural smoke – if not by me at least by someone who will take it home to their rack.

Oh, and for those who wondered about the “original” stem that I was patching earlier in this post, I am continuing to work on the repairs. Both sides have had two layers of super glue and the holes are sealed. There are still more layers to go as the glue shrinks as it cures. It will be used on some other pipe in the future I am sure but for now once the patch is finished it will go back to the stem can to be used on another pipe.

A Set of Twins – Bent Royal Coachman Billiards by Comoys

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On a recent adventure I found a pair of bent billiards that had the Made in London England circle stamp on the right side of the shank and the Germanic script stamping, Royal Coachman on the left side of the shank. They were also stamped with a shape number 215. I did a bit of research to see if I could identify the maker. From the markings I was pretty confident that I was dealing with a Comoy’s seconds line but wanted to make certain I was right. The circle stamp on the right side of the shank was a giveaway to that identification. The shape number looked very familiar to me and the overall look said Comoys. So I looked in two the places that I always go to when beginning a hunt for info. The first is a website set up by Pipephil called Logos and Stampings. There I found that the Royal Coachman was indeed a Comoys brand. The site showed that the pipes were made by Chapuis-Comoys. The second site I looked at was Chris’ pipe pages http://pipepages.com/64com19s.htm . Chris has collected old catalogues and documents that give shape charts and many historical materials that cannot be found in other places. I have copied a page from the shape chart below and you can see that the 215 shape number matches not only the Comoys number but also the shape.

When I brought the pipes home from the antique shop they looked like the photos below. There were actually in pretty good shape for their age. The dealer said that he bought these along with 20 other pipes from a widow who was selling off her late husband’s estate. He had some interesting old pipes and I was able to pick through them and brought six of them home with me. These are the first pair of the bunch. The bowls were lightly smoked with a bare minimum of cake. The top pipe in the picture below was less smoked than the bottom one. Both pipes were grimy on the outside of the bowl and had some oxidation on the stems. There were no tooth marks on the top pipe and only a little tooth chatter on the underside of the bottom pipe. The top pipe has three small fills that are visible in the first photo below and a slight nick in the shank on the right side near the stem. The second pipe has a few fills as well with the largest of them visible low on the left side of the bowl in the photo below. The rims on both were clean and undamaged and showed no tar build up. On the right side of the bowl of both pipes there was a small spot of white paint.

I reamed the bowls with a PipNet reamer to remove the slight cake build up and clean out the bowl. I wiped down the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime and grease build up. It also took off the paint spots on the right side of the bowl. I use the soap undiluted as I find it does not remove the finish on the bowl as much as when it is diluted with water. I rubbed it on and scrubbed it with cotton pads and wiped it off with the same pads.

I cleaned out the inside of the shank on both pipe using cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol. Both had a slight reservoir in the shank with the drilling being quite high in the shank to accommodate the bend in the shank to bowl junction. I cleaned out the airway with pipe cleaners and then the inside of the bowl with folded pipe cleaners and cotton swabs.

I wiped down the stems with isopropyl alcohol on a cotton pad and then cleaned out the inside with pipe cleaners. The opening/airway on the end of the tenon was very small so I had to work to push the pipe cleaner into place. I had not seen an airway this constricted in a long time. The draw on the pipe was very tight; it was like pulling air through a coffee stirrer. When I pulled the pipe cleaner out a small ring came out with it. It is visible in the photo of the pipe cleaner below. The stem on the left is the one that the ring came out of and the stem on the right still has the ring. It appears to be made of brass and is a thin ring that constricts the airway for about 1/16th of an inch. With the ring removed the draw was very open. I continued to clean out the stem and airway until it was spotless and the pipe cleaners came out clean. I cleaned the end of the tenon with cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol.

I then used some Meguiar’s Scratch X2.0 on the stems to scrub the scratches and polish the stems. I applied it with a cotton pad and scrubbed and rubbed it off. The photos below show the stems after the polishing. There was some deep seated oxidation that came to the surface of the stems. There was more oxidation on the top of the stems than on the underside.

I buffed the stems with red Tripoli on my buffer to remove more of the oxidation. I followed that up with White Diamond polish on the buffer as well. I also buffed the bowl with White Diamond. The shine really came out.

There was still oxidation that came up on the stems. I sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge and then wet sanded with 400 and 600 grit sandpaper. This removed the remaining oxidation in the stem. I then wet sanded them with 1500-2400 grit pads. I dry sanded them with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stems down with Obsidian Oil and when it had dried I buffed them with White Diamond and then gave both the bowls and stems multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed them with a soft flannel buff on the buffer. The finished pipes are shown below. They are ready to enter the next phase of their lives.

Now that the pipe has been restemmed it is time to rusticate it

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I wrote about restemming this pipe in the post on Replacing a tenon in a stem with a minimum of tools (https://rebornpipes.com/2014/06/15/replacing-a-tenon-in-a-stem-with-a-minimum-of-tools/). The thing I forgot to mention is that the bowl originally had a threaded metal stem and a metal insert in the shank. I was able to remove the insert from the shank with no trouble and craft a push stem for the shank as a replacement. The stem came out great and with some work came out looking like new. In figuring out how to finish the bowl I was faced with a few choices. The briar was not terrible, I have seen worse but there were fills in the bowl. I could have picked them out and refilled them as I have done on many occasions but somehow that just did not attract me with this bowl. I had been given a rustication tool by Chris and had not used it yet so that was very attractive to me for this bowl (https://rebornpipes.com/2014/06/07/a-handmade-rustication-tool-gifted-by-a-friend-and-reader-of-rebornpipes/). The stamping on the shank was virtually buffed away so it was not something that needed to be preserved. So the decision was made. I would get to try out the new tool and see what kind of rustication pattern it would make on the briar and how comfortable it was in the hand as I pressed and twisted it into the wood. I also wanted to see if I could use it in tight spots up against the bowl and shank and close to the stem/shank junction.

I started on the front of the bowl and pressed and turned the tool into the briar. It worked like a charm. The nails were sharp, the grouping tight and workable on the pattern, the handle was extremely comfortable and spread out the pressure across my palm. This was going to be a piece of cake. It would be no problem to finish rusticating this pipe with a lot less pain in my hands. I wrapped a strip of scotch tape around the shank to make a protective line to work toward on the shank. I wanted to leave a smooth band on the shank so this would remind me where to quit twisting the tool into the wood. The next series of eight photos show the process from start to completion. It probably took me the better part of an hour and a half to rusticate the bowl and shank. I worked it over several times during that time to get a rough finish. I wanted it to be very tactile and rough kind of like a sea rock finish so I pressed hard when I worked over the wood. I left the rim smooth as I wanted to stain it to match the band I was leaving around the shank. The two would provide some contrast to the rustic finish on the rest of the pipe.

When I finished rusticating the briar unwrapped the scotch tape from the shank. The line was fairly straight and provided a nice contrast of finishes between the stem and the rustication. Then I used a brass tire brush to knock off any loose pieces of briar on the bowl. I find that using the tire brush evens out the finish and cleans up the briar once I have finished with the hard work.

I sanded the band on the shank and the rim with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge and a fine grit sanding sponge to prepare them for staining. I decided to use two different stains on the bowl to get some depth to the finish. I began with a dark brown aniline stain. I applied it with a wool dauber and let the stain permeate deep into the briar. I flamed it to set it. Reapplied the stain a second time and then flamed it again.

I wiped the bowl down with acetone and isopropyl alcohol on a cotton cloth to remove the stain from the highpoints on the bowl finish and on the band and the rim. I repeated the wash until I had the stain coat the colour I wanted. The dark brown sat deep in the grooves and the high spots were lighter in colour. I then stained the bowl with the second colour, a oxblood or cherry coloured aniline stain. I applied it with a cotton pad and daubed it onto the band, the rim and the high spots on the bowl. I flamed it, reapplied it and flamed it again. Once it was dry to the touch I hand buffed it with a soft cotton cloth.

The cherry/oxblood stain worked well on the band and the rim. It made them stand out against the darker brown of the rustication. In the light the texture of the rustication has both a dark brown look in the crevices and a reddish tint on the high spots. The contrasts in the stain on the rustication came out well and the smooth band and the rim work well with the rest of the pipe. Interestingly, and this does not always happen for me, the stain came out exactly the way I was hoping it would when I started the process.

At this point all I had left to do was to work over the stem with the micromesh sanding pads and then give it a buff to polish it. I followed my normal process on the stem. I wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and then took it to the buffer to give a light buff with White Diamond and a blue plastic polish. I finished by giving the rim, the band and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and a final buff with soft flannel buffing pad. The finished pipe is shown below. It has come a long way from the neglected bowl that sat in my refurbishing box for a long time with no stem. Now it is ready to fire up and enjoy.

Replacing a tenon in a stem with a minimum of tools

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Last evening I was looking at the lone pipe bowl in my refurbishing box and decided I wanted to do something with it. I wasn’t sure if I would refinish it or rusticate it with the new tool Chris sent me. Either way though, it needed a new stem. I went through my can of stems and found that I did not have any that would fit the shank without a lot of work. I did have one with a broken tenon that was the right diameter for this pipe. I looked at it for a while and then found a Delrin tenon that I had on the work table. The tenon was the right size for the shank! The stem was the right diameter for the shank. Now all I had to do was wed the two of them and I would have my new stem.

I have drilled out broken stems in the past and inserted a new tenon. I have used a tap and then screwed in a threaded tenon that I purchased from Pipe Makers Emporium. Either way it was work that I did by hand. By hand means that I do not have a drill press, I do not have a vise to hold the stem. I have my two hands and a cordless drill. This takes steady and slow work to keep all the angles straight and get things properly aligned. It is one of those processes that will either work really well or not at all. There is no in between. You cannot redrill a crooked hole to straighten it out without making it too large to fit the piece. So really the fact of the matter is that it all comes down to whether I can drill the stem out straight!

To begin the process I needed to square up the end of the stem and remove the broken pieces of the tenon that still remained. The end needed to be flat and even for the drilling. I sanded down the end of the stem flush using a sanding board (like the one used when topping a bowl). In the photo below you can see that the end of the stem has a divot out of it due to the breakage. I did not worry too much about that as the drilling would take most of that area out of the equation. I only worked on flattening out the rest of the stem. When finished I pressed it against the end of the shank to see if it was a flush fit or if there were any high spots. The fit was perfect. Now it was ready for drilling.

I took out my cordless drill and found that the battery was dead. I put the battery on the charger and sat thinking for a bit about how to best drill out the stem. I measured the diameter of the new tenon and found that it was 15/16 inches. To make sure I did not crack the stem or break it in the process I would drill it out in stages. I would mark the depth on each drill bit I used with a piece of tape so that I would not over drill or under drill the depth of the hole. I used the tenon as the measure for this. The tenon I had came with a slight lip on it so I would need to countersink the end of the stem once the hole was drilled in order to accommodate the lip.

I decided to try something different this time and not wait for the battery to charge. I stood the drill on my desk, inserted the drill bit and hand turned the stem onto the drill bit. I started with the 11/64 inch bit which was slightly larger than the airway in the stem. I turned the stem onto the stationary bit to the depth that I had marked on the drill bit. I lined up the stem and the angles making sure the line was straight and the hole stayed centered throughout the process. I worked my way through 7 bit sizes up to the 17/64 inch bit. Each time I turned the stem onto the bit in increments and cleaned out the hole with a dental pick. I continued to turn it on and off the bit until the drilling was smooth before moving onto the next sized bit.

I found that when I got to the larger sized bits from 19/64, 5/16, 21/64 inches it was hard to turn them on by hand. I could get them started but they quickly bound up on the bit and I could not turn them further. I turned them back and forth but it was not working well. I put the battery back on the drill and drilled the stem using a very slow speed. It worked well. When I had finished drilling it with the 5/16 inch bit the tenon pressure fit very nicely in the hole. There was not enough room for epoxy to be applied and still fit in the hole, so I drilled it with the 21/64 bit to give it the amount of room for the epoxy. To countersink the end of the stem I used a slightly larger drill bit and then a sharp knife to bevel the inner edge to accept the ridge on the tenon.

In the morning the tenon was firmly in place and dry. I cleaned the face with a dental pick and removed the excess epoxy from the stem. I pushed the stem into the shank of the pipe to see the fit. This was the final test. Did things align properly? Did I get the angle square and straight? Would there be a gap in the stem and shank joint? In case you are wondering I have had all of those issues in the past and had to do a lot of adjustments to get a clean fit. But this time things worked well. The fit was perfect and the alignment was absolutely correct. The pipe now had a new stem and it was time to make a decision on what to do with the finish of the bowl. That will be another story however. The photo below shows the fit of the stem and the shank. I am very pleased with the fit.

I sanded the stem and the shank to get a smooth transition between the stem and shank. I wanted the fit to be seamless so it took some sanding with 220 grit sandpaper followed by a sanding sponge to fine tune the fit. Here is the pipe as it stands now. Later today I will rework the bowl and finish the entire stem. But for the purpose of this post the tenon replacement and fit of the stem to the shank is complete.

Restoring an old CPF Gourd Calabash Pipe

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Blog by Steve Laug

In my grab bag from the antique mall was a gourd calabash bowl. It has the original silver band with the CPF logo stamped on it and some faux hallmarks – an anchor, star and a figure. The CPF stands for Colossus Pipe Factory – a brand I researched and wrote about previously on the blog – https://rebornpipes.com/2013/04/14/so…-on-cpf-pipes/. The hallmarks on the band are an anchor with chain, a star and a figure of a man. From my research these are faux hallmarks. CPF pipes were made in New York and later became linked with KB&B pipes. Here is a link to an old catalogue linking the brand to KB&B that I posted previously on the blog https://rebornpipes.com/2014/03/05/an…cpf-catalogue/. Sadly there are no meerschaum pipes in the catalogue so I cannot ascertain the date for sure. I am fairly confident from comparing the band with others that I have which have similar bands that the pipe can conservatively be dated to the early 1900s or late 1890s. So it is a gourd bowl that has some age on it.

The bowl came with the band and a threaded bone tenon that was easily removed from the mortise. The gourd had darkened areas around the exterior of the bowl from the hand of the previous owners. There were several nicks in the gourd on the bottom of the shank next to the band and on the right side next o the band. The band had been pressed onto the gourd and it was obvious from the fit and the way it pressed into the shank ahead of it that it was original. The inside of the gourd had hard tars and tobacco oils on the walls down into the shank itself. There was nothing soft or sticky in either the shank or bowl. A pipe cleaner came out clean regardless of whether it was dry or wet. The top edge of the rim was pristine with no dents or nicks. There was a slight crack that ran down about ½ inch on the front of the bowl. I liked the shape of the gourd from the moment I took it out of the bag. It was not oddly shaped but was elegant in both the flare of the bowl and the curve of the shank. It would be well worth bringing back to life.

I measured the diameter of the bowl and the diameter of the bone tenon and made a call to Tim West at J.H. Lowe (http://www.jhlowe.com/) with the dimensions to see what he had in terms of a meerschaum bowl and a potential stem for the pipe. He asked for a photo of the bowl so he could have a look before recommending sizes of the stem or bowl. I told him that I was thinking about an amber acrylic a Bakelite stem. Once he saw the pictures Tim talked me out of that and said a vulcanite stem would be perfect for it. I asked if he would tap the stem for me before he shipped it. He said he would do it, no problem. He did a bang up job and sent it along with the meerschaum cup. Both of them arrived here in Vancouver quite quickly. I unpacked the bowl and stem from the box that Tim sent and that was the beginning of the issues that I faced with restoring this pipe. I will spell them out in detail as I write about the restoration of the pipe.

I tried fitting the meer cup into the gourd and found that there were several issues that I would have to deal with before it would fit well. The diameter of the bowl was perfect. The mushroom cap was big and draped over the top of the gourd and looked passable to me. The first problem was that the bowl had a lip around the top edge under the cap that was shaped the wrong direction – absolutely the opposite of the angle of the bowl. Because of that ridge the bowl would not sit in the gourd bowl correctly. Secondly I found that even without the ridge the cup was too deep to fit the depth of the gourd. The gourd tapered much more sharply than the meer cup so the bottom of the cup sat high in the gourd bowl. I would need to change the taper on the cup and shorten it so that it would sit in the gourd correctly and I would need to remove the lip around the top under the cap.

I measured the thickness of the bottom of the bowl and the thickness of the walls of the bowl around the cup to make sure I could remove the ridge and shorten the bowl without ruining the meer cup. I was happy to see that I had a lot of room to work with and could easily remove what was needed for a proper fit in the bowl. I used the Dremel to remove the ridge from under the cap edge. It was big enough that hand sanding would have taken a very long time. I took it down to match the rest of the bowl. I also used the Dremel to shorten the bowl. I flattened it out and took off approximately ½ inch. I then hand sanded the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper to reshape it and smooth out the Dremel work. I reshaped the taper of the cup to match the taper of the gourd. I sanded the flat edges of the bottom and reshaped it into a gentle curve. The photo below shows the newly reworked bowl. It fit well in the gourd after all of this work.

I set aside the meer cup and cleaned out the inside of the gourd removing the tars and build up. I washed down the outside with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grease and buildup on the gourd. I did not want the soap wet as I did not want to wet the gourd. I rubbed the soap on with a cotton pad and scrubbed and removed it the same way. Once it was clean I noticed that the small hairline crack along the front of the bowl was slightly open. I opened it slightly and dripped some super glue in it to bind the crack and clamped it until the glue cured. Fortunately for this impatient man the super glue dries very quickly and I could move on to the inside of the gourd. I sanded it out with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I was able to reach quite far down into the shank and sanded the ridges of tars and oils out of the bowl. There was a thick ridge at the bottom where the original cup had rested against the walls of the gourd. I used a dental pick to loosen that area and then sanded it smooth. All of this cleaning work served to renew the inside of the gourd but also made a smooth base for the new meer cup.

I cut a piece of cork to fit the inner edge of the gourd. It had to be trimmed in both height and length to fit properly. I glued it into place with white all-purpose glue. I pressed on it to make sure that it sat tightly against the gourd. This cork would serve as a gasket for the cup and also it fit perfectly against the small crack that I had repaired on the exterior. Together they would bind together the crack and provide a functional repair to that surface.

Once the glue dried I sanded the cork with 220 grit sandpaper (my go to sandpaper for much of the initial work I do on the pipe). I wanted it to be a smooth pressure fit that would hold the bowl in place. I rubbed down the cork gasket with Vaseline to soften it after the sanding. I find that cork left unused gets dry and brittle and the Vaseline brings it back to life. I pressed the bowl in place to check the fit and found that it still needed some adjustment to sit properly in the bowl. The top edge under the cap needed to be sanded some more to reduce the diameter of the cup.

I took it out of the gourd and sanded it with the 220 grit sandpaper until it fit correctly. I polished the cup exterior with a fine grit sanding sponge and 1500 grit micromesh sanding pads before pressing it back into the gourd.

This time it fit was far better. The cup sat in the gourd like they were made for each other. The two photos that follow show the fit and look of the new bowl. At this point the calabash is showing great promise.

I cleaned up the mess of the meerschaum sanding dust that was everywhere on my work table. It is a messy fine powder that gets into everything if left to its own devices. Once I had done that I wiped down the exterior of the bowl and cup one more time and took a couple of photos to get a good look at the pipe.

With the work on the bowl and cup finished I turned my attention to the stem. Tim’s drilling was spot on. The diameter was exactly what I had sent him – ¼ inch. The second problem I faced with this old calabash was that the bone tenon was not quite the 1/4 inch measurement I gave him. It would not fit in the tapped hole in the stem. I measured it again and found that is was closer to 3/8 inches than a ¼ inch. I re-tapped the stem to 3/8 and was able to thread the tenon into the stem. It looked great and it fit well in the mortise. I glued the tenon in place in the stem with all-purpose white glue and set it aside to cure over night.

In the morning I slowly and carefully turned it into the bowl. Things were going really well. It looked like I would need to reduce the diameter of the stem slightly on one side and the top to match the diameter of the shank band. As I was turning it I heard a noise that is dreadful to me and to anyone who has heard it. It generally is not a good sound when you are this far along in a repair and signifies more work. The bone tenon broke in half. It obviously had been cracked and I had not seen that when I examined it. When I had turned it into the shank it had shattered. I was left with the broken half glued into the stem and the threaded half stuck in the shank of the pipe. Talk about frustration. I set the pipe aside and took a deep breath. Now I would have to go back to the drawing board in terms of how to attach a stem. I would have to drill out both the stem and the shank in order to move forward.

I pulled out a can from my drawer where I keep replacement tenons – threaded Delrin, straight Delrin rods cut to fit as tenons and some push stem conversion kits that had a mortise insert and tenon for converting threaded shanks in old meers to accommodate a push tenon. The conversion kit would work nicely in this situation. I would have to modify the shank of the calabash as the diameter of the mortise insert was too big for the 3/8 inch opening. I had to drill out the end of the gourd and then re-tap it to be able to put the insert in place. The thickness of the shank did not give me much wiggle room so I would only have one chance at this. I was able to drill it and tap it. I mixed the two part epoxy and inserted the mortise in place in the shank.

The tenon was a much simpler to repair. I carefully drilled out the broken bone tenon in the stem and was able to salvage the threads. Once I had blown out the dust from the stem the push tenon screwed neatly into the 3/8 inch tapped end of the stem. I removed it a final time and epoxied it in place. However, it too was not trouble-free. The tenon had a 1/16th inch lip that would not sit in the end of the drilling on the stem. I ended up having to carve it with a sharp knife to remove the lip. In the photo below you can see the epoxied insert in the shank and the tenon in the stem. The insert still needed to be countersunk and cleaned up and the tenon needed to have the lip trimmed away.

I set aside the calabash until the epoxy set. Once the stem was set I decided to work on the other end of the mouthpiece. It had a very tight slot on the end that was hard to push a pipe cleaner through so I opened that up with needle files. I used a flat oval file, an oval and a round file to do the majority of the work. I finished opening it with a flat angle file to open the top and bottom of the slot.

When the epoxy had cured I carefully pushed the stem into the shank to check out the fit. The next two photos show the look of the pipe at this point. I removed the stem and countersunk the mortise slightly. I did not want to use a drill and countersink to do the work so I used a very sharp knife and did it by hand. Once it was completed I replaced the stem in the shank and the fit against the band was clean and snug. My initial mission was accomplished. I had not only broken the bone tenon, I had removed it from the shank and stem and converted the pipe to a push stem. There was still work to do but at least I had salvaged the pipe from the damage I had done in my initial repair. Whew…

I sanded the stem with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches left behind by the 220 grit sandpaper. I gave it a light buff with Tripoli on the wheel and then set up a heat gun to bend the stem. I held the stem about three inches above the heat and moved it around as it heated. I have learned that to leave it in one place as you heat it can damage the vulcanite and create more work. Once the stem was pliable I bent it over a wooden rolling pin that I use for that purpose. Lately I slid a cardboard tube over the pin to give a softer, smoother surface to bend the stem over. I had to do it twice to get the bend correct. It takes a bit longer to heat the thicker portion of the stem that needed to be bent so the repeated step made that possible.

The finished bend is shown in the next two photos. I still needed to polish the stem before it was finished but the finished look is beginning to appear. The calabash is just about reborn.

I removed the stem and worked on it with the sanding sponges and the micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with the 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with the 3200-12000 grit pads. Between the wet and dry sanding I rubbed the stem down with Meguiar’s Scratch x2.0 and then buffed it with White Diamond. I finished the sanding and then rubbed the stem with Obsidian Oil. Once it was dry I gave it a quick buff with White Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a soft flannel buff.

I scrubbed the surface of the gourd with Oil Soap and a light sanding with the fine grit sanding sponge to remove some of the deeper grime and oils in the gourd. I then applied several coats of Paragon Wax and hand buffed the gourd with a shoe brush to raise a shine. I polished the silver band with some silver polish and then reinserted the stem. I gave the whole pipe a final buff with the brush before setting the meerschaum cup in place. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It is a deep bowl and should hold a good pack of tobacco. The broad mushroom cap of the meerschaum cup looks good to me. The pipe is ready for its inaugural smoke. Now the only problem remaining is what tobacco to use to christen this restored calabash. Ah well that will sort itself out soon enough. Time to post this on the blog.