Tag Archives: GBD Premier Pipes

Life for a Long Shank GBD Premier Colossus 264 T Lumberman

Blog by Steve Laug

A fellow Vancouver Pipeman named Alex has been keeping me busy with working on the pipes he is picking up. He has picked up some interesting American and English made pipes. The next of those pipes is a long shank pipe that is a part of the Canadian family of pipes. The shank is oval and the stem is a saddle shaped one which makes it a Lumberman rather than a Canadian. I did a screen capture of the shapes from Pipedia (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Canadian). It is the second pipe in the picture below.This long shank GBD Lumberman is quite a stunning pipe. The pipe is one large piece of briar with no joints on the shank. From what I can see there is one flaw on the top of the shank near the end. There are some small fills around the bowl that are blended in quite well. The pipe is stamped on the top and the underside of the shank. On the topside it reads GBD in an oval [over] Premier [over] Colossus. On the underside it has a circular COM stamp that reads Made in London in a circle [over] England. That is followed by the shape number 264 with some space and then the upper case letter “T”. There was a thick cake in the bowl and lava overflowing onto the rim top. The rim top has some scratching and dents that will be more visible once the lava coat is gone. It is hard to know what the beveled inner edge looks like because of the lava. The finish was very dirty with grime and oils ground into the smooth finish. The vulcanite saddle GBD Oval logo stamped on the topside of the saddle stem. The stem was calcified, oxidized, dirty and had tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. Here are some photos of the pipe when I first received it. I took a close-up photo of the rim to show the condition of the rim top, bowl and the inner edge of the bowl. It was hard to know what was going on with the rim and edges because of the cake and lava overflow. The stem was a mess with tooth damage and chatter on the button edges and the stem ahead of the button. The stamping on the topside and the underside of the shank are shown in the photos below. It reads as noted above. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the flow of the pipe. The pipe was really going to look great once it was cleaned and polished. The long, oval shank Lumberman is a beauty.The history of GBD pipes is very well spelled out in multiple articles on Pipedia. I would encourage you to give them a read as they are well written and very readable. It is truly a grand old brand spanning France and England. I turned instead to Pipedias article on GBD’s various models (https://pipedia.org/wiki/GBD_Model_Information). I did a screen capture of the write up on the Premier Line.The pipe is a Premier which is noted above as a flagship to their pipes. It says that it is stained with a unique fiery Autumn colour combination that has a hand finished mouthpiece.

The second stamping on the top of the shank was Colossus. I knew that this stamp was used on larger or what GBD called “plus sized pipes”. I read through the above link and found the information below.

Plus Sized Pipes

In addition to the pipe line and shape information stamped on the pipe GBD also had codes for plus sized pipes. These codes in ascending order of size were…

Conquest
Collector
Colossus

Perspex refers to the lucite/acrylic bit material GBD used, the clear bits used on various models are Perspex. Metal rondelles were discontinued after the merger with Comoy.

From this I know that the pipe is a larger, plus sized pipe that was at the top of the plus sizes – a Colossus. The Premier was the high in the hierarchy as well. I also knew that because of the circular COM stamp and the lack of a metal rondelle that the pipe was made after the merger with Comoy.

Now it was time to work on the pipe itself. I reamed the thick cake back to the walls with a PipNet pipe reamer using the first two cutting heads. I followed up – cleaning the remnants of cake on the walls with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. The final step for me to assess the condition of the walls of the bowl is to sand it with 220 grit sandpaper on a piece of dowel. I sanded the walls smooth. I was happy with the condition of the inside walls of the chamber. I scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with a tooth brush and undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap to get the grime and debris out of the briar. I rinsed it with running water and dried it off with a towel. With that the outside was clean… progress! I cleaned out the mortise, shank in the briar and airway in the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and 99% isopropyl alcohol. The pipe was dirty with lots of tars and oils. I worked on the damage to the rim top to remove the darkening, charring and dents and nicks. I topped it on with 220 grit sandpaper to remove as much of the damage as possible. There was still some damage to the front edge of the rim. I filled in the damaged bevel with briar dust and super glue. I took a photo of the rim top after the cleanup and then worked on the beveled rim with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiping the bowl down with a damp cloth after each pad. The grain is really beginning to stand out and the rim top is blending in quite well. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The following photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. I am very happy with the results. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I repaired the tooth marks in the vulcanite and rebuilt the edge of the button with Black Loctite 380 Adhesive. Once the repairs had cured I used a needle file to recut the edges of the button and flatten out the repairs. I sanded the stem surface and button with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the repairs and blend them into the surface. I also worked to remove the remaining oxidation on the stem surface. I started the polishing with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads and wiping it down after each pad with a damp cloth. This GBD Long Shank Premier Colossus Lumberman with a vulcanite saddle stem turned out to be a real beauty. The long shank and bowl is a single unit that speaks of nice, large piece of briar. GBD really maximized the grain with the shape of the pipe. Everything about the pipe – the finish, the crowned rim top and the cut of the briar work well to highlight the grain around the bowl. I polished stem and the bowl with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel and the finish just popped and came alive. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The pipe took on life with the buffing. The rich brown finish works well with the polished vulcanite stem. The finished pipe has a rich look that is quite catching. Have a look at it with the photos below. The shape, finish and flow of the pipe and stem are very well done. The dimensions are Length: 7 ½ inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. The Premier Colossus GBD Lumberman will back in the box of pipes that I am working on for Alex. I am looking forward to what he will think of this one. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another estate pipe.

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

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Blog by Steve Laug

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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