Tag Archives: Jost’s Pipes made by Harvey Raspberry

Repairing a Cracked Shank and Banding a Jost’s Supreme Diamond Shank Bent Billiard

Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is another that the Vancouver pipe man dropped off for me to work on for him. It was stamped Jost’s Supreme and had a natural finish around the bowl. It is a bent diamond shank Billiard with some interesting grain. It needed restoration on the bowl which was heavily caked and the shank had the remnants of a paper wrap that had been used to hold the stem in place due to the crack in the shank. It also needed a repair to the crack on a pipe that I had originally worked on back in 2016. When I originally had worked on it the pipe had a thick cake and was well used. Here is the link to that restoration that I did back when I first picked it up (https://rebornpipes.com/2016/11/11/restoring-the-fourth-classic-find-a-josts-supreme-diamond-shank-bent-billiard/).The stem had tooth marks, tooth chatter and a lot of oxidation and calcification on the stem. Here are some photos of the pipe when he picked it up in 2016 to give a bit for context for my work. When I took the pipe out of the bag to work on this morning this is what I saw. The finish on the briar looked very good. It was dirty and the natural finish looked dried out. There was a crack on the lower right side of the diamond shank. The stem was very loose in the shank and the tenon appeared to have been wrapped in paper to tighten it. The bowl had a very thick cake and the airway in the shank was dirty. I would need to be cleaned up before I worked on the shank repair and the fit of the stem in the shank. The stem was oxidized, calcified and had tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. I took photos of the rim top and the thick cake in the bowl to show how it looked. The rim top had some darkening around the inner edge of the bowl. It will clean up pretty well. The photos of the stem show the condition of the stem. You can see the tooth marks and chatter under the calcification on the stem surface.I took a photo of the stamping on both sides of the shank. It is clear and readable as noted above. I took the stem off the shank and photographed the look of the pipe as a whole. It is a nice looking Diamond Shank Bent Billiard. I went back and reread the previous restoration blog that I written on the restoration the previous time I had worked on the pipe. I also was very interested to read the back story and history on the brand. I quote from the blog below.

In earlier blogs I have written about restoring another Jost’s pipe that I found. When I restored that pipe it was a brand I had heard of but was unfamiliar with. I researched the web to find some information about the brand. Here is a link to the blog I wrote on the Jost’s Olde English Deluxe: https://rebornpipes.com/2016/09/03/josts-olde-english-de-luxesupreme-overstamped-j214-bent-billiard/. I am quoting several of the paragraphs that summarize what I learned about the brand.

“I looked up Jost’s pipes on the Pipephil site and found a pipe that had the same stamping on the left side of the shank as the one I was working on. The right side had slightly different stamping in that it had the classic COM stamp circle where the one I had was two lines Made in over England. It also had a picture of the circle J stamp on the stem. There was a note there the tobacco shop proprietor was Mrs. Henry A. Jost. Her resident carver was Harvey Raspberry.”

I also found a blog that is called ClassicPipeShop that even had a catalogue of the pipes made by the Jost’s Shop or were imported by them for their store. I quote that blog once more as it places the new pipe that I am working on now.

“I did some more hunting online and I found a blog that did a great write up on Jost’s Pipe Shop and gave some definitive information on the brand and grades of the pipes. Here is the link if you wish to read a well written history of the brand and also some interesting details about shop blends of tobacco. http://classicpipeshop.blogspot.ca/2015/03/josts-pipe-shop-201-north-6th-street-st.html”

“I have included the section of the blog on the pipes. It covers a lot of information regarding the source of the pipes and the levels/grades of pipes. Remember that the one I am working on is a De Luxe/Supreme. I quote:”

“Jost’s Pipes are closely tied to Comoy’s. Many of Jost’s pipes have the standard Comoy’s shape number and the “Made in England” in a circle. If the Jost’s pipe doesn’t have the “Made in England” it is probably made by Harvey Raspberry.”

“If the pipe has a shape number that is preceded by a “J” that is a Comoy’s product without question. Typically these will have the words “Made in London England” on the reverse side of the shank from where the Jost stamp is made. There are always exceptions to the rule but 95% of the time, this is accurate.”

“Many different levels of pipes were offered by Jost’s Pipe Shop. From a 1950s catalog I have the following available:”

Jost Old English De Luxe: $85.00

These were typically of the highest… Grain is stunning and the briar is flawless. These are the grade you should look out for as they are great smokers.

*Jost Old English Supreme: (no pricing available)

The majority of the Old English version pipes you see are marked Supreme. These are stained in a darker color and are presumably from the same Algerian aged Briar as the De Luxe brothers. These are also of the highest quality available. *(The current pipe I am working on is stamped Jost’s Supreme on the left side of the shank with no shape number and no Made in London England stamp. If I read the information correctly it was one that was made by Harvey Raspberry, who was the shop pipe maker.)

Jost Virgin Briar Supreme: $35.00

Don’t see too many marked as Virgin Briar Supreme but you will often find “Supreme” Jost pipes on the second hand market (see above). Excellent quality briar and displays the lighter toned finish of the De Luxe above. Grain is not as flashy or desirable as the De Luxe model.

Jost Thames Briars: $25.00

I’ve seen these offered as blasted / rusticated pipes and look quite nice. Most of the smooth finish Thames pipes are riddled with fills. Good smokers but not much to look at (smooth).

Jost Sandblast Briars: $25.00

These are a great value. The shop made sand-blasted pipes are usually quite large and snapped up very quickly by collectors. The Comoy’s versions (with J shape #s) are of excellent quality and typically rather small compared to the shop-made variety.

Dukes Briars: $15.00

These come up very rarely. The two I’ve seen in recent years are rather small in size. Smooth finish with light / honey stain color. Not sure what the story is behind these.

Now I knew the background on the pipe. I knew that the Supreme pipe was one of the higher end Jost’s in the Old English line. It was time to work on the pipe!

I decided clean up the pipe before I repaired the cracked shank. I reamed the bowl back to bare briar with a Pipenet Pipe Reamer using the third cutting head. I cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. I finished the bowl clean up with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. The walls were smooth and there was no sign of burning or checking. It looked very good. I cleaned out the internals with 99% isopropyl alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs. I worked over the shank and the airway in the stem. It took some work but once finished it was clean and smelled fresh. With the internals clean it was time to work on the cracked shank. I drilled a small pinhole at the end of the crack on the right underside of the shank. I do this to stop the crack from further spreading. I fill in the pinhole with clear CA glue and built up the surface of the crack at the same time. I squeezed the crack together and held it until the glue set. I spread the glue with a dental spatula and pressed into the shank crack. Once the repair cured I sanded it smooth with 220 grit sandpaper. I went through my bands and found a shank band/ferrule in nickel that was a snug fit on the shank. It was crowned and slightly dome so that would need to be flattened. I put the band a piece of dowel and used a ball peen hammer to flatten the top of the dome for a better fit with the stem.I heated the band with a lighter and pressed it onto the shank end. The fit of the ferrule to the shank was tight and it pulled the crack together even more than my clamping. It covered much of the stamping but the crack was quite long and I wanted some strong coverage. I put the stem on the shank and took photos of the new look of the pipe. I sanded the damage on the rim top and edges with 220 grit sandpaper. I was able to remove the majority of it with the sanding. There was some remaining darkening on the back inner edge of the bowl. I polished the bowl rim top with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the briar down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. It took on a real shine by the time I finished with the last sanding pad. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the smooth rim and the sandblast finish on the bowl and shank. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect the wood. I used a horse hair shoe brush to work it into the crevices and keep from building up in the valleys and crevices of the finish. Once the bowl was covered with the balm I let it sit for about 15 minutes and buffed it off with a soft cotton cloth and the shoe brush. I polished it with a microfiber cloth. I took photos of the pipe at this point in the process to show what the bowl looked like at this point. I used a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper to try and flatten the remaining crown on the shank band/ferrule.Now it was time to address the part of the restoration I leave until last. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I filled in the deep grooves in the tenon to build it up and make it even. Once the repair cured I sanded it smooth to make it round and even once more. Once finished it looked better and the fit in the shank was very good. I wanted to adjust the bent in the stem as it had straightened a bit over time. I heated the blade with the flame of a Bic lighter. Once the vulcanite had softened I bent it to the correct angle and set the bend with cool water. It looks much better. I took the newly bent stem off the shank and worked on the stem surface to deal with the tooth marks and chatter. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to remove the oxidation and calcification off the surface of the stem. I build up the damage to the top of the button edge with black CA rubberized glue. Once it had cured I recut the button edge and flattened the repairs. I smoothed out the repairs with 220 grit sandpaper and started polishing the stem with 600 grit wet dry sand paper. I use micromesh sanding pads and water to wet sand the stem with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil on a cotton rag after each sanding pad as I find it does two things – first it protects the vulcanite and second it give the sanding pads bite in the polishing process. After finishing with the micromesh pads I rub the stem down with Before & After Fine and Extra Fine stem polish as it seems to really remove the fine scratches in the vulcanite. I rub the Fine Polish on the stem and wipe it off with a paper towel and then repeat the process with the Extra Fine Polish. I finished the polishing of the stem down with a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set the stem aside to let the oil absorb. This process gives the stem a shine and also a bit of protection from oxidizing quickly. The final steps in my process involve using the buffer. I first buff the stem and the briar with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. Blue Diamond is a plastic polish but I find that it works very well to polish out the light scratches in the vulcanite and the briar. I work the pipe over on the wheel with my finger or thumb in the bowl to keep it from becoming airborne. It works well and I am able to carefully move forward with the buffing. The briar and stem just shone! I finished with the Blue Diamond and moved on to buffing with carnauba wax. Once I have a good shine in the briar and vulcanite I always give the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I have found that I can get a deeper shine if I following up the wax buff with a clean buffing pad. It works to raise the shine and then I follow that up with a hand buff with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. It is always fun for me to see what the polished bowl looks like with the polished vulcanite stem. It really is a beautiful pipe. The smooth finish around the shows the grain shining through the buffed natural finish of this Jost’s Supreme Diamond Shank Bent Billiard. The finished pipe feels great in my hand. It is light and well balanced. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.62 ounces/46 grams. It is a beautiful pipe and the third of the five pipes for repair that I have ahead of me. Once I am finished with the lot he will get them back to enjoy once more. As always I encourage your questions and comments as you read the blog. Thanks to each of you who are reading this blog. Remember we are not pipe owners; we are pipemen and women who hold our pipes in trust until they pass on into the trust of those who follow us.

Restoring a Jost’s Eccentric Grain 73S Long Canadian

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next has been around here for a very long time – a little over five years. We purchased the pipe off eBay on 07/02/17 from Akron, Ohio, USA. The pipe came from Jost’s Pipe Shop in St. Louis, Ohio and I will go into the details of that below. It is a nice mixed grain long shank Canadian. It is stamped on the left side of the shank and reads JOST’S [over] Eccentric Grain. On the right side of the shank it is stamped 73S (shape number). The pipe had some interesting grain peaking through the grime on the outside. There was a thick cake in the bowl and a heavy overflow of lava on the rim top. The inner edge looks like it has some damage and is slightly out of round on the right front side. The stem has deep tooth marks on both sides on and ahead of the button. There is some light oxidation on the stem surface. Despite all of that it is a beautiful long Canadian that has great potential. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he clean it so you can see what we were dealing with. He took photos of the bowl, rim top and stem to give a clear picture of their condition. The bowl is thickly cake and the lava on the inner edge and rim top is moderate. The inner edge shows damage on the right front side. The stem has some deep tooth marks and chatter on both sides on and ahead of the button. Jeff’s photos of the sides and heel of the bowl show why the pipe was labeled eccentric grain. It is a wild, random pattern of swirls and birdseye grain that has it sown beauty. It should look great after it is cleaned up.He also captured a flaw on the underside of the long shank near the stem. It will need to be addressed in the final work.Jeff captured the stamping on the shank sides. It is clear and readable as noted above. There was also a faint circle J stamp on the left side of the stem that I hope will survive the clean up. Before I started on my part of the restoration I decided to do a bit of reading on the brand. I knew it was US made and connected to Jost’s Pipe Shop in St. Louis, Missouri but it had been awhile since I had worked on one of their pipes. I first reread an old blog I had written on the restoration of a Jost’s De Luxe Supreme that I had restored in 2016. Here is the link to that if you would like to see more detail (https://rebornpipes.com/2016/09/03/josts-olde-english-de-luxesupreme-overstamped-j214-bent-billiard/).

I then turned to Pipephil’s as I had in the previous blog but specifically to see if there was any mention of the Eccentric Grain 73S Canadian. Here is the link (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-j4.html). I found that while the site did not reference the line it did give some helpful information on the brand and the potential carver of this pipe. I have included the following screen capture and some notes from the side bar on the brand with a possible lead to the maker – Harvey Raspberry.The Proprietor of the tobacco shop was Mrs Henry A. Jost. She was a pipesmoker. Jost’s Pipes are closely tied to Comoy. Many of Jost’s pipes have the standard Comoy shape number and the “Made in England ” in a circle. If the Jost’s pipe doesn’t have the “Made in England ” it is probably made by Harvey Raspberry.

From the 2016 blog I followed a link to the classicpipeshop blog that had some helpful information on the brand (http://classicpipeshop.blogspot.ca/2015/03/josts-pipe-shop-201-north-6th-street-st.html). The site includes a great history of the brand and also some interesting details about grades of pipes they made and sold as well as their shop blends of tobacco.

I have included the section of the blog on the pipes. It covers a lot of information regarding the source of the pipes and the levels/grades of pipes. However, the Eccentric Grain line was not included on the site. There was also good information on the carver Harvey Raspberry. I quote:

Jost’s Pipes are closely tied to Comoy’s. Many of Jost’s pipes have the standard Comoy’s shape number and the “Made in England ” in a circle. If the Jost’s pipe doesn’t have the “Made in England” it is probably made by Harvey Raspberry.

If the pipe has a shape number that is preceded by a “J” that is a Comoy’s product without question. Typically these will have the words “Made in London England” on the reverse side of the shank from where the Jost stamp is made. There are always exceptions to the rule but 95% of the time, this is accurate.

Many different levels of pipes were offered by Jost’s Pipe Shop. From a 1950s catalog I have the following available:

Jost Old English De Luxe: $85.00
These were typically of the highest… Grain is stunning and the briar is flawless. These are the grade you should look out for as they are great smokers.

Jost Old English Supreme: (no pricing available)
The majority of the Old English version pipes you see are marked Supreme. These are stained in a darker color and are presumably from the same Algerian aged Briar as the De Luxe brothers. These are also of the highest quality available.

Jost Virgin Briar Supreme: $35.00
Don’t see too many marked as Virgin Briar Supreme but you will often find “Supreme” Jost pipes on the second hand market (see above). Excellent quality briar and displays the lighter toned finish of the De Luxe above. Grain is not as flashy or desirable as the De Luxe model.

Jost Thames Briars: $25.00
I’ve seen these offered as blasted /rusticated pipes and look quite nice. Most of the smooth finish Thames pipes are riddled with fills. Good smokers but not much to look at (smooth).

Jost Sandblast Briars: $25.00
These are a great value. The shop made sand-blasted pipes are usually quite large and snapped up very quickly by collectors. The Comoy’s versions (with J shape #s) are of excellent quality and typically rather small compared to the shop-made variety.

Dukes Briars: $15.00
These come up very rarely. The two I’ve seen in recent years are rather small in size. Smooth finish with light / honey stain color. Not sure what the story is behind these.

From the above information I knew that the pipe I had was one of the pipes made by Harvey Raspberry for Jost’s and not one of the Comoy’s made pipes. It is interesting to me though that the pipe has a very English/Comoys look to it nonetheless. The Pipe Shop not only made the Eccentric Grain pipe they also made and Eccentric Blend of tobacco that actually sounded quite good.

Jeff had cleaned the pipe as usual from the inside out. He reamed the bowl with a Pipnet pipe reamer and cleaned up the remnants of cake with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. Once the cake was removed he cleaned out the internals of the shank and stem with 99% isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. He rinsed it in warm water to remove the soap and the grime. He soaked the stem in Before & After Stem Deoxidizer and then cleaned it out once more with pipe cleaners and alcohol. When it arrived in Vancouver it was in clean shape and ready for my contribution to the restoration. I took some photos of the pipe to show how it looked when I brought it to the table last evening. The rim top and edges cleaned up very well. The photos I took of the bowl and stem show what I am dealing with now. You can see the darkening on the back of the rim top and the damage on the right front inner edge of the bowl. The stem shows some light oxidation remaining and the tooth marks on both sides and on the button. I took photos of the stamping. They are clear and readable as noted above. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo to give a sense of the length of the shank in proportion to the bowl. It is a long and pretty looking pipe.Now it was time to work on the pipe. I started by dealing with the rim top and out of round and damaged inner edge. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to give the rim a slight bevel to clean up and minimize the damage. It definitely looked better than when I started.I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down with a damp cloth after each pad. The pipe began to take on a rich shine and the grain stood out. I decided to leave the small flaw on the underside of the shank as once cleaned and polished it was really quite minimal. I rubbed some Before & After Restoration Balm into the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let it sit on the briar for 15 minutes then buffed it off with a clean cloth. It really makes the grain come alive. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I “painted” it with a Bic lighter flame to lift as many of the dents as possible. Most were removed. Those that remained I filled in with clear CA glue. I set it aside to cure. Once it had cured I used a small file to smooth out the repair and recut the edge of the button. I cleaned it up further with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I started the polishing with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I touched up the J with a circle using some White Acrylic Nail Polish. I let it dry and scraped off the excess with a tooth pick. I polished off the excess with 1500 grit sandpaper and rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – I dry sanded it with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil between each sanding pad. I finished the polishing with Before & After stem polish and gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil. This Jost’s Eccentric Grain 73S Long Canadian is a great looking pipe now that it has been restored. The medium reddish brown stain highlights the grain and works well with the polished vulcanite bent taper stem. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Long Canadian fits nicely in the hand and feels great. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are; Length: 6 ½ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outer diameter of the bowl: 1 1/8 inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ inches. The weight of the pipe is 1.38 ounces/39 grams. I will be adding it to the rebornpipes store in the American Pipemakers Section. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. This is an interesting estate to bring back to life.

Restoring the fourth Classic Find – a Jost’s Supreme Diamond Shank bent billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

I written about the estate lot that my brother and I purchased from an estate sale in Pocatello, Idaho. There were a lot of great pipes in the lot. I have written about the pipes we picked up in a previous blog: (https://rebornpipes.com/2016/10/07/a-good-day-hunting-orchestrated-between-british-columbia-and-idaho/). I also wrote of how my brother had stopped at an antique shop and found four amazing pipes. These included a Four Dot Sasieni Pembroke with a patent number, Pat.No. 150221/20, a Dunhill Root Briar Canadian EC 4R, a Charatan’s Make Canadian Sandblast 0121 and finally a Jost’s Supreme Diamond Shank bent billiard. I have restored and written blogs on three of the four pipes he found – Sasieni, Dunhill and the Charatan’s Make. Here are those links: (https://rebornpipes.com/2016/11/05/restoring-a-classic-find-a-sasieni-four-dot-london-made-pembroke/ ; https://rebornpipes.com/2016/11/06/restoring-another-classic-find-a-dunhill-4r-root-briar-canadian-ec/ ; and https://rebornpipes.com/2016/11/06/restoring-the-third-classic-find-a-charatans-make-0120-canadian/. I am now finished with the fourth pipe that – the Jost’s Supreme diamond shank bent billiard.

“I looked up Jost’s pipes on the pipephil site and found a pipe that had the same stamping on the left side of the shank as the one I was working on. The right side had slightly different stamping in that it had the classic COM stamp circle where the one I had was two lines Made in over England. It also had a picture of the circle J stamp on the stem. There was a note there the tobacco shop proprietor was Mrs. Henry A. Jost. Her resident carver was Harvey Raspberry.”

“Many different levels of pipes were offered by Jost’s Pipe Shop. From a 1950s catalog I have the following available:”

Jost Old English De Luxe: $85.00

These were typically of the highest… Grain is stunning and the briar is flawless. These are the grade you should look out for as they are great smokers.

*Jost Old English Supreme: (no pricing available)

Jost Virgin Briar Supreme: $35.00

Jost Thames Briars: $25.00

I’ve seen these offered as blasted / rusticated pipes and look quite nice. Most of the smooth finish Thames pipes are riddled with fills. Good smokers but not much to look at (smooth).

Jost Sandblast Briars: $25.00

Dukes Briars: $15.00

These come up very rarely. The two I’ve seen in recent years are rather small in size. Smooth finish with light / honey stain color. Not sure what the story is behind these.

From my research and rereading of the information on the brand it appears that my brother had found yet another good pipe. Using the information from the blog and the web I was able to learn a lot about the particular pipe I had in my hands. The stamping told me it was a pipe made by the Jost’s Pipe Shop in-house pipe maker, Harvey Raspberry. The pipe was stamped Jost’s Supreme on the left side of the shank. In all likelihood it is a Jost’s Old English Supreme. The majority of the Old English version pipes are marked Supreme. The pamphlet quoted above from the blog said that these pipes were stained in a darker color and were presumably from the same Algerian Aged Briar as the De Luxe. The pipes were of the highest quality available. I was not able to determine the age of the pipe.

My brother took the photos that follow. They show the pipe before he cleaned it up and sent it to me. It has some nice looking briar under the grime and dirt of the years. It looks to me like it had a natural finish on the bowl rather than the dark stain mentioned above.The next photos clearly show the stamping on the shank. The left side is stamped Jost’s over Supreme. The right side is stamped Imported Briar.The bowl and shank had a sticky black substance on the top of the grain. It looked as if it may have come from sticky labels used by the antique shop where the pipe was sold.The next close up photo shows the state of the cake in the bowl and the thick lava overflow on the top of the rim. It is hard to tell if the inner edge of the rim is damaged or not because of the thick cake. The second photo shows the nicks and cuts in the front top edge of the bowl and extending onto the rim. The stem was badly oxidized and there were a lot of tooth marks and chatter that had rounded the sharp edge of the button. The tooth marks and chatter were covered with calcification. The vulcanite was pitted and worn.My brother did an amazing job cleaning up the pipe. He scrubbed the sticky surface and all of the tars and oils on the bowl and the rim. He scrubbed it with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap and removed the soiled finish on the bowl and much of the rim top lava. He reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and took the cake back to bare briar. He scrubbed the mortise and the airway in the shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. I took the following photos when the pipe arrived in Vancouver before I started refurbishing it. I took a close up photo of the rim top. He had gotten almost all of the lava off of the rim and all that remained was some slight rim darkening. I also took photos of the stem to show how much of the buildup had been removed before I got the pipe. There was a deep oxidation in the vulcanite. I used a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to clean up the reaming of the bowl. I smoothed out the remaining cake at the bottom edges of the bowl and smoothed out the inner edge of the rim.I used a dental pick with a slight spatula to scrape out the hard deposits of tar on the inside of the mortise. It took a little extra work but it cleaned up the buildup and made the stem fit against end of the mortise snugly.I scrubbed out the mortise and the shank and stem airways with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to remove the debris from my scraping work in the mortise. It did not take too many before the pipe was clean on the interior.I sanded the rim with 1500-4000 grit micromesh sanding pads to remove the slight rim darkening that remained. I was able to polish the rim. I used clear super glue and briar dust to fill in the deep nicks and gouges in the front face and top edge of the bowl. I sanded the bowl front with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth the surface and to blend it in with the surrounding briar. I polished bowl at the same time as I did the rim with the micromesh sanding pads.I used a needle file to sharpen the edge of the button and make it more defined. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the scratches on the stem left behind by the file and the oxidation in the surface of the vulcanite.I sanded the bowl and the stem with a medium and a fine grit sanding pad to remove the scratches and to polish the briar and the stem. With the majority of the oxidation removed and the scratches in the briar I worked on polishing the stem. I wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each set of three pads. After rubbing the stem down with a final coat of oil after the last set of pads I set it aside to dry. I buffed the stem with red Tripoli to further remove the light oxidation that remained in the vulcanite. I buffed both the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing pad to polish it. I gave them multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it to a shine with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the finished pipe with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I really like the way it turned out. The grain of the briar really stood out. The natural finish looked really good and the contrast in the flame and straight grain with the underlying briar is quite stunning. Thanks for walking through this journey with me.