Tag Archives: Leather clad pipes

Restoring a Longchamp France Leather Clad Billiard

by Steve Laug

I received two pipes for repair from Brady, who works at a Pipe and Tobacco Shop in Texas yesterday. The first is a tiny Hexagonal Dublin stamped Genuine Briar. The second one is a leather coated bowl stamped Longchamp France Billiard. Both were quite dirty and needed some special attention. It was time to work on the second pipe – a Longchamp France Leather Clad Billiard. It is stamped on the left side of the shank and reads Longchamps [over] France. There was no other stamping on the shank sides. On the left side of the stem there was a race horse with a stylized rider. The bowl had a heavy cake in the bowl and thick lava on the rim top. It was thick so it was hard to be certain what the inner edge looked like. The leather clad bowl had a lot of scuffs on the sides of the bowl and was quite dirty. The vulcanite taper stem had oxidation, calcification, tooth chatter and tooth marks on both sides ahead of the button. I took photos of the pipe before I started working on it. I took close up photos of the bowl and rim top to show the condition of both the bowl and the rim top. The bowl has a thick cake lining the walls and overflowing into lava. You can see the lava and build up on the rim top and the lava flowing over the inner edge of the bowl. It is hard to know if there is damage or if the lava protected it. The leather looks good with the stitching still tight. The stem is oxidized and has light tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. I took a photo the stamping on the shank to show its condition before my work. It is clear and readable as noted above. The stamp on the stem is faint but still visible. I removed the stem from the bowl and took a photo of the parts to give a sense of the symmetry of the pipe. It is a beauty beneath all grime.I unscrewed the corkscrew stinger in the tenon and removed it. I took a photo of the stem with the stinger next to it.I turned first to Pipephil’s site to get a sense of the brand and an overview. Pipephil does an amazing job of summarizing (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-l5.html). I have included a screen capture of the brand and also the sidebar below the capture.Brand created in 1948. The pipes were crafted by Forestier-Bourgeois Cie (FBC) in St Claude and leather wrapped by Parisian workshops. Longchamp is the one and only brand which exclusively marketed leather clad pipes. They invented these pipes.

I turned to Pipedia to get some added background on the brand that I find an important part of the work on a pipe (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Longchamp).

In 1948 Jean Cassegrain inherited a small shop near the French Theater on the Boulevard Poissonnière in Paris, called “Au Sultan”. Articles for smokers and fountain pens were offered there.

Now, the absolute bulk of the pipes Cassegrain found in the inventory was from war-time production and due to the sharp restrictions on pipe production the French government had enforced in 1940, these pipes were of very poor quality and showed large fills. Strictly speaking, they were not marketable now that the French pipe industry produced pipes of pre-war standards again. In this situation Cassegrain had the probably most enlightened moment in his life: he took some of these pipes to a leather worker who clad bowls and shanks in leather. Only the rims of the bowls and the shanks’ faces remained blank.

E voila – the pipes looked pretty good now and were eye-catching enough to become an instant success in sale. Above all among the thousands of Allied soldiers who populated Paris in those days. The thing worked well, and even unexperieceid pipesters liked the covered pipes very much for they did not transmit the heat to the hand. Very soon Cassegrain had sold the old stock of pipes, and the leather-clad pipes became his only product. He began to place orders with renowned firms like Ropp or Butz-Choquin.

Because the name Cassegrain was already registered as a trade name for one his relatives, Cassegrain, a big fan of horse races, named his newly created firm after his favorite race course Longchamp near Paris. Hence an outlined galopping race horse with jockey was chosen as logo. The wind mill – see the frontpage of the catalog – symbolizes the name Cassegrain.

The numerous contacts with American soldiers bestowed an official contract on Cassegrain to supply the PX shops with his leather-wrapped pipes. According to his grandson, also named Jean and now CEO of the family firm, “There wasn’t an American GI in Europe who didn’t have one of these pipes at the time. They were exported and sold in PXs worldwide. That’s how it all started.”

In the course of the following years Cassegrain enlarged and refined the Longchamp pipe program continuously. More precious kinds of leather like calf and suede came in use. The top range was clad in alligator leather and even pony fur was used. In addition, many models showed vibrant colors now, and small sized pipes, the “Royal Mini”, made that also women interested themselves in the pipes. The hype was pushed furthermore, when well-known persons of public interest, like TV moderators or pop icon Elvis Presley, began to flaunt with a Longchamp put on.

The Cassegrain family expanded their business in 1955 starting a sortiment of pipe bags, tobacco pouches, pipe stands, ashtrays, tampers, lighters – all made of or clad in leather. (Going from there Longchamp turned to other gentleman’s leather-goods around 1960 and finally established itself as a global brand at the end of the 1960’s introducing the Xtra-Bag for ladies.)

After 1970 the interest in leather-clad pipes slowly diminished. The Longchamp pipes were offered for the last time in the 1978 catalog though previously placed orders were delivered until 1980.

The splendid success inspired many other renowned producers to offer their own lines Ropp, Butz-Choquin, Gubbels, GBD, Sasieni… Maybe Savinelli was the very last producing them for the label of the famous designer Etienne Aigner.

I decided to ream the bowl and do some internal clean up work before further polishing the briar. The cake was very hard so I proceeded with care so as not to either break my reamer or damage the rim edges. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer using the 1^st and 2nd cutting heads to remove the cake in the bowl. I cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife and finally sanded the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel to clean up the walls of the bowl. The walls appeared to be in good condition. I cleaned out the internals of the bowl, shank and stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol. It came out smelling much better. I scrubbed the aluminum corkscrew stinger with a brass bristle wire brush to remove the oils and tars along the turns. It cleaned up very well.I polished the rim top with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad to remove the dust and debris. The grain stood out more with each set of pads. There were some nicks and dents but it looked good. I touched up the rim top with a Maple Stain pen to blend it into the colour of the leather on the bowl. It looked much better.I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the finish of the rim top with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I find that the balm really makes the briar come alive again. I let the balm sit for 15 minutes and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The bowl really looks good at this point. Now it was time to address the scuffing on the bowl sides. I wiped the leather down with a damp cloth to remove the dust and debris. It was surprisingly clean. I decided to try something new in terms of addressing the scuffing on the leather sides. I used micromesh sanding pads to work on the scuffed areas and smooth them out. It worked very well. I used a Maple stain pen to blend the smoothed-out areas of the leather into the surrounding areas of the bowl covering. It really looked much better!I waxed the leather cladding with Conservator’s Wax and buffed it on the buffer with a clean buffing wheel. It looked very good. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I touched up the racing horse stamp on the left side of the taper stem with white acrylic fingernail polish. Once it dried I scraped off the excess. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding it with 1500-12000 grit pads. I polished it further with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both fine and extra fine. This Longchamp France Leather Clad Billiard with a vulcanite saddle stem is a great looking pipe now that it has been restored. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax 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 Longchamp France Billiard 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: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.66 ounces/47 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. Since both pipes are finished I will be sending them back to Brady this week. Thanks for your time.

Rejuvenating a Leather Clad Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

In my previous blog on the No Name Meerschaum I spoke of the five pipes that I am working on for Craig. In this blog I am taking on the second of his pipes – a leather clad billiard marked R20. It looks like a Longchamp pipe but there is no name on the shank. Here is what Craig wrote me about his pipes: I was recently given a bag of pipes…literally, a BAG of 20 or so pipes that are 50+yrs in age and VERY used. I was wondering if you would have time to either Skype or FaceTime with me, and go through what I have in order to determine which are worth sending to you to have them refurbished. If you would be so kind, I’d really appreciate it. We met on FaceTime and walked through each of the pipes in his bag. He pulled out a grocery bag with no rhyme or reason to it. It was filled with a jumble of no name or low-end drug store pipes. The only pipes that stood out for me were an old WDC Campaign pipe and a Grabow Starfire. We excluded all but five of the pipes. The amount of work necessary to bring them back was not worth the price. These are the five that we chose to work on. As I finish them, I will include the link to the blog covering that pipe.

A No Name Meerschaum that looked interesting – https://rebornpipes.com/2018/01/31/is-it-a-meerschaum-looks-like-one-feels-like-one-but/
A leather clad billiard marked R20 and bearing a shield
A Dr. Grabow Starfire 39 that had great grain
A WDC Campaign underslung pipe
A Wally Frank Bulldog marked Natural Unvarnished lacking a stem

After our conversation, he packed up the pipes and threw the rest of the pipes in a separate bag for me to scavenge parts. The box did not take too long to get to Vancouver and when it did I opened the box and had a look. Here are pics of what I saw – there were two bags inside. One bag held the discards for the scrap pile and the other held the five pipes he wanted restored. The second pipe was the leather-clad billiard. The leather was dry and dirty but the stitching holding the halves together was sound and undamaged. A little leather soap or oil would bring it back to life. The rim top had been hammered against a hard surface to knock out the dottle and there was serious road rash on the surface of the rim. The outer edges were damaged all around the bowl but predominantly on the right side. There was some darkening on the rim as well. The bowl had a thin cake in it and remnants of tobacco. The leather cover had scuff marks around the sides near the top. The only identifying mark was what looked like the shape of a tanned hide (cowhide or other) stamped into the left side of the shank. There were no other identifying marks on the left side. On the right side was the stamping R20 which I am assuming was the shape number. The stem was vulcanite and it had nicks half way up the stem and tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. The surface was dirty and dull looking but thankfully not oxidized. There was a corkscrew like stinger apparatus in the tenon that was clogged and I could not even blow air through the slot or stem. The slot itself also had tars built up reducing the size of the slot by half. The pipe smelled like the same Half and Half tobacco as the other pipe. The tobacco leaves behind a ghost of an anise smell that clings to a pipe that has smoked that blend. I took the following photos of the pipe before I started cleaning it up. I took close up photos of the bowl and rim top as well as the stem. The rim top had been beaten on a hard surface to knock out the dottle and there were some serious nicks and dents in the surface. There was some overflow on the rim. The stem was another story – it was in decent shape with tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. There was a metal tenon like a spear tip on the end of the stem. It was very dirty.I decided to top the damaged portion of the bowl to remove the rough top of the bowl. It did not take too much sanding to remove the damaged inner and outer edges of the rim as well as the surface. Once it was smooth and even all the way around I finished the topping.I used a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to clean out the cake and tobacco remnants from the bowl. As I worked on it I was again certain that the tobacco of choice to the pipeman who had smoked the pipe in the past was Half and Half.I polished the rim top with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I polished the rim until it was smooth and shiny. I wiped the rim top down with a damp cotton pad to remove any sanding dust. I scrubbed the surface of the briar with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the rim top with my fingers and it raised the grime and dust that was in the grain of the briar. I buffed it with a soft cotton cloth to remove the debris and the remaining balm on the surface of the briar. When it was clean I stained the rim top with a medium brown stain pen to match the colour of the leather and the blend it with the rest of the pipe. The rim would still need to be buffed to smooth out the colour of the rim.I decided to try out the restoration balm on the leather cover of the pipe. I worked it into the pores of the leather to clean and enrich it. I was amazed at how well it worked. It lifted the grime to the surface and I was able to wipe it off with a clean cotton pad. I worked it into the grain of the leather until the leather was soft and pliable. I worked it into the cotton cord that held the halves of the leather cover together. It worked very well. The corkscrew stinger was threaded as I expected. I unscrewed it from the shank to remove it. It was clogged with tars and oils in the slot and in the stem. I could not blow air through the stem as the debris clogged it. I would clean up the stinger and leave it out of the tenon. I would send it back to Craig and he could do what he wanted.I cleaned out the mortise and the airways in the shank and stem with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs. Both were very dirty and as the pipe cleaners and cotton swabs came out they reeked of Half and Half tobacco. It was strong smelling. It took a while to get rid of all the tars and the oils in the vulcanite and the briar. I used a lot of pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol before the airways in the stem and shank and the mortise were clean.With the stem cleaned on the outside it was time to work on the outside of the vulcanite. There were tooth marks near the button on both sides and there were deep nicks on the top of the stem about half way up. I filled in the spots with clear super glue and overfilled it. I started to smooth out the repairs and then remembered that I had not photographed the filled in areas. So the photos below show the stem midway in the process of sanding it.When the repaired areas had dried I used a needle file to smooth out the bubbles of hardened glue. I worked them over until the surface area in front of each button and on the top of the stem was smooth. I sanded them with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the file marks and the scratches in the surface of the vulcanite. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. After each pad I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil. When I finished with the last pad I gave it a final coat of the oil and let it dry. When I finished polishing the stem and it had dried I put it back on the bowl and took it to the buff. I gently buffed both the rim of the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond. I gave the rim and stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed them with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I buffed the leather with a clean buffing pad as well to give it a shine. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. This is the second restoration of the pipes Craig sent me. I look forward to the rest of them. I think he will enjoy this one when I send it back. The finished pipe is shown below. Thanks for looking.