Blog by Steve Laug

The two pipes that had what looked like horn stems arrived yesterday. They indeed were horn stems. One of them the little 4 1/2 inch bulldog need some work on the stem as it had some tooth marks. The bowl itself was rough. The varnish (?) was crackling and the lava had overflowed the top of the bowl and stained the wood around it. Fortunately it was not charred at all! I reamed and cleaned the bowl. It was a mess. Then I sent it to the alcohol soak and it lifted some of the tars and stain as well as the varnish. I then reworked the bowl with sand paper and with micro mesh pads. It then was re-stained with a black under stain and then a cherry over stain. I then buffed and polished it.

For the horn stem I heated a knife and used a damp cloth and the hot knife to lift the tooth marks. Thanks to Nigel and others (Chris/Caskwith) who gave that bit of advice. It is the same process that is used to lift dents in the briar. I repeated this process until they were gone and the stem was smooth to touch. I then used micro mesh to sand and polish the stem. Finally I gave it a buff with white diamond and carnuba wax.

Here are the before shots:

The front rim was solid but the tars seemed to have permanently stained the briar. I did not want to take much off as it would change the panel shape of the bowl so I cleaned the wood as deeply as I could and was able to get it so that I can see grain through the dark stain. I may give the entire bowl a dark stain to further hide the top but still considering that…