Tag Archives: MAYFAIR 1005 Rusticated Tree stump pipe

Restemming an Italian Made Mayfair 1005 Poker Sitter for a Local Pipe Man

Blog by Steve Laug

Last week I received a call from a Vancouver pipeman that he had some pipes he wanted restemmed and restored. As we spoke on email and then in person when he dropped them off it became very clear that all the five pipes he brought were ones he had purchased from me quite a few years ago now. They had served him well and he wanted new stems for most of them as they were gnawed and broken off at the button edges. The first of these that I am working on is one that he said was a favourite of his. He loved the shape and the weight of. It was what he called his hunting pipe. It was stamped Mayfair [over] 1005 on the underside of the shank. It was also stamped next to the stem/shank union and read Italy.

Before I started the restemming and restoration of the pipe I wanted to reacquaint myself with it and gather the background information on the first restoration. I turned to the blog and found it there (https://rebornpipes.com/2016/12/24/redemption-of-a-mayfair-1005-bent-tree-stump-pipe/). I remember it very well as it was what I called a Bent Tree Stump Pipe when I first picked it up. It was in very rough shape and back in 2016 I restored it and gave the bowl a serious repair of JB Weld and then a bowl coating to protect it from the serious burn damage that was on the walls of the bowl. I have never been sure how long those repairs last but at least I know that this one is about 7 years old and the bowl is in great shape. I have included some photos of the pipe when it left here 7 years ago. It is a unique and interestingly carved rusticated pipe. I took some photos of the pipe today before I started working it. The briar is dry and faded but is still quite clean. The rim top still has some darkening and debris on it. There is a flaw in the front of the bowl mid way down the bowl. It is not too deep but still visible. The stem is oxidized, calcified and chewed off to the degree that it needs to be replaced. There is a light cake and debris in the bowl but it does not cause grief thanks to the underlying coat of JB Weld that I used seven years ago to flush out the damaged walls and checking. I took photos of the rim top and the light cake in the bowl to show how it looked. There was also tobacco debris on the walls and some lava on the rim top. The lava on the rim top is not to thick and should come off quite easily. The photos of the stem show the necessity of the replacement.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is clear and readable as noted above. I took the stem off the shank and took a photo of the parts of the pipe to give a sense of the proportion of the pipe.I went through my can of stems and found one that was similar in style and roughly the same length. The saddle portion is a little larger but I think it will work well. There is some oxidation on the stem and it is dirty so all of that will need to be cleaned up and the stem will need to be bent to the proper angle. The diameter of the saddle is a bit larger on the right side than the shank so it will need to be adjusted.I used my Dremel and sanding drum and finished tuning the fitting with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to bring the shank and stem to the same diameter and to clean up the fit. I think it is going to look great once it is finished. I set the stem aside at this point and turned my attention to the bowl. I sanded the walls of the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. I wanted to check the condition of the walls and smooth out the cake that was present. I did not remove all of the cake but rather smoothed it out so it is ready for him to continue to build a solid base. The bowl is looking very good inside. I ran some pipe cleaners and alcohol through the shank and it was surprisingly quite clean inside.I examined the nooks and crannies of the rustication and found a flaw on the front of the bowl that concerned me. It was not deep but it was very present – mid bowl on the front in the photo below. I have drawn a red box around it in the photo. I filled it in a bit with clear CA glue and some briar dust. Once dry I used a brass bristle wire brush to roughen the finish to match the other rusticated parts of the bowl.The rim top had some debris and build up so I used the brass bristle wire brush on it as well and cleaned it. I took a photo of it after I had put some Before & After Restoration Balm on it to see how it looked. It still is slightly dark but looks much like it did when it went home with the buyer. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the rusticated finish on the bowl, shank and the rim top. 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. The portion of the lightly sanded shank that I did to adjust the fit of the stem looked perfect and matched the rest of the finish very well. 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 “painted” the surface of the blade with the flame of a Bic lighter to soften the vulcanite so I could bend it. I bent it to the angle needed to match the angles of the briar. It looked pretty good and sanding it would make it better. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the marks in the surface of the saddle and remove the remaining oxidation. I started the polishing of the stem with 600 grit wet dry sandpaper. 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 and acrylic combination stem. It really is a beautiful pipe. The smooth finish around the bowl sides and shank show the grain shining through the rich brown stains of this Mayfair Italian Made 1005 Poker Sitter. 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 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 1.31 ounces/37 grams. It is a beautiful pipe and the first of the restemming I have ahead of me on five pipes from this pipeman. Once I am finished 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.

Redemption of a Mayfair 1005 Bent Tree Stump Pipe

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Blog by Steve Laug

I can see what attracted Jeff to this pipe right away because it also grabs my attention. It has a rugged looking rustication that is somewhere between an aged piece of leather and a gnarled tree stump. There is something very charming about the appearance of the pipe that is for certain. The briar by and large appears to be in decent shape. The stamping on the shank reads MAYFAIR over 1005 with Italy stamped next to the stem shank junction. First thought was it may be a Sasieni or Charatan but I do not think it is. There is something almost Lorenzo like in terms of the look of the carving and the shape. The way the stamping is done and the Italy stamp makes me think that it is a basket pipe made for a pipe shop called the Mayfair Shop. In my I found that there is a shop in Edmonton, Alberta Canada called Mayfair Smoke & Gift Shop. There is also an area on London called Mayfair that at one time housed many pipe and tobacco shops. My own feeling is that the pipe probably came from the shop in Edmonton – the Italy stamp on the shank makes me think that rather than and English shop. The next close up photos show more of the carving on the bowl close up and the condition of the rim and cake in the bowl. In the first photo below there is a small chip out of the rim edge that shows up but should be easy to hide in the rustication. The rim top is quite dirty with the overflow of cake from the bowl. It is hard to see under the thick cake on it but there are curved strokes around the rim top that go clockwise. They include larger deeper strokes and fine hairlike strokes that are also in the grooves of the rustication on the bowl sides.The next photo shows the stamping on a smooth portion on the bottom of the shank. Does anyone know who made the Mayfair brand of pipe that was stamped like this?Other than being deeply oxidized the stem was in decent shape. There were not any tooth marks or deep tooth chatter on the stem surfaces. There was a cursive stylized T on the left side of the saddle portion of the stem.My brother cleaned up the pipe and sent it my way in Vancouver. As usual he did a thorough job of reaming and cleaning the inside of the shank, mortise and airway in the stem. They were spotless. I took the next four photos to show what the pipe looked like when it arrived.His cleanup of the rim revealed the curved clockwise strokes around the top surface.I took a close up picture of the rim top and if you look into the bowl a serious issue that would need further exploring.Even after the cleanup the stem looked in decent shape.I used a dental pick to probe the serious spidering cracks and crevices on the inside of the bowl. These were far worse than the recent ones that I addressed in the bowl of The Tobacconist Inc. Rhodesian recently using pipe mud (https://rebornpipes.com/2016/12/22/a-reclamation-project-the-tobacconist-inc-made-in-england-rhodesian/). These were deep and intricately burned gouges in the surface of the bowl. I used the Savinelli Fitsall Knife to scrape out as much damage on the walls as possible and without gouging out more and further damaging the surface. The next series of photos show the bowl as I turned it around examining the damage. I have to tell you at this point I was seriously considering throwing the pipe into the discard box and not bothering working any further on it. The stem could be salvaged and parts of the briar may be salvageable for repairs. It really was a desperate looking situation. It appeared to be a bowl on the very edge of being burned out all around – one of the worst messes on the inside of a bowl I had seen. But… and this is where I took a chance. I really like the rustication pattern on the briar and the shape also grabbed me so I decided to try a remedy that Charles Lemon of Dadspipes has used far more than me. I thought it might just work on this old bowl and provide a possible redemption to ongoing service.

I picked at the wood with a dental pick to remove any loose chips or chunks of briar to get the wood back to as solid a base as possible. I cleaned out the interior of the bowl with a cotton swab and alcohol until I removed all of the dust and debris from the cracks.I wanted a clean surface to work with. I set the bowl aside to dry and went to the hardware liquidation store down the street. I picked up some JB Weld (or rather a brand called Steel Weld which was made by JB Weld). I mixed the base and the hardener on a patch of paper with a wire until I had it well blended. Using a dental spatula I pressed the mixture into all of the cracks on the inside of the bowl. I slathered on (technical term) the coat of the mixture until all the inside walls of the bowl were smoothly covered. I dampened a cotton pad with alcohol and wiped off the JB Weld that had gotten on the rim top and inner edge of the bowl. I did not want it to harden as then it would be impossible to remove from the strokes on the surface. I set the bowl aside to let the bowl repair harden. Once it was cured overnight I would sand the surface clean leaving the repair only in the cracks themselves.

Being impatient by nature and by choice, I wanted to keep working on the pipe. I know that I have many more to work on but I wanted to see what the exterior of this old timer looked like once it was restained. So when the internal repair had hardened to touch (about an hour later) I decided to stain the briar. I used a Dark Brown aniline stain and applied it to the briar with a folded pipe cleaner. I flamed the stain to set it in the grooves and grain. I repeated the process until the coverage was what I wanted. With the stain coat done I took two photos to show the rim and interior of the bowl to show how the repairs looked before I sanded them down. The JB Weld still needed to cure but you can see how the walls looked at this point.I wanted to protect the bowl from the dust and the debris that would fly when I sanded out the bowl so I gave it a first coat of Conservator’s Wax. I buffed it with a shoe brush. I set the bowl aside until the afternoon to let the repair cure and turned my attention to the stem. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the oxidation on the surface and smooth out the pitting.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding the stem with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. After each set of three pads I gave the stem a rub down with Obsidian Oil. After the final rub down I set the stem aside to dry until I had finished the bowl. When I came back to the bowl in the afternoon I took some photos of the interior before I sanded it to show what the dried JB Weld looked like. The surface is rough to the touch and hard. The cracks however are completely filled in.I used the Dremel and sanding drum to remove much of the excess fill/repair material. I set the Dremel at the lowest speed and slowly worked it over the inside of the bowl walls. I was able to remove much of the overage that way but I could not get all of the material off. My goal was to leave the JB Weld only in the crevices and cracks in the walls and not on the walls themselves. I wrapped a piece of 220 grit sandpaper around a wine cork, roughened the end to give some leverage on it and sanded the inside of the bowl. This further took back the JB Weld. I finished sanding the inside with a piece of 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around my index finger. When I was finished the cracks were filled and the bowl was smooth to touch. I wiped down the inside walls of the bowl with cotton swabs and clean water and the shank with pipe cleaners and clean water to remove all of the sanding dust and debris left behind by my work in the bowl. The next photos show the repairs on the walls of the bowl. The bowl is solid and feels undamaged. My next step in the repair is to coat the walls with a mixture of sour cream and charcoal powder – a bowl coating. This will further protect the walls and provide insulation until a cake can be formed.I walked down to the local supermarket and purchase a small package of sour cream. I put a spoonful of sour cream into a small bowl and broke open the last of my activated charcoal capsules into it. I mixed it with a spoon until the mixture was a dark grey colour and well blended.I know at this point many of you are thinking “sour cream in a pipe”. But that is exactly what I used. I mixed it well and put it on the walls of the pipe with a dental spatula and spread it evenly across the walls with a folded pipe cleaner. I had inserted a pipe cleaner in the shank to keep the airway clear of the bowl coating. I can assure you after many years of using this mixture – one by the way that is used by many pipe makers – that the mixture dries and has no residual smell or tasted. It is absolutely neutral. It provides a good insulator for the bowl while cake is formed. In this case it also covers the lines of JB Weld in the cracks of the bowl interior so it serves a dual purpose. I put the bowl aside to let the bowl coating cure and harden. I let it sit overnight to cure. I knew that once it had hardened it would be completely neutral in smell and taste. This morning the bowl coating had dried to a solid black colour with a little grit from the charcoal. The sour cream smell was gone and the bowl was smooth and black to the bottom. This morning I gave the bowl several more coats of Conservator’s Wax, buffed it with a shoe brush and finished by buffing it with a clean buffing pad to bring a shine to the smooth and rusticated portions of the bowl. I buffed the stem with Blue Diamond Polish on the buffing wheel and gave it several coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the whole pipe with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine and give the pipe a sense of warmth that this last step gives it. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It may seem like a lot of work to redeem this old pipe but the look of the finished pipe says it all to me. This one will be a pleasure to fire up and hold. The tactile nature of the rustication is complex and interesting to hold and study. Would you have done this work on one you have on the table? The only way that you will be able to answer that question is when you lay eyes on one that grabs a hold of your attention. Until then you may wonder at my madness. Thanks for walking with me through this exercise.