Tag Archives: micromesh sanding pads

Cleaning and Restoring a Blatter of Montreal Bent Egg

Blog by Steve Laug

When I received this Blatter of Montreal Egg pipe I sat down and looked it over carefully to assess what would need to be done to restore it. The finish was very dirty and worn but underneath the dirt and oils there was some amazing grain. On the right side of the bowl, near the top there was a fill that had popped out and left a large divot in the briar. The size of the missing fill distracted from really seeing the beauty of the pipe. Looking at the top of the bowl I could see that the inner edge of the rim was slightly out of round and the rim had been previously topped. Both the stain and the topping were not even. The outer edge of the rim had been rounded from sanding and was no longer a clean sharp edge. Sometime ago the bowl had been reamed and a broken uneven cake left on the sides of the bowl. The airway at the bottom of the bowl had a groove carved from the opening across the bowl bottom that appeared to come from using too heavy a hand with a pipe cleaner over the years.

The stem was in good shape in terms of not having any tooth damage or chatter. The button was still quite sharp and distinct like the other Blatter pipes that I have cleaned. It was oxidized and somewhere along the way someone had sanded or buffed the stem with it removed from the pipe. The edges of the stem at the shank junction had rounded shoulders and because of that the fit against the shank was not perfect. The diameter of the shank was slightly larger than the stem due to the rounded shoulders. There would need to be some work done on that area to reduce the damage though I am not sure that it can all be removed. I find this kind of rounding of the shoulders on the stem or the shank on pipes that have been overbuffed or worked on by someone new to the refurbishing hobby.

I took the pipe apart to look at the internals of the stem and the shank. The shank has an interesting design. The mortise ends with a slight ridge and then the airway drops into a kind of sump/or chamber to capture the moisture – kind of like the Peterson system pipes. This chamber had the airway drilled toward the top end. It was filled with a lot of black sticky tar and oil. It would take a lot of scrubbing to clean that area. The mortise itself was pretty clean. The end of the tenon was almost clogged with the buildup around the end. The same was true of the slot in the end of the tenon. It was reduced in size by about half. The stem would also take some work to clean out the thick build up inside.

The next photo shows a close up of the area of the missing fill. It is quite large and will need to be repaired. I scrubbed the bowl with cotton pads and isopropyl alcohol to remove the grime and prepare the missing fill for repair. I picked out the loose particles from the area and scrubbed it down again. I filled the hole with larger particles of briar dust and then filled it with superglue. I added more briar particles to the top of the repair. I sanded the repair with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the excess and smooth out the patch. The size of the patch can be seen in the next photo. The larger particles of briar dust worked differently than the fine dust I used in the past. I used a folded piece of sandpaper to bevel the inner edge of the rim to take care of the damage that had made it out of round. Beveling the rim inward took care of the damage and brought the rim back into round. I sanded the rim with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge and also sanded the repaired area on the side of the bowl. Each successive grit of sanding sponge smoothed out the repair and blended it into the bowl. Once the patch was sanded smooth I scrubbed the bowl down with acetone on a cotton pad to remove the rest of the finis and the remaining wax buildup on the bowl. The birdseye briar was stunning on the left side of the bowl.

I also scrubbed the top of the rim with the pads and found that the work on the rim had really cleaned up the look of the pipe from the top. I worked on the rounded shoulders of the stem. First I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper blending the flow of the shank with the stem. The key was to reduce the shoulder rounding without changing the shape of the shank. Once I had the transition as smooth as I could make it I sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. The finished shank/stem transition can be seen in the next series of photos.

With the repair finished on the side of the bowl and the transition smoothed out at the stem/shank junction it was time to give it a coat of stain to blend it in with the rest of the briar. I used a dark brown stain touch up pen to work on those two points on the bowl.

I probably should have done this sooner, but I chose not to. The bowl had already been reamed but I wanted to clean up the reaming job and try to smooth it out. I used a PipNet reamer and chose a cutting head that fit the bowl tightly and removed the odds and ends of broken cake left in the bowl. I then set up the topping board to repair the round outer edges of the rim. It did not take too much topping to make that edge sharp and clean once again instead of rounded. I finished sanding the rim afterward with a medium and a fine grit sanding block to remove the scratches left behind by the 220 grit sandpaper.

I used the same dark brown stain pen to stain the rim. I applied the stain until the coverage was acceptable. I lightly buffed the bowl with White Diamond to smooth out the stained areas and blend them into the rest of the bowl.

With the externals finished on the bowl it was time to address the internals. The airway in the stem and shank and the sump in shank all were filthy. I decided to use a retort on the pipe. I set up the test tube and connector to the stem and then stuffed the bowl with a cotton ball before boiling the alcohol through the bowl and stem.

I boiled the alcohol through the bowl and shank the first time and the alcohol came out a dark brown. I took the retort off the stem and ran pipe cleaners and cotton swabs and alcohol through the shank and stem. While they were definitely cleaner there was still a lot of “sludge” present. I set up the retort and boiled another tube of alcohol through the bowl. This time the alcohol was definitely lighter but still dark. I emptied the tube and boiled a fresh tube through for the third time. While it was definitely getting lighter it was still brown. I ran a fourth tube of alcohol through the stem and shank and finally it came out clear. This was one dirty pipe. I used pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to finish cleaning the shank and stem. I used the dental pick to clean out the edges of the slot on the button. With the internals clean I turned my attention to the stem. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper and then with the medium and fine grit sanding sponges. Using those I was able to remove the oxidation on the surface.

I switched to micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit sanding pads and rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. Afterwards I buffed it with White Diamond to polish the stem and lessen the scratches. I dry sanded the stem with 3200-12,000 grit micromesh sanding pads and rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between the 4000 and 6000 grit pads. I also gave it a final rub down with Obsidian Oil after the 12,000 grit pad.

I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond Plastic Polish and then gave it several coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it to a shine and then used a clean flannel buff to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I have also included a photo of the repaired rim. Note the repaired fill on the right side of the bowl. The pipe is cleaned, polished, repaired and ready to smoke. I think it is a beautiful pipe in one of my favourite shapes.

Thanks for looking.

Rejuvenating a Caminetto Business Long Shank Stack

1 Reply

Blog by Steve Laug

I just finished working on a long shank Caminetto Stack. It is stamped on the left side of the shank Caminetto Business. On the right side of the shank it is stamped Ascorti over Radice over Cucciago over Cantu Italy. Next to it is a shield. The finish is a rustication that looks very much like the older Castello Sea Rock finish. The bowl needed a thorough reaming to clean out the remnants of the old cake. The internals of the shank will also need a thorough cleaning. The pipe has a strong English smelling ghost that would need to be exorcised by a retort treatment. If that did not kill it then it would need to be given a cotton ball and alcohol treatment to further remove the ghost. The inner and out rim edges look really good. There is a build up tars and oils in the rustication on the top of the rim that will need to be scrubbed out. The deep rustication is also harbouring a lot of dust in the crevices that will also need to be scrubbed as well.

The stem needs some work. It is loose in the shank and I will need to see what the fit is like once the shank is cleaned. There is a deep tooth mark on the underside of the stem next to the button. It is not quite broken through the surface of the stem but it is deep. There are also marks on the topside of the stem in the same place though nowhere near as deep. The stem was almost clogged and will need to be cleared. The slot is tight and hard to get a pipe cleaner through easily. It will need to be opened to make cleaning the pipe a simpler procedure. Between the semi-clogged stem and the tight slot the draw is constricted. Once the repairs are made to the stem it will need to be polished.

I took a close-up photo of the rim for you to see clearly the build up on the rim. There were tars and oils deep in the grooves of the rustication on the surface of the rim. There was also a thin cake on the walls of the bowl that would need to be removed to address the heavy Latakia smell that was in the pipe. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer using the smallest cutting head and working up to the third head that was the same diameter as the bowl. I then scraped the inside lightly with a sharp pen knife.

I scrubbed the inside of the shank with pipe cleaners and cotton swabs and isopropyl 99% alcohol before setting up a retort to boil alcohol through the inside of the pipe. I stuffed a cotton ball in the top of the bowl and then fit the rubber end of the test tube stopper over the stem. I place the bowl in a pipe rest and held the test tube over a candle. As the alcohol heated and boiled in the test tube it circulated into the bowl and when removed from the flame the alcohol would carry the tars and oils back to the test tube. I continued to boil the alcohol and remove it from the flame until the alcohol turned amber from the inside of the pipe.

I changed the alcohol and boiled it through the pipe again. This second time the alcohol came out clean. I kept it boiling through for about 15 minutes and then removed it from the flame. The photo below shows the relatively clean alcohol after this retort. Once I had removed the retort I cleaned out the bowl and the shank with isopropyl alcohol on cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. This time they came out relatively clean. The problem was that the pipe still smelled strongly of Latakia. The ghost was stubborn and persistent. I decided to use a cotton ball and alcohol soak to see if I could draw out some more of the oils and smell. I stuff two cotton balls into the bowl and plugged the shank. I used an ear syringe to fill the bowl with alcohol and tipped it back and forth to run the alcohol through the shank. I unplugged the shank and set the bowl in an old ice cube tray over night to draw out the oils. The next three photos were taken over a 12 hour period and show what happened with the soak.

When I removed the cotton balls and let the pipe dry out the ghost still persisted. I cleaned out the bowl and shank again, then put some white vinegar and cotton in the bowl and shank and let it sit for 3 hours. I cleaned out the shank and the ghost still remained. I was beating it but it was still present. I then filled the bowl with Kosher rock salt and then used an ear syringe to fill it with alcohol. I set it aside in the ice cube tray to let the salt do its magic.

Once I removed the salt and alcohol and cleaned out the shank and bowl a final time the ghost is pretty well exorcised. There is a faint tobacco smell but the overpowering smell is gone.

I scrubbed the top of the rim with a brass bristle tire brush and then rescrubbed it with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap. I scrubbed it hard enough to remove the dust and grime from the crevices of the rusticated finish.

I rinsed the bowl under running water to remove the soap from the finish, being careful to not get any water in the bowl. I dried it off with a cotton cloth. The photos below show the cleaned bowl. The finish was dull and had lightened slightly.

I used a wash of brown aniline stain mixed 4 parts alcohol and one part stain to restain the bowl and shank. The next four photos show the pipe after it had been restained and buffed with Blue Diamond. I buffed it with a light touch and then rebuffed it with a shoe brush.

With the bowl finished it was time to work on the stem. I decided to start with the narrow slot and airway on the end of the stem. I used three different needle files to open it up. I started with a flat file to widen the gap on the top and the bottom edge of the slot. I needed it open enough that I could use a flat oval file to smooth out the slot and open both the top, bottom and sides of the slot. I finished with a round file to taper the edges of the slot at an angle to the airway in the stem. While this was done to a slight degree I increased the angle and also opened up the end of the airway. I used the round file to also enter from the tenon end of the stem and smooth out what appeared to be rough transitions from the airway to the slot. I finished by sanding the inside of the slot with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper and then finishing with a bristle pipe cleaner and a little scrubbing powder.

I still needed to clean up the end of the stem when I worked on the stem surface itself but the basic shape was finished and the slot was wide enough to easily handle a pipe cleaner. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and also with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to remove the tooth chatter on the top side of the stem and to clean up around the deep tooth mark on the surface of the stem. I picked out the debris from the tooth mark and then filled it with black super glue. I set the stem aside overnight to let the glue repair cure.

The next morning I sanded the repaired area with 220 grit sandpaper and then the sanding sponges to remove the excess patch and to blend it into the surface of the stem. Once the repair was smoothed out it was time to sand the stem with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil. Once it had dried I gave it a quick buff with White Diamond. The tooth chatter was gone on the top of the stem and the repair on the underside blended in quite well. At this stage in the sanding it still showed but would begin to disappear into the stem with further sanding with micromesh. I dry sanded the stem with 3200-4000 grit pads and then rubbed it down again with Obsidian Oil. The first photo below shows the topside of the stem. The tooth chatter is gone. The second shows the underside of the stem. The tooth mark is repaired and the repair no longer shows. The next three grits of micromesh will make the patch disappear in the shine of the stem.

I dry sanded with 6000-12,000 grit pads and then gave it a final buff with Blue Diamond. I rubbed in a final coat of Obsidian Oil and let it dry.

The next two photos show the finished stem. The repair is blended into the vulcanite and it is polished and clean.

I gave the pipe a light buff with Blue Diamond Plastic polish and then gave the stem several coats of carnauba wax. I lightly buffed the bowl with carnauba and then buffed the entire pipe with a clean flannel buff to raise the shine. Here is the finished pipe. Thanks for looking.

Restoring an Ed Burak Connoisseur Tall Stack

5 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe that came to my worktable was the shapely stack pictured below. It is stamped Connoisseur over N.Y.C. on the left side of the shank and then below that E. Burak in script. The majority of the stamping is very sharp. The N.Y.C. is a bit faint. There is no other stamping on the pipe or shank. The briar was natural and unstained. It had darkened slightly with age. The finish was dirty and there were a few dents and dings in the briar. The stem was badly oxidized and had several small tooth marks on the surface. It was over bent and the way it hung in the mouth would dump the ash in your lap. The rim had a tarry buildup on the back top surface. The inner and outer edges of the rim were in perfect shape. There were some small sandpits in the briar on the left side of the bowl and on the underside of the shank. The inside of the shank was dirty and black with tars and oils. The bowl inside was thickly caked with a crumbly soft cake that was flaking away in some parts of the bowl. The shank itself was interesting to me in that it looked perfectly round. Once the stem was removed the drilling of the mortise was centered but low on the shank. The drilling was perfectly aligned but the airway seemed constricted. My guess was that there were tars and oils clogging the airway in the shank and the over bent stem made the draught constricted.

Over the years I have had several Connoisseur pipes but none of them were stamped like this one. I wondered about the stamping. It was my guess that it somehow helped with dating the pipe to a particular time in Ed Burak’s pipe making career but I did not know for sure. I decided that before working on this particular pipe I would do a little research on the brand and the maker on Google. I always check Pipedia to see what they might have on a maker. In this case I was not disappointed. There as a great article on the site. The link to that is: http://pipedia.org/wiki/Burak.

On that site I found not only some history on Ed Burak and the brand but also a photo of a pipe that was the same shape as the one I was working on. I was fortunate to find it because it confirmed my earlier assessment that the stem was over bent. With the photo and a second one that I found on another site I would be able to correct the bend on the stem and open the airflow from the bowl to the button.

I also found some great information on the site regarding Ed Burak. I quote from that article below. If you should wish to read it in its entirety click on the link noted above. The article is entitled, The Art of Edward F. Burak, Dean of American Pipe Designers.
“Ed Burak is the dean of American pipe designers whose work has had a worldwide influence on the thinking and the work of contemporary pipe makers.”

“…he met and subsequently began working with Meerschaum master Paul Fisher, with whom he stayed 5 years. During that time he produced a small number of Meerschaum pipes, a few of which are still extant in collections. He also worked for Wally Frank as a pipe designer. In 1968 he bought the Connoisseur Pipe Shop, where he was able to concentrate on his own designs. Burak’s pipes have been carved by a number of well-regarded pipe makers, among them Joe Corteggione and Tony Passante. Several of his freehands are in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and have been part of a traveling exhibit of the American Craft Museum.”

“Burak’s work is best known as pipe design as fine art. He admires pays tribute to the classic English designs of the old Barlings and Comoy’s and offers a line of “Classics” which begin with these traditional values yet reflect his own interpretations.”

“Because these pipes are different, so carefully crafted, they not only please the eye, but educate it. Most pipe makers will start with an idea and work the wood toward that goal, but will change their original design to accommodate the briar. Burak does not allow the medium to modify the intent. Minor surface flaws are left on the pipes. No staining is permitted; all Connoisseurs have a natural finish, with only carnauba was added.”

“As a significant footnote, the reader should note that Ed Burak’s pipes are NOT made by Paul Perri, nor Weber, nor Jobey, as erroneously stated in Lopes’s book “Pipes: Artisans and Trademarks.” Burak prefers not to disclose the name of his current pipe carver.”

I also learned on Pipephil’s website, http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/about-en.html that the stamping did indeed give some information that helped in identifying the period that a particular pipe was made. There I found that one may generally separate Connoisseur pipes date of manufacture into three periods.

From late 1960’s until 1974: no stampings
From 1974 until 1981: CONNOISSEUR over N.Y.C.
From 1981 on: CONNOISSEUR over N.Y.C. and Ed Burak’s signature

The pipe I was working on was stamped like the photo below. It had the Connoisseur over N.Y.C. stamp and Ed Burak’s signature. That dated the pipe to the time period from 1981 to the time that the Connoisseur Pipe Shop in Manhattan closed in 2009 on Ed’s retirement. Included with the photo of the stamp was a picture of a tall stack pipe that looked identical to the one that I was working on. Using the photo above and this photo gave me a clear picture of what the bend of the stem was like originally. I took a photo below of the stamping on the left side of the pipe that I am working on for comparison with the one above. You can see that they have the same stamping. On the Puff.com Pipe Forums I found a thread on Connoisseur pipes that confirmed how the pipes were finished when they were originally made. http://www.puff.com/forums/vb/general-pipe-forum/299824-ed-burak-pipes-man.html. There in the latter part of a post by a member identified as Mr. Rogers was the information that I was seeking confirmation about.

“His premium pipes were like nothing I had seen before. He finished all of his pieces with only wax, no stain. He incorporated blemishes into his designs and made no attempt to hide these flaws with fillers. I frequented the CPS (Connoisseur Pipe Shop) as a high school, college, then grad school student, never really having the funds to purchase his premium pieces. As luck would have it, once I became established in my work/field, the CPS was long gone…”

Now that I had a pretty good idea of when the pipe was made and what the stamping meant, it was time to go to work cleaning up this beauty. I took a close-up photo of the bowl to show the state of the uneven broken cake that was formed on the walls of the bowl. The cake had a fuzzy appearance that bothered me. So before I cut into it with the reamer I examined it with my lens to see if it was mold. I was glad to see that it was merely dust particles. I was able to blow them out before with a blast of air before I reamed back the cake. You can also see the flaw on the back side of the rim centered between the inner and outer edge of the rim. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer. I started with the smallest cutting head and worked up to a cutting head the same diameter as the original bowl. The bowl was U-shaped but narrowed slightly half way down the bowl so I had to use the second cutting head to clean out the bottom half of the bowl and smoothed out the transition between the two cutting heads with a sharp pen knife. I took the cake completely back to the bare wood so that a good, clean, solid cake could be formed.

I scrubbed the exterior of the natural briar with alcohol on cotton pads. It removed the grime, oils and ground in dirt from the finish and left the briar clean. I dropped the stem in a bath of Oxyclean. Almost as soon as it hit the water and I shook it the mixture turned amber coloured as the Oxy worked on the oxidation. I set the bath aside to let the stem soak and turned my attention to cleaning up the bowl. Before I could repair the flaw on the rim I needed to clean it up. I lightly topped the bowl on the topping board using 220 grit sandpaper. Once I had topped it lightly I washed it down with alcohol on a cotton pad to remove the sanding dust and blew out the dust in the bowl. I picked out the dust and grime in the flaw and used a drop of clear super glue and some briar dust from the topping of the bowl to fill in the flaw. Once it was hardened I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper on the topping board and then with a medium and a fine grit sanding block to smooth out the scratches and polish the rim. The photo below shows the repair to the rim as well as the oils and tars on the cotton swabs and pipes cleaners that I used to clean out of the mortise and airway. I also wiped down the inside of the bowl with alcohol on cotton swabs to remove the dust and any remnants of the old cake. With the bowl cleaned and repaired I took the stem out of the Oxy bath. It had been soaking for about 2 hours and the oxidation was softened and brought to the surface enough that when I scrubbed stem to dry it off I was able to remove much of it.

I put the stem in the shank and used a heat gun to heat the vulcanite and reduce the angle of the bend in the stem. I took it back to the work table and took the next four photos of the new angle of the stem to see how it looked from the comfortable distance of the computer screen. I took it back and heated it again to bend it slightly more. The angle was close but I would need to adjustments to get to what I wanted for the bend in the stem.

While this photo was taken to show the stem it also gives a good picture of the repair to the rim on the pipe. It blended in very well and looks far better than the original crevice.

I sanded the stem lightly with 220 grit sandpaper paying special attention to the tooth marks and tooth chatter near the button on both the top and bottom of the stem. Once I had removed the marks and chatter I sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches.

The next four close-up photos show what the stem looked like at this point in the process of removing the oxidation and scratches.

To highlight the beautiful mixed grain on this piece of briar I rubbed it down with a light coat of olive oil and let it soak into the briar.

I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads. Once I finished with the 2400 grit pad I buffed it with White Diamond and then rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit micromesh pads and again rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil. Once it dried I lightly buffed it again with White Diamond to give it a deeper polish. Then I continued sanding it with 6000-12,000 grit micromesh sanding pads.

I gave it a final coat of the oil and took the pipe to the buffer and buffed it with Blue Diamond Plastic Polish.

I buffed the whole pipe with Blue Diamond and gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect the finish and the stem. I finished buffing it with a clean, soft flannel buff and no buffing compounds to raise the shine on the finish and the stem. The finished pipe is shown below. Thanks for looking.

Restoring a Sydney P. Ram Oom Paul

3 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

I just finished refurbishing a beautiful Oom Paul that is stamped left side of the shank Sydney P. Ram in script. On the right side it is stamped Imported Briar over 3172/VD. When it arrived to my work table it had a few issues that needed to be addressed. The rim was damaged on the right front outer edge from what looked like being knocked against something. The inner edge on the front had a burned area from a lighter. The briar was unstained, natural but looked dry, lifeless and dirty. The bowl was barely smoked the top 2/3s of the bowl was darkened and had some particles of tobacco stuck to the bowl sides. The bottom 1/3 of the bowl was still raw briar. The airway was quite large at the bottom of the bowl but was well drilled and centered on the back side of the bowl at the bottom. The stem would not sit all the way in the mortise and was very tight. The mortise was far dirtier than the bowl. It had a buildup of tars and oils that had prevented the tenon from seating properly in the mortise. The stem itself was not only oxidized but had stains that ran the length of the underside. The airway was plugged. The slot in the button was plugged and was very narrow so that getting even a paper clip into the slot took a lot of effort.

I took the stem off the pipe and used an unfolded paperclip to open up the clogged airway. It took some work but I was able to open it back up. The slot in the button was so small that a normal pipe cleaner was hard to push through. Once it was done the clog came out and was pipe cleaner detritus and tars.

I put the stem in an Oxyclean bath to soak while I worked on the bowl. The damage to the outer rim of the bowl needed to be addressed. I was able to stem the flat surface and lift some dents but the outer edge dents were actually cuts and they did not move. I decided to top the bowl lightly to remove the damage to the edges – both the outer right front and the inner front burned area. I set up a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper and took down the top until the damage was minimized. I then sanded the outer edge with a medium grit sanding block to dull the sharp edge slightly. I worked on the inner rim with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to bevel the edge slightly and minimize the damage from the burned area.

With the rim top cleaned and repaired I worked on the inner edge of the rim with a folded piece of sandpaper. I beveled the inner rim edge inward to compensate for the burned area on the front of the bowl. Then I washed down the bowl with alcohol on cotton pads to remove the wax and the grime on the briar. I scrubbed the inside of the bowl with cotton swabs and alcohol to clean up the debris in the bowl and the dust from sanding. I cleaned out the shank and mortise with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol until the cotton swabs came out clean and the mortise was clean to sight. I followed up that by sanding the rim with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge and then with 1500-12,000 grit micromesh to polish it. The beauty of working with natural briar finishes is that when a bowl is topped it is not hard to match and blend into the finish of the bowl.

I steamed the front, bottom and sides of the bowl where there were many small dents and nicks. I heated a table knife over the gas flame on our stove, folded a wet cloth and placed it over the dents and then touched the hot blade of the knife to the wet cloth. This created steam with which I was able to lift many of the dents and nicks. While most of them were gone there were others that remained that were reduced noticeably.

When I finished the steaming of the dents I rubbed down the bowl with a light coat of olive oil to give life to the briar. I buffed it on the wheel with Blue Diamond polish and gave it several coats of carnauba wax to protect and finish it. Once the stem was completed I would buff it again and then apply more wax to the pipe.

While the stem was soaking I set the finished bowl aside and did a bit of research on the Ram brand. It was one which I had read about on the forums and had seen on eBay but not a brand I knew anything about. I googled the name and found quite a bit of information on the different pipe forums and on Pipedia.http://pipedia.org/wiki/Ram%27s_Horn.Here is a summary of what I found.

“Sydney P. Ram was a pipe maker in the 1930’s and reported to have retired in 1942. Ram’s shop was at 59 West Monroe in Chicago’s Loop. His pipes were normally simply stamped Sydney P. Ram in script. He was also the author of a book on pipe smoking in 1941 called How to get more fun out of smoking; a guide and handbook for better smoking and is sometimes available on Amazon, having been reprinted in 2011.”

I contacted Ken Prevo who was mentioned later in the Pipedia article as we have corresponded on the various pipe forums that we both frequent. I asked his permission to post a copy of the 16 page catalog from the shop era that was referenced in the article. He graciously responded that I could post it here on rebornpipes in high resolution. I have done so here: https://rebornpipes.com/2015/05/22/are-you-getting-the-most-out-of-your-smoking-a-pipe-catalogue-from-the-sydney-p-ram-pipe-shop/

Ken welcomes those interested in viewing or downloading a copy of the catalogue to do so from his Dropbox at this link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dao82dnm8tw3y0i/XIdMElvkbk.

Ken reported that recently, in 2013, New Old Stock has shown up with the pipes being sold from California, which may have been where Ram relocated the shop after the war, or it could have been retained inventory on closing the Chicago store and retiring.

The catalog states that all pipes are either Algerian or Corsican Briar. The pipes being sold are light but color to deep brown very rapidly. Ken has not seen similar treatment. The catalog shows pipe prices ranging from $1.75 to $7.50. (Factory workers in the era made around $40/wk at the time). They are stamped either straight grain or imported briar. The catalog also indicates the shop did its own blending and had onsite repair.

I took the stem out of the Oxyclean bath and rubbed it dry with a coarse cotton cloth. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the oxidation that was still left and the residue that was hardened in spots on the underside of the stem.

I worked on opening the slot in the button. I used a combination of needle files to open the slot. I began with a flat blade file to widen the slot on the top and bottom. This is tedious work but it pays off dividends in the end. Once I had that area more open I worked on the sides of the slot with a flat oval file to create a Y shape in the slot. I then used a fat oval and a round needle file to open the slot further and round out the ends of the slot. When the filing was completed I folded a piece of sandpaper and worked on sanding the inside of the slot smooth and removing all of the file marks.

When I finished opening the slot I sanded the stem with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to reduce the scratches on the vulcanite.

By this time with the slot opened and the oxidation pretty well cleaned up it was ready to be polished with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit pads and rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil.

I buffed the stem with red Tripoli to further remove the scratches left behind by the sandpaper. I took it back to the worktable and put it in the shank and took some photos.

I removed it from the shank and dry sanded it with 3200-4000 grit micromesh and rubbed it down again with Obsidian Oil before finishing with 6000-12,000 grit pads to bring the final shine out on the vulcanite.

I buffed the stem with White Diamond and then with Blue Diamond Plastic polish on the buffing wheel.

I took it back to the worktable and rubbed it down with some Briar Wipe before taking it back to the buffer for some carnauba wax. I buffed with several coats of carnauba and finished by buffing it with a clean, soft flannel buff. The dry buff raises the shine on the bowl. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below.

Thanks for looking. Be sure to check out the link above to the Sydney Ram Catalogue that I posted on rebornpipes.

Repairing a Broken Shank Acorn Shaped Pipe and giving it a New Look

5 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

I have had this broken Acorn shaped bowl in my box of parts for a long time now. I remember breaking it. There were several fills around the shank at that point. The stem was absolutely stuck in the shank and no matter what I did I could not get it out. Heat, cold, alcohol bath or any other means would not work. Finally after I had dunked it in boiling water hoping to loosen things I twisted on the stem and the shank snapped. Then I could see the problem. The stem had an aluminum tenon that had basically begun to disintegrated and had bonded to the shank. It had a long aluminum stinger that extended virtually to the air hole. It was a mess. I clean up the shank and the bowl to remove all of the corroded aluminum and scraped it clean. I was undecided whether to fix it or just part it out so I put it in the box and left it there.

Yesterday I decided to take it out and have a look at it. I put the two parts back together and saw that the fit was actually quite clean. There were just two small places where the briar actually had chipped. I had a polished aluminum tenon that I had extracted from a broken stem and saved for just such a repair. I sanded it and used a file to score the surface of the metal tube so that the glue would have something to grab hold on in the shank. I mixed a batch of two part epoxy and a painted it on the tube with the mixing stick. I liberally coated the tube with epoxy and let it sit until it got a little tacky and then inserted it in the shank end of the break. I inserted the stem in the mortise end so that I did not set the tube too deeply in the shank. Once I had it positioned I let it cure for 30 minutes until the epoxy set and the tube was solidly in place in the shank. I put epoxy on both sides of the exposed briar and then on the other end of the extended tube. I carefully pressed the two parts together and worked to make sure that I had them aligned correctly. The excess epoxy squeezed out and bulged around the enter repair. I used a dental pick and scraped away the excess leaving a smooth top coat of epoxy in the cracked area.

The top surface of the rim was quite damaged and the bowl was out of round. I topped the bowl on a topping board to remove the damage and burn marks that were present on the surface. I sanded it with a sanding block to remove the scratches and smooth out the finish.

I sanded the epoxy on the shank back until it was smooth with 220 grit sandpaper. In the photo below you can still see the slight bulge of epoxy that needed to be removed but since I was planning on rusticating the bowl and shank I did not spend a lot of time sanding that out.

I sanded it a little bit smoother and then used the rustication tool that Chris Chopin made for me to do a deep rustication on the bowl and shank. As I rusticated it I then used the brass bristle wire brush to knock off the loose briar chips. (I collected the briar chips as I plan on using them as Joe suggested in fill repairs to see if I can get them to stay light). I left the rim smooth and would later top it lightly to smooth it out.

When I finished the bowl I wrapped a piece of cello-tape around the end of the shank to make a smooth area that I would later install a band on. The shank end was not straight so I would need to clean it up a bit and then band it to get a clean fit of the stem in the shank.

Once I finished rusticating the shank I removed the tape to show the smooth shank end.

I slid the band on the shank slightly and then heated it with a lighter until the metal expanded enough to press the band into place. I left about 1/8 of an inch extended to allow for the stem to fit properly in the shank and sit inside the band. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper until the diameter was a close fit in the band. I slid it in place and took the pictures below to show the look of the pipe at this point. I knew that there was a lot more sanding to do to get a snug fit in the band but I wanted to see a picture to look at the fit a bit removed from the pipe I held in my hands. I purposely chose a longer stem to give it a subtle elegance and length bordering on a mini-churchwarden pipe.

I lightly topped the bowl some more to take care of the burn marks on the right side of the rim top. Then I took a set of close-up photos of the bowl with the band to look at the rustication and figure out where I needed to do some touch up work on it. The shank was where I was the most concerned. I wanted it to match as much as possible with the bowl rustication. I could see that overall it looked good but that the left side of the shank would need some adjusting before it was finished.

I touched up the rustication on the left side of the shank and then wire brushed the entire bowl and shank with the brass bristle brush to knock of loose particles.

I brushed of the dust with a shoe brush and then took out some black aniline stain to give the rustication and undercoat of black. I applied the stain with the dauber and then flamed it with the lighter to set the stain in the bottom of the rustication.

I sanded the stem with a medium and a fine grit sanding pad and put it back in the shank to get a feel for the appearance of the pipe after staining.

I took the stem back out and worked on it with the micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each of the three grits.

Between the 4000 and the 6000 grit pads I buffed it with White Diamond on the wheel and then finished with the higher grit micromesh pads. I buffed the stem with Blue Diamond and gave it a coat of carnauba wax. The next two photos show the polished stem in place on the pipe.

I sanded the surface of the rustication to knock off some of the high points and smooth it out slightly using a sanding block. The sanding made the rustication a bit more pebble like in appearance and once I had finished the sanding I gave the bowl a coat of oxblood aniline stain as a top coat. It added some red highlights to the rustication – particularly on the high spots. I then buffed the stem with Blue Diamond on the wheel and gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I polished the band with silver polish and hand buffed it with a soft jeweler’s cloth. The finished pipe is shown below. It has a delicate look that gives it an air of elegance and class. I am looking forward to firing it up and enjoying a bowl soon.

Thanks for looking.

Restemming and Restoring a Weber Deep Grain Lovat

1 Reply

Blog by Steve Laug

I have been doing a bit of reading on the Dr. Grabow Collectors Forum and have been learning a lot from the folks there. On one of the threads on refurbishing Scot wrote and asked about restemming an older Weber Deep Grain Lovat. He had it sitting and did not feel confident about doing the stem work on it. I offered to restem it for him for the postage. When the pipe arrived I took it to the work table and took the following photos. The bowl had some really nice grain on it. The finish was rough with a lot of scratches, dents and nicks. Next to the band the finish was work off on the right side. There were some deep gouges and a scratch across the surface on the right side of the bowl. The rim was in rough shape. The outer edges were beat up pretty badly with gouges and chunks missing from the edge. The inner edge was clean and undamaged. The top of the rim was very rough. There were nicks and dents and it was almost crowned looking – though uneven. The bowl was badly caked forming a thick ring about mid bowl. Below that the cake was almost non-existent and above that it was flaking off in sheets. The stem was worn out with a large bite taken out of the top side near the button and the underside it was cracked. It was ruined.

I took the next two close-up photos to show the rim damage and the odd cake in the bowl and also the damage to the stem.

When Scott first sent it I was under the impression that he merely wanted me to make a new stem for it. After I saw it I wrote him and asked if he wanted me to clean it up and restore it for him. While I waited for his response I worked on the new stem. I had a stem that was the same length and had a tenon that was not only the right length but also almost the right diameter. I sanded the tenon down lightly and fit the stem to the shank. It was perfect in diameter on the bottom side of the band but was a little large on the top and left side of the saddle.

I put a plastic washer between the shank and the stem so that I could sand it to the edge without rounding the shoulders of the stem. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to shape it and fit it to the band diameter. I also sanded off the oxidation that was on the surface of the stem and some of the wavy lines that were present on the flat surface of the blade.

removed the washer and carefully sanded around the shank/band junction to clean up that edge.

I sanded the stem with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches that were present on the stem from the sandpaper.

Once I had removed the majority of them I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads.

There were still some scratches present on the stem that would go once I had buffed it with Blue Diamond but just before I took it to the buffer I heard back from Scott. He said he would be glad to have me give the pipe a work over. Given that go ahead I set aside the stem and turned to work on the bowl. Once I had the bowl finished I would buff the entire pipe.

I reamed it with a PipNet reamer starting with the smallest cutting head and then finishing with the second smallest head. With that I took the crumbling, flaking uneven cake back to bare wood. I figured that Scott could start over and build an even hard cake of his own choosing.

I took a few photos of the bowl to record the damage and scratches to the finish. I wanted to not only get a good look at them but I also wanted to document them. The right side of the bowl had a large series of scratches and grooves from what looked like dropping the pipe on concrete. There were also scratches on the shank and outer edge of the rim. In fact the rim edge was very rough. The left side of the bowl also had some scratches that were pretty deep. The top view of the rim shows the missing chunks of briar around the edge of the bowl and the uneven crown that came from tapping the bowl out against a hard surface. The underside of the shank had a rough spot next to the band and quite a bit of scratching.

I washed down the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to remove the remnants of the finish before I worked on the scratches and dents in the bowl and shank. topped the bowl on a topping board to remove the damaged surface and outer edge of the rim. Once I had the bowl topped and the rim smooth and flat again I decided to repair the missing chunks of briar on the outer edge and the deep cuts on the right side of the bowl. I sanded the edge and scratches with a sanding sponge to clean up the jagged edges. I wiped the areas down with alcohol. I then filled the cuts and the missing chunks with superglue and packed in briar dust to fill them. I generally overfill them and then sand them back until they are smooth and blend into the surface area around them.

I sanded the fills with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper and then with sanding sponges until I had blended the area in with the surrounding surface of the bowl. I took the next two profile photos of the pipe to show the clean look of the bowl rim. Notice on the second photo the repair to the cuts on the right side of the bowl toward the lower ¼.

The next photo shows the newly topped and repaired rim from the top. I sanded the bowl surface with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge being careful around the stamping so as not to damage it. Once it was smooth and the scratches minimized I rubbed down the bowl with a light coat of olive oil. The olive oil gives some life to the grain and highlights the areas that I still needed to sand. The next four photos show the pipe after it had been rubbed down with a soft cloth after the olive oil.

I took another close up of the rim to show the repairs and how the olive oil brought out the colour of the rim so that it matched the rest of the pipe. I then took the pipe to the buffing wheel and buffed it with Blue Diamond Plastic Polish. I worked the stem over with the polish and then buffed the briar as well. Afterwards I gave the bowl and stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean, flannel pad to raise the shine of the wax. The finished pipe is shown below. Tomorrow I will get it packed up and sent back to Scott. It should serve him well for a good many years to come. Thanks for letting me work on this old pipe. It was a pleasure.

Replacing a Stem Logo and Repairing a Missing Chunk of Briar on a Grabow Duke

5 Replies

Blog by Joe Mansueto

Joe sent me an email thinking that the methodology covered in this post would be helpful to other readers of rebornpipes. I read it and have to agree. Though many of you may use similar methods to those shared in this blog I felt that the clarity of description and the simple photos make the process very clear. The article is in two parts– the first covering the insertion of a stem logo on a new stem (in this case a Dr. Grabow Spade logo, the second covering the repair to a rim that was damaged and missing a piece of briar. It originally was posted on the Dr. Grabow Collectors Forum. Here is the direct link to the conversation around these repairs. – Steve http://drgrabows.myfreeforum.org/about6302.html

This is not so much to show the Duke partial wire-carved billiard as it is to share the process for a couple of repairs.

Part 1.

First…I’ve been asked a time or two recently about inserting spades, so I thought I’d share the process – learned it long ago from Ozark.

Here’s the vulcanite stem needing a spade. It’s registered to the Duke perfectly, I’m sure Grabow fit it. First step is to pick the necessary drill bit…the smallest possible where the spade barely fits on the flat end. If you’re using a current day spade from the factory, the bit size is 9/64″. I pick the spade location and pilot a smaller hole, about half the size of the intended hole. I drill the hole just deep enough so that the spade barely fits in, while also being shallow enough to leave maybe 1/4 or more of the thickness of the spade sticking out. Reason why in next step. I mix activated charcoal and Gorilla brand CA (Cyanoacrylate) super glue to a consistency just thicker than honey. Fill the hole with the glue/charcoal mixture, and then carefully press the spade in. The reason I leave some of the spade sticking out in the previous step is so that when I insert it into the glue, I can still see at least part of the surface of the spade so that I can make sure it’s oriented right, and also, to assure it won’t be in too deep. If the hole is too deep, it’ll be difficult to keep the spade from sinking into the glue…it will get covered up, may become incorrectly oriented (without you knowing), and at least some of the spade may end up lower than the surface of the stem when you’re done. Take it from me after messing up on a couple. Also…both sides of a spade are flat when they’re made. So…at least the corners of the spade need to be higher than the surface of the stem, so that when you file and sand it, it will be rounded with the contour of the stem, with none of the spade concave. I take a toothpick and press the glue carefully, all the way around the spade in an attempt to eliminate any pockets of air. It ends up covering the edge of the spade. Once it dries hard (maybe an hour), I use a small smooth file to shape the hardened glue and the surface of the spade down to the surface of the stem. Here it is after filing and sanding, pre-buff.
Part 2.

This is a repair I came up with after some trial runs. I’ve shown a couple previous examples, but not in detail, and with lesser results.

Here’s the Duke – nice chunk missing from the rim. Here is the material – briar dust (not super fine) and Gorilla CA. Cover the surface of the hole to be filled with glue. If it’s a pocket, I fill the pocket…because I’ll be essentially pressing the briar shavings into the glue, and it will then dry rather quickly. I sprinkle briar into the glue, and I carefully push the shavings into the glue using a toothpick…being careful to not simply push the glue out of the cavity. I then lay another coat of glue on top of the repair, then sprinkle more briar on top. This time, I use my fingers to press in on the dry layer of shavings…pressing gently into the repair, shaping it. As needed, I drop more shavings on top, so as to not glue my fingers to the repair. The repairs I’ve done have been taking 2 to 3 layers like this…with the last layer being pressed in more firmly. You can feel the glue hardening up. Once it’s hard, I wait just a few minutes, then it’s time for the filing – to shape the repair to the proper height and contour. Once filed to shape, time for some ‘fake’ wire carving…done with a Dremel and a dental bur I got from Ozark. Here it is after Dremel effect and some light sanding. Here it is after some dark brown stain in the wire carving, drying, then more light sanding to remove the stain from the higher parts of the wire carving. Followed by higher grit dry sanding, then micromesh sanding 1500 – 3200. Already had a decent finish, but then buffed with Carnauba. This is a straight billiard pipe. I like a slight curve in the stem, so I added that.

The upper right corner in this pic is where the missing chunk was.

One last detail. One or two of these partially wire carved pipes have surfaced, and someone asked earlier if the wire carving was done, and then parts of the bowl sanded down. Nope. You can see that the smooth parts of the bowl are at the same level as the highest parts of the wire carving…so the wire carving was done here on 2 sides and then just the rim.

A Tinsky sent back to Mark for a new stem and then given personal adjustments by me

1 Reply

Blog by Steve Laug

I had a surprise just before my recent trip to Europe when I went to my pipe cupboard and took out my Tinsky apple. It is a pipe that has traveled with me around the world and one I love to smoke when I am traveling. It is a smoking machine. Well when I took it out I noticed that the original stem had a split on the top side and the underside that went from the bend to the button just over the airway. It was a crack that with time would grow. I took it to Europe and enjoyed it in Greece and Germany. It did not split further. When I got back I sent it off to Mark for a new Tinsky Stem. It did not take him too long to make a new one for it. I received within a week or less of his repair.

The photo below shows the pipe when I got it originally. It quickly became a favourite. I think I have probably had it over 15 years if I remember it correctly. It is just an old friend now and one that gets a lot of use. The shape in the hand feels great. The thinness of the mouthpiece and the shape hangs just right. The length is good for me. The blast and finish on the pipe is tactile and as it warms from the fire in its belly all seems right with my world. So that being said of course I would replace the stem and of course I would send it to Mark for another Tinsky stem. When the pipe came back I have to say I was a little disappointed with the new stem. Not disappointed enough to send it back for an adjustment but not at all satisfied with the new look of the pipe. It just did not work well for me. To my eye the stem was chunkier and less delicate than the original. I wrote that off to the possibility that Mark was correcting the issue with the thinness and size of the airway leading to potential for this one to crack as well. The new stem was a good ½ or ¾ inch longer than the original and the bend was not as gentle. The bend did not look right to me and seemed in my opinion to be over bent. It definitely was not a copy of the original stem it is slightly thicker all the way around, a deeper bend and not as delicate looking all made me concerned. I decided to smoke the pipe for a while and see if the difference was that big of a deal to me. All of the issues were ones that I could address so I was not too concerned.

Here are some photos of the stem and pipe. The stem on the pipe is the new one. The one underneath to the pipe is the original. In each of the photos below the thicker stem is the new one regardless of the angle of the camera. The difference is very evident.

I have been smoking it now for over a month. I think that is adequate time to adjust to the new feel of the stem. However, I did not adjust to it. It sat “wrong” in my mouth and hung with the bowl tilted toward the front too far. It was easier to light but was not nearly as easy to clench. The thickness added some weight to the pipe and was nowhere near as comfortable in the mouth. To put it in just a few words, the overall look of the new stem just bugged me.

So tonight I decided it was time to tackle the stem and do some work to remedy my concerns. I set up my heat gun and heated the acrylic stem to take out some of the bend and try to match it to the original stem. I really wanted the end of the stem to be in line with the bowl top when it was flat. In the first photo below you can see the variation in the bend. The top stem is the old one and the bottom one is the new stem. I heated it slowly above the heat gun on low heat. I have learned the hard way that if it gets too close to the gun the acrylic can bubble and burn and give me more issues to deal with. I heated it until it was pliable and then flattened it against the top of my work table until the bend was the same as the original stem. I set the bend with cool water. I put the stem back in the shank and took the photo below to show the modification of the bend in contrast to the original stem which sits below the pipe in the photo. With the bend corrected I also want to thin down the stem and remove some of the heaviness in the area above the saddle. I wanted more of a taper from the saddle to the button and give the saddle to the slope of the stem a bit more definition. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to get the angles right to my eye. I also wanted the pinch between the saddle and the blade of the stem to be more defined.

I sanded and sanded for about forty five minutes to clean up the flow of the stem and finally I was getting to the place that I liked the look of it.

I sanded the top and underside of the stem to modify the thickness back toward the button. I wanted more of a flattened taper from the saddle back.

When I got it to the place I wanted I put the stem back on the pipe to get a feel for the new look. It was definitely thinner than when I started. I did not want to take too much off the top of the stem toward the button as I wanted to leave more material over the airway than was on the original stem in that area.

I still needed to do some more shaping with the 220 grit sandpaper so I worked on the stem with it on the pipe so that I could continue to see the effect on the overall look of the pipe.

I was finally happy with the overall shape. It was time to work on the finish of the stem. I sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches left behind by the sandpaper.

I moved on to sand it with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. Between each set of three I rubbed the stem down with some Obsidian Oil as I have found that it enables the micromesh to have a better bite on the stem material.

When I finished with the micromesh I gave it a light buff on the wheel with Blue Diamond Plastic Polish. I then buffed it with carnauba wax and finally with a clean, flannel buff to raise the shine and give it depth. I also gave the bowl several coats of wax with a light touch so it did not clog up in the blast. The finished pipe is shown below from a variety of angles to show the new shape of the stem. It is so much more comfortable to me than it was and I really like the more refined look.

Now it is time to load up a bowl and give it a smoke. I picked up some McClellands 2035 this past weekend when I was in the US and this pipe loves flake tobacco. I am really looking forward to having this old friend back in the regular rotation.

Finding a Heart for an Aristocob Aluminum (Rhodesian?)

13 Replies

Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.naspc.org
http://www.roadrunnerpipes.com
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

The Wizard of Oz: “As for you, my galvanized friend, you want a heart. You don’t know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.”
The Tin Woodsman: “But I still want one.”
― From “The Wizard of Oz” (movie, 1939)

INTRODUCTION
As a movie and trivia buff, not necessarily together, one of my favorite questions that comes up now and then in conversation and on quiz shows is “When was the Golden Age of Hollywood?” I like it because of the slippery term Golden Age, which implies years forming a great period of time with specific world-changing events and personages, as in the Bronze Age or the Age of Enlightenment. It’s also a trick question, the expected (but incorrect if often accepted) answer being 1939. Granted, in that one year, some of the great movies in Hollywood history were made, including “The Wizard of Oz,” “Gone with the Wind,” “Stagecoach,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and “Wuthering Heights”. But the true and more agreed upon answer would be 1930-1959, which encompassed “All Quiet on the Western Front” to “Anatomy of a Murder”.

All of this is my way of approaching a term I often refer to but did not coin, the Golden Age of Pipe Smoking. In my mind, although the exact timeline is sometimes said to have begun as long ago as the mid-1800s, this period was from the 1930s into the ’70s, when pipes were ubiquitous and respected all over the world, as reflected in motion pictures, TV and society in general. Below are a few famous Hollywood pipe men: Fred Astaire, John and Lionel Barrymore, Harry Belafonte and Fred MacMurray. My own dad and almost all of his friends enjoyed and in many cases had collections of the magic briar social lubricant. The subject of this blog, a brand of pipe named with perhaps tongue-in-cheek humor, is one of the quirkiest, most unusual examples conceived during this wonderful age that I believe is experiencing a renascence: the Aristocob, invented by Joseph W. Zarikta for the Al Cobb Corporation and granted U.S. Patent №. 3,292,639 on December 20, 1966. The Al Cobb Corp. became Al-Cob Corp. in Grand Haven, Michigan, and still later Aristocob Inc. in Caledonia, Michigan before being taken over by the Missouri Meerschaum Company in Washington, Missouri. Missouri Meerschaum made the corncob inserts from the early 1970s until 1983, and since then replacements have not been manufactured, but with dedicated searching some will, on occasion, show up when they are found and offered online. Even though I could not locate any for this restoration, I know they still pop up because of several sold-out listings I found on eBay. However, by most accounts the original inserts, or even self-styled replacements, are high maintenance contraptions that quickly become wet, mushy and, in short, nasty to use. Still, our esteemed host, Steve, emailed me the following message: “I love those old aristocobs. They are sweet looking retro experiments.” Indeed they are. I even found several sites where this pipe is given the high description of “art deco.”

Nevertheless, I believe I have found a more suitable and permanent solution to the problem, even if it does detract from the good, old timey flavor of the maker’s intent: briar inserts made to fit the Aristocob. [See http://www.owlpipes.com/#!new-collection/c1jn5.%5D For this restoration I ordered one, and considering I bought the beat-up old pipe itself for $2 at a yard sale, the $25 cost of the briar insert should be worth it. As timing allowed, the insert arrived on Friday but was too big for my home mailbox, where the package was sent due to a mix-up with PayPal, instead of the Post Office Box I use most often. And the Postman being too lazy to walk to my door (or just afraid to do so in my neighborhood), I picked it up at the Post Office Saturday.

This restoration, therefore, takes place in real-time, as I write this.

RESTORATION

SATURDAY

Before venturing to my neighborhood Postal Station, which is the local training site and therefore deplorable, I decide to do a preliminary clean-up of the metal. The oxidation on the bowl, in particular in the threads and deep grooves, comes off with ease using a pair of small, thin, cotton gun cleaning patches soaked in Everclear. I am able to use the same patches to clean the threaded lid inside and out. The identical process on the chamber removes most of the old tobacco juice and minimal oxidation except for the brown grime near the opening of the air hole. For that I dip a bristly cleaner in the alcohol and run it through the wide open, tubular shank and into the bottom of the chamber. The shank needs a second swabbing.

The pipe cleaner dipped in freshener that I run through the air hole of the bit comes out clear, but it doesn’t hurt to try. The outside of the bit, with almost no scratches, buffs up nicely using micromesh. I place the filter, in this case a Medico because it fits and I have a few – and with this pipe, a filter really will be necessary – into the stem.

And so the time to face the ordeal of the long, slow line at the Post Office comes. An hour later I am home again with my new briar insert and a surprise: a small key chain fashioned with a little chunk of lightweight, pale briar, both of them in a nice bag with a drawstring.

Now, something about the nakedness of the insert, being briar instead of the traditional corncob, just doesn’t sit right with me. Even when I test the fit by dropping it in the chamber and screwing on the lid, while indeed the briar is the correct size, the raw part of the rim that shows, beneath the top of the aluminum lid when I screw it on, is wrong. I ask myself (not out loud, but in my head – I’m not crazy, even if at times I ramble and digress), “Would I ever, even on the most rushed or easygoing project, conceivably consider leaving any rim unpolished?”

“Hell, no,” is my immediate response, though still silent. And so the next stage begins with what is intended to be just a quick sanding, micro-meshing and waxing of the rim. In point of fact, I try only the progression of micromesh, but that reveals the need for sanding, which I accomplish with 400-grit paper before re-doing the micromesh.

SUNDAY
But of course, once I start down that road – as simple as settling for the polished rim of the insert with its newly exposed even grain would be, given that it is the only part that will show through the lid – I simply cannot bring myself to leave the sides completely unfinished. Still, I approach this task with nowhere near the detail I would give a regular briar bowl. A fast sanding with 320-grit paper followed by 400, then micro-meshing, satisfies me, and it shows in the photos below. I consider doing the bottom of the insert, with a small hole drilled to allow moisture to pass in this most bizarre system pipe, but good sense does get the better of me, when my mind comes around to the reality of the resulting damage to anything sitting for long in the potential quagmire that the lucky buyer of this fine pipe might create even without the genuine, disposable corncob inserts.

Now, as midnight approaches, the second day of sporadic work on the Aristocob reaches its end and extends into another, as seems to be the nature of my life so often these hectic days. I need to run to the nearest Walmart anyway, to buy more distilled water, distilled white vinegar and baking soda to continue with the final few steps of this experimental restoration.

MONDAY
Having secured the necessary ingredients for the culmination of an exciting and hopefully successful restoration, the next stage is to soak the aluminum for ten minutes or so in enough of the pure vinegar to cover all of the metal. As I have never before had occasion to work with aluminum in this sort of project, I have not tried the unusual method of cleaning any part of a pipe, and must trust a fellow pipe club member who actually makes his living engaging daily in this process to remove dirt and other substances from industrial parts made of the same material, and at the same time brighten it. I do, at least, confirm online that the procedure is an established and excellent means of accomplishing the goal. While the aluminum soaks, I enjoy a brief respite from my toils, with a pipe-full of some of the last of my C&D Pirate Kake in a newly-acquired Castello Old Antiquari KKKK Sandblasted Bulldog. There is no doubt this is a bulldog compared to the dubious designation of Rhodesian that, with clear reservations, I suggest for the Aristocob by way of calling the art deco thing anything other than that.

Alright, then; the aluminum Rhodesian has soaked for 12 minutes now in white vinegar, and I am one step closer to seeing if the well-intentioned advice of my fellow piper has any merit to it. First giving the metal pieces a basic rinse with tap water, I replace them in the plastic container for a thorough dousing in a concoction of the same with an unspecified and therefore liberal amount of baking soda stirred in to rid the aluminum of any residual acidic vinegar.

After a long day involving far more than this restoration, which details I will spare the reader and try to make myself forget, I suspect the Old Antiquari is up for another ten-minute smoke, and I know I am.

Ten more minutes fly by, and the water and baking soda have done as much as they can to ensure the complete removal of vinegar. I rinse the metal again and dry the lid, bowl, shank and chamber with a cotton rag. I decide to use another cleaner to dry the inside of the shank and chamber air hole, only to discover that the combination of the vinegar and the following water-baking soda soaks has dredged up much more vintage grime. Both ends of the one dry cleaner, then a second dipped in Everclear and a third dry cleaner clear out the remaining mess, and I re-wipe the chamber with a rag.

The pipe is as ready as I can make it for reassembly. I drop the polished briar insert in place, screw on the lid and slide the bit with its new Medico filter into the shank, and give the whole thing a rubbing with the cotton rag.

CONCLUSION
Although not as shimmering as it once looked new in its package with a couple of spare corncob inserts, the vintage Aristocob Rhodesian, like the Tin Woodsman in Oz, has a new briar heart that matches the second part of “my galvanized friend[’s]” name. And this new transplant will last much longer than the original.

Giving a no name Poker a new stem and a new look

9 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

Over the past six or seven months I have picked this pipe up and looked it over at the small antique shop I visit regularly. Every time I put it back down and leave it there. There was really nothing redeeming about the shape with its one thin side and the odd shank that was not quite round. The stem was just plain ugly and unfinished. It was as if the maker or owner just turned a blank to fit the mortise and flared it backwards to avoid having to deal with a smooth fit to the shank as it was everything but flat and round. The sides of the stem still showed file marks and the diameter was markedly different than that of the shank. All in all it was one that I could do without that is for sure.

Then this past weekend I was in the shop again. I picked it up and looked at it once more. I don’t know if my mood was different or I was on the adrenaline high of finding the old Zeus at the shop before or what but this time I saw some possibilities in the pipe. I paid the $8 cash and the pipe was mine. Now what would I do with it?

When I got home I took some photos and weighed my options over Saturday evening and Sunday. I thought about making a freehand style stem for the pipe and ditching the old one. I thought about cleaning up and reshaping the old stem. I thought about facing off the shank end and giving it a more classic look. I took the stem off and looked at the shape of the shank, the shape of the shank end and tried to visualize it with a classic look. As you can guess by this point if you know my likes I went for the classic look.

I took a couple of close-up photos of the rim and the shank end to give an idea of how the bowl and shank were not round or close to it. The first photo of the dirty rim of the bowl shows the odd shape it was in. The right side of the bowl wrapping about half way around both the back and the front had a nice thick, even width while the left side tapered in from the thickness and roundness of the right, back and front to a thinner width. Besides that it also seemed to be a bit oval on the back and front but after measuring it I could see that it was an illusion. The second photo shows the shank end. It is a bit hard to see but the shank end was crowned and rounded over but inconsistently. The shank itself had the same problem as the bowl – it too was not round but was thicker on the left side than on the right; just the opposite of the bowl. This little pipe was going to be a challenge to make look correct.

I decided to face the end of the shank and remove the uneven crown and to flatten it to fit a flush stem. I used the topping board and carefully pressed the end of the shank into the sandpaper. I had to make sure that I held it straight vertically while sanding so that I did not slant the end of the shank and make things worse. I worked it against the 220 grit sandpaper until it was smooth and the crown was gone. I then used a medium grit sanding block to make sure the shank end was flat and even. I had an old Georg Jensen stem that fit on the right side of the shank perfectly. The left side and the bottom and top on that same side were off. I tried a saddle stem I had as well. No matter which stem I use the shape of the shank made a perfect fit impossible. The good news was that the flush stem fit snugly in the mortise and flat against the end of the shank. Now I would need to make adjustments to the shank diameter without losing the nice sandblast finish. I went through my bands and found one that would fit both the shank and the stem once it was in place. I used my Dremel and sanding drum to take down and round out the shank end so that the band would sit properly. I wanted to make the adjustments to the shank before the band so that once it was in place the stem would fit without adjusting the roundness of the stem to match the out of round shank. It took some work to round out the shank but the Dremel made short work of the process. I was able to put the band loosely on the shank to get an idea of the overall look of the pipe with the band. It appeared to me that it would work well.

I decided to heat the band with a lighter rather than set my heat gun to do the simple heat up of the band. Once I heated it I pressed it into place on the shank. The metal expanded slightly with the heat and by pressing the shank end against a flat surface I was able to push the band into place.

One problem was solved. The shank was now round at the end and the stem would fit tightly against the shank and the band made the match perfect.

I used a dark brown stain pen and a black permanent marker to touch up the raw briar in front of the band and blend it into the colour of the bowl and shank.

Once I had the stained matched, it was time to clean the sandblast finish. I used Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to scrub the bowl and shank. I did it after the stain touch up as I figured that the scrub would help blend the stains together. I rinsed the bowl with fresh water avoiding getting it into the shank and the bowl. I dried it off and brought it back to the work table. I cleaned out the shank and the used stem with a few pipe cleaners and alcohol. The pictures below show the pipe at this point in the process. The stem needed some work to clean up the scratches and wear around the button. I wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and dry sanded it with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil and then buffed it with Blue Diamond Plastic Polish on the buffing wheel. I gave it a quick coat of carnauba and took it back to the work table.

I gave the bowl and stem a light buff and rubbed the bowl down with a light coat of olive oil. When it dried, I hand buffed the bowl with a shoe brush to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the pictures below. I think I achieved what I set out to do when I started this project. I took a pretty ugly poker with a misfit stem and with work transformed it into a more classic poker look. What do you think? Thanks for looking and giving your opinion on the new look.

Taking the idea that several readers gave regarding the straight stem I bent it this morning. I heated it with the heat gun and then gave it a gentle 1/8 bend. Here are the photos.

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