Tag Archives: Oxidation

A Mistreated Jan Hansen Svendborg C Hand Carved Bent Brandy with 9MM Filter Stem

by Steve Laug

I was recently contacted by a fellow here in Vancouver about some pipes he had. He was referred to me by a local pipe shop. I was unclear if he wanted them cleaned or exactly what. When he came on the weekend he brought six pipes in two pipe boxes for me to have a look at. I spoke with him about the cost of restoring them. It finally became clear to me (I guess I am slow) that he wanted to sell the pipes. He was tasked with the job by his sister in law as the pipes were from her late husband’s collection. As I unpacked them it was clear that they were some nice pipes and some were higher grade. All but one was smoked and had the heavy smell of fruity aromatics to them. Some had cake in the bowl and lava on the rim. Of the six, four of them had significant rim damage – bowls out of round, burn marks, cut marks. The saddest part is that the damage was most significant on the higher end pipes. Most of them had tooth marks in the stems. Obviously, they had been his late brother in laws favourites and he had enjoyed them. He left them with me and I went over them, researched the brands and wrote up an offer for him to present to his sister in law. By the end of the day we had a deal. The six pipes now have a new home and the fruity smell needs to be exorcised!I finished the last of the repairs that I had in my queue yesterday and returned to work on the lot above. I chose to work on the third of these pipes. It is a beautiful looking but another sadly abused pipe that is readily recognizable as Danish Made. It is stamped on the underside of the shank and reads C (grade stamp) [over] Svendborg [over] Danish [over] Hand Carved [over] Jan Hansen. The bowl had beautiful straight grain around sides. The shape is impeccably done. The finish was dirty but otherwise all was good it appeared. The rim top was clean of cake and lava. The inner edge of the bowl was damaged all the way around and was slightly out of round. The bowl had been recently reamed and it was clean. There was a pipe cleaner trough from the entrance of the airway into the bowl and the opening was widened into the trough. It was definitely damaged and my guess would be an overzealous reaming that widened the trough and left the bottom damaged. The filter stem was slightly oxidized and had light tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem ahead of the button. There is a horn like acrylic spacer on the shank end of the stem. The J.H. stamp on the left side of the stem was faded but still readable. It also came with a soft felt pipe sock. I took photos of the bowl and rim top to give you an idea of what I see. Once again it is too bad that Word does now allow for the inclusion of smells because this sweet vanilla is filling my work area. I have a candle going to mask the smell a bit. You can see the damage to the rim top and inner edge of the bowl. The bowl is clean. The stem is lightly oxidized and has light tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is clear and readable as noted above. I took a photo of the bowl with the stem removed to give a sense of the proportion and appearance of the pipe.To help me understand the stamping a bit more I turned to Pipephil’s site and read what it said about Svendborg Hand Carved pipes (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-s14.html). I have included a screen capture of the section below as well as the side bar information below the capture. Brand founded in 1970s by Henrik Jørgensen, Poul Ilsted and Tao Nielsen. They bought an old factory (Nordisc Pibefabriker) in Svendborg on Funen island. Poul and Tao gradually bow out from machine manufactured pipes (1982) and Henrik Jørgensen manages the brand until its take over by Design Berlin (D) in the late 90ies. Kaj C. Rasmussen jointed the firm for several years. 17 employees worked for this brand under Henrik Jørgensen direction

From the information I found there the Jan Hansen stamping was clear for me. It is a pseudonym used by Henrik Jorgensen. His own initials would not have been used as they could easily be misunderstood. HJ was used for Hitler Jugend. That helps me understand a bit more. I know that the pipe is like the third pipe in the above photo and bears the same stamping and shape. My assumption is that the pipe was made after Ilsted and Nielsen bowed out which would put the date of the carving between 1982 and the late 90’s when Design Berlin took over. The Danish Hand Made stamping also confirms that assumption.

Next I turned to Pipedia for more information and detail (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Svendborg). I find that the articles there fill in some interesting information on the relationships and history of a given brand. In this case I found that also true. I quote pertinent pieces of the article. If you would like more information follow the above link.

Jens Tao Nielsen and Poul Ilsted Bech met each other when working together for Erik Nørding and soon became close friends. Both felt a bit tired to make nothing but bizarre fancy shapes and agreed they wanted to produce pipes of more style and more classicism. They decided to establish their own brand “Tao & Ilsted” – But how to do it?

A good fortune brought them in contact with Henrik Jørgensen, a passionate pipe lover and a wealthy Copenhagen banker who was willing to retire from bank business and change his career to become a pipemaker. The trio joined in 1969 and decided to start a new pipe brand together. Nielsen and Ilsted started to search for a suitable workshop while Jørgensen took care of the finances. In early 1970 the partners found an old, closed down pipe factory in Svendborg on Funen, and bought it shortly after for a mere 16.500 Danish Kroner. It was the earlier Nordic Pipe Factory – Nordisc Pibefabriker – maybe the oldest Danish pipe factory. And now it became the home of Svendborg Piber…

…But in spite of it’s magnificent success the trio fell apart after less than two years, when wilful Poul Ilsted stepped out declaring he didn’t want to make serial pipes anymore, but wanted to make individual specimens… Strange enough, he approached this aim returning to Nørding!

Ilsted’s argumentation doesn’t seem to be absolutely fair: even though Svendborg turned to produce mainly serial pipes under Seiffert’s influence each of the three partners was free to work on his very own one of a kind pieces as well! Since it was Seiffert’s basic idea to profit from – especially – Tao ‘s and Ilsted’s creativity to design new shapes. There are many knowledgeable collectors who confirm that these early Svendsborg pipes class among the most individual, innovating and exciting designs Danish pipecrafters created at that time…

The firm developed well and prospered throughout the 1970’s but around 1980 dissensions between Tao and Jørgensen occured. Tao: “Most pipes were delivered to the United States and whereby the Americans tried to dictate us the conditions. It was not only so that their taste and their view on aesthetics were simply horrible – no, moreover they wanted that the pipes should be as cheap as possible. That did not suit my plans at all, for I strove for high quality and artistic freedom in the end.”

Tao and Jørgensen, who tended to accommodate the US customers’ wishes, could not find a compromise on their different opinions, and so Tao left the firm in 1981 and opened his own pipe workshop near the harbour of Svendborg.

…Henrik Jørgensen continued Svendborg Piber bravely for more than a decade on his own until he finally sold the brand to Seiffert around the midst of the 1990’s. Seiffert, focusing on their mainstay brand Sillem’s, sold Svendborg – a ghost brand now – again before 2000 and the current owner is Planta’s Design Berlin.

The article also included this set of pages from a catalogue that were interesting as they included the Handcarved line. The philosophy that drove the brand is also there to read.

Catalog page, courtesy Doug Valitchka

That gives a good picture of the history and development of the Svendborg brand and the connection to some of the great carvers of Danish pipe history. It also confirmed the identification of Jan Hansen as a pseudonym used by Henrik Jorgensen. Armed with that information I turned to work on the pipe in hand.

I reamed the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to take back the cake to bare briar. I sanded the walls smooth with some 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. I have to say that I was spooked by what I found on the S. Bang Brandy I just finished. I ran my fingers over the sides of the bowl and gladly they were smooth. As mentioned above the bottom of the bowl showed a trough carved in the bottom of the bowl. It appeared to be carved by zealous use of pipe cleaners. There was a ridge around the bottom of the bowl around the trough. I was able to ream out the ridge with the Pipe Knife. It looked much better. I took a photo of it as best as I could but it is hard to see. I cleaned out the stinky, fruity smelling tobacco oils and tars in the shank and the airway in the stem. I used 99% isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners and was able to remove the debris and some of the stench.I needed to “deghost” the bowl and try to exorcise the smell. I stuffed bowl with cotton bolls and used an ear syringe to fill it with alcohol. I set it aside to let the alcohol do its work and wick the oils into the cotton. While it sat for the afternoon, I did some other work. The next morning when I came back to it the cotton and alcohol had wicked out the oils and tars. The cotton was brown and the bowl smelled much better. The damages demanded some restoration and repair. I started with the rough inner edge of the rim. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to minimize the damage on the inner edge of the rim and smooth it a bit. I was careful to not change the profile of the rim top and edges. There was what looks like a pipe cleaner cut trough on the bottom of the bowl and some over zealous reaming that took the bowl bottom below the entry of the airway into the bowl. This is another mess that is actually sad when you consider the quality of the pipe. It is another high-end pipe that was badly abused. I mixed up a batch of JB Weld and put a pipe cleaner in the shank to keep the airway from plugging. I pressed the mixture into the bottom of the bowl with a folded pipe cleaner. I pressed it into the heel with a pipe nail. Unlike the S. Bang, this one was pretty clean of damage on the bowl sides. I put the bowl upright to allow the repair to cure. Once it cured I would need to sand it smooth and clean up the repairs. The first photo shows the overreamed and gouged spot in the heel of the bowl. The next photos show the repair process and tools. Once the repair cured (the next morning) I sanded the bottom with 220 grit sandpaper on a dowel and small needle files to smooth them out and minimize the amount of JB Weld in the bowl. Once the Weld has hardened it takes some time. Once finished I wiped the walls and heel of the bowl down with some isopropyl to remove the debris.I rubbed the bowl and shank down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The Balm did its magic and the grain stood out. I mixed up a batch of bowl coating – sour cream and activated charcoal powder to give a top coat and to facilitate the build up of a cake in the bowl. I applied it to the bowl with a folded pipe cleaner and painted it on the bottom and the sides. Once finished I set it aside to cure over night. I set aside the bowl and turned my attention to the stem. I touched up the J.H. Logo stamp on the left side of the saddle stem with white acrylic fingernail polish. I rubbed it into the stamping with a tooth pick. Once it had cured I scraped it off with a pen knife and then lightly sanded it off with a 320 grit sanding pad. It looked very good. The bite marks and chatter were not too deep and I was able to polish them out and remove the light oxidation with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with an Obsidian Oil cloth. It was beginning to look very good.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. I fitted the stem with a Dr. Perl Junior 9MM filter made by Vauen. The pictures below show the brand, the filter and the fit of the filter in the tenon.I put the repaired and reworked Jan Hansen Svendborg Danish Hand Carved C Grade Bent Brandy and its vulcanite saddle filter stem back together. The rich browns and blacks of the contrasting stain makes the grain come alive with the polishing and waxing. I carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Svendborg Danish Hand Carved Bent Brandy really is a beauty and fits nicely in the hand and looks very good. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 inch, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 2.50 ounces/70 grams. This pipe will soon be on the Danish Pipe Makers Section of the rebornpipes store if you would like to add it to your collection. Send me a message or an email. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it.

A Sadly Mistreated S Bang Copenhagen Made in Denmark Grade “A” Bent Brandy

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by Steve Laug

I was recently contacted by a fellow here in Vancouver about some pipes he had. He was referred to me by a local pipe shop. I was unclear if he wanted them cleaned or exactly what. When he came on the weekend he brought six pipes in two pipe boxes for me to have a look at. I spoke with him about the cost of restoring them. It finally became clear to me (I guess I am slow) that he wanted to sell the pipes. He was tasked with the job by his sister in law as the pipes were from her late husband’s collection. As I unpacked them it was clear that they were some nice pipes and some were higher grade. All but one was smoked and had the heavy smell of fruity aromatics to them. Some had cake in the bowl and lava on the rim. Of the six, four of them had significant rim damage – bowls out of round, burn marks, cut marks. The saddest part is that the damage was most significant on the higher end pipes. Most of them had tooth marks in the stems. Obviously, they had been his late brother in laws favourites and he had enjoyed them. He left them with me and I went over them, researched the brands and wrote up an offer for him to present to his sister in law. By the end of the day we had a deal. The six pipes now have a new home and the fruity smell needs to be exorcised!I finished the last of the repairs that I had in my queue yesterday and turned to work on the third of these pipes. It is a beautiful looking but sadly abused S. Bang Bent Brandy that is readily recognizable. It is stamped on the underside of the shank and reads S. Bang [arched over] Copenhagen [reverse arch and over] Handmade [over] in Denmark [over] the Grade Stamp “A”. The bowl had beautiful straight grain around sides. The shape is impeccably done. The finish was dirty but otherwise all was good it appeared. The rim top was clean of cake and lava. The inner edge of the bowl was damaged all the way around with burn damage on the right front edge of the bowl that had been sanded out. It appeared as if someone had given the damaged area a poorly done bevel to clean up that damage. The bowl is out of round. There is a light cake in the bowl. The stem was clean but and had light tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the stem ahead of the button.More damage would come to light soon enough. I took photos of the bowl and rim top to give you an idea of what I see. It is too bad that Word does now allow for the inclusion of smells because this is filling my work area. I have a candle going to mask the smell a bit. You can see the damage to the rim top and inner edge of the bowl. There is a light cake in the bowl. The stem is dirty and has light tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is clear and readable as noted above. I took photos of the bowl with the stem removed to give a sense of the proportion and appearance of the pipe. To help me understand the stamping a bit more I turned to Pipephil’s site and read what it said about S. Bang pipes (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-s1.html). I have included a screen capture of the section below as well as the side bar information below the capture. Sven Bang opened his tobacco and pipe shop in 1968 in Copenhagen. He was more a business man than a pipe carver and began to hire pipemakers. About half a dozen succeeded each other in his workshop during the 1970’s (Ivan Holst Nielsen, Jan Wideløv, Phil Vigen…). At least Per Hansen and Ulf Noltensmeier stayed and when Sven retired in 1983 they took over the company (in 1984) keeping its name.

To close my understanding of the pipe I turned to Pipedia (https://pipedia.org/wiki/S._Bang). I quote the section from the article where the company changed hands from S. Bang to Hansen and Noltensmeier in 1984. It is a great read so I have included it below.

Svend Bang retired in 1984. Evidently, he felt a great deal of pride in the product that he initiated throughout his career and retirement and until his death in 1993.

Once Hansen and Noltensmeier took over the company (in 1984) they knew it was best to retain the S. Bang name – the two carvers always shared the same philosophy about that. Noltensmeier and Hansen were determined to maintain top quality at the expense of increased numbers. The only change they made concerns the stamping on the pipes changing from the English version “COPENHAGEN” to the Danish “KOBENHAVN”.

Still, they are two separate carvers, with their own styles and preferences. Each makes his own pipes – there is no “assembly line” construction at S. Bang. They bounce ideas off of each other, of course, and admit that when problems arise in a pipe, it is nice to have a partner to discuss them with.

Though they carve pipes as individuals, there are similarities in their work. All Bang pipes are made with black, hand-cut vulcanite stems.

The same engineering is used by both carvers as well. The shape and size of the tobacco chambers vary according to size and design of the pipe, but each carver follows the same design guidelines for choosing the proper chamber dimensions. The smoke channel is always engineered for optimum performance.

Bang pipes are noted for the high definition and fine contrast in the grain. They undergo a double staining process to achieve that effect. The technique makes the grain leap from the bowl of the pipe, making well-grained wood become extra ordinary. The same colouring, however, will produce different results in different pieces of briar, making each pipe truly individual.

I knew from what I had read the pipe I have was made for the European market and bore an “A” grading which is quite high. I also knew that it was made before 1984 when the stamping Copenhagen was replaced by Kobenhavn. Ulf and Per worked there before they took over in 1984. Now it was time to work on the pipe.

I reamed the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to take back the cake to bare briar. I sanded the walls smooth with some 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. This is when all the internal damages were revealed. It was a sad moment. I ran my fingers over the sides of the bowl and felt some nicks and flaws on the walls. The bottom of the bowl also had an odd bump in it. I shone a light in the bowl and it seems that there was repair on the bottom of the bowl. The hard material filling in part of the heel was probably JB Weld. It was rock hard but it appeared that half of the repair was missing. I could see that there was a trough carved in the bottom of the bowl and that the repair had been made to cover that. It would need to be redone. I took a photo of it as best as I could but it is hard to see. I cleaned out the stinky, fruity smelling tobacco oils and tars in the shank and the airway in the stem. I used 99% isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners and was able to remove the debris and some of the stench. I needed to “deghost” the bowl and try to exorcise the smell. I stuffed bowl with cotton bolls and used an ear syringe to fill it with alcohol. I set it aside to let the alcohol do its work and wick the oils into the cotton. While it sat for the afternoon, I did some other work. When I came back to it the cotton and alcohol had wicked out the oils and tars. The cotton was brown and the bowl smelled much better. The damages demanded some restoration and repair. I started with the badly bevelled rim top and inner edge. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to minimize the damage on the inner edge of the rim and smooth it a bit. I was careful to not change the profile of the rim top and edges. This pipe will be staying with me so I wanted the rim top cleaned up and smooth. The condition of the bowl and rim top when I received it really took away from the amazing work that always characterizes an S. Bang pipe. (The second photo was taken after I had put the JB Weld in the bottom of the bowl. The point though of the photo is to show the repaired rim.)Under the damaged repair to the bowl bottom there is what looks like a pipe cleaner cut trough. It had been repaired but half of the repair fell out of the bowl. There are also a few pits on the inside walls once I removed the cotton pads. This is actually sad when consider the quality of the pipe. It is a high-end pipe that was badly abused. I mixed up a batch of JB Weld and put a pipe cleaner in the shank to keep the airway from plugging. I pressed the mixture into the half of the repair that was missing in the bottom of the bowl with a folded pipe cleaner. I applied it to the gouges in the sides of the bowl to smooth them out and protect the bowl walls from possible burnout. I put the bowl upright in a pipe rest to allow the repairs to cure over night. Once it cured I would need to sand it smooth and clean up the repairs.This morning I sanded the bowl walls and bottom with 220 grit sandpaper and small needle files to smooth them out and minimize the amount of JB Weld in the bowl. Once the Weld has hardened it takes some time. Once finished I wiped the bowl down with some isopropyl to remove the debris. I polished the repaired rim top with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiped it down the bowl after each sanding pad. I rubbed the bowl and shank down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The Balm did its magic and the grain stood out. I mixed up a batch of bowl coating – sour cream and activated charcoal powder to give a top coat and to facilitate the build up of a cake in the bowl. I applied it to the bowl with a folded pipe cleaner and painted it on the bottom and the sides. Once finished I set it aside to cure over night. I set aside the bowl and turned my attention to the damage on the stem. I painted the stem surface with the flame of a lighter to lift the tooth marks. I lifted them some. I filled in what remained of the marks on the top side with black CA glue. I set it aside to cure. Once the repairs cured I flattened them out with 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the stem surface. I was able to polish out the repairs with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with an Obsidian Oil cloth. It was beginning to look very good.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. I put the repaired and reworked S. Bang Copenhagen Grade A Bent Brandy back together and took the pipe to the buffer. I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish the briar and the vulcanite. Blue Diamond does a great job on the smaller scratches that remain in both. I gave the bowl and the stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. Considering the mess the pipe was in when I started working on it I am amazed at how well it turned out. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This is a beautiful S. Bang Grade A Bent Brandy – the vulcanite saddle stem and rim top and smooth finish combine to give the pipe a great look. The polished straight grain briar and the polished black, vulcanite stem looks really good. The rich grain stands out on the bowl and shank. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.83 ounces/51 grams. This beautiful, restored S. Bang will be staying with me for awhile. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me on this beauty!

Repairing and Restoring the last of the Six pipes – a Damaged Plateau Rim Top on a Knute of Denmark Freehand

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by Steve Laug

In November I received an email from Mario about working on some of his Dad’s pipes. Here is what he wrote to me.

I am desperately seeking help restoring and repairing some of my dad’s smoking pipes. I have tried reaching out to the only two known pipe repair establishments I could find in the entire country but one is not currently taking repair orders and the other said she didn’t want to try to repair these pipes without having even seen them. Would you be willing to take on the repairs or can you recommend anyone? Thank you much!!!—Mario

I wrote him back and asked him to send me photos of the pipes. He sent some single photos of the meerschaum bowl and stem, several of the leather clad Canadian and the photo of the rack and six pipes shown below. I looked through the photos and this is what I saw. There were two leather clad pipes a Canadian and a Pot. Both of them were cracked on the shanks and had been self-repaired with wire to hold the cracked shank together. The leather cladding was torn and the stitching was rotten and broken around the bowl. To me they were both unrepairable. There was a lovely older Meerschaum figural with a horn stem that needed a good cleaning and repairs to the horn stem. There were two Knute Freehand pipes with original stems that were dirty but fixable. The plateau on the smooth one had a large chunk of briar missing. There was a Wilshire Dublin with a chewed and misfit stem. Finally, there was a billiard that had been restemmed with a fancy GBD saddle stem on it. They were a messy lot but I told him to send them on to me. They arrived yesterday and the condition of the pipes in the photos was confirmed. They were a mess and needed much work. I have included Mario’s group photo below to show the lot. This afternoon I decided to start working on the final of the six pipes from Mario – a Knute of Denmark smooth freehand. It had a plateau rim top and shank end. The bowl had a thick cake on the walls and a heavy lava coat in the plateau rim top. There was a missing chunk of briar or perhaps a fill that had come loose in the plateau finish on the right side running from the inner edge almost to the outer edge. The finish was dirty and had grime ground into the sides of the bowl. The stamping on the underside read Knute [over] of Denmark. There was a hairline crack on the underside of the shank extending from the shank end over the K in the Knute stamp. It had a fancy turned, vulcanite saddle stem that had lots of tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. There was a split on the top side of the stem and on the button. I took photos of the pipe when I unpacked it to examine it. I have included those below. I took a photo of the bowl and rim top to show the condition of both. You can see the debris in the bowl and lava in the plateau surface of the rim top. The missing chunk on the right topside of the bowl is also very visible with debris and lava in the hole. I also took photos of the heavily oxidized and calcified stem showing the heavy tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. There was also a hairline crack in the topside of the stem from the button edge forward.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is clear and readable as noted above. I took a photo of the bowl with the stem removed to give a sense of the proportion and appearance of the pipe without the stem.Before I started my work on the pipe I wanted to remind myself of the provenance of the pipe. I remembered that it was linked to Karl Erik as I have worked on quite a few Knute Freehands. I wanted to know where this pipe fit into the Karl Erik lines so I turned to the first of two sites that I always check to gather information on a brand. I turned to the first source of information site – Pipephil’s (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-k3.html) got a quick overview on the brand once again connecting it to Karl Erik. I turned to Pipedia (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Erik). Pipedia had this great picture of Karl Erik Ottendahl and I decided to include it here as a reminder of the artisan who first carved and released this pipe. Reminded of the tie to Karl Erik, I knew a bit about the pipe at hand. I turned to address the pipe itself. There it is clearly identified and linked to Karl Erik Ottendahl. It is designated as a second and frequently having rustication. The interesting thing is that his pipe does not look like a second at all and I wonder if the Knute is a line of Karl Erik’s rather than a second. Who knows? This one is a beautifully grained smooth Freehand pipe. Now it was time to work on the pipe and bring it back to life. The large pit in the plateau rim top and the crack in the shank needed to be repaired and the bowl brought back to life.

I started my work on the pipe by starting the process of cleaning the pipe. I carefully reamed the bowl with a PipNet Pipe Reamer remove from the bowl leaving bare briar. I cleaned up the remnants of cake with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife and removed the remaining debris. I sanded the bowl walls smooth with a piece of 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. I scraped the lava coat off the rim top – both the rusticated portion and the smooth ring of the meerschaum bowl top with the Savinelli Pipe Knife and removed all of it. I scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with a tooth brush and undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap. I scrubbed the rim top with a brass bristle wire brush to clean off the lava and debris in the plateau. I rinsed it off with warm running water and dried it with a soft towel. It looked much better and the rim top looked clean. The grain stood out clearly. I cleaned out the deep pit in the rim top. It appeared that the hole was original a fill that had fallen out. I used qtips and alcohol to clean out the grime in the hole in the plateau.I rebuilt the missing fill with clear CA glue and briar dust. Once it was in place I used a brass bristle wire brush to give it patterns like the rest of the rim top.I sanded out the inner edge of the bowl with a dowel and 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the repair on the edge and round out the edge. I went over it again with the brass bristle brush and blew off the dust. It was looking quite good.I used a black stain pen to fill in the valleys in the plateau on the rim top and on the shank end. The black will give depth to the finish once it is sanded and polished.I repaired the hairline crack in the shank underside with clear CA glue and held it closed until the repair cured. Once it hardened it was ready to be sanded. I carefully sanded it around the stamping so as not to damage it.I sanded the smooth briar and the high spots on the plateau with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped the briar down between each sanding pad. The briar took on a rich shine and the grain stood out in all its glory. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiped it down the bowl after each sanding pad. Some of the photos of the sanding are a bit out of focus but overall the bowl took on a shine.
I rubbed the bowl and shank down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the bowl sides and shank with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I worked it into the nooks and crannies in the plateau on the rim top and the shank end with a horsehair shoe brush. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The Balm did its magic and the grain stood out. I mixed a bowl coating with activated charcoal powder and sour cream. I put a pipe cleaner in the shank and applied the mixture to the walls of the bowl with a folded pipe cleaner. I wanted to protect the bowl repair while Mario enjoyed smoking it again. I set it aside to cure overnight. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I scrubbed it down with Soft Scrub to deal with the oxidation and calcification on the stem surface. It looked much better once scrubbed and on the centre of the stem it had a Crown K logo that was often on Knute of Denmark pipes.I filled in the deep bite marks on the top and underside of the stem with black CA glue. It is strengthened with charcoal powder and rubber. I let the glue cure and flattened the repairs with a small needle file. I reshaped the button and it began to take shape and look much better. I paused the process and touched up the Crown K on the stem top with Rub’n Buff Antique Gold. I worked it into the stamp on the stem and then rubbed it off with a soft cloth. I followed that by wiping the stem down with an Obsidian Oil cloth. The stem looked better and the stamping was clear and readable.I sanded the repairs with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the stem surface and also remove more of the oxidation in the stem surface.I sanded the stem to smooth it out with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with an Obsidian Oil cloth. It was beginning to look very good.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. I gave it another rub down with Obsidian Oil and let it dry. I put the stem back on the Knute of Denmark Smooth Freehand Sitter pipe and took the pipe to the buffer. I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish the briar and the vulcanite. Blue Diamond does a great job on the smaller scratches that remain in the vulcanite. I gave the bowl and the stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up really nicely with a great contrasting stain look to the briar. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This is a beautiful Karl Eric Made Knute of Denmark Freehand – the fancy turned stem and plateau rim top and shank end give the pipe a great look. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 ¼ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¾ inches wide x 1 7/8 inches long, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 2.22 ounces /63 grams. This is the final pipe of 6 pipes that am restoring for Mario from his Dad’s collection. I look forward to hearing what he thinks of this newly restored pipe. Later this week I will pack them up and send them home to him. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it!

The Nameless Pipe has a Name

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by Kenneth Lieblich

I recently had the pleasure of meeting with a family – and nine of the male family members each wanted a pipe! I was only too happy to help them out. The youngest member of this throng was 18 years old and picked out the pipe you see here. It is a charming and beautifully curved Zulu. I decided to work on it first because I liked it so much. Not only is it handsome, but it is well made too. However, there were no pipemaker’s marks on the pipe at all. No name of any sort – kind of. The only thing to be seen was that the previous owner carved his own name into the shank: Ray. I’m afraid I don’t know who Ray is, but he had a nice pipe. So, the nameless pipe has a name after all. It’s now being passed on to a fine young man with a good head on his shoulders. When I was talking to him about the pipe, I commented that I could investigate sanding off the name if he wished. He said no – it was part of the pipe’s history and he wanted to leave it. Smart kid. Alas, no markings mean no history. However, I can report that the pipe was well smoked in its past. The stummel was in good shape, but there was evidence of lots of smoking once upon a time. As you can see, there appears to be some burning on the rim, but I’ll have to take a closer look for damage. The stem was pretty worn – lots of tooth marks and scratches. Also, a bit of calcification and oxidation.

As a first step, I used oil soap on a few cotton rounds and wiped the stem down to provide an initial cleaning of filth before moving on. I used a disposable lighter and ‘painted’ the stem with its flame. The gentle heat of the flame can cause the dents in the vulcanite of the stem to expand back into shape. In this case, it actually worked fairly well and I got some improvement. The primary cleaning comes next. I cleaned the inside of the stem with both pipe cleaners and cotton swabs dipped in 99% lemon-infused isopropyl alcohol. I scrubbed thoroughly to make sure the interior was really clean.The goal of the next step is the removal (or minimization) of oxidation. Going to my sink, I used cream cleanser, cotton rounds, and a toothbrush, and scoured the stem to remove as much surface oxidation as possible. As the photos show, the result is a hideous brownish mess – but better off the stem than on it.Once the stem was reasonably clean, I soaked it overnight in some de-oxidation fluid. This solution works to draw oxidation in the stem to the surface. This is a major aid and important step in ensuring a clean stem. The following day, I drew the stem out from its bath and scrubbed the lingering fluid with a toothbrush. Once clean and dry, I set about fixing the marks and dents in the vulcanite. This is done by filling those divots with black cyanoacrylate adhesive, impregnated with carbon and rubber. I left this to cure and moved on.The penultimate step for the stem is sanding. I use all nine of the micromesh sanding pads (1,500 through 12,000 grit) to sand out flaws, even out the vulcanite, and provide gentle polishing of the finished surface. I also apply pipe-stem oil while using the last five micromesh pads. There is a wonderful, deep black shine to the stem when I am done.Now that the stem is (nearly) complete, I can move on to the stummel. The first step for me is to ream out the bowl – that is to say, remove all the cake inside the bowl. This accomplishes a couple of things. First (and most obviously), it cleans the bowl and provides a refurbished chamber for future smoking. Second, when the old cake is removed, I can inspect the interior walls of the bowl and determine if there is damage or not. I used a reamer, a pipe knife, and a piece of sandpaper taped to a wooden dowel. Collectively, these ensure that all the debris is removed. My next step was to remove the lava on the rim. For this, I took a piece of machine steel and gently scraped the lava away. The metal’s edge is sharp enough to remove what I need, but not so sharp that it damages the rim. This work revealed that – Deo gratias – the burning was superficial and the underlying wood was totally intact.The inside of the stummel needs to be cleaned thoroughly. Similar to the stem, I then cleaned the stummel with both pipe cleaners and cotton swabs dipped in 99% lemon-infused isopropyl alcohol. With this pipe, it didn’t take too long to get it clean. I then decided to ‘de-ghost’ the pipe – that is to say, exorcize the remaining filth from the briar. I filled the bowl and the shank with cotton balls, then saturated them with 99% isopropyl alcohol. I let the stummel sit overnight. This caused any remaining oils, tars and smells to leach out into the cotton.To tidy up the briar, I also wiped down the outside with some oil soap on cotton. This does a good job of cleaning any latent dirt on the surface of the briar. The last step of the cleaning process is to scour the inside of the stummel with some soap and tube brushes. This is the culmination of a lot of work to get the pipe clean.The charring on the rim is notable. I took a solid wooden sphere, wrapped a piece of 220-grit sandpaper around it, and sanded the inner edge of the rim. This achieves two things: first, it removes some of the burn marks; and second (and more importantly), the circular shape and motion of the sphere gradually returns the edge to a perfect circle.

I used all nine micromesh pads (1,500 through 12,000 grit) on the outside of the stummel to finish it off. This sanding minimizes flaws in the briar and provides a beautiful smoothness to the wood. I rubbed some Before & After Restoration Balm into the briar and let it sit for 20 minutes or so. The balm moisturizes the wood and gives a beautiful depth to the briar. I then buffed it with a microfibre cloth. For the final step, I took the pipe to my bench buffer and carefully polished it – first with a white diamond compound, then with three coats of carnauba wax. This procedure makes the pipe look its best – the stummel sings and stem glows.This is a very handsome pipe and will provide many years of smoking pleasure for my friend. I hope you enjoyed reading the story of this pipe as much I as I did restoring it. If you are interested in more of my work, please follow me here on Steve’s website or email me directly at kenneth@knightsofthepipe.com. The approximate dimensions of the pipe are as follows: length 5⅝ in. (142 mm); height 1¾ in. (44 mm); bowl diameter 1⅓ in. (33 mm); chamber diameter ¾ in. (19 mm). The weight of the pipe is 1 oz. (31 g). I hope you enjoyed reading the story of this pipe’s restoration as much as I did restoring it. If you are interested in more of my work, please follow me here on Steve’s website or send me an email. Thank you very much for reading and, as always, I welcome and encourage your comments.

Restoring and Repairing a Cracked Bowl on a Knute of Denmark Sandblast Freehand

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by Steve Laug

In November I received an email from Mario about working on some of his Dad’s pipes. Here is what he wrote to me.

I wrote him back and asked him to send me photos of the pipes. He sent some single photos of the meerschaum bowl and stem, several of the leather clad Canadian and the photo of the rack and six pipes shown below. I looked through the photos and this is what I saw. There were two leather clad pipes a Canadian and a Pot. Both of them were cracked on the shanks and had been self-repaired with wire to hold the cracked shank together. The leather cladding was torn and the stitching was rotten and broken around the bowl. To me they were both irreparable. There was a lovely older Meerschaum with a horn stem that needed a good cleaning and repairs to the horn stem. There were two Knute Freehand pipes with original stems that were dirty but fixable. The plateau on the smooth one had a large chunk of briar missing. There was a Wilshire Dublin with a chewed and misfit stem. Finally, there was a billiard that had been restemmed with a fancy GBD saddle stem on it. They were a messy lot but I told him to send them on to me. They arrived yesterday and the condition of the pipes in the photos was confirmed. They were a mess and needed much work. I have included Mario’s group photo below to show the lot.This afternoon I decided to start working on the fourth of the pipes – a sandblast freehand. It was the one on the left top held in the hand in the photo above. It was a Freehand Shape with a plateau rim top and a smooth shank end. It had a fancy turned saddle stem that was oxidized, calcified and had lots of tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. The bowl had a thick cake on the walls and a heavy lava coat in the plateau on the rim top. It was internally a mess. The finish was dirty and had grime ground into the sides of the bowl. There a crack running from the heel of the bowl half way up the bowl on both sides mid bowl. The shank was in good shape with no nicks or cracks. The pipe was stamped on the underside of the shank and read Knute [over] Of Denmark. There was no other stamping on the shank sides. I took photos of the pipe when I unpacked it to examine it. I have included those below. I took a photo of the bowl and rim top to show the condition of both. You can see the debris in the bowl and lava in the plateau surface of the rim top. I also took photos of the heavily oxidized and calcified stem showing the tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is clear and readable as noted above. I took a photo of the bowl with the stem removed to give a sense of the proportion and appearance of the pipe without the stem. I took photos of the crack in the bowl sides before I started my clean up and repairs. It looks like the kind of crack that come from a bowl being dropped on a hard surface.Before I started my work on the pipe I wanted to remind myself of the provenance of the pipe. I remembered that it was linked to Karl Erik as I have worked on quite a few Knute Freehands. I wanted to know where this pipe fit into the Karl Erik lines so I turned to the first of two sites that I always check to gather information on a brand. I turned to the first source of information site – Pipephil’s (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-k3.html) got a quick overview on the brand once again connecting it to Karl Erik. I turned to Pipedia (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Erik). Pipedia had this great picture of Karl Erik Ottendahl and I decided to include it here as a reminder of the artisan who first carved and released this pipe. Reminded of the tie to Karl Erik, I knew a bit about the pipe at hand. I turned to address the pipe itself. There it is clearly identified and linked to Karl Erik Ottendahl. It is designated as a second and frequently having rustication. The interesting thing is that his pipe does not look like a second at all and I wonder if the Knute is a line of Karl Erik’s rather than a second. Who knows? This one is a very well done sandblast pipe. Now it was time to work on the pipe and bring it back to life. The crack needed to be repaired and the bowl brought back to life.

I started my work on the pipe by starting the process of cleaning the pipe. I carefully reamed the bowl with a PipNet Pipe Reamer remove from the bowl leaving bare briar. I cleaned up the remnants of cake with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife and removed the remaining debris. I sanded the bowl walls smooth with a piece of 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. I scraped the lava coat off the rim top – both the rusticated portion and the plateau rim top with the Savinelli Pipe Knife and removed all of it. I cleaned out the internals of the bowl and shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs, shank brushes and 99% isopropyl alcohol. It was very clean and it looked and smelled far better. I also cleaned out the internals in the stem with the same tools and alcohol.I scrubbed the externals of the bowl and shank with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I worked over the bowl, shank and rim top with the soap and then rinsed it off warm water. The bowl looked extremely good. The cracks around the bowl heel and sides were clean. The plateau top had some darkening and burn marks. I worked over the rim top with a brass bristle wire brush to clean up the rim top. I sanded the rim top high spots in the plateau with a 320 grit sanding pad. The clean high spots would provide a great contrast.Now it was time to address the crack in the bowl running up both sides from the heel. The inside of the bowl is clean and no cracks run through from the outside of the bowl. I am pretty confident that the cracks came when the pipe was dropped on the ground. I used a micro drill bit and drilled small pilot holes at the end of the crack on each side of the bowl. I have circled the drill holes on both sides of the pipe in red for quick reference. I filled in the cracks with clear CA glue and briar dust and used a dental spatula to press the material into the crack.I worked over the repaired areas with a brass bristle wire brush. I followed the flow of the sandblast finish with the brush and was able to clean up the debris from the repairs in the grain of the crack. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the sandblast finish and the plateau rim top. I worked it in with my finger tips on the smooth portions of the finish and with a shoebrush on the plateau and the sandblast. I let the Balm do its magic for 15 minutes then buffed it off with a cotton cloth. The rich colours of the finish on this Knute looked amazing. I painted the walls of the bowl with a mixture of sour cream and activated charcoal powder. The mixture works to provide a bowl coating. I applied it with a folded pipe cleaner. I put a pipe cleaner in the airway to close the entry into the bowl. The bowl coating would give the bowl some initial protection as it is broken in through smoking. The natural buildup of carbon will further protect the bowl. I set the bowl in a pipe rest to let the mixture harden and cure. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the badly oxidized stem. I scrubbed the stem surface with Soft Scrub cleanser to break through the oxidization and calcification. It took a lot of scrubbing and scraping of the grime from the surface but it finally began to show black. There were deep tooth marks on the top and underside of the stem ahead of the button. I filled them in with black CA glue strengthened with rubber and carbon. It dries hard but it still is a bit flexible. I flattened the repairs with small flat file. I sanded the repaired areas and the rest of stem with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to smooth it out and remove remaining oxidation. I wiped the stem down after each pad with an Obsidian Oil cloth. It was beginning to look very good. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. I put the stem back on the Knute of Denmark Sandblast Freehand pipe and took the pipe to the buffer. I carefully buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish the briar and the vulcanite. Blue Diamond does a great job on the smaller scratches that remain in the vulcanite. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up really nicely with a great contrasting stain look to the briar. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This is a beautiful Karl Eric Made Knute of Denmark Freehand – the fancy turned stem and plateau rim top give the pipe a great look. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches wide x 2 inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 2.26 ounces/64 grams. This is the fourth of six pipes that am restoring for Mario from his Dad’s collection. I look forward to hearing what he thinks of this newly restored pipe. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it!

Cleaning up a Stanwell Regd. No. 969-48 Bamboo Acorn

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by Steve Laug

I was recently contacted by a fellow here in Vancouver about some pipes he had. He was referred to me by a local pipe shop. I was unclear if he wanted them cleaned or exactly what. When he came on the weekend he brought six pipes in two pipe boxes for me to have a look at. I spoke with him about the cost of restoring them. It finally became clear to me (I guess I am slow) that he wanted to sell the pipes. He was tasked with the job by his sister in law as the pipes were from her late husband’s collection. As I unpacked them it was clear that they were some nice pipes and some were higher grade. All but one was smoked and had the heavy smell of fruity aromatics to them. Some had cake in the bowl and lava on the rim. Of the six, four of them had significant rim damage – bowls out of round, burn marks, cut marks. The saddest part is that the damage was most significant on the higher end pipes. Most of them had tooth marks in the stems. Obviously, they had been his late brother in laws favourites and he had enjoyed them. He left them with me and I went over them, researched the brands and wrote up an offer for him to present to his sister in law. By the end of the day we had a deal. The six pipes now have a new home and the fruity smell needs to be exorcised!I set aside the long queue of pipes I am working on here to work on the second of these pipes. I bumped it ahead of the queue. It is a beautiful looking older Stanwell Regd. No. Bent Acorn Bamboo. It is stamped on the left side of the bamboo shank and reads Stanwell [over] Regd. No. 969-48 [over] Made in Denmark. There was an acrylic spacer on both ends of the bamboo. The one is between the shank and the bowl and the other is between the stem and the bamboo. The bowl had beautiful straight grain around sides. The Bamboo shank had a great patina. The finish is spotty and there were a lot of dents, scratches. The bowl and rim top were clean or cake and lava but a very prevalent smell of aromatic, fruity tobacco surround the bowl. The stem was clean but and had light tooth chatter on both sides of the stem. I took photos of the bowl and rim top to give you and idea of what I see. It is too bad that Word does now allow for the inclusion of smells because this is filling my work area. I have a candle going to mask the smell a bit. You can see the damage to the rim top and inner edge of the bowl. There is no cake in the bowl. The bamboo looks very good with some nice Patina. The stem is dirty and has light tooth chatter on both sides ahead of the button.I took a photo of the stamping on the left side of the Bamboo shank. It is clear and readable as noted above. I took photos of the bowl with the stem removed to give a sense of the proportion and appearance of the pipe.Before I started my work on the pipe I wanted to see if I could find any information that would help me get a sense of the line. I turned to Pipephil to get a quick review of the Bamboo line (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-stanwell.html). The pipe I was working on did not have Brass Crowned S inlaid on the stem. I have included a screen capture of the brand info there.I then turned to Pipedia (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Stanwell) for more information. The article is great and gives a lot of history on the brand. There were also links to catalogues at the bottom of the page. I am including a page from a catalogue on the site below that gives a bit of a glimpse into the brand. Here is the link (http://www.axeljeske.de/Pfeifen/Stanwell_Amager.pdf). The catalogue page gives a great description of the Bamboo line. It reads as follows: Top quality bowls perfectly fitted with porous bamboo shanks for casual elegance.

Now it was time to work on the pipe.

I cleaned out the stinky, fruity smelling tobacco oils and tars in the shank and the airway in the stem. I used 99% isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners and was able to remove the debris and some of the stench. I needed to “deghost” the bowl and try to exorcise the smell. I stuffed bowl with cotton bolls and used an ear syringe to fill it with alcohol. I set it aside to let the alcohol do its work and wick the oils into the cotton. While it sat for the afternoon, I did some other work. That evening I removed the cotton bolls and quite a bit of tars and oils had leeched out. It smelled significantly better.
I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to minimize the damage on the inner edge of the rim and smooth it a bit. I was careful to not change the profile of the rim top and edges. There is some darkening on the rim top that remains and the bowl is slightly out of round.I used 320-3500 grit sanding pads to smooth out the scratches and nicks in the surface of the briar. There we many small scratches most of them in the varnish coat and lightly in the briar. I wiped the bowl down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust and debris. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiped it down the bowl after each sanding pad. As I examined the bowl before I gave it a coat of Before & After Balm I rubbed my fingers over the surface. I felt some flaws in the briar. I used my headlamp and build in lens to examine what I felt with my fingers. I saw some well done fills in the briar that followed vertical grains. They were shrunken in spots which made the bumps I was feeling. I used the headlamp and lens to give a clear view. I used a tooth pick and clear CA glue to fill in the spots in the briar. This was going to make a bit more work for me but it was worth doing.Once the fills cured I sanded each strip smooth with the edge of a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper.I sanded the area with 320-3500 grit sanding pads and wiped the bowl down with a damp cloth to remove the sanding debris. I followed that by polishing the bowl with 1500-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads. Again I wiped the bowl down with damp cloth to remove the sanding debris on the briar. I restained the area on the bowl side with a Walnut Stain pen. I blended the areas into the surrounding briar. The look and feel of the bowl was very good.I rubbed the bowl and shank down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the bowl sides and shank with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The Balm did its magic and the grain stood out. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I was able to polish out the light tooth marks and chatter with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with an Obsidian Oil cloth. It was beginning to look very good.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. This Stanwell Bamboo Shank Acorn with a vulcanite saddle stem is a great looking pipe now that it has been restored. The beautiful finish really highlights the grain and the polished finish is stunning. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Stanwell Bamboo Shank Acorn fits nicely in the hand and feels great. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 37 grams /1.31 ounces. I will be adding the pipe to the Danish Pipe Makers Section of the rebornpipes store. If you are interested in purchasing this pipe send me a message or an email. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it.

Fresh Life for a Savinelli Extra 802 Italy Canadian

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by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the work table came to us from a group of pipes we purchased on 03/21/2024 from a seller in Oregon City, Oregon, USA. It is a nice looking natural Canadian shaped pipe with a taper stem. The bowl has a natural or light colour stain that highlights grain. It has an interesting mix of grain around the bowl and long shank. The pipe is stamped Savinelli in an oval [over] Extra. On the underside of the shank it is stamped with a Savinelli S Shield logo followed by the shape number 802 [over] Italy. The bowl had a thick cake with some lava overflow on the top and bevelled inner edge of the rim top. The stem is black vulcanite and was lightly oxidized with some tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. The pipe looks to be in good condition under the grime. This is a nice looking pipe and in a well-loved shape. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his cleanup. He took photos of the rim top and bowl to give a clear picture of the thickness of the cake and tobacco debris as well as the lava on the top and the bevelled inner edge of the rim. There was also some burn damage on the right outer edge toward the front. He also took photos of the top and underside of the stem to show its overall condition. Jeff took photos of the sides and heel of the bowl to give a picture of what the briar looked like. It truly has some nice grain – birdseye, swirls and cross grain around the bowl and shank. The stamping on the top and underside of the shank is clear and readable as noted above. I turned to Pipephil (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-savinelli2.html) to get a quick view of the Extra Line. I did a screen capture of the site’s information and have included that below. I am also including a screen capture of the Shape and code chart introduction that is link in the above capture. The 802 is in the bottom left corner.
I turned to Pipedia (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Savinelli) for a quick read. The site is worth reading the history of the Savinelli brand and it philosophy of pipemaking. There was a photo of a brochure that included the Extra (https://pipedia.org/wiki/File:Sav_Extra.jpg) that came from Doug Vliatchka.Jeff had cleaned up the pipe with his usual methods. He reamed the pipe with a PipNet pipe reamer and removed the rest of it with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the bowl with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap with a tooth brush. He rinsed it under running warm water to remove the soap and grime. He cleaned out the inside of the shank and the airway in the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs, shank brushes and pipe cleaners. He soaked the stem in a Briarville’s Pipe Stem Deoxidizer bath and rinsed it off with warm water. I took photos of the pipe before I started my part of the restoration work. The rim top cleaned up really well. The rim top, inner and outer edge of the bowl is in excellent condition there is darkening on both. The stem surface looked very good with a few tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. The stamping on the shank top and underside is clear and readable. It is stamped as noted above. I removed the stem and took a photo of the pipe to show the proportion of the stem and shank. It is a beauty. I removed the stem started working on the darkening on the rim top and edges. I worked them over with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. Once it was finished it looked better. I sanded the rim top and bowl sides with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to remove the scratching and shiny spots on the finish. I wiped the bowl down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth to remove the debris from sanding. I polished the rim top and bowl with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down after each sanding pad to remove the debris and dust. I rubbed the bowl and shank down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the bowl sides and shank with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let the balm sit for 15 minutes and buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The grain came alive and the pipe looked great. I set the bowl aside and turned to work on the stem. I “painted” the stem surface with the flame of a lighter and was able to lift out all of the marks on both sides. I used 220 grit sandpaper to blend it into the surface of the vulcanite and the stem looked better.I sanded the stem with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to smooth out the marks and it is looking quite good at this point in the process.I polished the vulcanite stem with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. This Savinelli Extra 802 Canadian is a great looking pipe now that it has been restored. The smooth finish gives the shape an elegant look. The flow of the bowl, shank and short stem make for a great looking pipe. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Savinelli Extra 802 Canadian fits nicely in the hand and feels great. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 40 grams/1.41ounces. It is a great looking and light weight pipe. I will be putting it on the rebornpipes store in the Italian Pipe Makers Section shortly. If you are interested in adding the pipe to your collection send me a message or an email. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it.

Restoring a thin shank small LHS Purex Pat. No. 1587048 Real Briar Root Dubiln

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by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the work table came to us from a group of pipes we purchased on 01/22/2024 from a seller on eBay from Jordan, Minnesota, USA. It is a nice looking tiny pencil shank Dublin shaped pipe with a taper stem. The bowl has a rich reddish brown colour combination that highlights grain. This pipe is stamped on the left and right sides of the shank. On the left it reads LHS in a Diamond followed by Purex [over] Pat.No.1587048. On the right side it is stamped Real Briar Root. On the underside of the shank it bears the shape number 20. The threaded aluminum tenon/stinger taper stem has two dots – a red and a white on the topside. There is a moderate cake in the bowl and an overflow of lava on the inner edge of the rim top. The varnish coat was flaking and peeling. The stem was lightly oxidized, calcified and there were some light tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the vulcanite stem near the button. The pipe looks to be in good condition under the grime. This is a nice looking pipe and in a well-loved shape. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his cleanup. He took a photo of the bowl and rim top to show their general condition. You can see the lava on the rim top and the thick cake in the bowl. There is damage on the inner edge of the bowl. The stem is oxidized, calcified and has tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. Jeff took some photos of the sides and heel of the bowl to give an idea of the grain around the bowl as well as the peeling varnish coat. I cannot wait to see what it looks like once it is cleaned and polished. He took a photo of the stamping on the sides of the shank to capture it for me. It is clear and readable.Before I started working on the pipe I turned to Pipephil to get a feel for the history of the brand and have included a screen capture of the pertinent section on the site below (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-lhs.html). I quote:

The L&H Stern Inc. was established by Ludwig Stern (1877-1942) in 1911. His brother Hugo (1872-?) acted as vice-president & secretary. The firm moved to 56 Pearl St. Brooklyn in 1920. It closed down in the 1960s. LHS was one of the main pipe suppliers for US soldiers during WWII.I turned to Pipedia for any additional information (https://pipedia.org/wiki/LHS). The article gave and expanded history of the brand and a list of the grades of pipes in 1944. The Purex stamp like the one I have was not shown in the list so I have left the link but not included the list.

Additional notes: Some models were made before, during, and after WWII. LHS was one of the main pipe supplier for US soldiers during WWII.

Pre-war pipes were stamped Real Briar Root, or Briar Root. Some war time pipes were made from domestic briar, or “American” briar and were void of any briar stampings. Many American pipe makers lost their over seas supply of Mediterranean briar shortly before and during the war. Post war pipes were stamped Imported Briar to assure customers that they were buying premium briar once again.

I also researched the patent number on the left side of the shank and it led me to the following diagram and patent information. It was filed in 1924 and awarded on June 1, 1926. The interesting thing is that it combines some of the concepts from a later patent filing on July 1, 1932 and granted on May 9, 1933. The stamping places it as a 1926 pipe. The shape of the stinger and the threaded mortise make me think of the 1926 pipe in many ways. I cannot see deep enough into the pencil shank to see if there is a metal cup insert in the shank behind the mortise. Maybe that will become clear in the cleanup. The smooth portion of the tenon after the threads and the metal disk that is threaded into the stem make me think of the 1933 patent pipe. The threaded mortis is the same in both but if it ends in the shank without the cup then it has a lot of similarity to the 1933. The 1926 patent gives me a start date for this pipe and the 1933 patent gives me an end date. The fact that the metal works combine both makes me wonder if the pipe did not come out of the factory with the new patent release in 1933. I am including the two different patents for you to see the interesting combination in this pipe. I have screen captured the insert in the shank and the stinger apparatus from the 1926 patent drawings. Figure 2 shows the stinger. It is identical in both the 1926 and the 1933 patent drawings. Figure 3 shows a metal cup that is inserted in the shank. The mortise end is threaded to receive the threads on the tenon. Figure 4 shows the end of the stem looking at the head on the stinger. The slot is at the top. Figure 5 shows the inside of the shank looking at it from the end. The mortise end is threaded and the cup has an airway hole in the centre of the rounded end. That end sits against the airway from the bottom of the bowl as seen in Figure 6. When I started cleaning out the shank I was unsure of the interior. Once I was cleaning it I was certain it was the later stinger.I have also included a screen capture below of Figure 2 from the 1933 patent drawings. The insert in the shank is shorter than the 1926 version and does not include the cup. The tenon is the same though it has a longer smooth portion. It also has a plate that rest against the face of the stem when inserted. This tenon system is identical to the one that I am working on. That dates the pipe after 1933. Jeff carefully cleaned the pipe. He reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer and then cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed out the internals of the shank, stem and shank extension with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs until the pipe was clean. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime and grit on the briar and lava on the rim top. The finish looks much better and has a deep richness in the colour that highlights grain of the briar. The peeling varnish is gone. The rim top had some darkening and there was some damage to the inner edge of the bowl. The aluminum on the shank end and on the stem were slightly oxidized but clean. Jeff soaked the stem in bath of Briarville’s Pipe Stem Deoxidizer to remove the oxidation on the rubber. He worked it over with Soft Scrub All Purpose Cleaner to remove any remnants of oxidation. When the pipe arrived here in Vancouver and I finally started my work on it I was amazed it looked so good. Here are some photos of what I saw. I took some photos of the rim top and stem. The rim top and inner edge of the bowl shows damage and burned areas. It is out of round and will need some work. The close up photos of the stem shows that the surface of the stem is pitted. There are tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside of the stem near the button. I took a photo of the stamping on the sides and the underside of the shank to show the condition after the cleanup. This stamping is readable and looks good. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the pipe at this point. You can clearly see the condition, size and shape of the pipe.I started my part of the restoration work on this pipe by addressing the damage and darkening on the edge of the rim, particularly on the front and rear of the inner edge. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to remove the damage to the bowl. I sanded out the scratches in the briar around the bowl sides and rim top with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding debris. The sanding really brought the grain to the front. This is a great piece of briar. And once it is waxed and polished it should really be a beauty. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiping down the bowl after each sanding pad. I rubbed the bowl and shank down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the bowl sides and shank with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The Balm did its magic and the grain stood out. I sanded out the light tooth chatter and roughness on the stem surface with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with an Obsidian Oil cloth. The stem began to shine.I polished the vulcanite stem with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. The photo below shows the polished stem. This LHS Purex Pat.No.1587048 Real Briar Root Dublin with a pencil shank and stem is a nice looking pipe. The finish looks very good and the grain stands out. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I carefully avoided the stamping on the shank sides during the process. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad on the buffer. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is an excellent example of the Purex line of pipes that were made by LHS Stern. The flow of the grain and the way the shape follows it is very well done. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. I can only tell you that it is much prettier in person than the photos capture. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 1 ¼ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 1 ¼ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 0.81 ounces/24 grams. This interesting LHS Purex Pat.No.1587048 Dublin is a great looking pipe in excellent condition. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. I will be adding it to the rebornpipes store in the American Pipe Makers Section soon. If you want to add it to your collection send me an email or a message! Thanks for your time.

Fresh Life for a GBD Century Matt 234 Billiard London, England

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by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the work table came to us from a group of pipes we purchased from Oregon on 03/21/2024 from a seller in Oregon City, Oregon, USA. Jeff regularly visits shops along the coast hunting for pipes and though there are less of them there are still a lot available. It is a nice looking large straight Billiard shaped pipe with a taper stem. The bowl has a rich reddish brown colour combination that highlights grain. This pipe is stamped on the left and right sides of the shank. On the left it reads GBD in an oval [over] Century Matt. On the right side it is stamped London, England followed by the shape number 234. The taper stem has a GBD Brass roundel on the left side. There is a moderate cake in the bowl and an overflow of lava on the inner edge of the inwardly bevelled rim top. There were some light tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the vulcanite stem near the button. The pipe looks to be in good condition under the grime. This is a nice looking pipe and in a well-loved shape. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his cleanup. He took photos of the rim top to show the cake and the lava coat. The inner edge of the bowl looks good under the grime. The top and outer edge also look okay. It is an incredibly dirty pipe but obviously one that was a great smoker. He also captured the condition of the stem and the oxidation, calcification, tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside of the stem near the button. He took photos of the sides and heel of the bowl to show the grain around the bowl and the condition of the pipe. You can see the grime and scratches on the surface of the briar. He took a photo of the stamping on the top and underside of the shank and stem. It is clear and readable as noted above. The stem has the typical GBD Brass roundel stamp. I looked up the Century Model on Pipedia and found a little information. There was not a lot of info there but I have included it below (https://pipedia.org/wiki/GBD_Model_Information).

Century — England, unknown if also made in France: Introduced 1950.

I also turned to a blog written by Upshallfan on his restoration of Century Matt pipe (https://rebornpipes.com/2015/05/18/gbd-century-matt-9606-restoration/). It is helpful to a point in pinning down potential dates. However, there is no specific information on the Matt though I am figuring it has to do with this particular finish. I quote:

I’ve had a few “Century” finish GBD’s cross my work bench, but this is the first time I’ve seen a “Century Matt”. The Century line was introduced in 1950 and is described as:

Century – “A golden finish created to celebrate over a century of manufacturing the
finest briar pipes.” – (quote courtesy of Jerry Hannah’s GBD webpage)

It was time to work on the pipe. As usual Jeff had done a thorough cleanup on the pipe. He reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and followed up with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife to remove the cake. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl, rim, shank and stem with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the oils and tars on the rim and the grime on the finish of the bowl. He rinsed it under running water. One of the benefits of this scrub is that it also tends to lift some of the scratches and nicks in the surface of the briar. He dried it off with a soft cloth. He cleaned the internals and externals of the stem with alcohol, pipe cleaners, shank brushes and cotton swabs. He soaked the stem in Before & After Deoxidizer and rinsed it off with warm water and cleaned out the airway in the stem with alcohol. Other than the damaged rim top the pipe looked good. I took a photo of the rim top and stem to show the condition. The rim top looked very good. The inner edge of the bowl showed also looked good. The vulcanite taper stem had light tooth chatter and marks on both sides ahead of the button and on the button edges.The stamping on the left and right sides of the shank is clear and readable as noted above. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the pipe to give a sense of the whole. The removable stinger in the tenon is a bit of a surprise but it can be “lost”. The pipe is a large Billiard that should be very nice once it is all cleaned up. I sanded out the scratches in the briar around the bowl sides and rim top with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding debris. The sanding really brought the grain to the front. This is a great piece of briar. And once it is waxed and polished it should really be a beauty. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiping down the bowl after each sanding pad. I rubbed the bowl and shank down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the bowl sides and shank with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The Balm did its magic and the grain stood out. I sanded out the light tooth chatter and remnants of oxidation with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with an Obsidian Oil cloth. The stem began to shine.I polished the vulcanite stem with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. The photo below shows the polished stem. This nicely grained GBD Century Matt 234 Billiard, London England with a vulcanite taper stem is a great looking pipe now that it has been restored. The briar around the bowl is clean and really came alive. The rich brown stains of the matt finish gave the briar a sense of depth with the polishing and waxing. I put the vulcanite stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished GBD Century Matt 234 Billiard is a beauty and feels in the hand and looks very good. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.98 ounces/56 grams. I will be adding it to the British Pipe Maker Section of the rebornpipes store soon. Let me know if you wish to add it to your collection. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. There are many more to come!

A Fine Tale of a Union for this older WDC Wellington Bent Billiard

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by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is a bit of a change of pace. I have had this old WDC Wellington bowl in the box here for a very long time and never had a stem for it. Somewhere in its long journey the stem had been displaced and when we received it the pipe was a sad bowl with no stem. I held onto it in hopes that one day I would find a stem that would be the right one. Every so often I would come across a large Wellington stem and dig out the bowl to see if it would fit only to be disappointed and drop it back in the box of bowl. Well, that lonely bowl was about to meet its correct stem! I was looking through a new batch of stems I picked up and I could not believe what I saw there. It was the exact stem I had been waiting for – a smaller Wellington stem with their version of the P-lip. In fact, my guess is that it is an older stem as the airway entrance on the stem is on top of the P exactly like Peterson’s. I know that later it was moved to the end of the stem with a lot of legal wrangling. Leaving all of that aside a union was about to happen. The lonely bowl would be meeting its mate.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First let’s meet the main characters of the union. The first player in this budding romance is the old and lonely bowl that is quite a beauty. The finish is shiny with a varnish coat. The stamping on the left and right side of the shank are stamped with gold leaf. On the left it reads The [over] Wellington and on the right side is the WDC triangle logo. On the tarnished nickel ferrule were the expected faux hallmarks identifying it as an American Pipe and underneath those is the WDC triangle logo. The bowl had been reamed somewhere along the way and other than having a very light cake and dust was in decent condition. The rim top had a light coat of lava that would need to go. The internals would need a refresh. Nevertheless, the pipe really was quite a beauty and I hope you can see why I held onto it so long. Here are some photos of the bowl before I started my work on it. I also took some photos of golden finery and identifying marks. She really is quite a beauty and for her age in excellent condition. There is no wear on her jewellery. She is ready to dance.
The second character in the romance is the late to the scene stem. It is clear that he had been around a long time. It is older solid rubber so there was no oxidation on the surface. There were scratches and some tooth chatter near the button. But thankfully no one had left their tooth marks for posterity on its surface. It actually looked pretty good for an old timer. The gold stamped jewellery on the stem top was faded over time but it was still visible. It was still a handsome stem. The gold jewellery read Wellington arched over the WDC triangle logo and matched the bowl. It was going to be fun to prepare them to meet each other. Come with me for the preparations.For those of us who can’t wait for the final reveal (and that does include me by the way!) I introduced the stem and the bowl for the first time and took a series of photos. I think it is going to look quite amazing once they both clean up a bit and meet each other in their a renewal of their former glory. Like any older romance you want to as much about the lovely pair as you can. You want to know their history and what they were like years ago! To get that kind of background information on the pair I turned to Pipedia’s article on WDC (William Demuth) pipes and to reintroduce myself to the Wellington Family of pipes. It is a great read in terms of the history of the brand (https://pipedia.org/wiki/William_Demuth_Company). I have included one of the advertising flyers on the Wellington Family below. Look at the price of this pipe when it was sold.Look at the lovely “youngins” in the photos of the advert. They were quite stunning. Now it was time to work on the pair individually in preparation for their union. I decided to work on the bride first – preparing the bowl. It was not too bad but it needed some attention. I cleaned up the light cake in the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife and took it back to bare briar all the way down the bowl. I ran my finger over the bowl walls and there were no issues that I could see or feel. I sanded the walls of the bowl with a piece of 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. It felt and looked much better.I cleaned up the rim top, scraping off the thick lava coat with the edge of the Savinelli Knife. I sanded it with a 320 grit sanding pad to finish the cleanup. There was some nice grain underneath the debris. I also found a small fill on the back-left side of the rim top that went down the side of the bowl for a little way. No issues as the fill was solid.I cleaned up the finish on the bowl and removed the nicks and marks on the finish by carefully sanding it with the 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I took off the shiny finish very well and revealed some nice grain below the surface. I sanded the nickel ferrule with the higher grit pads – 2000-3500 to remove the oxidation and some of the pitting on the topside of the ferrule. I cleaned out the internals of the bowl and stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. It was surprisingly dirty. The airway in the bowl was clogged with tars so it took a bit to open it back up but the airflow is restored and the pipe is clean again after many years. I decided to “deghost” the bowl with cotton bolls and 99% isopropyl alcohol. I pressed cotton bolls into the sump on the shank and into the bowl completely filling in the openings with the cotton. I then used an ear syringe to transfer the alcohol into the bowl and shank opening. I find that this gives me more control than pouring and also saves the finish on the bowl from any damage by the alcohol. I set the bowl aside for a few hours to let the cotton and alcohol do its work wicking the oils and tars out of the bowl. I let it sit for 4-5 hours them took photos of the bowl and cotton. I pulled the cotton out of the shank and the bowl with a dental pick. It had drawn out a lot oils and tars from the bowl and shank. While the bowl air dried after removing all the cotton bolls I turned my attention to the other partner in the union – the stem. I touched up the stamping on the top side of the saddle stem. I used some Rub’n Buff Antique gold to touch up the stamping. I worked it into the letters with a tooth pick. I buffed it off with a soft cotton cloth. The stamping is looking much better.I sanded the scratching on the tenon end of the stem and the tooth chatter on the bit end with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I quickly made short order of these blemishes on the old stem. I was one step closer to being ready to meet the bowl. I polished the old hard rubber stem with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. I rubbed it down with a final coat of Obsidian Oil and let it dry. Now it was time to reintroduce the lovely pair. The music was playing… you can almost here the sound of “First Time Every I saw your Face” flowing in the background. The restored bowl and stem step out to meet one another. Once united the briar bowl and the stem back together this WDC Wellington Bent Billiard revealed its stunning beauty. The union brought the old pair together – the polished briar, the nickel ferrule and the hard rubber were a winning combination. The grain that shone through the polished finish is stunning. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel. I buffed the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad which really brings the shine out with the wax. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The lovely newly joined Wellington Bent Billiard fits nicely in the hand and feels great and will truly be a pipe to be smoked any time really – while sitting and reading or listening to music. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 54 grams/1.87 ounces. I will be adding it to the American Pipe Makers Section of the rebornpipes store soon. If you are interested in adding this pipe to your collection send me a message or an email. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. I appreciate your time to spend reading this one. Thank you.