Tag Archives: pipe restemming

Replacing a tenon in a stem with a minimum of tools

Last evening I was looking at the lone pipe bowl in my refurbishing box and decided I wanted to do something with it. I wasn’t sure if I would refinish it or rusticate it with the new tool Chris sent me. Either way though, it needed a new stem. I went through my can of stems and found that I did not have any that would fit the shank without a lot of work. I did have one with a broken tenon that was the right diameter for this pipe. I looked at it for a while and then found a Delrin tenon that I had on the work table. The tenon was the right size for the shank! The stem was the right diameter for the shank. Now all I had to do was wed the two of them and I would have my new stem.

I have drilled out broken stems in the past and inserted a new tenon. I have used a tap and then screwed in a threaded tenon that I purchased from Pipe Makers Emporium. Either way it was work that I did by hand. By hand means that I do not have a drill press, I do not have a vise to hold the stem. I have my two hands and a cordless drill. This takes steady and slow work to keep all the angles straight and get things properly aligned. It is one of those processes that will either work really well or not at all. There is no in between. You cannot redrill a crooked hole to straighten it out without making it too large to fit the piece. So really the fact of the matter is that it all comes down to whether I can drill the stem out straight!

To begin the process I needed to square up the end of the stem and remove the broken pieces of the tenon that still remained. The end needed to be flat and even for the drilling. I sanded down the end of the stem flush using a sanding board (like the one used when topping a bowl). In the photo below you can see that the end of the stem has a divot out of it due to the breakage. I did not worry too much about that as the drilling would take most of that area out of the equation. I only worked on flattening out the rest of the stem. When finished I pressed it against the end of the shank to see if it was a flush fit or if there were any high spots. The fit was perfect. Now it was ready for drilling.

I took out my cordless drill and found that the battery was dead. I put the battery on the charger and sat thinking for a bit about how to best drill out the stem. I measured the diameter of the new tenon and found that it was 15/16 inches. To make sure I did not crack the stem or break it in the process I would drill it out in stages. I would mark the depth on each drill bit I used with a piece of tape so that I would not over drill or under drill the depth of the hole. I used the tenon as the measure for this. The tenon I had came with a slight lip on it so I would need to countersink the end of the stem once the hole was drilled in order to accommodate the lip.

I decided to try something different this time and not wait for the battery to charge. I stood the drill on my desk, inserted the drill bit and hand turned the stem onto the drill bit. I started with the 11/64 inch bit which was slightly larger than the airway in the stem. I turned the stem onto the stationary bit to the depth that I had marked on the drill bit. I lined up the stem and the angles making sure the line was straight and the hole stayed centered throughout the process. I worked my way through 7 bit sizes up to the 17/64 inch bit. Each time I turned the stem onto the bit in increments and cleaned out the hole with a dental pick. I continued to turn it on and off the bit until the drilling was smooth before moving onto the next sized bit.

I found that when I got to the larger sized bits from 19/64, 5/16, 21/64 inches it was hard to turn them on by hand. I could get them started but they quickly bound up on the bit and I could not turn them further. I turned them back and forth but it was not working well. I put the battery back on the drill and drilled the stem using a very slow speed. It worked well. When I had finished drilling it with the 5/16 inch bit the tenon pressure fit very nicely in the hole. There was not enough room for epoxy to be applied and still fit in the hole, so I drilled it with the 21/64 bit to give it the amount of room for the epoxy. To countersink the end of the stem I used a slightly larger drill bit and then a sharp knife to bevel the inner edge to accept the ridge on the tenon.

In the morning the tenon was firmly in place and dry. I cleaned the face with a dental pick and removed the excess epoxy from the stem. I pushed the stem into the shank of the pipe to see the fit. This was the final test. Did things align properly? Did I get the angle square and straight? Would there be a gap in the stem and shank joint? In case you are wondering I have had all of those issues in the past and had to do a lot of adjustments to get a clean fit. But this time things worked well. The fit was perfect and the alignment was absolutely correct. The pipe now had a new stem and it was time to make a decision on what to do with the finish of the bowl. That will be another story however. The photo below shows the fit of the stem and the shank. I am very pleased with the fit.

I sanded the stem and the shank to get a smooth transition between the stem and shank. I wanted the fit to be seamless so it took some sanding with 220 grit sandpaper followed by a sanding sponge to fine tune the fit. Here is the pipe as it stands now. Later today I will rework the bowl and finish the entire stem. But for the purpose of this post the tenon replacement and fit of the stem to the shank is complete.

Restoring an old CPF Gourd Calabash Pipe

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Blog by Steve Laug

In my grab bag from the antique mall was a gourd calabash bowl. It has the original silver band with the CPF logo stamped on it and some faux hallmarks – an anchor, star and a figure. The CPF stands for Colossus Pipe Factory – a brand I researched and wrote about previously on the blog – https://rebornpipes.com/2013/04/14/so…-on-cpf-pipes/. The hallmarks on the band are an anchor with chain, a star and a figure of a man. From my research these are faux hallmarks. CPF pipes were made in New York and later became linked with KB&B pipes. Here is a link to an old catalogue linking the brand to KB&B that I posted previously on the blog https://rebornpipes.com/2014/03/05/an…cpf-catalogue/. Sadly there are no meerschaum pipes in the catalogue so I cannot ascertain the date for sure. I am fairly confident from comparing the band with others that I have which have similar bands that the pipe can conservatively be dated to the early 1900s or late 1890s. So it is a gourd bowl that has some age on it.

The bowl came with the band and a threaded bone tenon that was easily removed from the mortise. The gourd had darkened areas around the exterior of the bowl from the hand of the previous owners. There were several nicks in the gourd on the bottom of the shank next to the band and on the right side next o the band. The band had been pressed onto the gourd and it was obvious from the fit and the way it pressed into the shank ahead of it that it was original. The inside of the gourd had hard tars and tobacco oils on the walls down into the shank itself. There was nothing soft or sticky in either the shank or bowl. A pipe cleaner came out clean regardless of whether it was dry or wet. The top edge of the rim was pristine with no dents or nicks. There was a slight crack that ran down about ½ inch on the front of the bowl. I liked the shape of the gourd from the moment I took it out of the bag. It was not oddly shaped but was elegant in both the flare of the bowl and the curve of the shank. It would be well worth bringing back to life.

I measured the diameter of the bowl and the diameter of the bone tenon and made a call to Tim West at J.H. Lowe (http://www.jhlowe.com/) with the dimensions to see what he had in terms of a meerschaum bowl and a potential stem for the pipe. He asked for a photo of the bowl so he could have a look before recommending sizes of the stem or bowl. I told him that I was thinking about an amber acrylic a Bakelite stem. Once he saw the pictures Tim talked me out of that and said a vulcanite stem would be perfect for it. I asked if he would tap the stem for me before he shipped it. He said he would do it, no problem. He did a bang up job and sent it along with the meerschaum cup. Both of them arrived here in Vancouver quite quickly. I unpacked the bowl and stem from the box that Tim sent and that was the beginning of the issues that I faced with restoring this pipe. I will spell them out in detail as I write about the restoration of the pipe.

I tried fitting the meer cup into the gourd and found that there were several issues that I would have to deal with before it would fit well. The diameter of the bowl was perfect. The mushroom cap was big and draped over the top of the gourd and looked passable to me. The first problem was that the bowl had a lip around the top edge under the cap that was shaped the wrong direction – absolutely the opposite of the angle of the bowl. Because of that ridge the bowl would not sit in the gourd bowl correctly. Secondly I found that even without the ridge the cup was too deep to fit the depth of the gourd. The gourd tapered much more sharply than the meer cup so the bottom of the cup sat high in the gourd bowl. I would need to change the taper on the cup and shorten it so that it would sit in the gourd correctly and I would need to remove the lip around the top under the cap.

I measured the thickness of the bottom of the bowl and the thickness of the walls of the bowl around the cup to make sure I could remove the ridge and shorten the bowl without ruining the meer cup. I was happy to see that I had a lot of room to work with and could easily remove what was needed for a proper fit in the bowl. I used the Dremel to remove the ridge from under the cap edge. It was big enough that hand sanding would have taken a very long time. I took it down to match the rest of the bowl. I also used the Dremel to shorten the bowl. I flattened it out and took off approximately ½ inch. I then hand sanded the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper to reshape it and smooth out the Dremel work. I reshaped the taper of the cup to match the taper of the gourd. I sanded the flat edges of the bottom and reshaped it into a gentle curve. The photo below shows the newly reworked bowl. It fit well in the gourd after all of this work.

I set aside the meer cup and cleaned out the inside of the gourd removing the tars and build up. I washed down the outside with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grease and buildup on the gourd. I did not want the soap wet as I did not want to wet the gourd. I rubbed the soap on with a cotton pad and scrubbed and removed it the same way. Once it was clean I noticed that the small hairline crack along the front of the bowl was slightly open. I opened it slightly and dripped some super glue in it to bind the crack and clamped it until the glue cured. Fortunately for this impatient man the super glue dries very quickly and I could move on to the inside of the gourd. I sanded it out with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I was able to reach quite far down into the shank and sanded the ridges of tars and oils out of the bowl. There was a thick ridge at the bottom where the original cup had rested against the walls of the gourd. I used a dental pick to loosen that area and then sanded it smooth. All of this cleaning work served to renew the inside of the gourd but also made a smooth base for the new meer cup.

I cut a piece of cork to fit the inner edge of the gourd. It had to be trimmed in both height and length to fit properly. I glued it into place with white all-purpose glue. I pressed on it to make sure that it sat tightly against the gourd. This cork would serve as a gasket for the cup and also it fit perfectly against the small crack that I had repaired on the exterior. Together they would bind together the crack and provide a functional repair to that surface.

Once the glue dried I sanded the cork with 220 grit sandpaper (my go to sandpaper for much of the initial work I do on the pipe). I wanted it to be a smooth pressure fit that would hold the bowl in place. I rubbed down the cork gasket with Vaseline to soften it after the sanding. I find that cork left unused gets dry and brittle and the Vaseline brings it back to life. I pressed the bowl in place to check the fit and found that it still needed some adjustment to sit properly in the bowl. The top edge under the cap needed to be sanded some more to reduce the diameter of the cup.

I took it out of the gourd and sanded it with the 220 grit sandpaper until it fit correctly. I polished the cup exterior with a fine grit sanding sponge and 1500 grit micromesh sanding pads before pressing it back into the gourd.

This time it fit was far better. The cup sat in the gourd like they were made for each other. The two photos that follow show the fit and look of the new bowl. At this point the calabash is showing great promise.

I cleaned up the mess of the meerschaum sanding dust that was everywhere on my work table. It is a messy fine powder that gets into everything if left to its own devices. Once I had done that I wiped down the exterior of the bowl and cup one more time and took a couple of photos to get a good look at the pipe.

With the work on the bowl and cup finished I turned my attention to the stem. Tim’s drilling was spot on. The diameter was exactly what I had sent him – ¼ inch. The second problem I faced with this old calabash was that the bone tenon was not quite the 1/4 inch measurement I gave him. It would not fit in the tapped hole in the stem. I measured it again and found that is was closer to 3/8 inches than a ¼ inch. I re-tapped the stem to 3/8 and was able to thread the tenon into the stem. It looked great and it fit well in the mortise. I glued the tenon in place in the stem with all-purpose white glue and set it aside to cure over night.

In the morning I slowly and carefully turned it into the bowl. Things were going really well. It looked like I would need to reduce the diameter of the stem slightly on one side and the top to match the diameter of the shank band. As I was turning it I heard a noise that is dreadful to me and to anyone who has heard it. It generally is not a good sound when you are this far along in a repair and signifies more work. The bone tenon broke in half. It obviously had been cracked and I had not seen that when I examined it. When I had turned it into the shank it had shattered. I was left with the broken half glued into the stem and the threaded half stuck in the shank of the pipe. Talk about frustration. I set the pipe aside and took a deep breath. Now I would have to go back to the drawing board in terms of how to attach a stem. I would have to drill out both the stem and the shank in order to move forward.

I pulled out a can from my drawer where I keep replacement tenons – threaded Delrin, straight Delrin rods cut to fit as tenons and some push stem conversion kits that had a mortise insert and tenon for converting threaded shanks in old meers to accommodate a push tenon. The conversion kit would work nicely in this situation. I would have to modify the shank of the calabash as the diameter of the mortise insert was too big for the 3/8 inch opening. I had to drill out the end of the gourd and then re-tap it to be able to put the insert in place. The thickness of the shank did not give me much wiggle room so I would only have one chance at this. I was able to drill it and tap it. I mixed the two part epoxy and inserted the mortise in place in the shank.

The tenon was a much simpler to repair. I carefully drilled out the broken bone tenon in the stem and was able to salvage the threads. Once I had blown out the dust from the stem the push tenon screwed neatly into the 3/8 inch tapped end of the stem. I removed it a final time and epoxied it in place. However, it too was not trouble-free. The tenon had a 1/16th inch lip that would not sit in the end of the drilling on the stem. I ended up having to carve it with a sharp knife to remove the lip. In the photo below you can see the epoxied insert in the shank and the tenon in the stem. The insert still needed to be countersunk and cleaned up and the tenon needed to have the lip trimmed away.

I set aside the calabash until the epoxy set. Once the stem was set I decided to work on the other end of the mouthpiece. It had a very tight slot on the end that was hard to push a pipe cleaner through so I opened that up with needle files. I used a flat oval file, an oval and a round file to do the majority of the work. I finished opening it with a flat angle file to open the top and bottom of the slot.

When the epoxy had cured I carefully pushed the stem into the shank to check out the fit. The next two photos show the look of the pipe at this point. I removed the stem and countersunk the mortise slightly. I did not want to use a drill and countersink to do the work so I used a very sharp knife and did it by hand. Once it was completed I replaced the stem in the shank and the fit against the band was clean and snug. My initial mission was accomplished. I had not only broken the bone tenon, I had removed it from the shank and stem and converted the pipe to a push stem. There was still work to do but at least I had salvaged the pipe from the damage I had done in my initial repair. Whew…

I sanded the stem with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches left behind by the 220 grit sandpaper. I gave it a light buff with Tripoli on the wheel and then set up a heat gun to bend the stem. I held the stem about three inches above the heat and moved it around as it heated. I have learned that to leave it in one place as you heat it can damage the vulcanite and create more work. Once the stem was pliable I bent it over a wooden rolling pin that I use for that purpose. Lately I slid a cardboard tube over the pin to give a softer, smoother surface to bend the stem over. I had to do it twice to get the bend correct. It takes a bit longer to heat the thicker portion of the stem that needed to be bent so the repeated step made that possible.

The finished bend is shown in the next two photos. I still needed to polish the stem before it was finished but the finished look is beginning to appear. The calabash is just about reborn.

I removed the stem and worked on it with the sanding sponges and the micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with the 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with the 3200-12000 grit pads. Between the wet and dry sanding I rubbed the stem down with Meguiar’s Scratch x2.0 and then buffed it with White Diamond. I finished the sanding and then rubbed the stem with Obsidian Oil. Once it was dry I gave it a quick buff with White Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a soft flannel buff.

I scrubbed the surface of the gourd with Oil Soap and a light sanding with the fine grit sanding sponge to remove some of the deeper grime and oils in the gourd. I then applied several coats of Paragon Wax and hand buffed the gourd with a shoe brush to raise a shine. I polished the silver band with some silver polish and then reinserted the stem. I gave the whole pipe a final buff with the brush before setting the meerschaum cup in place. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It is a deep bowl and should hold a good pack of tobacco. The broad mushroom cap of the meerschaum cup looks good to me. The pipe is ready for its inaugural smoke. Now the only problem remaining is what tobacco to use to christen this restored calabash. Ah well that will sort itself out soon enough. Time to post this on the blog.

Restoring a Bent Billiard – Converting a threaded mortise to a push mortise

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When I picked up these two pipes in the antique mall grab bag my intention was to hunt down threaded metal tenon stems for them both. But I soon finished cleaning up the rest of the lot and was down to these two and an old Medico. These two were in far better shape to start with than the old Medico so I looked them over for a while. I decided to drill out the threads on both of them and fit a push stem to the shank. I started with the bent billiard as it needed the most work to clean up the rim damage. While I was setting up to do it I got to thinking that the odds were very high that the inserts were reverse threaded into the shanks of the pipes. I took out a pair of pliers and carefully locked onto the metal edge of the insert on the bent billiard. I turned it counterclockwise and after a few moments of not moving it came loose and screwed out with ease. I did the second pipe bowl at the same time so I now have two pipe bowls that have been modified with a simple fix to that the mortises will accommodate a push stem.

I had a saddle bit in my can of stems that had a Delrin tenon and with a little sanding fit the shank perfectly. It had a short saddle and quite quickly went to a blade. It was still quite thick in the mouth so I would need to sand it thinner for comfort. The fit against the shank was snug and only the diameter of the stem would need to be adjusted to fit properly.

The pipe has some interesting grain on it and only one fill on the side of the shank. The stamping reads something like Barnard B over Imported Briar on the left side of the shank. The Barna is very clear the next two letters are faint and the end there is a Germanic Style B. Not much information available on the brand that I can find. The rim was really badly beaten up. It was rough and chewed up looking. The outer edge was ruined with chunks missing. The inner edge surprisingly enough was quite clean and in decent shape. There was a thin cake around the top half of the bowl while the bottom half was still unsmoked briar. The finish as worn around the rest of the bowl but surprisingly there were no nicks or dings on the rest of the briar.

I took a close up photo of the top of the rim to give an idea of the condition it was in when it arrived at my work table. I fit the stem to the shank and then used the Dremel and sanding drum to take down the excess diameter of the stem. I then sanded the stem and shank with 220 grit sandpaper to make a smooth transition between the two materials. In the photos taken of the top and bottom you can begin to see the damage on the stem near the saddle. At this point it did not go through the Lucite material but it was definitely a grey colour instead of black.

With the fit of the stem finished I topped the bowl. I set up the topping board and the 220 grit sandpaper and turned the bowl into the sandpaper in a clockwise direction. I sanded the outer edge of the rim with a folded piece of sandpaper to smooth out the damage that the topping did not remove. I then wiped the bowl down with acetone to remove the finish and clean up the bowl.

At this point I got an urge to put a silver band/end cap on the shank just to have a look. I liked the look of the cap but did not particularly like the look of the short saddle stem with the band. I almost pulled the band and decided against it but decided to leave it and stain the bowl to see what the finished look of the bowl would be. I could always make another stem for it should I desire to do so.

I sanded the bowl with medium and fine grit sanding sponges and then wet sanded the bowl with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. Once the scratches were removed and the briar was smooth I stained it with a black aniline stain. I applied it, flamed it, applied it again and flamed it again. I then heated the bowl with a heat gun to further set the black stain in the grain.

I wiped the bowl down with isopropyl alcohol and followed that with acetone on cotton pads to remove the excess stain. I wanted to leave it deep in the grain and remove it from the surface of the bowl. I sanded the bowl with medium and fine grit sanding sponges and then wet sanded it with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. When I had finished the bowl looked almost grey and the dark striations of grain stood out on the heel and underside of the shank.

I wiped the bowl down with alcohol again and then restained it with a oxblood aniline stain to bring out the contrast in the briar. I really like the way the finish had turned out on the bowl. The stem was looking more and more problematic. It seemed that I had sanded through the blade next to the saddle and sanded into the Delrin tenon. In the top and bottom view photos below you can see the grey area in each of those spots next to the saddle. This stem was ruined and needed to be replaced.

I took the stem off the pipe and sanded the two sides some more to see if I could feather out the damage or maybe repair it with a super glue patch. Looking at the photos you can see that patching and repairing the stem would not work.

I found a vulcanite saddle stem in my can of stems that would fit the shank. I turned the tenon with a PIMO tenon turner and then sanded it until it fit snuggly in the shank. The outer diameter of the stem needed to have some of the vulcanite removed to center the stem against the silver end cap.

I sanded casting ridges off the stem and used a Dremel and sanding drum to remove the excess stem material. I sanded the diameter and the edges to remove all of the scratch marks. I used 220 grit sandpaper and then medium and fine grit sanding sponges to finish. I set up the heat gun and turned it on the low setting and held the stem over the heat. Once the stem was flexible I bent it carefully over an old rolling pin I use as a base until it was the correct angle. I set the angle with cold water.

I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads. I buffed it with White Diamond and then rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil and let it soak into the rubber of the stem.

I buffed the pipe and stem with White Diamond and polished the silver band with silver polish. I gave the entire pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax to preserve and protect the finish. I finished by giving it a light buff with a soft flannel buffing pad. The finish pipe is shown in the photos below.

Willard Dublin Restemmed and Rejuvenated

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This was one of the bowls that I picked up in that antique mall grab bag. It is stamped Willard Imported Briar. There is no other stamping on the shank on either side. It came with an aluminum band on the shank and the mortise was made for a push stem. The finish was in rough shape showing worn spots and crackling in the varnish finish. The bowl sides had deep nicks and gouges in them and there were several fills around the bowl. The rim was heavily beaten with broken edges on the outer rim and some damage to the inner rim edge. The bowl itself was dirty with broken cake around the middle of the bowl and looking like it had been carved away from the top of the bowl leaving the rim out of round. There was no stem with this pipe bowl.

I had a stem that would work with the pipe in my can of stems. The diameter of the stem was too wide but the length and the taper were correct. There was some surface damage to the top edge of the stem that would be removed once I adjusted the diameter. The tenon was very close to a fit and I sanded it lightly to make it fit snug without pressure on the shank.

With the sanding the tenon fit well in the shank. The next series of photos show the excess material that would need to be removed from the diameter of the stem.

I sanded the stem with a Dremel and sanding drum while leaving it in place on the shank. I wanted sand it as close as possible with the Dremel so that the amount of hand sanding would be lessened. I then sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper.

Once I had the basic shape right I decided to top the bowl. I set up my topping board and sandpaper and work on removing the damage on the rim. I press the bowl into the sandpaper and turn it clockwise until the damaged portion of the rim is removed and the surface smooth.

I took the Dremel to the stem again and removed some more of the excess vulcanite and then brought it back to the work table and did some more sanding with 220 grit sandpaper and medium and fine grit sanding sponges.

I sanded the bowl with the medium and fine grit sanding sponges to smooth out the sanding marks on the rim and to smooth out the outer edge of the rim. I wiped the bowl down with acetone and then with isopropyl alcohol to remove the varnish finish.

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and took out the remaining cake mid bowl. It took three of the four cutting heads to take the cake back to bare briar.

Since the briar was already a rich reddish colour I decided to stain it with an oxblood aniline stain. I had found that when I scrubbed the bowl down with the alcohol the fills actually were more blended into the bowl than they had been before removing the varnish. I figured that by adding a topcoat of more oxblood stain the fills would blend in more fully into the finish. I applied the stain, flamed it and repeated the process until I got an even coverage on the bowl. The top of the rim took several extra coats of the stain to make it match the rest of the bowl.

I took the pipe to the buffer and buffed the bowl and stem with White Diamond. I avoided buffing the band as buffing the aluminum turns the buffing wheel black and the black stains the briar and the stem. When I got back to the work table I polished the aluminum with a polishing cloth. The photos below show the pipe after the staining and buffing.

I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I buffed the stem with White Diamond and then rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil.

I buffed the bowl and stem a final time with White Diamond and then gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a soft flannel buffing pad to bring out the shine. The stain did a good job of hiding the fills. Though they are still present they do not stand out as much. The new stem fit very well and looks like the one that was made for the pipe. The finished pipe is pictured below and it will certainly grace someone’s pipe rack in the near future.

My latest “Frankenpipe” Project

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Blog by Steve Laug

In the grab bag I got from the antique mall on my recent trip was a cutoff bulldog bowl. Whoever had owned the pipe in the past cut off the majority of the shank and had epoxied a metal tenon in place in the short shank. They had then added a churchwarden stem – a delicate round stem that really did not fit at all. In the photo below it is the bulldog just above the cob bowl. The stem was repurposed for the cob stack I wrote about in a previous blog post. The bowl just sat in the box while I figured out what I would do with it. I had thought of turning it back into a bulldog but just was not sure of that being the right direction to go with the pipe.

Then this evening I decided to do another “Frankenpipe” project. I pulled together the parts that might come into play and spread them out on the worktable. I had a chunk of briar from Dogtalker that could work for a shank extension, the cut off bowl from the bulldog and a selection of different stems that could be fit to the new shank once it got to that point. I examined the end of the short shank for a long time trying to decide the way to go with the new shank extension – diamond shank or round shank. The edges of the remaining diamond shank were well-rounded and the diamond had virtually disappeared. It looked like it would probably evolve into a Rhodesian by the time I was done but time would tell. Sooooo…. in the spirit of the tall cob, I decided to put together the parts and see what I could do with them.

I started the process of joining the briar block and the short shank bowl. I drilled an airway in the briar going straight through. It was slightly larger than the metal tenon so that it the metal tenon and some epoxy would fit. This would give a straight airway from the bowl to the block. Once that was finished I drilled enlarged the airway on other side of the briar block with a larger bit to create a mortise. I put the pieces together to make sure that everything would fit together. For the purpose of having some kind of stem I grabbed an old diamond shank stem from my can of stems to fit the mortise.

I used my topping board and sandpaper to try to face the short shank and the piece of briar to facilitate a flush fit when the two pieces were joined. The shank on the pipe had been cut at an angle so I took that into consideration when I was working on the briar extension. I mixed up a two-part epoxy and glued the block and the bowl. The photos show the epoxied joint before I cleaned it up. I clamped the pieces together overnight to let it cure.

In the morning once the glue had cured I took the clamp off and looked it over more carefully to see if I could redeem the diamond shank. The more I looked at it the more I knew that the diamond shank was gone and I would best work to make a round shank Rhodesian. I turned the tenon on a very chubby round taper stem with the PIMO Tenon Turner to fit in the new mortise. Once the stem fit well in the shank I got a better idea of what the finished pipe would look like. There was still a lot of shaping and fine tuning to do with the stem to shank junction but the “Frankenpipe” had potential.

I used a Dremel with a sanding drum to begin shaping the shank extension. I had to remove a lot of the briar on the extension and round it to make the transition smoother. I did the work in stages, constantly checking the look and flow of the shank extension to make sure I did not take off too much briar.

I put the stem in place in the shank to keep the target in sight as I sanded the shank. At this point in the process I was not worrying about the fit of the stem to the shank I was more concerned with the overall flow from the bowl to the button. When I am shaping a pipe I am constantly putting the pieces back together to see if the flow is beginning to work well.

I continued to sand with the Dremel until I had the majority of excess briar removed. I then took it to the worktable and worked on the bowl and shank with 220 grit sandpaper. I continued to remove the briar and shape the new shank. The Rhodesian shape is beginning to become clear in this “Frankenpipe”. There was still a lot of sanding to do but the finished pipe shape was beginning to emerge from the briar.

I continued to hand sand the shank to reduce the diameter and shape the flow toward the bowl. The shank and bowl are starting to look like they belong together. I worked on the stem to make the fit of the stem to the shank smoother. I removed the excess vulcanite with the Dremel and shaped the stem by hand to remove the sanding marks and scratches left behind by the Dremel and sanding drum. When I finished sanding for the evening I slid a band on the shank just for kicks. If I leave the band on the shank I will need to work some more on the stem to get a good snug fit. Even so the pipe is starting to appear from the diverse parts – “Frankenpipe” was beginning to come alive.

I sanded some more on the shank and bowl junction. I decided to give the shank a cigar-like flow – tapered at the bowl and taper from the stem to the button but with a gradual rise in the middle. The flow would be a gentle bulge that came to its highest point at the band.

I decided to take the pipe to work with me and continue to sand it during breaks. I had a day working in our warehouse scheduled and would need to have a diversion from the work I had on the agenda for the day. I sanded it with a medium grit sanding sponge. I took these photos at the end of the day before I headed home for the day. The pipe was really taking shape now.

I really liked the flow of the shank from the back of the bowl to the tip of the stem. It formed a nice elongated oval. It would not be possible to sand further on the joint of the bowl and extension so I decided to rusticate the shank. I used some electrical tape to mark off the area that I would rusticate and to protect the places that I did not want to rusticate.

I rusticated the shank, leaving a smooth section of briar next to the nickel band. I formed a point at the bottom of the bowl where the rustication would end. I decided to leave the bowl smooth as it had some nice grain. I rusticated it with the modified Philips screw driver, wire brushed off the loose briar chips and then sanded it with a medium grit sanding sponge to smooth out the high edges. I wanted a patterned rustication but not one that was rough to the touch. My idea was to provide an interesting pattern on the briar of the shank extension that would hide the joint but also add interest to the finished look of the pipe.

I stained the rustication with a black aniline stain, flamed it and then wire brushed it a second time. I restained and reflamed it and then sanded the high spots on the rustication with a fine grit sanding sponge. Once the rustication was the style I wanted I gave the bowl a top coat of oxblood stain. I wanted a contrast between the deep grooves of the rustication and the rest of the pipe. I always have liked that look on a pipe. This particular “Frankenpipe” was made for this kind of rustication pattern. At this point the major work on the bowl and shank is done other than polishing and waxing. I still had work to do on the stem and band but the pipe was taking definite shape. It had come a long way from the pieces that came together at the beginning.

I still had a lot of work to do on the stem. I needed to clean up the angles and taper of the stem, sand out some of the scratches left behind, reshape the button and open up the airway on the stem. Each of these little steps adds to the finished comfortableness of the stem and the flow of the smoke from the bowl to the mouth. I began by reshaping the slot in the airway. I have three needle files that I have come to depend on for this process. Two of them are oval files – one flatter than the other and the third is a round file. The three files work together to give the slot the open shape that makes slipping a pipe cleaner down the stem and shank during a smoke effortless.

Once the slot was opened I sanded the inside of it with a folded piece of sandpaper to smooth out the inner surface of the slot. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to shape and taper the flow from the band and shank toward the button. I wanted a smooth curve that paralleled the curve in the shank on the other side of the band. I used medium and fine grit sanding sponges and then my usual batch of micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil.

I put the polished stem back in the shank and took the pipe to the buffer. I buffed it with White Diamond to give a shine to the bowl and shank and lightly buffed the stem again with White Diamond. I gave the pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax – using a light touch on the rusticated part of the shank. I buffed it with a soft flannel buffing pad to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown below. I noticed in the photos that there are still some fine scratches on the stem and band so I will go back to the micromesh and take care of those. But before I do that it is time to load up a bowl of some aged Balkan Sobranie Virginian No. 10 and give the pipe a smoke. My Cocker Spaniel, Spencer is anxious to go out so it is a good time to load a pipe and give him some attention in the yard.

A Tired Little Bewlay Billiard Reborn

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I participated in a Canadian Box Pass where tobaccos and pipes are mailed across Canada between pipemen and women from sea to sea. It is a fun experience in which you are given a chance to try tobaccos that you might never otherwise try to also trade for pipes that catch your eye. This particular box pass was very well-organized and I received a compact box of tobaccos and a variety of tobaccos. They had been divided in to three broad categories – Latakias, Virginias/Virginia Perique/Burley and Aromatics. There were also several tins of tobacco to try or to trade. The idea was you could take one if you put something of equal value back in the box. There were three pipes as well – a Comoy’s Apple (Cadogan era), a Trypsis partially rusticated pot and a Bewlay billiard that had been restemmed to give it the look of a cutty. There was also some carnauba wax that was there for the taking.

I sampled many of the Latakia blends and many of the Virginia and Virginia/Perique blends. It was an enjoyable experience over the past weekend. There was one of the pipes that I also kept coming back to over and over again during the weekend – the small Bewlay billiard/cutty. There was something about it that drew my attention. It was clean but the finish was shot and the stem was definitely a replacement. The bend in it seems to have been added with the new stem. The finish was a sandblast that was well-worn from either handling or over buffing. The stamping on the bottom of the shank reads Bewlay in script over Sandblast over London England. It is worn and growing faint. There was probably a shape number at the end of the shank but it had been sanded away with the sandblast when it was restemmed previously.

The first photo below show some light splotches on the side of the bowl. These seem to have been fills that were put in before the blasting and finish were done. They were definitely putty. The shank had been sanded down and the first half-inch next to the stem was sanded smooth. There was also a slight taper to the shank were the sanding had taken down the diameter of the shank at the end. The rim was darkened and had some carbon build up on it. The stem was in rough shape in that it had some deep tooth dents on the underside. When I took it out of the shank I was even more convinced that it was a replacement in that it had a thick-walled aluminum tenon. It was similar to the tenons on Medico pipes with horizontal split in the tenon so that it can be adjusted. The difference was in the thickness of the material.

Before I packed up the box yesterday I decided to take the little Bewlay and give it a new home. The first thing I did last evening was fit a new stem on the pipe. I wanted to have a vulcanite stem and tenon. I had a stem in my can of stems that took very little to fit the tenon to the shank. The diameter of the stem was wider than the shank so that would take some work but that was not an issue. I was undecided if I would replace the bent stem with another bent one or restore it to its original billiard status.

I worked on the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to bring the diameter of the shank and the bowl to a match. I wanted to be careful to not remove any more of the briar from the already slightly tapered shank. Once the sanding was close I dropped the bowl in an alcohol bath for a soak to remove the remaining finish on the bowl and the grime and grit from the sandblast rings.

I continued to sand and shape the stem. I liked the wider blade at the button as I thought it looked like it fit better with the pipe. I left the tenon a little longer so it sat against the end of the mortise when it was inserted.

After the bowl had soaked for an hour I took it out and scrubbed the blast with a soft bristle brass tire brush. I find that the bristles do not scratch the briar but that they work well to remove build up in the grooves of the blast. I also wanted to brush the areas of the putty fills to highlight the grain pattern in those areas rather than leave a light looking smooth patch. I used a dental pick to clean out the deeper grooves of the blast in the fill areas. I cleaned out the shank with cotton swabs and alcohol and also the stem internals. I finished sanding the stem to make the transition between stem and shank smooth. I sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge after sanding with the 220 grit sandpaper. I sanded the top of the rim very carefully to remove the tarry build up and also smooth the outer edge. At this point I am beginning to really like the straight stem on the pipe. It lends a dignity to the bowl that was lacking with the bent stem in my opinion. It looked to me the way it must have looked when it left the factory. After all the clean up I wiped it down a final time with isopropyl alcohol to prepare the bowl for staining.

I stained the bowl with a light brown stain to give it a tan blast look but it did not work on the areas of the putty fills. They still showed through the finish as light streaks in the briar. I then decided to restain it with a dark brown aniline stain. I applied the stain, flamed it, stained and flamed it again to make sure that the coverage was even. In the photos below the stain almost looks black but it is not – it is a dark brown.

The colour was too dark to my liking so I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to remove some of the heavy dark stain and give the bowl more transparency. I wiped it down repeatedly until I got it the colour I wanted with some contrast between the high and low points in the blast.

I sanded the stem with the medium and fine grit sanding sponges to remove the scratches from the work on the diameter. Once I had them removed I use micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and let it soak into the stem.

Afterward I took some photos of the pipe at this stage of restoration to get a good look at the straight stem. I find that I can tell more with a photo than I can holding it in hand when I am trying to decide on the finished look. I wanted to decide whether to leave it straight or to bend it like the one I took off the pipe. For me looking at it on the monitor, enlarged gives me a feel for the overal appearance of the pipe. I cannot tell you how many times, after looking at the photos, that I have taken the pipe back to the table for more shaping and work.

I liked the look of the straight stem so I left it. I buffed the stem with White Diamond and gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect and preserve it. I gave the bowl a coat of Halcyon II wax and then lightly buffed the stem and bowl with a soft flannel buff to bring up the shine. The finished pipe is pictured below. It came out very well in my opinion. As I look at it I wonder who the maker was. Bewlay had others make their pipes – to my mind this one had the look of a nice little Orlik Sandblast, but who knows for sure. What do you think? Who made this pipe?

I Had Heard of Royalton but not of the Smoke-Control Deluxe

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In my antique mall grab bag was the bowl that is pictured below. It is stamped on the left side of the shank, Royalton over Smoke-Control over Deluxe and on the right side of the shank, Selected Briar over Pat. No.2326658. I had heard of Royalton pipes and have cleaned up a few of them in the years that have gone by. But I had never heard of the Smoke-Control or the Smoke-Control Deluxe. Obviously it was a system pipe of sorts, one of those creative ideas that lasted about as long as its maker. It never seemed to have caught on because in all the years I have been hunting and refurbishing pipes I have never come across one even to walk by in my prowls of thrift, junk or rummage shops. It was a brand unknown to me.

The bowl was in excellent shape and had not even been smoked to the bottom of the bowl. The bottom half of the bowl was bare briar. The top half was darkened but not carbonized at all. It was for all intents and purposes a new pipe. The shank was clean and contained a strange metal apparatus that filled the mortise and then stepped down to fill the airway all the way to the smoke hole in the bottom of the bowl. It was aluminum, the first ¼ inch was smooth and then it had threads that went to the bottom of the mortise. The airway was smooth. The finish on the bowl was non-existent. Whatever stain or coating had been on the bowl was no long present. The stamping was crisp and readable. There were no fills in the briar but there was a nice swirling mix of grain all around the bowl. The rim was clean and showed no burn or dent marks. The pipe was missing the stem. Judging from the mortise the stinger apparatus on this stem must have been a unique looking piece of hardware.

Since I had no idea what I was working on I decided to do a bit of digging on the internest and see if I could find out about the brand and kind of stem and stinger apparatus that it had. I wanted to know what the patent on the shank covered so that once I had a clear picture in mind I could hunt down a stem or work on one that would fit the shank in the meantime. I found out that Royalton pipes were manufactured by Henry Leonard & Thomas, Inc. (HLT) of Ozone Park, New York. HLT manufactured other brands as well including Dr.Grabow, Bruce Peters, Broadcaster and Vox Pop. I found on Pipephil’s logos page the two photos below that showed the stamping on the stem and the shank. The stamping on the bowl I had was a Smoke-Control with a hyphen rather than the one picture below and also was a Deluxe rather than a Supreme.

Mine was also stamped Selected Briar instead of Imported Briar. I could see that the stem had an aluminum faux band that sat between the stem and shank.
So far I had learned the manufacturer and the stamping on the stem and the faux band. I had not seen the stem. I did a bit more digging and found several advertisements that showed more of the stem. The first is from Popular Mechanics and it gave a clear description of the purpose of the pipe as well as the meaning of the Smoke-Control feature. The pipe had an adjustable valve that regulated the daft on the smoke to match personal taste and preference.

This advertisement spoke of both the Supreme Grade and the Deluxe grade of the pipe. The stinger that is shown in the picture could have been similar to the one in the bowl that I had found but it was not quite the same in terms of the sketched in lines on the shank of the top pipe in the picture. My bowl’s interior was different from the one in the picture so the stinger apparatus too must have been slightly different in the one I found. I went to the US Patent web site and did some more research and found the Patent Number of the pipe that I had. There was a description and a diagram of the pipe. The patent was taken out on August 10. 1943 by Arthur Koenigsamen of Jamaica, New York, assigner to Henry Leonard & Thomas Inc. of Ozone Park, New York. Reading the patent data, I am struck by the familiar hunt to develop a better smoking pipe to deliver a dry and cool smoker to the mouth of the pipe smoker and to make pipe smoking more appealing to those who might not try it otherwise. Have a look at the details of the patent and pay attention to each part of the apparatus in the shank and on the end of the stem. There are some unique features that are not visible in the pipe that is shown in the advertisement from Popular Mechanics.

The stem in the above drawing in Fig. 2 shows the tenon that would fit in the mortise in the bowl I have. It is threaded about mid-tenon with three bands. Before and after the threaded portion the tenon is smooth. The apparatus goes into the stem as well, Fig. 3, in a way that was not shown in the advertisement above. It appears that there is a cooling reservoir in the stem that traps moisture and delivers a cool smoke out the wide slot in the end of the stem. The mortise in the bowl I have looks exactly like the one in Fig. 5 and screwed onto the tenon in Fig. 4. The shank on the bowl that I have is set up precisely like the nipple unit in Fig. 5. It is aluminum and set in the shank. I have included the photo below showing and end view of the shank to show what the insert looks like. You can see the flat area, the step up to the threaded portion and then the step up to the airway just as is shown in Fig. 5 above.

My problem was that the bowl did not come with the unique stem unit that fit the shank. I tried several older Dr. Grabow stems and a Kaywoodie stem that I had here and the threads did not match those found in the shank. I had a choice to make, save the bowl until I found a stem someday by chance or to try to work on a stem and jerry-rig it to fit the shank system. I figured I had nothing to lose so I chose to work on a stem. I had just the right stem in my can of stems. It was a chubby stem from an Orlik pipe and the tenon was already shaped partially for a shank like this. The end of the tenon was slightly smaller in diameter than the portion of the tenon next to the stem itself.

I slowly turned the vulcanite stem into the metal mortise, being careful to hold the stem straight as I turned it in place. I figured that by doing so I could score the vulcanite with the metal threads of the mortise and in so doing tap thread the tenon on the vulcanite. Low and behold it worked. The stem fit tightly against the face of the shank. The diameter of the stem would need to be adjusted but otherwise the fit was good.

I carefully sanded the stem and the shank avoiding the stamping. I did not want to damage the stamping on either side of the shank. I sanded with 220 grit sandpaper and a medium and fine grit sanding sponge. I sanded the rest of the bowl and the rim as well. When I finished the fit of the stem at the shank was smooth.

I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to remove any remnants of the original finish on the bowl and to remove the sanding dust.

At this point in the process things were going too well! Everything was working without a hitch and the pipe was looking really good. This is when things inevitably take a turn for the worse and they certainly did in this case. I unscrewed the stem from the shank in preparation for staining the bowl. I wanted to clean out any briar dust that was trapped between the stem and the shank. I cleaned out the dust and blew air through the mortise. I then slowly and carefully screwed the stem back in place in the shank. They no longer lined up! The fit of the stem against the face of the shank was not tight. The smooth transition between the shank and stem was no longer there. The fit was not right. I took the stem off and examined the mortise and tenon. I could see that the insert in the shank had definitely been pushed deeper into the mortise. When I started it was even with the face of the end of the shank and now it was sunk in and the mortise bevel showed as it probably should have from the start. Arggghhh. Now the fit was off and the diameter of the stem would have to be corrected again. The big problem was that the way the stem fit against the end of the shank was no longer perfect. There was a gap that I could not correct no matter what I did in adjusting the insert or the stem.

I decided that I would have to band the shank, not as a repair on a bad shank but as a cosmetic measure to clean up the fit of the stem and the shank end. This irritates me to no end in that as you could tell from the above photos it was perfect! Ah well so goes the life of the pipe refurbisher who is restemming old pipes with replacement stems. I adjusted the diameter of the shank to fit the flow of the shank without the band. Once again it was round and smooth. If there had not been a gap at the bottom of the shank/stem union a band would not have been necessary. I looked through my box of bands and found a band that would fit and not go to deeply up the shank as to cover the stamping. I found just the right band. I put all purpose white glue on the shank and pressed the band in place. Once the glue had set I screwed the stem on to the shank and lined everything up. The fit and finish of the stem and shank looked good. I actually liked the band on the shank as it broke the line between the shank and the stem and added a bit of bling to look of the old bowl. I guess I can live with the look of the pipe after all. It is not what I wanted when I started but it would do.

I wiped down the bowl with isopropyl alcohol on a cotton pad to remove any excess glue that had seeped out around the band and removed grime from my finger prints on the bowl. I gave the bowl a first coat of dark brown aniline stain thinned 1:1 with alcohol. I flamed the stain and then wiped it down with an alcohol pad. I buffed it with White Diamond to see what the finish looked like with the brown stain. While I liked the look, the mottled look of the grain seemed to need some more colour and contrast to make it look right. I was not sure what I would use for a top coat so I set it aside and worked on the stem.

I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the oxidation that remained after cleaning and then sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. Once I had finished this I wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit pads. Several times mid stream I went back and sanded with the sanding sponges and started over with the pads to clean up places where the scratching still showed or where the oxidation was stubborn. When I finished with the first three pads I rubbed down the stem with Obsidian Oil and screwed it back on the bowl.

Now most of you probably would have just finished sanding the stem with the remaining micromesh pads but not me. I got distracted with the stem back on the bowl and decided to give it the second coat of stain. I took it to the buffer and buffed the bowl and the stem with Tripoli and White Diamond before going back to the work table to give it a second coat of stain. For the second coat of stain I decided to use an aniline based oxblood stain. The rich read colour would go well with the mottled grain of the bowl. I applied the stain, flamed it, applied it again and flamed it again as often as necessary to get an even finish. Once it was dry I wiped it down with an alcohol wet pad to remove the excess stain and make it more transparent. I buffed it with White Diamond. This stain coat had the desired effect and I liked the finished look of the bowl.

I took the photo below to show the threads that were cut into the vulcanite tenon to give an idea of what the finished tenon looked like after all was said and done. The fit in the mortise is snug and the stem screws into the mortise easily.

I went back to sanding the stem with the remaining grits of micromesh pads. I dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads and once again had to go back and sand with the sanding sponges near the button to deal with the stubborn oxidation. This involved having to start over with wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads but once I had finished the oxidation was gone. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil again and when it was absorbed into the vulcanite I buffed the stem and bowl with White Diamond.

I polished the nickel band with silver polish and gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect and give it a shine. When finished I buffed it with a soft flannel buffing pad and brought it back to the work table for the final photos. The old Smoke-Control Deluxe is back in action. The bowl looks great; the stem works even though it is not original. The band gives just the pipe an air of elegance that I had not expected. I look forward to breaking it in and enjoying a smoke in what for all intents and purposes is a new old stock bowl.

A Journey from a Sad Apple to a Handsome Prince

Weber Scoop Junior Restemmed and Renewed

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the work table is pictured below. The stamping is faint on the left side of the shank but it reads Weber in and oval over Scoop Junior. On the right side of the shank it is stamped Imported Briar. I decided to do a bit of reading on Weber pipes. I looked on Pipedia and found the following information.

Carl B. Weber was a German from Bavaria. Aged 21 he immigrated to the USA in 1911. In 1938 he established Weber Briars Inc. in Jersey City, New Jersey – later renamed the Weber Pipe Co. The firm grew to be one of the giants of American pipe industry focusing itself in the middle price and quality zone. Trademark: “Weber” in an oval. Beside that Weber – especially in the years after 1950 – was a most important supplier for private label pipes that went to an immense number of pipe shops. In New York alone for example, exactly the same pipes were found at Wilke’s, Barclay Rex, Trinity East, Joe Strano’s Northampton Tobacconist in Ridgewood, Queens, Don-Lou in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Nearly all pipes for Wilke were unstained and many models, for example the “Wilke Danish Bent”, could hardly deny originating of Weber. Among others well reputed pipemaker Anthony Passante worked for Weber.

Weber Pipe Co. owned and manufactured Jobey pipes – when mainly sold in the USA by The Tinderbox from 1970’s – 80’s. In addition Jobey / Weber bought Danish freehands from Karl Erik (Ottendahl). These pipes were offered as Jobey Dansk. Ottendahl discontinued exports to the United States in 1987 and in the very same year – obviously only as a ghost brand – Jobey was transferred to Saint-Claude, France to be manufactured by Butz-Choquin. Carl B. Weber is the author of the famous book “Weber’s Guide to Pipes and Pipe Smoking”.

This particular Weber was a shape that he made famous. I have had several different version of this pipe – mostly straight or ¼ bent and all were rusticated with Weber’s recognizable rustication. This one was different – it was smooth, with no fills and very interesting grain. The bottom of the bowl and shank was beautiful cross grain; the sides were a mix of grain and some stunning birdseye. The finish was shot and the briar was weathered and dry. There were two fine cracks on the rim at 7 and 11 but they did not extend into the bowl – more like hairline cracks. The flat rim and the crowned portion above the parallel lines encircling the bowl was almost tiger striped. The parallel lines were filled with dust and grime. It had a broken cake in the bowl and had been repaired at some point in its history with pipe mud to build up the bottom of the bowl at the airway. The end of the shank had some small nicks on both sides and the bottom edge that would make lining up a stem for a tight fit difficult but not impossible. The bowl did not come with a stem so a stem would have to be fit and shaped.

The only stem I had in my box of stems was a chunky saddle bit that would work but would need to have major adjustments in terms of diameter. I turned the tenon on a PIMO tenon turning tool until the stem fit snuggly in the shank of the pipe.

You can see from the next series of photos that the stem was far too wide in diameter and would need to be trimmed to size for a good fit against the shank.

Before I worked on the stem I decided to do a bit of clean up on the bowl. I quickly reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer. I used the largest cutting head to ream the bowl.

I lightly topped the bowl on a piece of sandpaper to remove the damage and the hard buildup on the surface of the rim.

I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to remove the damaged finish. I sanded the bowl with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to smooth out the rough spots on the bowl and to further remove the finish.

I trimmed the diameter of the stem with a sanding drum on a Dremel. A steady hand is essential in doing this to get close to the shank of the pipe but not nick it with the fast moving drum. I generally do this in several stages to get it even and the alignment with the sides and top of the shank correct. I also take as much off as possible with the Dremel so that the hand sanding is really fine tuning the shape of the stem.

When the majority of the excess material has been removed with the Dremel I continue shaping the stem with 220 grit sandpaper squares. I sand until the marks from the Dremel are gone and the sides of the stem align with the line of the shank on each side. I want a good flow between the shank and the stem. I also sand the junction of the shank and stem until the flow is also correct. It takes a lot of sanding to get it to the place where the transitions are smooth and the old round chunky stem is a thing of the past.

Once I had the stem fitted there was still fine tuning to do to it. There were still scratches and marks on the saddle and the sides of the stem. The sides of the stem were too thick and needed to be thinned and shaped. However, I decided to change my pace a little and stain the bowl with a black aniline stain undercoat. I applied it and flamed it several times until the coverage was even.

When the stain was dry I wiped the bowl down with acetone on a cotton pad to remove some of the top black stain, while leaving it deep in the softer parts of the briar – the grain. I repeated the process until much of the black top coat was gone and the grain began to stand out on the bowl. It still would require some sanding and buffing to remove all that I wanted to remove before I applied a second coat of stain – an oxblood colour that would really set off the grain in this pipe.

Before calling it a night I decided to bend the stem so I set up a heat gun and heated the stem until the vulcanite was pliable. Once it was soft I bent it over a wooden rolling pin that I use to keep the bend even. In this particular case because the stem was quite thick it took several reheatings until I got the bend the way I wanted it.

In the morning when I got up I went down to the work table and gave the bowl its top coat of stain. I used an oxblood stain for the top coat as I thought the contrast between the black undercoat and the red would look good with this particular pipe.

I set the bowl aside and went to work, letting it dry for 8 or more hours. When I returned home in the evening I worked on the shaping of the stem. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to thin it down and shape the edges on the blade. I also worked on the fit of the saddle to the shank to make sure the transition was smooth and as seamless as possible. Once I had the fit correct I sanded it with medium and fine grit sanding sponges and then my usual array of micromesh pads. I wet sanded with 1500-3200 grit pads and dry sanded with 3600-12000 grit pads.

Once the stem was polished with the pads I buffed it with White Diamond on the wheel to further polish it and then gave it a final sanding with the last three grits of micromesh pads – 6000-12000 grit pads. I was not happy with the finish on the stem as it still showed scratches in the first batch of finished photos so I resanded it with the medium and fine grit pads to remove the scratches and then went through the micromesh pads again. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and when dry buffed the pipe with White Diamond and gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. The finished pipe is picture below. The finish came out quite nice. The contrast stain highlights the great grain on the pipe and makes the finish interesting to look at while smoking it.