Tag Archives: polishing nylon stems

A Medico VFQ Rhodesian with a Cumberland Stem

Blog by Steve Laug

My brother Jeff and I visited an antique mall that was in an old grainery along a railroad track not too long ago. We went through the display cases and booths on two floors and found a few pipes. This was one of them – an old Medico VFQ Rhodesian. I have been told that VFQ means Very Fine Quality and underneath the grime it appeared that this one may have lived up to the stamping. The stem is a Cumberland like material with swirls and striations in a mahogany coloured stem. In classic Medico style the pipe was made for their paper filter and had a hollow, adjustable tenon. The tenon has a split on both sides that can be expanded should the stem become loose in the shank.The pipe was in rough shape. The bowl was thickly caked and had remnants of tobacco in it. The rim top was covered with overflow from the bowl and there were some large chips on the top and inner edge of the bowl on the right side. The finish was shot with the top varnish coat peeling all over the bowl. The ring around the bowl was dirty but was undamaged.The pipe was stamped Medico over V.F.Q. over Imported Briar on the left side of the shank. It also was stamped with the shape number 76 on the right side. The stem bore the V.F.Q. stamp on the left side as well.The stem was oxidized, dirty and had tooth chatter on both sides at the button. There was an old paper filter still in the tenon and the inside of the shank and stem were filthy.When we got back to my brother’s place we reamed the pipe and scrubbed it down with acetone on a cotton pad to remove the damage finish. We scrubbed the mortise, airway into the bowl and the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. I took photos of the cleaned pipe when I finally brought it to my work table in Vancouver. (Notice the angle of the rim top on the bowl. It was not flat and the damage had left the front higher than the back.) The next two photos show the condition of the tenon and bowl when taken apart and the damaged rim once all the cake had been removed. The rim had damage all the way around but the biggest damage was on the rear right side where there was a large chip missing.The stem shows some wear in the next photos and the striations of colour are almost not visible due to oxidation.I decided to even out the height of the rim cap by carefully topping the bowl. Since the back side was higher than the front I was pretty sure I could remove most if not all of the chipped area on the rear right. I topped it on a board with 220 grit sandpaper and carefully leveled the bowl by applying more pressure to the rear of the bowl than the front and lifting the front edge off the paper as I remove the damaged and excess on the read of the bowl. It took some work to level the bowl properly and end up with an even top both from a vertical and horizontal view.I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to bevel out the inner edge of the rim to remove the remaining rim damage and clean up the appearance of the rim.I sanded the rim with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge and with 1500-4000 grit micromesh sanding pads to remove the scratches. I wiped the bowl down with acetone on a cotton pad to remove the remaining finish and stain on the bowl in preparation for matching the newly topped rim with the colour of the rest of the bowl. I did a more thorough cleanup of the mortise and airway into the bowl to remove all of the sanding dust and remaining debris that was there. I scrubbed it out with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and alcohol. I also ran pipe cleaners through the airway in the stem and cleaned the mortise with cotton swabs.The bowl had many nicks and scratches. I sanded it with micromesh pads to remove the majority of them but decided to leave some of the deeper ones as beauty marks of the old pipe. In the photos the bowl looks pretty richly coloured but in reality it was faded and apart from the flash the grain did not stand out. I stained the bowl with a dark brown aniline stain, flamed it and repeated the process until I was happy with the coverage on the bowl. The look of the bowl in the next two photos is really odd. I think that it is a phenomenon of the flash because it did not look like this in person.I wiped the bowl down with alcohol on cotton pads to remove some of the opacity of the stain and make it more transparent. In the photos below you can see that it is lighter but still to heavy to show the grain to my liking. I buffed the bowl with red Tripoli, sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge, then polished it with 1500-2400 grit micromesh pads to remove some more of the dark stain and leave behind some nice contrasts in the grain of the bowl. The next photos show it after I had buffed it with Blue Diamond to polish it. I set the bowl aside for now and turned my attention to the stem. I have found that these Medico stems are not fully vulcanite and are a bit of a bear to polish. I have often been left to do the polishing by hand as the buffer can generate too much heat if I am not careful. The heat damages the material of the stem and forces you to start over. I sanded out the tooth chatter and marks on both sides of the stem and reshaped the button edges with 220 grit sandpaper. The flow of the top of the shank to the top of the stem was interrupted in that the height of the stem at that point was higher than that of the shank so I sanded the top half of the stem to make that transition smoother.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 until I removed the scratches left behind by the sandpaper. I dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each sanding pad to give the pads more bite and allow them to really polish the stem. Between the 4000 and 6000 grit pads I buffed the stem very carefully (you have to have a light touch against the wheel). I gave it a final rub down of oil after the 12000 grit pad. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed bowl and stem with Blue Diamond a final time. It really polishes the briar and with a careful/light touch can polish these older Medico stems. I gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine.The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. To me the stain goes really well with the polished Cumberland like stem. They play off each other very well. The contrast on the bowl raises the highlights in the stem and vice versa. This pipe will soon be on the rebornpipes store if you wold like to add it to your rack. It is very lightweight and comfortable in the hand. I think, judging from the condition of the pipe when I got it, that it will be a great smoking pipe, with or without the Medico filter.

I have always wanted to see one up close – an Aristocob

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Blog by Steve Laug

Over the years I have spent quite a bit of quiet time scanning through the smokingmetal.co.uk website reading over all of the various metal pipes that have been made. I love reading and looking at the inventive creations made to capture that illusive grand smoke. One of the pipes that stood out to me on the site was the Aristocob metal bowl that came with two corn cobs that fit inside the bowl, held in place by the screw on metal cap. I wanted to see one of those but somehow always missed them on eBay at the last minute or at an antique shop by a matter of minutes. I included two of the photos from the website. The first one showed a plastic box with a form fitted purple velvet nest for the pipe and the pair of cob inserts that came with it. The pipe had a black nylon stem that held a Medico paper filter in place in the metal shank of the pipe. The second photo showed the pipe taken apart with a pretty good descriptive view of the metal bowl and cap, the cob insert, the filter and the stem with an O-ring on the tenon to keep it in the metal shank.I remember first reading this description years ago when I looked up the pipe on the site. I was struck then as I am now that I could not have described it any better. I have included it here in full with a link for you to look it up should you desire to do so:

The ARISTOCOB is an American made system pipe with corn cob bowl inserts. Originally the AL-COB CORPORATION out of Grand Haven, Michigan, which later became ARISTOCOB INCORPORATED from Caledonia, Michigan. Later still they were bought out by Missouri Meerschaum Company

Apparently available in the first place in a plastic case containing one pipe, 2 replacement corn cob bowl inserts and instructions for use. The cob inserts were made for some time by The Missouri Meerschaum Company, manufacturer of corn cob pipes in Washington, MO. The box shown is their box. They made the inserts from the early 1970’s until 1983. They are no longer available from that source but do appear on eBay at times

The top of the vaned outer bowl unscrews to enable easy replacement of the bowl insert. An inline filter can be used in the stem. The mouthpiece has been seen in two version, with and without an ‘O’ ring. The patent was filed on 20 Dec 1966 with the US patent # 3,292,639. The inventor was Joesph W. Zarikta of Grand Haven, Michigan USA – the assignor was the Al Cobb Corp. (http://smokingmetal.co.uk/pipe.php?page=56).

I mentioned to my brother to keep an eye open for one of these never expecting him to find what he did. I have not seen a cased version of the pipe in my hunts but have only found the pipe with the inserted cob bowl if I was lucky. He happened to find a boxed set and bought it. He sent me the following photos of the pipe. The next set of photos are the ones that the seller posted on the eBay sale. When the pipe arrived in Idaho my brother took some photos before he cleaned it up. I have included a few of those photos next. The pipe was quite dirty. The rim cap had a buildup of tars and oils on the top. The cob insert was dirty and crumbling on the top edge. The aluminum pipe body was oxidized and dirty as well.When he took it apart, the inside of the aluminum body had also built up tars in the bottom and on the inside walls.The inner edge of the insert was in rough condition. The rest of the bowl appears to be solid. The aluminum disk on the bottom of the bowl was dirty but undamaged.The stem was darkened on the tenon end. The O-ring was still in good condition. The paper Medico Filter in the tenon was dirty and would need to be replaced. The top and undersides of the nylon stem had some tooth chatter on the surface near the button. The inside of the shank was dirty and there was some tarry buildup on the walls of the aluminum. My brother cleaned up the cap and the interior of the aluminum bowl holder and shank. He cleaned the aluminum with Murphy’s Oil Soap inside and out. He scrubbed out the airway in the shank and stem. He cleaned up the damaged edge of the cob insert. When it arrived in Vancouver, I brought it to the work table and took some photos of the condition it was in before I started. Inside the plastic box there was a pamphlet that explained the function of the pipe and all of its parts. The description of the pipe and how to use it was a marketing document that sold the pipe and all of its design as the best smoking pipe available. I polished the aluminum with micromesh sanding pads. I started polishing with 1500-2400 grit pads and wiped it down with a damp cotton pad. I continued to polish it with 3200-12000 pads and the finish began to shine. I sanded the stem to remove the tooth marks and chatter from the top and bottom sides of the stem. I ran a pair of bristle pipe cleaners and alcohol through the airway in the stem to remove the residue that still remained in the stem. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with a damp cotton pad after each set of three pads. Because the stem was nylon I decided not to use the buffing wheel. I gave it several coats of Conservator’s Wax and hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth. I lightly buffed the aluminum on the Blue Diamond wheel and then with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It makes a great piece of pipe history in the ongoing search for the illusive perfect smoke. It will hold a place in my collection of tobacciana. Thanks for walking through this restoration with me.