Tag Archives: polishing

The Everyman Pipe from the 1920’s Era

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Blog by Steve Laug

This featherweight cutty shaped pipe came from the 1920’s or earlier. I bought it in a lot of that era pipes on EBay and it arrived as pictured below. It is stamped The Everyman Pipe on the left side of the shank and Made in England in a Circle and shape number 195 on the right. When this arrived in the package of the other old timers it was pretty grimy. The bowl needed serious cleaning and the rim was dented and had rough spots. It needed to be topped as steaming it would not raise the broken spots that came from tapping it out. When the surface of the wood is actually broken and not just dented steaming will not raise the grain significantly and the only repair I know is to sand it off and make it smooth and crisp again. The challenge then is to match the stain so the bowl and rim blend.

I reamed and cleaned the bowl and the airway in the shank. The pipe cleaners came out very dark and tarry at the beginning. I decided to use a drill bit the same size as the airway to clean out the gunk before going back to the pipe cleaners. I use a T handle to turn the bit into the shank by hand to remove the tars and open the airway again. I finished cleaning the shank with fluffy pipe cleaners and isopropyl alcohol until they came out clean. I wiped down the bowl with acetone to remove the old wax and the grime from the bowl and then used my topping method – a hard, flat board and an anchored piece of 240 grit sandpaper – and topped the rim. (I have since learned from someone that a good way of doing it is to anchor the sandpaper on a Masonite clipboard and sand the rim that way. It works great.)

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The stem needed the most work as it was a round tube of vulcanite. I wonder if it was not made to be like a clay tavern pipe. The previous owner had notched the top of the stem to make it easier to hold with his teeth and keep it from rolling. The notch was a fairly deep V cut that was only on the top of the stem. I used needle files to cut a new button on it and then my Dremel with a sanding drum to taper the stem back to the button. The original had a slight bend in the stem so I left that. The button I shaped for the stem is rounded and crowned to fit the orific airhole like those found on pipes of a similar age. After cutting the button and shaping it, the stem needed a lot of sanding to remove the scratches and oxidation. I used 240 grit sandpaper on the entirety to clean up the deeper scratches and remove the oxidation. I then progressed through the wet dry sandpapers and the micromesh pads until I had a good smooth finish on the stem and a good clean button.

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I set the stem aside and restained the rim and bowl to match what appeared to be the original colour of the pipe. I used an oxblood undercoat and a dark brown top coat to get the richness of the original finish. I coated the stem with Obsidian Oil and then inserted it in the shank. Once it was dry I took the pipe to the buffer and used the White Diamond to give it a final buff before giving it several coats of carnauba wax.

The pictures below show the finished pipe with its newly shaped and polished stem:

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A Tiny Pair – Refurbishing and repairing an old couple

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Blog by Steve Laug

This morning I decided to work on these two old timers – a little mini bulldog and a mini bent billiard. Both are old as is clear from the orific button on the stems and the shape of button on both (the round hole in a crowned surface of the button – see the photo below).

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The first is a no name bulldog with a gold band on it. It has EP on the band which I believe means Electro Plated. The stem was in pretty fair shape though the previous owner had cut a small groove in the stem about a 1/8 inch ahead of the button on the top and the bottom. The bowl was in pretty good shape though it was darkened near the band and there was a deep cut on the shank about mid way along toward the bowl and on the bowl side – both on the right side and visible below. The photo with a penny (1 cent piece) gives a good picture of the size of this little dog. The bowl was pretty clean so all I needed to do was wipe it out with a cotton swab and isopropyl alcohol. I did the same with the shank and the stem as well. It was pretty black and tarry on the inside of the stem and shank. I had to use a paper clip to break through the clog that was in the shank about mid way to the bowl and also in the stem.

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I worked on the bowl and shank exterior with sand paper to remove the finish around the two cuts in that I was going to work on. I washed off the surface after sanding with acetone to clean off the briar dust and the remaining finish. Once it dried I decided to fill the cuts with clear super glue. The process is pretty straight forward – I drip a drop in both holes and lay it aside until it dries. Then I add another drop, lay it aside and repeat until the cut is filled. I find that the clear super glue is a great way to fill the cuts or pits as it allows the briar to show through clearly and once it is stained it virtually disappears. Once the super glue dried I sanded the spots with 240 grit sandpaper and then with 400 and 600 grit wet dry and water to smooth off the spots and remove any of the over flow around the spots. I want the super glue to fill only the spot and not carry over onto the clean briar so I sand it down level with the surface it is filling. I then sanded the entire bowl with micromesh pads from 1500-6000 grit and then wiped the bowl down with isopropyl alcohol on a soft cloth.

I then worked on the stem and sanded down the grooves to make the stem smooth once again. I used the same pattern of sanding – 240, 400, 600 grit sandpaper and micromesh – 1500, 1800, 2400, 3200, 4000 and 6000 grit. Once I had the grooves and the stem clean and pretty polished I took it to the buffer and used White Diamond on both the stem and bowl. I took it back to the work table and gave it a coat of Obsidian Oil and set the stem aside while I stained the bowl. I wanted to keep a lighter look to the bowl so I used some oxblood stain and wiped it on and off before it had time to dry. I gave it two coats and then flamed it. I buffed the bowl with White Diamond and then gave it a coat of carnauba wax. I also polished the band and gave it a coat of wax. Here is the finished pipe. The two cuts or pits have disappeared on the right side of the bowl (top picture).

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I finished it and put it aside to work on the bent billiard. It was in a bit rougher shape than the bulldog. It is also a no name old timer with a gold band – very tarnished. The bowl was very grimy on the outside and the finish was cloudy and dark. The stem was grooved in the same manner as the bulldog – probably same owner making his own comfort bit to enable him to clench these little guys.

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I scrubbed the bowl down with acetone on a cotton boll and removed the finish and the grime. The top was a bit dented so I gave it a very light topping and then sanded out the inside of the bowl and worked on the roundness of the inner rim as it was a bit out of round.  I used a small piece of sandpaper to bevel the edge enough to repair the roundness. I cleaned out the shank and the stem. This pipe was also clogged in both the stem and the shank so I use a paper clip in the shank and to open the end of the stem from each end. I then used small pipe cleaners soaked with alcohol until they came out clean. I set the bowl aside to work on the stem.

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The stem needed the same treatment as the one on the bulldog to remove the grooves from the previous owner. Fortunately on both pipes they were not very deep so it did not change the profile of the stem. I sanded the entirety of the stem down and used the same pattern of sandpaper and micromesh as above. I buffed this one with Tripoli before finishing with the micromesh. I gave it a coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to stain the bowl.

I cleaned the bowl exterior one last time and then stained it with oxblood stain – wipe on and wiped off pretty quickly several times to get good coverage. I polished the gold band with the highest grit micromesh pad (6000) and then gave the bowl and band a coat of wax by hand and once it dried buffed it by hand with a soft cloth. I put the stem back on and took it to the buffer and buffed the entirety with White Diamond followed by carnauba wax.

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Here is a picture of the pair together so their diminutive size is clearly seen. They are incredibly light with group one sized bowls. They are clean and ready to smoke.

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Rebirth of a WDC Milano Dublin

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This old WDC Milano was a challenge that I wanted to take on and see how it would turn out. In the pictures below you can see the state of the pipe when I received it. The stem was deeply darkened in the button area as well as scratched and marked with tooth chatter on the first inch of the stem. The bowl was badly caked – much of the cake had broken away in chunks and what remained was soft and crumbling. It also appeared to have been reamed with a pocket knife and had nicks and cuts around the inner edge of the rim and the resulting effect left the bowl way out of round. The finish was damaged and parts of the stain had rubbed away and what was left was underneath layers of black grime. The sides of the bowl and the bottom side of the shank both showed signs of having been laid in an ashtray and burned with a cigarette. The burn on the bowl side was not deep and would be easily addressed but the one on the shank was pretty deep. I would have to take out as much as possible without changing the integrity of the shape. That gives you a pretty clear assessment of the damages facing me as I decided to work on this old pipe.

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I reamed and cleaned the bowl back to the bare wood in order to remove the crumbling and cracked soft cake in the bowl. My thinking was that a good clean surface would encourage the build-up of a proper cake. With a sharp knife I worked on the inner rim. I worked to get it evened out with the knife and then turned to a folded 1 inch piece of 240 grit sandpaper to smooth out the roughness of the inner rim and to bring it back as close as possible to being round. The roughness of the rim required topping to even it out as well. I used my normal procedure of sandpaper anchored on a solid flat hard surface and turning the bowl clockwise or counter clockwise into the sandpaper – exercising caution to keep the bowl flat on the surface and vertical in order to keep the rim flat and not slanted. To remove the burn mark on the bowl and on the shank took a little time. On the bowl side it was not deep so it only needed to be sanded to remove the damage. But on the shank I scraped until I got to hard wood and then sanded. Once I had solid briar under the burn I put the bowl in an alcohol bath to remove the grime and the remaining finish. I left it overnight to soak and turned my attention to the stem.

The stem has a steel tenon and insert that is the system in these old Milano pipes. It seems to be some sort of condensing chamber to collect the moisture generated in a smoke. In any case this one was filled with tars inside and coated with them on the outside. I cleaned it out with a shank brush, bristle pipe cleaners and then fluffy ones until they came out clean. The outside of the condenser I scrubbed with 0000 steel wool to polish and remove the grime and tars. The aluminum polished up nicely and the tenon looks like new. The Bakelite stem took a bit more work and creativity. I cleaned the inside of the stem scrubbing it with soft scrub and bristle cleaners. I was able to remove much of the interior stains. I sanded the exterior of the stem to remove the tooth chatter and external discolouration. I sanded it with 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper and then the usual course of micromesh pads from 1500-6000 grit. I finished by buffing the stem with Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba wax.

I put the stem aside and removed the bowl from the alcohol bath and dried it off. I sanded the bowl with 1500 and 1800 grit micromesh to remove any remaining finish. I also sanded it with 3200 and 4000 grit micromesh to polish the bowl. I restained it with an oxblood stain. I flamed the stain and then took the pipe to the buffer and buffed the pipe and stem with White Diamond and carnauba wax. Below are the pictures of the finished pipe.

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Giving New Life to a Barling’s 2729 Fancy Bent Dublin from 1962

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I picked up this old Barling’s shape 2729 in a lot I bought on EBay. From what I could find out about it on the internet it came out in 1962. You can see from the pictures the state it was in when it arrived. It was the kind of challenge I like to work on in these old estate pipes. There is a deep satisfaction in bringing them back to life and restoring them to a spot on the pipe rack and the weekly rotation. The finish was gone, though in the grooves of the blast there was some darker brown/red stain. The blast was obscured on the sides and rim by the grime that filled the valleys in it. The rim was intact and not beat up at all – just incredible dirty. The bowl had been lightly reamed and was still round!! The stem was well chewed with deep dents on the edges of the stem and deep dents in the top and bottom. There were also holes chewed through the stem on both the top and bottom as well. The oxidation was very heavy and deep. The Barling’s Cross was all but gone on the stem but under a bright light it was faintly visible so the stem was clearly the original.

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I took the stem off the pipe to work on and placed the bowl in my alcohol bath for overnight. Before submerging it in the bath I wet it with alcohol and scrubbed it with a small brass tire brush that is readily available at most Wal-Mart stores or online through Amazon. I find that the soft brass does not damage the ridges and valleys on the blast finish but really loosens the grime when used with Isopropyl alcohol. I generally dip the bowl and then scrub it before leaving it to soak. When I remove it from the bath I scrub it once again and wash off the bowl with some fresh alcohol to remove any residual grime. Once the bowl was dry it was utterly lacking any finish. It was ready to restain. I set it aside and turned my attention to the stem.

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The stem was a mess on this pipe as I mentioned above. Below are four pictures of it after I soaked it in Oxyclean to soften the oxidation on the surface. The pictures show how reddish brown that oxidation was when I started. I sanded the surface to highlight the bite marks and holes in the stem. The stem was badly chewed and could have been a candidate for replacement but it was an original Barling’s stem so I wanted to see if I could save it and reuse it. I cleaned the surface and picked the grit and grime out of the holes with a dental pick. I washed the surface down with Isopropyl to give a good clean surface. The button was virtually chewed away and there was a fair sized hole on the underside of the stem. The tooth marks were very deep and there was not much to work with in lifting them with heat. This made them a candidate for a patch with black super glue.

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The picture below shows the top of the stem with the black super glue fill in the bite marks and holes. The idea is to slowly fill them and build up the surface of the stem. I also continued to fill them until there was a good slope from the stem surface to the top of the button. Once it was dry my plan was to use needle files to recut the button.

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The next picture shows the glue after it has dried and I have done the initial sanding to smooth out the surface of the stem. I still have not recut the button at this point.

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The picture below shows the underside of the stem after the glue has dried and I have done the initial sanding on the stem. It is still pretty rough but the holes are filled and the button is built up. Note in this picture the very visible copper tenon on the stem. The previous owner must have broken the tenon and had it replace with this thin copper tubing. The tenon is very delicate on this stem so the copper is actually an interesting fix in terms of durability. I have never seen a repair like that. The tubing was scored and inserted into the stem and held with an epoxy. After the soak in Oxyclean it was loose so I removed it, cleaned it and since it was a good tight fitting tenon/mortise union so I decided to reuse it. It is a wonder that he did not put a copper band around the button end of the stem as well to repair the bite through and tooth marks.

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The next two pictures show the stem after sanding the stem surface smooth with 240 grit sandpaper. My purpose in using that grit is to get a clean surface to work with as I move to rework the button on the top and bottom of the stem. I had yet to work on the saddle of the stem in these pictures. I will often save that until the rest is finished.ImageImage

I failed to take pictures of recutting the button on the stem but you can see the new button in the finished pictures below. I cut and shaped it with a flat needle file and a wedge needle file. I like the clean angles of a new button so I was aiming for that with just a little wear to match the age of the pipe. I finished the sanding and polishing of the stem using 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper and then used the normal list of micromesh sanding pads from 1500-6000 grit. I keep a bowl of water close by to dip both the paper and the pads in as I sand as I find it more effective in removing the scratches and remaining oxidation. Once the stem was finished I put it on the pipe bowl and gave it a buff with Tripoli and White Diamond to get a good sheen to the surface. I never buff a stem apart from a pipe as I do not want to damage the stem shank junction by rounding the clean edge of the stem. Once I finished I set it aside and went back to restain the bowl.

I did a bit of research (that is a part of the process I really like) to find out about the original finish and colour of stain used on this particular pipe. I learned that it was more of a reddish tone and really wanted to get close to that reddish brown colour on the finished pipe. I used some oxblood stain and a bit of medium brown stain (both aniline stains) and gave the bowl a coat of the brown first and then flamed it and buffed it. After that I gave it a coat of the oxblood stain and flamed it. I reinserted the stem and took it to the buffer and with a light touch buffed it with Tripoli and White Diamond. I did not want to soften the ridges of the blast but wanted to buff it enough to get a contrast in the stain.

I used some Obsidian Oil on the stem and then Halcyon II wax on the bowl. Once they dried I hand buffed the stem and the bowl with a soft cotton cloth. I added a coat of wax to the stem when it was finished as well. In the pictures below you can have a look at the finished pipe. I took pictures with a .10 cent piece/dime below the pipe to give an idea of the size. It is a dainty little pipe with a pencil shank. I hope to smoke it this week end and enjoy a nice bowl of aged 5100 in it.

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Every restoration has a beginning…. – Chuck, aka Desertpipe on SF

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Chuck posted this on Smokers Forums and I thought it merited posting here as well. I asked him for permission to post and use his photos. I copied the exchange from his side in writing about his cleaning process. I include it here as it is helpful to see another refurbisher at work.

It is one thing to restore pipes for yourself, and then later on start giving them to friends. It is quite another to restore as an adjunct to working as a Tobacconist, in a Brick and Mortar Shop. I am slipping into that position, as my pipes have been well received in our Estate Pipe (sorry Ben) display case. I find myself challenged, and we will see, together, the outcome. Here is a trio of pipes that were they to show up in a group from eBay, would go directly to my “Someday Box”. They are caked heavily and there is damage beginning to the structure of the bowls. The briar is tar soaked to the point that grain is no longer visible, and the bits cannot go further into the shanks, nor be withdrawn in one pipe.

Stay tuned over this weekend, as I see what can be made of these three.

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Mike….I have practiced on a number of pipes that were badly caked, actually a few were my Dad’s handed down, and I even purchased a few off eBay in that condition. I use my “Someday Pipes” to increase my skill level. I have acquired seven specialized tools that I use to vanquish this demon cake. And I examine closely for any existing damage, pointing it out to the customer and explaining a worst case ending to the attempted restoration.

And I sure hope in these three cases they end up resembling a pipe….

After carefully removing the bits from the shanks, I went to work on the cake. As Mike pointed out, one has to be very careful, as a pipe caked to this extent is almost assuredly suffering from some damage to the briar.

Special note – New Mexico Environmental has informed me that they plan to insist that I get the certification required for coal strip mining, if I plan to continue to bring back pipes in this condition…..

Stage one of the “Cleanup”….Bits soaked overnight in my magic solution and then steel wooled while still wet. Total bristle clean-out of the airway and the tenon area. Two solution scrubs of the briar and clean-out of the mortise…..now on to sanding and briar repair.

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I would have had these done Sunday evening, but with the temperature hovering around 100 degrees, we had a wide spread power outage on our side of the Mountain…..six hours later, we could check the update for fires, cool off and relax. The pipes had to wait….until now.

I did not restore the surface bite marks on the bits, as they were going back to the same owner. Leaving them as intact as they came to me, with no heavy sanding, allows him to retain much of the original thickness. Buffing them out and then resurfacing the finish has them looking good.

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The customer had a funny response when he picked up his pipes today. He quietly picked them up, one at a time, and examined them for several minutes. He then looked up at me with a big smile on his face and said “Alright! What did you do with MY pipes?” Quiet for another minute, and then “They haven’t looked like this in 20 years.”

And then he paid his bill and added a tip to cover my lunch.

Refurb on a London Made Dainty Prince

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This was a refurb I did last August while I was laid up with a couple of cracked ribs. I wanted to post it here because it gives a good idea of the process of refurbishing and taking grimy old pipes and bringing them back to life.

I am a bit laid up after a fall so I am sitting quietly in my shop instead of doing painting and trim on the house (original plan for the holidays). The great part of this is no guilt about not working on the house or yard. Because of that I am getting a bunch of old pipes I have in boxes cleaned up and finished.

The first one today (Aug. 1) is a nice little London Made Prince with a patented Flat Grip Stem. (I cannot remember who made these but I have had a few over the years). The stem is stamped Flat Grip and has a nice raised silver spot on the stem. The bowl is stamped London Made. It is a small pipe – 5 1/4 inches long but about a group one sized bowl.

From the pictures below you can see the state it was in after the reaming. I got into a groove and forgot to take pictures before I reamed it. But it was really dirty and caked – to the point that a pencil could not stand in the bowl. It always amazes me that in these small pipes, which hold very little tobacco any way, people let them get to the point where they hold even less tobacco. Just a few minutes of work and they would have had a clean bowl.

I reamed and cleaned the bowl and shank and put it in my alcohol bath for the morning. I have a pint jar filled with Isopropyl alcohol that serves as the bath for filthy bowls. In this case it sat in the bath for 3 hours before I got to work on it. It is a nice sized jar in that I can drop 4 or 5 bowls in it at the same time and work on the stems while they soak. Once it came out and dried I sanded the bowl all around and cleaned it once again to get any residual grime out. The airway was clogged so a paper clip took care of that and then a good scrub with a bristle pipe shank brush and repeated pipe cleaners. Once clean I stained it with a cherry stain that works with these old timers and brings out the colours of the briar. It was then buffed with Tripoli and White Diamond and waxed it with carnauba.

The stem was rough so I buffed and sanded and buffed and sanded and got the oxidation off and then sanded a bit more to get the teeth chatter off of the surface of the stem near the button. I always start with a 220 or 240 grit sandpaper in removing the oxidation and tooth chatter and then progress through 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper before finishing the progress with micromesh sanding pads – 1500, 1800, 2400, 3200, 4000 and 6000 grit. Once the sanding is finished I took the pipe to the buffer for a final buff with White Diamond before polishing the whole pipe with carnauba wax.

Before shots: (I reamed out the cake prior to this photo set)

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Photos of the finished pipe:

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Refurb on an old WDC “Falcon” style pipe

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Blog by Steve Laug

I refurbished this old WDC pipe a while ago now and thought I would post it for its historical value. I have called it a Falcon style pipe in that the bowl is removable and thus interchangeable with other WDC bowls. The stem and bowl bottom are Bakelite and the bowl itself is threaded briar bowl with an airway on the bottom. This one needed a bit of work as can be seen from the first two pictures below. The bowl was badly caked so I reamed it, sanded it and cleaned it. Then I had to top it as the rim seemed to have been used as a “hammer” and was seriously dented and chewed along the out edges of the bowl. Once the bowl was topped I decided to strip the finish from the bowl and restain and polish the bowl as a whole. I wanted to keep with the older style reddish brown stains that I had seen on other WDC pipes that I have so I used an oxblood understain and the overstained it with Medium Brown aniline. I buffed the finished bowl with Tripoli and White Diamond while holding it with a finger inserted in the bowl and holding on to the bowl with the other hand. I did not want the buffer to snatch it out of my hand while I was buffing it. I finished by giving the bowl a polish with carnauba wax and a soft cotton flannel buff.

The bowl seats in the Bakelite bottom on top of a brass ring that seems to act as both decoration and gasket to the bowl connection. It needed some cleaning and polishing as it too had dents and scratches in the surface.

The Bakelite receptacle bottom that the briar bowl screwed into was very dirty and I cleaned it out with cotton swabs and alcohol and then polished the inside with a soft cloth. The stem was rough with deep scratches and gouges in it. I sanded it with 400 and 600 wet dry sandpaper and a bit of water to give the grit a bite. Then I finished with micromesh pads in 1500, 1800, 2400, 3200, 4000 and 6000 grits. Upon completion of the sanding I buffed the stem with Tripoli and White Diamond.

Here are pictures of the pipe after I reamed it with a Pipnet Reamer (T-handle with interchangeable heads).

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Here are pictures of the pipe after it has been finished:

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I also thought some of you might be interested in seeing a picture of the pipe taken apart. I have included a picture of the cleaned version for you to get an idea of what the pipe looks like when taken apart.

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Refurb LHS SEC system pipe – strange one

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Blog by Steve Laug

In my ongoing quest to collect pipes that are unique and give a picture of the history of interesting inventions and modifications to the simple smoking pipe I wanted to post this refurb that I finished. It is a LH Stern (LHS) SEC pipe. It is a system pipe as can be seen from the blown out pictures and the diagrams from the patent office. It is an interesting piece of history. The apparatus inside is quite elaborate. The stem is green perspex that serves as a collection chamber for sediments before the smoke goes to your mouth. I cleaned and reamed the bowl and polished it with carnauba wax. The stem had some tooth marks and cuts. I lifted the majority of them with my heat gun and finished by sanding them  and buffing them smooth.

Here are pictures of the pipe when it arrived:

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Here are pictures of the pipe after I cleaned it and polished it:

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Here is the pipe taken apart – it has an amazing assortment of parts. I have also included a copy of the patent information for those interested in the background of this pipe.

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This One is a Mystery Pipe – Is it a ?Dunhill?

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You will notice from the title of this blog piece that the Dunhill title is framed with question marks. The pipe is a mystery to me all the way around. There is nothing straightforward with it in terms of stamping or composition. It is composed of three distinct pieces (stem, shank and shank/bowl) that have been joined together at some point in the pipe’s history. From the pictures below you can see the junction of the bowl and the shank. The stem on the shank is a white dotted Dunhill stem. How did this pipe come to be and how did it incorporate at least two different pipes? It would be great if this old timer could tell its story because I am sure that it would be an interesting tale. Did the original owner break the shank on his pipe and then have a repair man do the fix? If so, did the repairman use a second pipe shank to add to the bowl for the repair or did the original owner take two of his pipes (both broken) and have them put together in this creative fashion? Did he take the bowl from one and the longer shank and stem from another and join them to form a new third pipe? Was the original of both pipes a Canadian or was the one that the bowl came from a billiard? I don’t think I will ever know the answer to those questions and even others if I took the time to think it out. But I do know that this is part of the pleasure I derive from working on estate pipes. I enjoy trying to put together the story of an old pipe.

I picked this one up from EBay. I was the only one bidding on it. I think the seller had marked it a Dunhill Canadian for sale so it had many viewers but no other bidders. I knew from a quick look at the pictures the seller provided that it was probably not a Dunhill. I could not be certain but the shape of the bowl did not quite measure up to other Dunhill Canadians that I have and the flow of the stem and bowl was different to my eye. Others may be able to point out other inconsistencies that they see but that is what I felt as I looked at the pipe. What caught my eye though and caused me to put in a minimal bid were the shank construction (reconstruction) and the flow of the pipe. I liked the looks of it. I was also curious to see how it was done. It looked like a well done repair, if indeed it was one. I wanted to see it close up and study it. The white spot on the stem was a bonus though I could see from the photos that it was not likely a Dunhill.

When it arrived I took it from the box and did a quick field dress cleaning of the pipe. Reamed the bowl, wiped down the outside with an alcohol damp cloth so that I could see the stamping or remnants of stamping that remained. The bowl portion (the section from the front to the union on the shank) has stamping on the bottom of the shank that looks to be what remains of a Sasieni stamp or at least the last few letters “ieni”. That is a bit mysterious to me in that the other Sasieni Canadian I have has the stamping running in the opposite direction. So my guess is that this one is upside down – not unheard of but interesting nonetheless. The shank and stem portion (from the junction backward to the stem) are definitely from the same pipe. The fit of the stem to the shank is absolutely perfect with no sanding or shaping marks, no gap and no change of profile to the stem. Under a bright light is possible to make out faint stampings on the shank remnant – and I do mean faint. They appear to be the last four letters of Dunhill – “hill” and under that there are the four letters “land” which could be then end of the word England. From that I would conjecture that what I have is a combination of a Sasieni and a Dunhill pipe. The Sasieni contributed the bowl and part of the shank and the Dunhill the rest of the shank and the stem. Whoever did the union of the two old pipes did a superb job as the joint is very well done. The grains of the two parts of the shank are very different and the staining does not match. But other than that it is a flawless union.

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With the mystery still unsolved I went to work on the ?Dunhill?/Sasieni. I gave it a better reaming and also cleaned it. The bowl had been very caked when I initially cleaned it so I did a deeper reaming taking it back to the wood. It had a very heady smell of Lakeland style tobaccos so I wanted to remove the remnant of that in the cake and prepare it for the tobacco that I would smoke in it. The shank and stem were tarry and restricted by the gunk inside them. I used a shank brush and many pipe cleaners to clear out the airway. I also tried to shine a light down the bowl to see if there was any evidence of how the repairman had done the union of the shank pieces. But the light would not shine that far down the shank. From the ease with which the pipe cleaners slid down the shank and the smoothness of the airway it was clear that the job was very well done. I also used a drill bit on my KleenReem reamer and ran it through the shank with no catches.

Obviously this was a favourite pipe for the previous owner. It was well cared for, repaired and put together and well smoked. I cleaned it with Isopropyl 99% and then sanded out the tooth chatter on the mouth piece. I wiped down the bowl and shank with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and scrubbed it with a tooth brush. It removed the grime from the bowl and the rim. Once dry I cleaned off the remaining lava on the rim with 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper. Once the bowl and shank were clean I wiped the entirety down with acetone. I wanted to get as much of the stain out so that I could try to get a bit better match on the two parts. I re-stained it with a cherry stain I have in the shop as it seemed likely that it was that colour from what was under the grime. The union of the two is still very visible even with a re-stain. The two parts took the stain very differently. I finished by buffing it with Tripoli and White Diamond before giving it multiple coats of Carnuba wax. I am happy with the results. I have smoked it quite often since the refurbishing and find that it is a great smoker. It is lightweight and comfortable in the mouth and the hand. The only thing that would make it even better in my opinion is to have the whole story behind this pipe. Ah well… I am going to go and fire up a bowl of good Virginia and enjoy adding my story to this pipe.

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One of my favourite refurbs – 1919 BBB Bent Calabash

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I was going through some old pictures on my hard drive the other day and found this one that I bought on EBay for a very reasonable price early in 2008. I finished refurbishing it in March of 2008. It was and is one of my favourites. You can see from the picture below what kind of shape it was in when I got it. In the pictures on EBay it looked worse than it does in the picture below. I opened the box when it arrive expecting far worse. I bid on it because I liked the shape of the pipe and I figured it would be a challenge.

The stem was oxidized to the brown white coloration that appears below. It almost appeared to be a horn stem – but it was not. When I removed it from the shank – which took a bit as it was stuck by the goop in the shank and the oxidation that portion was black. I put it in the freezer for a short period of time to cause some expansion and contraction in the stem that would loosen it from the shank. When I took it out of the freezer it was easily removed. I went to work on the inside of the stem with shank brushes and pipe cleaners, both bristle and fluffy dipped in alcohol. I worked on the stem until the cleaners came out white and clean.

I then mixed a batch Oxyclean and soaked it in the solution overnight to soften the oxidation. I find that the Oxyclean solution (warm water and a half scoop of Oxy in a pint jar) works wonders in softening the oxidation. It does not remove it but it made it easier to remove. Once I took it out of the solution the next morning to work on it I used 240 grit sandpaper to remove the oxidation. It worked well to take off the brownish white coating on the stem. Once that was finished it was a dull brown and I continued to work on it with the 400 grit wet dry sandpaper until it was a dull black. I then progressed to 600 grit wet dry sandpaper to further remove the grime. I used both of these sandpapers with water as I find it gives the grit more bite on the stem. I had not discovered micromesh at this time so I used 800 and 1000 grit sand paper and continued to sand the stem clean. By the time I used the 1200 grit wet dry sandpaper the stem was looking like new. I took it to my buffer and used the Tripoli and White Diamond to finish the job.

While the stem was soaking in the oxy I reamed and cleaned the pipe bowl and shank. I worked on it until the pipe cleaners came out clean. It took many bristle cleaners and many fluffy one to get it clean. I also used cotton swabs in the shank to remove the tars and build up there. I scrubbed the outside of the bowl and rim with Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime and deep seated dirt on the bowl. After I finished the scrub and clean I put the bowl in a bath of Isopropyl alcohol to remove any remaining dirt and grime and the badly damaged finish on the bowl. That was the first night of my working on the pipe. I went to bed that evening with both the bowl and the stem soaking in their separate baths.

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The next morning I finished up the stem and set it aside as I described above. I turned my attention to the pipe bowl. I removed it from the alcohol bath and dried it off. I used a wet cloth and a butter knife heated over a flame to raise the dents in the outer rim of the pipe and the sides of the bowl. The process is quite simple. You wet a cloth, wring it out so it is not dripping wet yet still wet. Then fold it and put it over a dent. Heat the knife (I use our gas stove to do it but have also used an alcohol lamp). I then lay the flat blade of the knife on the dent. You will hear a hiss as the heat causes steam to rise from around the blade. The steam causes the dent to rise. I applied the blade repeatedly until the dents were minimized. Then I took it to my work table and used a flat board and a piece of sandpaper to top the pipe just enough to remove the remaining dents and damage. I do that on a flat surface to maintain the flatness of the rim without changing the angle. When that was finished I wiped down both the bowl and rim with an alcohol damp cloth to remove any residual sanding dust.

I then used an aniline stain, in this case medium brown as I had researched and found that the colour matched the colour of the pipe when it was new. I used the dauber that came with the stain and applied it to the rim and the body of the pipe. I started at the bottom of the bowl and worked my way up to the rim. The rim always the last part I do. Once it was completely covered with stain I ignited it with my lighter to set the stain. The process is called flaming the stain (at least that is what I call it.) I let it dry while I put a coat of wax on the stem.

When the stain was dry I took the bowl to my buffer and gave it a buff with Tripoli and White Diamond to remove the top coat of the stain and the opacity of the stain. The result can be seen in the picture below. I also used some silver polishing compound applied with a soft cloth to remove the tarnish on the end cap. I finished that process with a silver polishing cloth to give it a good shine. When that was completed I gave the bowl and cap a good buff with carnauba wax then reinserted the stem and gave the entire pipe an extra coat of wax for a finish.

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I still smoke it today and it delivers proudly! The last two pictures below show what the pipe looks like today after 4 years of use. It has developed a deep patina to the bowl and the warmth of the medium brown stain has mellowed into a richness that is really nice. Repeated waxings over the years have helped mellow the finish and also deepen the black of the vulcanite stem. This is one of my favourite old pipes. It truly is a reborn pipe. In 7 years it will be 100 years old. Some days I wish it could talk because I can’t even begin to imagine the stories it could tell.

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