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Cleaning up a Lovely Edward’s Algerian Briar Bent Dublin that came across my table

Blog by Steve Laug
I received this pipe in the mail with a box of 11 others and it is the first one that caught my eye. The shape was well executed. The bowl had a round crowned rim. The bend of the shank and the curve of the stem looked elegant. The bowl had a thick, sticky and crumbly cake that needed to be removed. The rim was covered with a thick coat of lava that had overflowed the bowl. The finish was a typical Edward’s natural briar – I think that they must have used a light tan/brown stain at one point that highlighted the grain but did not mask it. The grain was mixed with cross grain on the front right and back left. There was birdseye on the sides of the bowl and swirling circles of grain on the underside and up the shank. There were two small fills on the right side of the bowl near the shank bowl junction – almost two dots one above the other. There was also a larger fill on the underside of the shank. The pipe is stamped Algerian Briar in block text on the left side of the shank and Edward’s in script on the right side. On the underside mid shank it is stamped with a large 5. On the end of the shank next to the stem it is stamped with a 31. The large 5 is the bowl size and 31 is the shape number, though current production shows the shape as a 731. The stem was lightly oxidized and would not push all the way into the mortise. The fit was very tight. The inside of the shank had a thick coat of tar and oil on the walls of the mortise.

One of the packing peanuts was jammed into the bowl so I used the dental pick to remove. It left some crumbling pieces in the sticky aromatic cake in the bowl. In the first photo below you can see the tars on the rim of the bowl and the generally dull finish of the bowl. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and took the cake back to bare briar. I wanted the new owner to be able to build a cake of their own choosing.

I scrubbed the rim with 0000 steel wool to remove the lava on the top of the rim. I had seen Troy use that several times in his refurbs so I thought I would give it a go with this bowl. It worked extremely well. I wet the rim with a bit of water and then scrubbed it until the rim was clean. I scrubbed out the interior of the bowl and the shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol.

I scrubbed down the exterior of the bowl with the steel wool and also wiped it down with alcohol on a cotton pad. I removed the wax and grime from the finish. Once the shank was dry the stem fit snuggly in the mortise. The stem had some light tooth chatter at the button that would clean up quite easily. With the stem fitting well I took the next four photos to show what it was about the pipe that caught my eye.

The stem did not need a lot of work to clean off the oxidation. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil after the third pad and then continued to dry sand the stem with 3200-4000 grit pads. I rubbed it down again with another coat of oil and let it dry.

I finished sanding it with 6000-12000 grit pads and then gave it a final coat of oil. I set it aside to dry. I buffed the stem with Tripoli and with White Diamond to remove the remnants of oxidation. I buffed the stem and bowl with Blue Diamond Polish on the buffing wheel and then gave the pipe several coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a soft flannel buffing pad. I took it back to the work table and hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown below.

Overcoming Bit Bending Phobia for a Comoy’s 1983 Christmas Bulldog

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

Boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Boy: Then you’ll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.
― From “The Matrix” (1999), starring Keanu Reeves, with Owan Witt as Spoon Boy

INTRODUCTION
Whatever some might think of me, I’m not so far off the deep end to space that when it comes to bending a pipe bit, there is, of course, the bit. The real truth behind this essay – how easy it is to accomplish the task, without tricks or special effects – bends the mind. I had dreaded and postponed the basic exercise in pipe restoration as something fearsome, once even passing the task to my mentor, Chuck Richards, when the rare opportunity to improve upon my first genuine renewal, of a Chinese Chicken Wing Wood churchwarden, presented itself a while back. Although I did the second makeover of the bowl and shank of that unusual specimen of wood and craftsmanship myself, using standard waxing techniques not available to me when I began learning this artful craft, and even polished the bit, I could just as well have bent the long piece of vulcanite had I known then that which I only just learned one morning this past weekend by perusing the web. More importantly, in so doing, I would have been done with the unpleasant feeling that comes with parting out work on a project.

However, the necessity of facing the dreaded deed finally presenting itself to me, and I at last concluding enough was enough with the shirking of responsibility, I resorted to browsing the Internet (“Read the instructions,” my dad would tell me) in search of a feasible method to achieve my goal without a high-powered torch. And where did I reach the end of my quest but here at Reborn Pipes, in a three-year-old blog by our host, which can be read at https://rebornpipes.com/2012/07/15/bending-vulcanite-stems/.

I should note that my surrender to the essential instruction in and practice of bending a pipe bit was not as easy as I make it seem above. Several weeks ago, at our Friday night pipe club get-together, a good friend and fellow restorer named Bob Kasenchak surprised me with the gift of a box of assorted pipes that needed various degrees of work, all leaning toward the critical side. There are 15 in all, including a Ropp Deluxe #809 natural cherry wood with a pronounced crack in the bottom of the bowl; an old Ehrlich Frankenstein billiard; a Kaywoodie Supergrain bulldog with a wicked Harry Potterish lightning crack in the bowl and the bit maybe incinerated; an interesting old Wellington Storm De Luxe sterling band pot with a bad gash on the rim, and a Trapwell Patented rusticated billiard. There is also something that appears to be a once fine, handsome Ehrlich sterling bulldog (at least judging from the style of the E on the bit) that will make a nice shop pipe someday, and which plays an important role in this narrative.

Most of these pipes have missing, broken or mangled stems, and only a few are free of fatal flaws, and Bob just doesn’t want to mess with them. Who can blame him? If I had Bob’s outrageously hectic schedule, I might not keep them, even for parts, either. But I don’t, and I’m a little touched when it comes to hording parts.

Then a funny thing happened on the way from the meeting to the shop, or my apartment. In fact, it occurred during the meeting, but it sounds better the other way. The clear jewel of the pipes Bob gave me, which I delayed mentioning, is a Comoy’s Christmas 1983 smooth bulldog.

I already had my heart set on keeping the Comoy’s to add to my budding Christmas Pipe collection, but a fellow piper in my club, who has a keen eye for sharp pipes and has bought two meerschaums from me, took an immediate shine to the bulldog’s sleek contours and exceptional subtlety of the bit curve, and offered to buy it when I was finished. We still haven’t discussed a price. At a glance, the Christmas Pipe was a beauty right out of the “scrap” box. The reddish brown briar was very pleasant, the chamber appeared to be well-kept and Bob told me he had started to clean it, the rim was in perfect, shiny shape that I also attribute to Bob, and there was only one small scratch on a side of the triangular shank. Then there was the bit. How can I best describe it? The vulcanite below the lip, on the bottom, appeared to have been chomped by the steel-toothed “Jaws” character (Richard Kiel, 1939-2003) of the James Bond movie series fame. The reason I note a continued difficulty in regard to learning about bending a stem is my dual desire to become more proficient in repairing those that are damaged, of which this, no one would disagree, is a worthy challenge, and doing the job right. And so I set upon a course of action I will neither illustrate nor chronicle here except to say with all honesty the project was going, well – well – but it was just taking too frigging long. And yes, I admit, I somehow took a bad hole and made it worse. Due to the fact that I already had a buyer waiting, time was of the essence; I couldn’t afford to satisfy my own aesthetic sense of propriety in hoping to preserve the original bit when the buyer wasn’t concerned. Besides, I’m sure the right Comoy’s will happen along in good time.

RESTORATION

As I mentioned before, Bob started the process of reaming the chamber. To my initial touch it felt smoother than almost any pipe I had ever started restoring. Still, there was some cake in it, and a few bumps, all of which came clean with minimal additional turns of a reamer and sanding with 150- and 320- grit paper. Not having to touch the rim was a rare treat, although I have to add I always enjoy removing the burns. I used micromesh on the wood from 1500-4000 and cleaned up the shank opening with super fine steel wool.

By then I was ready for the retort. Six test tubes later, full of Everclear boiled up through a temporary saddle bit with the right sized push tenon – a personal record – I was finished.

I needed to find a replacement bit. Searching with a hot glow of intense zeal through the dozens of old pipes awaiting restorations, I began to think I would never find one that had a push-in tenon, was straight, the right length and with the appropriate bulldog triangle size (5/8″; the length was 2-7/8″). Suddenly, there it was: a Bertram Bulldog #50, with a double stamp, and no mark on the straight bit. I actually had imminent plans for that great pipe, but they could wait.

The tenon was just a tad too big, so I took about a sixteenth of an inch off of it with 150-grit sandpaper and sanitized and cleared out the old grime in the air hole with bristly cleaners soaked in Everclear. I still need to invest in a tenon cutter, as will become apparent. Once the tenon fit and I thought it was “finished,” the bit pushed all the way into the shank, but was canted upward. I tried to adjust this by filing the flat edge of the bit around the tenon, and after considerable work, my efforts seemed to have paid off. I gave the bit an OxiClean wash, rinsed it and micro-meshed from 1500-4000.

Following the instructions for the oven method of shaping in the blog mentioned earlier, I pre-heated gas stove to the low end of 200-220 degrees and assembled what I would need as suggested, except that all of it was improvised other than the oven: aluminum foil instead of a baking pan, a small jar of wood putty rather than a spice jar, two wash cloths in place of cooking mitts and of course the bit. As it turned out, I spaced that I had a few spices in my sparse cabinet, but the round putty glass did fine. Inserting a soft cleaner through the airway before heating to prevent collapse, I had the distinct sensation of butterflies in my stomach as I placed the foil and bit on the center rack of the hot even, closed the door and…waited. Five minutes. Not good enough. Another five. To my amazement, holding the bit carefully with the wash cloths at both ends over the rounded edge of the putty jar and pressing down with all the gentleness my rough hands could handle, I in fact saw the vulcanite bend! I’m here to tell you, I have never been so surprised and full of trepidation at the same time in my entire life! In a minute, the job was done, and I removed the cleaner and rinsed the bit with cold tap water.

And so, other than the facts that I had already blown it again by sanding the base of the tenon so far that the whole thing could snap at the least provocation, and upon closer inspection the bit did not, in fact, line up seamlessly with the shank, the entire exercise produced a wonderful looking bit (in and of itself) and was an excellent though time-intensive and frustrating lesson about the intricacies of replacing a bit – and one I’ll never forget.

As a good friend from junior high through high school used to say at such moments (or their school day equivalents), and often with a yawn, well, hell. Then again, he was always much less uptight than I. My true reaction was frustration verging on despair. But that’s where my mind like a steel trap always springs shut and saves me. And my skull is so thick it can take running headlong into a concrete utility post and being pistol-whipped. I’m not kidding. The first happened to me as a young boy fooling around during summer vacation, and the second seven years ago during an armed home invasion after I beat one of the three intruders unconscious with a club – and he had pretty well messed me up with my own baseball bat – and one of his buddies hit me from the side with the butt of his 9mm. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes through the stupid monster mask when I turned on him and he took a step back.

Once again, as is my habit, I digress. I was illustrating how my stubbornness and downright thick-headedness has often saved me. The way this process worked last Wednesday, while I sat and collected my wits at my tobacconist where Chuck gave me the bad news about the tenon, was by telling me to go online and order a replacement. I crossed the Internet from Albuquerque to Phoenix in an instant and found Pipe Makers Emporium. I have placed several orders there, but only once before for a vulcanite churchwarden stem that was $3.99 because I didn’t understand why smaller stems, such as the one I needed for the bulldog, were priced so much more – in this case, $17.50. Even when the package arrived swiftly yesterday and weighed a pound, according to my estimation and confirmation on the label, I still didn’t get it until I peeled open the envelope and found a pack of 20. Duh! The churchwardens are sold individually because they’re not needed as often. Sometimes the thickness of my head can get in the way.

Now, back to the Ehrlich sterling bulldog with the E on the bit that came with Bob’s generous gift. Remember that? I tried to make apparent how important it would become to this restoration, and it’s lucky I recalled it before the new bits came, both because I was eager to continue work on the Comoy’s and the uncut tenons on the 20 bits that came in the mail are about a half-inch wide. In this photo, I had already sanded the E off the bit and given it an OxiClean bath. By the way, when I showed Chuck my progress on the Christmas pipe with the re-worked Ehrlich stem as of yesterday, he said it was looking good. Then I let him have a gander at one of the new bits, and he gave me his best, widest grin.

“This is why you need to get yourself a cutter,” he said, turning serious and with emphasis on need.

“I know,” I replied. “My God! Look at that tenon! It would take me a month of sanding to get it down to fit this pipe!”

We both enjoyed a good laugh, and we needed one, for our separate reasons.

Here is the Ehrlich bit as it originally presented, minus the E, and after sanding and micro-meshing from 1500-4000.

Thinking I was done with most of the restoration of the pipe – and at a glance it did look good – I buffed the stem on the wheels with red and white Tripoli, as usual. I had, after the first hour of this job, already buffed the wood with white Tripoli as well as White Diamond and carnauba.

But then I took the “final” photos and saw at once that the bit did not line up with the shank when the top lines of each were even, in particular gaps all around and misalignment of the bottom line of the triangle. Well, hell.

And so I got into the kind of detail work I had never done with any pipe. I filed the edge of the bit where the tenon connects. I started a lengthy process of gently sanding away and re-micro-meshing areas of wood around the shank opening. As shown in the last photo above, the only part of the problem that could only be solved with serious sanding of the shank was along the top left line leading into the bit (as shown in this view). Then I used micromesh on the one heavily sanded area of the shank and bit all the way from 1500 to 12000.

I stained the small area of the shank still a bit lighter than before with Lincoln Medium Brown and flamed it before micro-meshing with 4000 and 6000. At this point, after about three weeks of work on the pipe, the lines of the bit matched those of the shank, but there was still a gap between the two – and although it was in fact bigger, it was perfect in terms of uniformity. I broke out the file one more time and with the utmost care took a layer off the edge of the bit around the tenon.

At last, a nice, flush match. I touched up the waxing with another coat of carnauba.

CONCLUSION
Well…first of all, I can report, without doubt, that I have never been happier to be done with a restoration. This one was as full of a restore as I have ever had occasion to do, and I am full of it (not in the sense that I think I did it perfectly, because if anything, it taught me how much more I really do have to learn, and the equipment and supplies needed). But I do find nowadays that many times when I ask one of my trusted guides a question, it is to confirm that which I already more or less suspect, as in an email I sent late last night to Steve about a saddle bit with two holes in the lip that I wished I could somehow remove the space between them to make the draw hole a typical slit opening and therefore easier to clean for whomever buys the pipe I chose for it. I had already bent the tenon to fit the mortise using the oven method described in this blog, and so knew two cleaners were required to fill the airway before heating, and that something must be up with that, but Steve promptly replied that the design is meant to be a twin-bore “bite-proof” bit. Then I recalled Chuck once telling me something along the same lines. And when I showed Chuck the Comoy’s Christmas 1983 bulldog with the initial Bertram’s bit I wasted on it, I knew in my heart that the analysis he would have for me, though unpleasant, was necessary to confirm.

This essay, therefore, was not meant so much to be the usual restoration or refurbish piece as it was, rather, a horror story of the calamities that can befall anyone who engages in the art of taking a damaged pipe and making it better with the myriad processes that might present themselves toward that end. I am, perhaps somewhat wickedly, always pleased to hear the anecdotes of masters such as Steve and Chuck, and countless contributors to this forum, who have shared some of their own truly Gothic tales of the grotesque in their encounters with real Frankenstein pipes. By good fortune, my account herein was only one of a bowl and shank in excellent shape that merely needed a single appendage added, with a relative minimum of minor surgery to realize it.

Now I can hardly contain my excitement at being able to attack all the bodiless heads and headless bodies, to use a metaphor, that have waited patiently (I guess that’s personification) for my late but kind attention.

Restoring a Dr. Grabow Westbrook 42

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Blog by Steve Laug

In a box of pipes I was gifted there was a pipe stamped WESTBROOK over Dr. Grabow on the left side of the shank. On the right side it is stamped Imported Briar over Adjustomatic over PAT. 2181833. I did some searching on the web and found that it was a shape number 42. I found plenty of photos of wire carved Westbrook 42s but only one of a smooth alongside of the wire carved. This pair was pictured on the Dr. Grabow Collectors Forum and belongs to Troy Wilburn. Mine is similar to the smooth one but the look of the stem is more of a true saddle like the wire carved one. The grain on it was beautiful under the peeling varnish finish. There was a lot of birdseye and swirls with some mixed flame and straight grain. There were small nicks on the left side near the rim and on the front edge of the rim. The stem was oxidized but otherwise clean. The internals were pretty clean. The bowl had some slight carbon build up. The stinger apparatus was missing but I have one thanks to Troy that will fit perfect.

I scrubbed the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to remove the bubbled and peeling varnish or lacquer coating. It took some elbow grease but it came out pretty well. With that coat gone you can begin to see the grain on the sides, top and bottom of the bowl.

I wiped it down a final time with isopropyl alcohol and took the next photos to show the grain on this little beauty! It is a great piece of briar and what appeared to be fill were not but rather just chips of varnish that came off.

The front edge of the rim and the left side nicks would need to be sanded to smooth them out. The entire bowl would also need to be sanded with micromesh to remove the bits of varnish stuck on the briar and also smooth out some of the scratches in the briar. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and took the cake back to just a thin coating. I left a little on the sides and bottom of the bowl to protect the bowl. I cleaned out the bowl and shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to remove the grime.

I sanded the rim of the bowl and bowl sides with micromesh sanding pads. I smoothed out the damage on the front of the bowl and on the side. I also worked on the stem. I wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil in between each set of three pads. I cleaned the metal threaded tenon with steel wool and then added the spoon stinger in the tenon to make the pipe complete.

The oxidation on this one was tough to get off the stem. I took it to the buffer and use some Tripoli, White Diamond and then Blue Diamond and I finally beat it. I took it back to the work table and sanded it again with the last three grits of micromesh – 6000-12000 grit. I rubbed it down again with Obsidian Oil and then gave both the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buff and then hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown below.

Prom Night – Dressing up a Cheap Meerschaum Apple

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Blog by Steve Laug

I was given a batch of pipes from a friend on one of the forums that he had lying around a long time. He was pretty certain that they were not worth much but he thought they might be fun for me to fiddle with. One of them was a meerschaum apple-shaped pipe with a plastic stem. The draw on it was awful, like sucking air through a coffee stirrer. The bowl had a few issues at first glance. There were some gouges in the meer on the sides of the bowl and the shank. There were some small cracks in the shank from the end forward near the top. There was a Delrin sleeve so these may or may not be a problem. The tenon itself was small and rough. The stem had some damage from what appeared to be melting at some point in its life. But it was barely smoked and there was something about it that caught my eye. I could see some promise in it so it would be worth the fiddle.

On the bottom of the exterior of the bowl there looked like there was a crack that ran for the length of the bowl. I examined it with a lens and it turned out to be a gouge in the surface of the meerschaum. It may be a crack but it did not go deep in the material so it was salvageable.

I took a close-up photo of top and inside of the bowl. You can see that it is barely smoked and the crack does not appear to go into the bowl. The plastic stem just bugged me. I could find nothing redeeming in the shape of it at all. The taper was wrong and it was pinched at the shank joint. The faux amber look of it was really fake looking. The material was very soft and I could scratch it with a fingernail.

Everything about the way the pipe looked when it arrived made me think it would be one that I would clean up, polish and turn around and get rid of. I probably would not sell it but would pass it on to someone wanting a meerschaum pipe. I cleaned the inside of the bowl with a cotton swab and water. I cleaned out the airway in the shank and stem with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and alcohol. I had finished the cleaning and had lightly sanded the bowl with 400 and 600 grit sandpaper to minimize the scratches and dings in it. I was done with the pipe and took it to the buffer to lightly polish the stem and bowl.

It has been a long time since a pipe got away from me when buffing but this one did. The Blue Diamond polishing wheel is a bit touchy and it grabbed the plastic stem and took the pipe out of my hand. It hit the tile floor right in front of the buffer and the stem snapped off at the shank. The tenon was stuck in the shank and the other end was glued in the stem. I was very fortunate as the pipe hit directly on the stem and not on the meer bowl or it might have been ruined. As it was it meant I had a good excuse to throw away the plastic stem and make a vulcanite one. I pulled the tenon out of the shank with a screw. It came out easily. I tried to pull the glued end out of the stem but putting in a screw and heating the screw but the glue held. I put the stem away and went on a hunt in my stem can for a suitable vulcanite stem for the pipe.

I found just the right donor stem. It was a bent round stem that came from an old-timer somewhere along the way. It was thick and the diameter was close to that of the shank. I took the tenon down with the Dremel and sanding drum and finish it by hand with sandpaper to make a snug fit in the Delrin sleeve in the shank. I used the Dremel and sanding drum to take off the excess diameter of the stem and then hand sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to make the shank and stem match. While I was working on it I examined the two small cracks in the shank. They bothered me. While they would not go anywhere as the Delrin sleeve was glued and held them together, they still bothered me. I used a small micro drill bit on the Dremel and put a hole in the end of both cracks on the shank. I put a drop of super glue in the holes to seal them. I then remembered that I had some brass plumbing pressure fittings that make interesting bands. I heated the brass with a lighter and pressed it onto the shank to cover the cracks and give the pipe a little more bling.

I finished shaping and fitting the stem and took the photos below to give an idea of what the pipe would look like when finished. The bend in the stem is a little too much at this point and I would need to take some of the bend out. The bowl looks good with the brass fitting and the stem length works with this bowl.

I was able to sand out the gouge on the bottom of the bowl and it looks smooth and fresh now. I will need to sand the entire bowl with micromesh to polish the meerschaum and give it a shine. I heated the stem with a heat gun to take out some of the bend. When the stem was flexible I pressed it against table surface with a towel to take out some of the bend. I cooled it with water to set the new bend. The second photo below shows the newly bent stem.

I sanded the stem with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to take out the scratches and work on the oxidation that was deep in the edges of the button.

You can see in the photos above that the stem did not quite seat properly in the shank. I used a sharp knife to bevel the inner edge of the mortise so that the stem would sit properly against the shank. I sanded the bowl and shank with 3200-4000 grit micromesh sanding pads to minimize the scratches.

I wet sanded the stem and the tenon with 1500-2400 grit micromesh pads and then rubbed them down with Obsidian Oil. I continued by dry sanding the stem with 3200-4000 grit micromesh pads and the giving it another coat of oil. I finished by sanding with 6000-12000 grit pads and gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil. When it dried it was ready to buff.

I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond Plastic polish on the wheel and then gave the stem several coats of carnauba wax. I gave the bowl two coats of white beeswax and the buffed it as well. I buffed both with a clean flannel buff and then by hand with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below.

Reviving a Savinelli Silver 806

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Blog by Dave Gossett
My Army cousin stationed in Italy came to the states recently bearing gifts. He bought me 9 pipes at a swap meet in Vencenza – 5 Savinelli’s, 2 Brebbia’s, 1 Rossi, and 1 lesser known Italian briar. I’m a sucker for silver bands, long shanks, and Sav’s, so naturally this is the first one out of the batch I cleaned up.

This one had not been “smoked lightly” as the saying goes. The rim was beat up, the stummel had plenty of scratches, and the stem had a hefty chunk missing.

I started out by reaming and cleaning the airways. Then I topped the bowl and beveled it, and sanded the scratches from the exterior. After removing the damage from the stummel, I gave it a light alcohol scrub to remove the rest of the stain.

I gave it a dark contrast stain starting with Fiebings dark brown and a hint of oxblood, then after drying for 24 hours I sanded it to lighten it up and make the grain pop. A cloth dampened with alcohol can be used around the stampings to lighten the stain a bit without compromising the nomenclature.

Next up, the stem. I removed the oxidation and scored the area around the repair site. Patched up the missing vulcanite with CA and charcoal, then filed it down and wet sanded smooth, followed by a light run on the wheel with compound. I’ve already put a few bowls of Syrian Reserve through it since the pictures were taken. Great smoker. This one’s a keeper.

Breathing New Life into an LHS Sulgrave

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Blog by Steve Laug

I have become a fan of older LHS pipes and restored quite a few of them lately. I am always on the lookout for different LHS lines that I have not seen. Recently I picked up this LHS Sulgrave from a fellow on the Dr. Grabow Collectors Forum for $15. It is a line that I had not heard of before. He described it as a lightly smoked briar pipe. When I saw it I wanted it as it was my kind of shape. Never sure what to call this shape – bent banker, squat apple – not sure but I like it. He gave the following description in the sale listing. The shank is stamped Purex Sulgrave arched over LHS in a Diamond on the left side. The stem has two light coloured dots on the left side. The pipe is 5 1/8 inches long from the bottom of bowl to end of bit. The bowl chamber diameter is 7/8 inch and bowl depth is 1 1/4 inch. There is light caking in bowl. There is light tooth wear on end of the stem near the button. It has normal wear and tear (dings, oxidation and scratches) for an estate pipe. Nice overall shape and condition. Here are the photos that he included when I emailed him for details.

When the pipe arrived I was not disappointed. The shape was perfect. The description was accurate and the only variation that I could see was that the stamping did not include PUREX on the shank. Not a big deal in my book. The bowl was unevenly caked and appeared to have been reamed. The back side of the bowl had a thicker portion of cake that gave the inside wall on the back side an uneven and out of round look. I was pretty certain that with a good reaming and a light sanding the rim would look better. The stem was over bent and there was a slight crease on the underside of the bend. There was a coat of wax or some kind of coating on the stem and bowl. The stem was oxidized. In the first photo below you can see slight imperfection in the vulcanite stem. I have circled it to highlight it in the photo below. It is not a hole or worn spot, it is actually a thread of cord in the rubber. Its presence gives some idea of the date of manufacture as recycled rubber was used in WWII pipes.

The stem also had a lot of tooth dents and chatter along both top and bottom with some very deep marks on both. I tried to capture them in the next two close-up photos but they are still not very clear. The odd thing was that the dents went up the stem over an inch. The slot in the button was not centred and appeared to have left the factory that way. The dents were deep enough that I was concerned regarding the thinness of the stem surface over the airway. The mortise and airway in the shank were dirty and the end of the mortise was chipped away. It looked as if there had originally been a stinger in the tenon but it was no longer with the pipe.

I also have included the next close-up photo of the rim and the bowl interior to show the cake that gave the bowl an out of round appearance. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer using the largest cutting head. I took the cake back to bare wood to even out the inner edge of the bowl. I wanted to get rid of the cake so that I could smooth out the edge.

I folded a piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out inner edge. It took a little effort remove the inner edge damage and clean up the roundness of the bowl.

I wiped down the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to remove the tars and the wax coat on the briar. With them removed the outer edge of the bowl showed damage as well. The bowl had been knocked about on the front edge particularly. The grain on this pipe was lovely.

To minimize the outer edge damage I topped the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper on a topping board. I sanded it to remove the damage to the top of the bowl and clean up the outer edge of the bowl.

I cleaned out the shank and the bowl with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to remove the grime inside. It took quite a few of both to clean out the shank but finally they came out clean. I heated the stem with a heat gun to try and lift some of the dents to the surface and to also take out some of the bend. I also wanted to smooth out the sharpness of the bend on the bottom side.

I cleaned out the airway in the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. The heat had raised most of the dents significantly. The ones that were left in the stem needed to be sanded out and then filled to take care of them. I used 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the surface. I also worked on the curve on the underside of the stem to make it less sharp looking.

The dents in the stem needed to be filled to bring the surface back to smooth flowing condition. I used a black super glue to fill the surface and set the stem aside to dry for several hours. Once dry, I sanded the fills with 220 grit sandpaper and then used a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to feather them into the surface of the stem.

I used a needle file to clean up and sharpen the edge of the button and give it more definition. I sanded the sharp edge with sandpaper and then sanded it with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads and then let it dry after sanding with a 12,000 grit pad.

I buffed the pipe with White Diamond and Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel to polish and remove the slight remnants of oxidation that had come to the surface. I gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean flannel buffing pad. I brought it back to the table and hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below.

Rescuing a Kaywoodie Flame Grain Meerschaum Lined Doggie

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Blog by Andrew Selking

To paraphrase Samuel Clemmons, reports that I’m no longer messing with pipes are greatly exaggerated. Between a cross country move, a new house, renovations to said house, and trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, I have not spent as much time working on pipes as I would like. I did manage to squeeze in this nice Kaywoodie Flame Grain Meerschaum lined doggie.

According to a Kaywoodie brochure from the era, Flame Grain pipes were made from “200 to 400 year-old briar burls…the last of their kind to be found in the world.” The meerschaum inlaid Flame Grain is a “superb Flame Grain Kaywoodie with an inlaid inner bowl of imported Turkish meerschaum. This pipe combines the outstanding qualities of the two best materials in the world in which to smoke tobacco.” This pipe represents the pinnacle of American pipe making. As a point of reference, in 1947 this pipe would sell for $12.50 while Dunhill pipes started at $10.00.

As you can see, it took some imagination to see a pipe that might compete with a Dunhill.

The stem was under-clocked and heavily oxidized. The bowl had very thick cake and a buildup of tar on the rim. There was some kind of protective finish on the bowl that left a film after the alcohol bath. Additionally, the stinger was cut. On the plus side, I could see some really nice grain and the stem was virtually unmolested.

The first thing I did was soak the bowl in alcohol. I was hesitant to do that, because I was afraid the alcohol would cause the meer lining to deteriorate. At the same time I was also worried that if I didn’t soften the cake first, just using the reamer might damage the lining as well. I compromised and soaked it for about two hours and the cake came out nicely.

While the bowl was soaking, I used Oxyclean and warm water to soak the stem. Since it was missing the end of the stinger, it was easy to get the worst of the gunk out with a pipe cleaner. As I mentioned, the stem was under-clocked. To fix this problem I usually heat the stinger with my heat gun until I can easily rotate back into place. As the tip of the stinger heats up it transfers heat into the stem and loosens the glue. The whole heat transfer thing wasn’t working very well with this pipe, so I stuck a small nail in the stinger. That worked like a charm.

Next I did a retort on the bowl and stem.

After scrubbing the insides with brushes, q-tips, and pipe cleaners, it was time to tackle the exterior issues. I used 0000 steel wool with acetone to remove the tar build up on the rim.

I continued with the 0000 steel wool over the rest of the bowl to remove the film on the finish. After cleaning the bowl, I used 3200-12000 grit micro mesh to polish the bowl. This is what it looked like afterwards.

I used 400 grit wet/dry with water to remove the oxidation from the stem, followed by 1800-2400 grit micro mesh with water. I finished the stem with a progression of 3200-12,000 grit micro mesh.

I set up my buffer and polished the bowl with white diamond and carnauba wax. I used my variable speed rotary tool with white diamond and carnauba wax for the stem. Here is the finished pipe. Thanks for looking.

Revamping a Bavarian Folk Wine Pipe Made in Italy

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

“Voters in the southern German state of Bavaria [April 7, 2010] voted for Germany’s strongest smoking ban, meaning lighting up in bars, restaurants and beer tents at Munich’s famous Oktoberfest will be ‘verboten.’”
― David Levitz, journalist, Agence France-Presse

INTRODUCTION
Who would have dreamed that those crazy, fun-loving Bavarians who have been hosting the annual Oktoberfest since October 12, 1810, the day Crown Prince Ludwig (later King Ludwig I) married Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen; the culinary health scoffers who gave to the world such artery-hardening treats as Weisswurst, Schweinshaxe, schnitzel and spaetzle, and for snacks and dessert, laugen pretzels, apfelstrudel, Baverische crème and zvetchgenkuchen – would ban smoking in all public buildings just months before the bicentennial of the world’s biggest excuse to get betrunken?

Bavarians are even so fond of beer and schnapps that they have a great little saying: Saufen bis zum Verlust der Muttersprache, or drink until you forget your mother tongue. And if you’ve ever seen many German tourists, how many of them didn’t look like triple bypass candidates? Of course, everyone knows smoking kills more people than drinking and/or diet-related maladies…right?

One 31-year-old Garden Grove, California woman who lost her job and started a blog, and has written a book but is still searching for a publisher, has a particularly active gift of gab. She blogged, “Bavaria’s cuisine is a monster truck. It crumples the delicate-by-comparison culinary offerings of Spain, Italy, and France like tiny little Fiats and Peugots in its path… It is rich and doughy and filling and is the only thing on the planet that can soak up German beer. Every other fare will simply hide in the corner of your stomach, petrified at the sheer awesomeness of the brew that resides in there with it, and it will never get digested.” Perhaps the most succinct line from this particular blog is, “Germans do it with bigger sausages.” [http://www.everywhereist.com/7-badass-bavarian-foods-you-must-try/] I, for one, can’t wait until the book comes out.

If the world is going mad as far as singling out tobacco as the great evil, then Bavaria may now be the capitol for the insanity. Maybe all that ice bockbier and apfelstrudel have saturated their bodies and have nowhere left to go but the brains.

At any rate, there remains for those of us who still appreciate the virtues of pipes and their tobaccos the glorious contributions of German craftsmanship in general and Bavarian in particular. And more along the lines of the subject of this blog:

When I emailed Steve a few photos of my new acquisition from eBay, for less than $11, I was happy as usual to receive a response but, I must admit, a little disheartened to hear of the 20 hours he spent restoring the 1810 Meerschaum Bowl masterpiece above. Then I considered the facts that his folk pipe was part meerschaum, and of course suspected he had, as his masterful skills and (if I may be so bold) somewhat obsessive creative bent allow, more than just restored it. He had in fact, of course, re-worked parts of it, as I learned when I read with pleasure his July 7 account. I mentioned the conjecture that Steve is a born pipe maker to my mentor, Chuck Richards, who with not an inkling of surprise to me that Steve has made a few pipes in his time. I therefore hereby suggest a blog by our host on these endeavors, which I am certain I am not alone in my curiosity to hear about and see.

Alas, as shall be seen, my Bavarian Three-Piece Folk Wine Pipe – not counting the screw-in bit – pales in comparison, although it did present problems I had not before encountered. Starting with the bit, the eBay photos revealed one gash that appeared to be so deep that it must have pierced the air hole. As Lady Luck provided, however, such was not the case. On the other hand, there turned out to be three bad divots in the bit, not counting the severe wounds just below the lip, top and bottom, from grinding teeth. Then there were the countless scratches on every piece; the well-caked chamber; scorching of what I believe is the ornate but aluminum wind cap; a serious cleft in the alternative wood shank, the variety of which I have not yet determined, and a hole in the bottom piece, where the wine is placed, too deep for any fix other than wood putty.

All of these complications, I knew, would be nothing compared to the task of cleaning and sanitizing a pipe with a form that defied retorting. Noting this anticipated cleaning conundrum with a quip, “That’s entirely rhetorical,” in fact, was the reason for Steve’s second reply to my email where he mentioned the time he spent on his folk pipe.

By the way, I owe a final nod to Steve, as well as the owner of my local tobacconist who confirmed his assessment, for identifying my Bavarian folk pipe (which turns out to be a no-name Italian version) as being designed to add wine.

RESTORATION This, as it happens, is how I decided to approach the restoration: piece by piece.

Without thinking – you might say a bit compulsively on my own part – I already cleaned and polished the wind cap before snapping the last shot above.

Other than the almost unconscious cleaning and shining of the wind cap, inside and out, with Everclear-soaked cotton cloths, super fine steel wool and mostly 500-grit paper except for a few tough spots requiring 320, I saw no reason not to dive in with the bit. After all, filling the crevasses – and I can only imagine the drunken stumbling about that caused them – would take several days of layering with black Super Glue and drying time in between. The remainder of the restore was finished in a day and a half of intense work. I gave the bit a good soak in an OxiClean solution to start and cleaned out the mess inside with about six bristly cleaners dipped in Everclear before they came out clean.

With that process begun and the pipe disassembled, I returned to the main tobacco chamber (remember, this three-parter has a second chamber at the bottom for wine) and used my Senior Reamer to take out most of the fairly even though excess cake. After that I swabbed it out with some alcohol-soaked cotton gun cleaner squares and finished the removal of char and smoothing with 200-, 320- and 500-grit paper. The yellowing of the cap’s inside area is the fault of my photography, not lack of attention. I know nothing of body work on cars, which is the kind of detail work the metal rim requires, and despite my restoration of this pipe for my own enjoyment, any tips on eliminating dings in metal, preferably without removing the entire rim piece, will be appreciated. Since the pipe is staying in my own collection, after all, I have a long time to work out that part.

I turned my attention to the outer bowl, first scrubbing out the draught hole with bristly cleaners soaked in alcohol – quite a few, in fact. Then I used 320-grit paper to remove both the old finish and the scratches, starting with the rough, un-sanded opening of the draught hole showing before and after below.

From 1500-4000 micromesh, I prepped the bowl for buffing. I liked the natural, lighter shade of the briar and chose not to re-stain it, proceeding straight to the buffer wheels. I used white Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba.

The shank was what I expected would take most of the work, and I was right. I sanded the wood with 200 and 320 paper, deciding the cleft in the unknown wood gave it a certain character. Besides, it wasn’t going anywhere without the kind of serious reshaping Steve is into. I sanded it again with 500-grit paper and micro-meshed all the way. The ferrule was dull and scratched. I used micromesh on it and then Lincoln black boot stain, which I flamed, let cool and wiped clean with 4000 micromesh. Finally, I used Lincoln brown stain on the shank’s wood and used 4000 micromesh to take off the ash. I buffed it with white Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba, and used red and white Tripoli on the ferrule. Onto the final stage – the bottom chamber where the wine is added. Here it is after sanding with 320-grit paper.

By the time I cleaned it out with bristly cleaners and Everclear, when added to those used for the other parts, I had a pile about as high as Steve’s from his meerschaum bowl folk pipe, only much grimier except for the last that came out clean.

Now take a closer look at the right side, first with the small hole that could neither be sanded away nor ignored, then filled with a dab of wood putty. I let it sit and harden until the next day, when I colored the putty with an indelible brown marker and squeezed a drop of Super Glue over the mark.

Late that night, I sanded off the roughness of the dried Super Glue and smoothed the whole piece with micromesh. And here is the finished, waxed result, without re-staining. At last, I was ready to assemble the separately restored parts and wipe it all down with a soft cotton rag.

The only nomenclature, just under the bottom ring in the last photo, reads Imported Briar over Made in Italy.

CONCLUSION
This restoration involved two firsts for me: filling a hole with wood putty, as basic as that is, and more significantly, the importance of considering each independent part of the whole. Never before had I encountered a pipe with more than a bit connected to a shank that in turn attached to the bowl. The simple addition of a second chamber for wine with two openings – one for the shank and the other for the regular tobacco chamber – forced me to approach the project from an angle that was novel to me. The ultimate restoration was a unique pleasure for me, and I am happy to report that the finished folk pipe smokes quite well, even without wine. I look forward to seeing how it works with Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider.

Now I have just a few final words on the Bavarian tobacco ban. It seems they tried the same thing in 2008, but the result was a scoff law that the authorities didn’t even try to enforce. Let’s hope that all of the pipe smokers in the southern German state of Bavaria unite to overcome the 61% of voters who decided to deny them the right to run their own lives.

Breathing New Life into a La Fond’s Vintage, Algerian Briar Reject Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

This old pipe came to me in a lot that was a gift from a friend and it was in very rough shape. The bowl covered in varnish and the rim had been used to hammer nails. There was not one smooth surface on the rim of the pipe. The outer edge of the bowl was very rough particular on the backside with chunks of briar missing. There were several fills on the bowl – on both sides that were missing and there were large deep scratches on the bottom of the bowl.

I have included a close-up photo of the rim to show the extent of the damage. I also took some close-up photos of the stamping to give an idea of what that looks like. The shank is stamped on the right side with the words MADE IN FRANCE. On the left side it is stamped with a double line of XXXX’s. I interpret that as the stamping that a pipe company uses to declare a pipe a REJECT. Some of the English companies actually stamp the pipe reject while others X out the stamping. In this case I was able to read through the X’s and see that underneath it was stamped La Fond’s Vintage on the first line and below that it read Algerian Briar. There is not a shape number on the shank.

I looked in Who Made That Pipe to see if I could find any information on the brand. The book listed that the brand was unknown but was English made. I looked on pipephil’s site, Pipes: Logos and Markings and found the listing below http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-l1.html. The left side of the shank on the pipe I am working on is stamped identically to the one in the photo. The right side of mine says Made in France instead of Made in England. There is also no shape number on the one I have. I think that an educated guess can be made regarding the company behind this brand of pipe. Looking at the shape of the pipe and the shape number on the pipe in the photo it looks to me that the brand may well have been a sub brand of GBD. Certainly the 9436 shape number matches the same shape number that GBD stamped on that shape pipe.

As I have been doing lately, I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer to take the cake back to bare briar. I wanted to see if there was any significant damage to the inside walls of the bowl considering the damage everywhere else. After reaming I would need to sand the inside of the bowl as the cake was both crumbly in some places and hard and pitted in others.

The rim damage made it necessary to top the bowl to remove as much of it as possible. I used the topping board and 220 grit sandpaper to do the work. I removed as much of the top of the rim as possible without changing the overall appearance of the pipe. I was able to remove the majority of the damage. There were still some missing chunks of briar on the back side of the bowl near the top edge that I would need to address in a different manner. I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to remove the varnish coat that covered the bowl and shank. Fortunately it came off quite easily. At least they did not coat the bowl with urethane or some other modern plastic coat. I worked on the damaged areas and the missing fills to make sure that I was able to get the grit and grime out of the holes.

I picked out any pieces of debris in the divots and wiped it down one final time. I filled the holes with briar dust and then dripped clear super glue on top of the briar dust. I added more briar dust and more glue until I had the surfaces built up and repaired.

I sanded the repairs with 220 grit sandpaper to blend the patches into the surrounding briar. It took a bit of sanding to smooth things out and leave the patches only in the holes that needed to be repaired and not on the surface of the bowl. Once the surface was smooth I sanded the areas with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches.

I sanded the inside of the bowl and then scrubbed out the bowl, shank and stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol. I scrubbed until the shank was clean. I used the stain pens to blend in the sanded areas with the colour of the rest of the bowl. I used it on the rim and the repairs around the bowl. I blended light brown and dark brown stain pens to get the colour to match. I sanded the bowl and rim with a fine grit sanding block to feather in the stained areas.

After sanding I rubbed the bowl down with a light coat of olive oil and buffed it into the briar.

I would need to wax and polish the bowl once I had finished with the stem but it was done for the time being. I turned to the stem and sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the ripples in the vulcanite on the top and bottom of the stem from the button toward the bowl for about 1 ½ inches. It was obvious and ugly in my opinion. I finished smoothing out the stem surface and then sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to smooth out the scratches.

There was some oxidation on the stem that needed some more work so I repeated the process until the oxidation was removed. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and then dry sanded it with 3200-4000 grit pads and gave it another coat of oil I finished sanding with the micromesh pads dry sanding with 6000-12000 grit. I gave the stem a final coat of Obsidian Oil and let it dry.

I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buffing pad and then took it back to the work table and hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth. Dave Gossett wrote about doing that several blogs ago and I have been doing it ever since. It seems to add depth to the shine that a buffer alone does not give. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I took the photos outside in the waning light of the day. I really like the look of the pipe in the grass. The green sets off the colours of the briar and the black of the stem. This old timer is ready for a long life ahead of service to whoever takes it home to their rotation. Thanks for looking.

Rejuvenating and Repairing a Whitehall Dublin

2 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

This old Whitehall pipe came to me from the antique shop in Victor, Idaho, a small town on the way to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. On a recent trip to Idaho my brother and his family and my daughters and I visited Jackson Hole. On the way home, we stopped in Victor to stretch our legs and wander a bit. I went into the antique shop and struck up a conversation with the owner. Eventually a tin of five pipes and some parts came out from under the counter. I bought all of them. They traveled back to Vancouver with me and will one day all be refurbished.

This Dublin shaped pipe is stamped Whitehall on the left side of the shank – though the stamping is faint. On the right side it is stamped Imported Briar (also faint). It has a flat bottom and sits well on that. The finish was very worn but was a rich oxblood colour under the grime. The bowl sides have some great cross grain. There were some small fills near the top of the bowl on the left side. The rim was damaged on the outer edge and very caked from the bowl over the rim top. The inner edge of the rim was still round and did not show signs of damage under the thick cake. The stem appeared to be a poor fit but as I looked at it I realized that it was upside down. The flattened bottom of the bowl had not been continued on the stem so it sat wrong.

I took some close-up photos of the rim and sides of the bowl. The rim photo shows the tarry buildup and the side photos show the stamping.

I generally ream the bowl when I start a clean up to remove the cake so I can examine the pipe thoroughly to check for inside wall damage and potential issues. I reamed it with a PipNet reamer and took the cake back to bare briar. While I was at it I scrubbed the rim with alcohol and cotton pads to remove some of the tars. I had to use a sharp blade to gently scrape away the thick coat of tars while I was scrubbing. The photo below shows the initial cleanup of the rim and newly reamed bowl. I sanded the rim with 220 grit sandpaper to further remove the tars and to minimize the outer edge damage. There was a burn mark on the front left of the rim that I was able to reduce but not remove altogether. I scrubbed out the shank and the bowl with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. I wiped down the exterior with alcohol and cotton pads to remove the finish and to clean it up. In doing so I found that there was a small shallow crack/flaw toward the bottom of the bowl on the left side. In the photo below the dental pick is at the close end of the crack and the dark spot is the far end. I picked out the crack with the dental pick, drilled two small holes – one on each end of the crack to stop it from going further. Interestingly this crack followed the pattern of the grain on the side of the bowl. Once I had it cleaned out I wiped it down with alcohol a final time. I pressed briar dust into the crack, dripped super glue into it and then pressed more briar dust on top of the glue. The photo below shows the repaired crack. Fortunately the crack was not deep and did not affect the interior of the bowl. It did not go all the way through and appeared to be more of a flaw in the briar than damage. I sanded the repair with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the excess patch and blend it into the surface of the briar. I sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches in the briar and feather out the surface. I sanded the entire bowl and rim with the same sanding sponges and sandpapers. I aligned the stem and sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the rough surface and then flatten the bottom to match the bottom of the shank.

I wiped down the bowl with alcohol and then stained it with an oxblood alcohol based stain. I put the stain on heavy around the sanded areas on the shank and the bowl repair. I also darkened those areas with a dark brown stain pen following the pattern of the grain. I lightly buffed the pipe by hand and took the pictures below to show how the newly stained pipe looked at this point.

I darkened the rim with the stain pen and gave it another top coat of the oxblood stain. I flamed it and buffed it lightly. With the bowl finished I worked on the stem. I wet sanded it 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil. I continued by dry sanding it with 3200-4000 grit pads, rubbed it down again with oil and then finished by dry sanding with 6000-12000 grit pads. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and let it dry.

I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel, gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and then buffed it with a clean flannel buff. I brought it back to the work table and then hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown below. It looks better than it did when I started, in my opinion. The rich oxblood colour helps to hide the repair and the burn mark on the rim. It should be a great smoking pipe if the amount of cake buildup that was there when I started is any indication. It should continue to provide great service to whoever ends up with it in their pipe rotation. Thanks for looking.