Tag Archives: removing oxidation

A Set of Twins – Bent Royal Coachman Billiards by Comoys

On a recent adventure I found a pair of bent billiards that had the Made in London England circle stamp on the right side of the shank and the Germanic script stamping, Royal Coachman on the left side of the shank. They were also stamped with a shape number 215. I did a bit of research to see if I could identify the maker. From the markings I was pretty confident that I was dealing with a Comoy’s seconds line but wanted to make certain I was right. The circle stamp on the right side of the shank was a giveaway to that identification. The shape number looked very familiar to me and the overall look said Comoys. So I looked in two the places that I always go to when beginning a hunt for info. The first is a website set up by Pipephil called Logos and Stampings. There I found that the Royal Coachman was indeed a Comoys brand. The site showed that the pipes were made by Chapuis-Comoys. The second site I looked at was Chris’ pipe pages http://pipepages.com/64com19s.htm . Chris has collected old catalogues and documents that give shape charts and many historical materials that cannot be found in other places. I have copied a page from the shape chart below and you can see that the 215 shape number matches not only the Comoys number but also the shape.

When I brought the pipes home from the antique shop they looked like the photos below. There were actually in pretty good shape for their age. The dealer said that he bought these along with 20 other pipes from a widow who was selling off her late husband’s estate. He had some interesting old pipes and I was able to pick through them and brought six of them home with me. These are the first pair of the bunch. The bowls were lightly smoked with a bare minimum of cake. The top pipe in the picture below was less smoked than the bottom one. Both pipes were grimy on the outside of the bowl and had some oxidation on the stems. There were no tooth marks on the top pipe and only a little tooth chatter on the underside of the bottom pipe. The top pipe has three small fills that are visible in the first photo below and a slight nick in the shank on the right side near the stem. The second pipe has a few fills as well with the largest of them visible low on the left side of the bowl in the photo below. The rims on both were clean and undamaged and showed no tar build up. On the right side of the bowl of both pipes there was a small spot of white paint.

I reamed the bowls with a PipNet reamer to remove the slight cake build up and clean out the bowl. I wiped down the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime and grease build up. It also took off the paint spots on the right side of the bowl. I use the soap undiluted as I find it does not remove the finish on the bowl as much as when it is diluted with water. I rubbed it on and scrubbed it with cotton pads and wiped it off with the same pads.

I cleaned out the inside of the shank on both pipe using cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol. Both had a slight reservoir in the shank with the drilling being quite high in the shank to accommodate the bend in the shank to bowl junction. I cleaned out the airway with pipe cleaners and then the inside of the bowl with folded pipe cleaners and cotton swabs.

I wiped down the stems with isopropyl alcohol on a cotton pad and then cleaned out the inside with pipe cleaners. The opening/airway on the end of the tenon was very small so I had to work to push the pipe cleaner into place. I had not seen an airway this constricted in a long time. The draw on the pipe was very tight; it was like pulling air through a coffee stirrer. When I pulled the pipe cleaner out a small ring came out with it. It is visible in the photo of the pipe cleaner below. The stem on the left is the one that the ring came out of and the stem on the right still has the ring. It appears to be made of brass and is a thin ring that constricts the airway for about 1/16th of an inch. With the ring removed the draw was very open. I continued to clean out the stem and airway until it was spotless and the pipe cleaners came out clean. I cleaned the end of the tenon with cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol.

I then used some Meguiar’s Scratch X2.0 on the stems to scrub the scratches and polish the stems. I applied it with a cotton pad and scrubbed and rubbed it off. The photos below show the stems after the polishing. There was some deep seated oxidation that came to the surface of the stems. There was more oxidation on the top of the stems than on the underside.

I buffed the stems with red Tripoli on my buffer to remove more of the oxidation. I followed that up with White Diamond polish on the buffer as well. I also buffed the bowl with White Diamond. The shine really came out.

There was still oxidation that came up on the stems. I sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge and then wet sanded with 400 and 600 grit sandpaper. This removed the remaining oxidation in the stem. I then wet sanded them with 1500-2400 grit pads. I dry sanded them with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stems down with Obsidian Oil and when it had dried I buffed them with White Diamond and then gave both the bowls and stems multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed them with a soft flannel buff on the buffer. The finished pipes are shown below. They are ready to enter the next phase of their lives.

Oxidation – Warning. You’ll Wish You Hadn’t Seen This – by Joyal Taylor (aka holymolar)

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Blog by Joyal Taylor

This is the second article by Joyal (known online as holymolar). It is with pleasure that I put this on the blog. Joyal does some great work in restoration and in his own words “You’ve probably realized already that I particularly like restoring stems”. Thanks Joyal for your take on the process of cleaning up deeply oxidized stems. I look forward to more articles on your work. Without further introduction here is Joyal.

Check out the stems on these 3 restored estate pipes. They look OK, don’t they? Polished, shiny, no obvious oxidation.

Let’s look closer.

The upper stem seems OK.

On the middle stem, is that oxidation near the shank end and also in the bit crease?

On the lower stem, how did I miss that oxidation toward the bit end?

Let’s turn out the lights and shine a flashlight (at an angle) onto the stems.

HOLEY MOLEY, BATMAN!

Where did all of that oxidation come from?

I’ve got to start all over on these stems.

That deep oxidation can be removed – if you’re willing to spend a lot of time sanding, especially with the coarser grits. Start with a 2 hour Oxyclean bath to soften the oxidation. Then 220 grit wet/dry sandpaper with water. Then follow with 400, 600, maybe 800 and 1000 grit. Finally micro mesh pads (1500-12000), then final polish and buff.

Is it worth it to go after that deep oxidation? Maybe, maybe not. That’s up to you.

Followup on removing the oxidation on the stems.
Since I had already used Oxyclean on these stems, I got more aggressive the second time around. I put the stems in a bleach bath (50% diluted with water) for 1 hour. One of the stems wasn’t done so it went back in the bleach (at full strength) for 2 additional hours. Then I soaked the stems in an alcohol bath for 1 hour to neutralize the bleach smell and taste. Then I spent about 1 hour, on each stem, wet sanding (220, 400, 600, 800 grit) and micromesh (1500-12000). The following photos were taken before carnauba wax polishing/buffing. It was a lot of work but time well spent because the stems feel as smooth as satin to my lips and tongue.

Cleaning/Polishing the Stem Crease Area by Joyal Taylor

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Blog by Joyal Taylor

It is a pleasure to be able to introduce this first blog post by Joyal here on rebornpipes. I read with interest several of Joyal’s posts on Pipe Smokers Unlimited online forum. His love of refurbishing and his abilities were something that I immediately resonated with. When I read the post he made about the use of the sanding sticks and micromesh sanding sticks to clean up the crease on a stem I was hooked. I thanked him for the research and creativity that lead to these new to me tools of the trade. I asked if he would mind writing this up for the blog and this afternoon I received the post. Thanks Joyal. I look forward to reading many more of your posts here and on the forums. Without further introduction here is Joyal’s post.

I’ve smoked pipes for about 30 years. A few years ago, I semi-retired and started looking for hobbies. Fishing is great but not for an everyday activity, at least for me. One day I looked at some of my pipes and realized that they were looking beat up and abused. I tried restoring one but quickly realized that I didn’t know what I was doing. So I began researching pipe restoration and tried again and again. Soon I was fully into it with various tools and dyes. It has become an everyday activity that gives me things to do with all of my semi-retired free time.

I find that the most frustrating area to clean up, on an oxidized stem, is the 1-2 mm in front of the bit. Sometimes oxidation and dirt gets in that area and it’s difficult to get it out. I’m always trying to find better, quicker, and easier ways to do various aspects of pipe restorations. If you don’t need to use needle files and dead edge files to reshape the bit, here’s an alternative to cleaning up the crease area in front of the stem bit, without really altering it.

Before photo of a stem that needs a little cleaning/polishing in front of the bit. There are more dramatic examples but this is the only one I had at this time.

I found some small thin sanding sticks that fit nicely into the area (100,180,240,320,400 grit) http://www.billingboatsusa.com/803-flx0101-mini-hobby-and-craft-sanding-sticks.html

Here’s what the area looks like after using all of the sticks – gently.

Next I polished the area with micro mesh sticks (1,500-12,000). I find that these are easier to use in this small area than the micro mesh pads. http://www.woodcraft.com/Product/2080764/29708/Micro-Mesh-12-x-5-34-Colored-Sanding-Sticks.aspx

These final two photos were taken before wheel polishing/buffing because the shine doesn’t allow for a good photo.

This entire cleaning/polishing doesn’t take as long as it may seem – probably less than 10 minutes.

Restoring a GBD New Standard 4/271 London Made Straight Bulldog

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Blog by Steve Laug

When I was at the antique mall in Edmonton a few weeks ago I found this GBD straight bulldog. It is stamped GBD in an oval over New Standard on the left side of the shank and 4/271 London Made on the right side of the shank. The stem had the brass GBD roundel on the side of the saddle. The pipe was badly cake with a thick carbon build up. The rim had build up and was also damaged. There was darkening, whether burn or tar build up flowing down the crown of the bowl at the top all the way around the rim. The finish was worn and there was a black ink stain on the left side of the bowl down low toward the bottom. It looked like a hot spot when I first saw the pipe so I almost left it in the shop. I examined it under a bright light and could see that it was not a burn but a spot of what looked like India Ink. The stem was oxidized and there was tooth chatter on the top near the button and a tooth mark on the underside along with the chatter there. The button is different from most of my other GBD’s in that it is concave rather than convex. It is shaped like this “(“ looking at it from above.

The photo below shows the stain on the bowl. I used a flash to highlight the nature of the stain. It was not solid but rather slightly opaque so that the grain could be seen through it. I thought it was worth a try to see if I could remove the ink from the briar.

I reamed the bowl back to bare briar with a PipNet reamer starting with the smallest head and working up to the next head that fit the bowl.

I dropped the bowl in an alcohol bath to soak for several hours and dropped the stem in a bath of Oxyclean.

I left the stem in the Oxyclean while I worked on the bowl. I removed it from the bath and dried it off with a piece of cloth.

I wiped it down with acetone on cotton pads to remove the finish that remained and scrubbed the ink stain. I sanded the bowl with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to finish removing the finish and also the ink stain. I lightly topped the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the damage to the outer edge of the rim.

I used a piece of folded 220 grit sandpaper to work on the beveled inner edge of the rim. I wanted to repair the burn damage and take away the ridge left behind by the light topping of the bowl.

I sanded the bowl where the stain was and with sanding and scrubbing with isopropyl alcohol I was able to remove the ink stain from the briar. The photo below shows the area that had previously been stained.

I wiped the bowl down with isopropyl alcohol a final time to remove the sanding dust and grit from the twin rings on the bowl.

I cleaned out the shank of the pipe with isopropyl and cotton swabs and when it was clean I took out the stem and dried it off. I cleaned out the inside of the stem with pipe cleaners and alcohol. I scrubbed the stem with Mequiar’s Scratch X2.0. I rubbed it onto the stem surface with my finger and scrubbed it off with cotton pads. The photos below show the stem after one application of the polish after about 2 hours of soaking in Oxyclean.

I continued to scrub down the stem with the Meguair’s until the oxidation was gone. I sanded the areas where there was tooth chatter with 220 grit sandpaper and then with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. I put the stem on the pipe and took the photos below. I could not believe how easily the oxidation had come off the stem. There was still more polishing to do but the overall effect of the Oxyclean and the Meguiar’s was amazing to me

Though there was still oxidation to work on I decided to stain the bowl. I used a dark brown aniline stain. I applied it, flamed it and repeated the process until the coverage was even.

I wiped the bowl down with isopropyl to thin the stain down and make it more transparent. I repeated the wash until the stain was the colour I was aiming for. Then I scrubbed the stem some more with the Meguiar’s and was able to get the rest of the oxidation of the stem.

I buffed the pipe with White Diamond – both bowl and stem being careful around the stamping so as not to damage it. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and then gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect and shine. I buffed it a final time with a soft flannel buffing wheel. The finished pipe is pictured below. The colour on the green background appears redder than the pipe actually is. The wax and buffing did bring out the red highlights in the briar. It is more brown than red but the contrast is quite nice. The grain is visible through the stain. I am pleased with the finished look to the pipe. It is cleaned and restored and ready for the next chapter of the trust with me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Refurbishing another Old Pal – this time a Long Oval Shank Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

I just finished cleaning up another of the old pipes I picked up in my antique mall grab bag. It is a dainty pipe with an oval shank. When it came out of the grab bag it had a cracked shank and did not have a stem in the shank so I assumed it was a Canadian. When I went over the stems in the bag I found that one of them was stamped Old Pal. It fit the shank well and the look was quite unique. The stem was broken at the button with a large chunk on one side missing. The overall length is 5 ¾ inches and the weight is negligible. It is stamped on top of the shank in arc – Old Pal, over an Eagle with spread wings and then underneath Made in France.

On the underside of the shank it is stamped 396 which I assume is the shape number. The shape number appears to be a GBD number but it is not included in the list on the Perdua shape number website. The stamping is faint but still readable. I wrote about the history of the brand in a previous post (https://rebornpipes.wordpress.com/2014/04/19/restemming-and-refurbishing-a-planter-opera-pipe/) But will summarize it again here for those who may not go back and read it.

“Who Made That Pipe” states that there were two French makers for Old Pal. The first of those is Marechal Ruchon and Cie. (Incidentally it is the company that owned the GBD brand). The second maker listed is Rubinovich & Haskell Ltd. The bird emblem is probably the key, but I can find no reference to it. My own thinking is that the brand was made by Marechal Ruchon & Cie. I was able to dig up this brief summary of the MR&C brand. Ganeval, Bondier and Donninger began making pipes in 1850 and rapidly gained prominence in briar pipe making. Of the three, Bondier survived the others by 30 years, but new partners took their places. The name of the company changed to Bondier Ulrich & Cie, then Bine Marechal & Cie and finally to A Marechal, Ruchon & Cie. August Marechal and Ferdinand Ruchon saw the firm into the 20th century, their names being used for the company for well over 50 years.

Prior to 1899, Marechal, Ruchon & Co. became A. Oppenhiemer’s sole agent for cigarette papers but still remained in the pipe making business. Then in 1902, Marechal, Ruchon & Co., owners of GBD and referred to as French pipe makers, merged with A. Oppenhiemer. In the 1915 London Directory of briar pipe makers one will find: “”Marechal, Ruchon & Co. – 38 Finsbury Sq. E.C.; London works, 15 & 16 Featherstone St. E.C. and Oppenhiemer, A. & Co. – 38 Finsbury Sq. E.C. listed separately.

As before with that background information remembered I worked on this old pipe to clean it up and restore it. When I picked it up the bowl was badly caked. The rim was dirty and the outer edge had been knocked about pretty hard to remove the dottle of the past. The inner bevel was tarred but still in pretty good shape. The right side of the pipe had no fills or real damage. It was a nice birdseye under the grime. The left side had two fills of pink putty in the midst of some very nice grain. The grain on the rest of the bowl was a mix of cross grain and swirling grain. The finish was worn with some paint marks on the top of the shank. The stem was oxidized and had been broken with a large chunk missing at the button on the right side. The shank was cracked but the joint with the stem was smooth and tight. The tenon fit snug in the mortise with no gap in the junction. The shank and airway were dirty and tarry.

I have included the photo below as it clearly shows the crack in the shank, the broken stem and the stamping on the shank of the pipe.

I debated whether to cut off the stem or to just restem the pipe with a Canadian stem. I looked at it with a small stem and then with this stem and decided to cut off the stem. I used a Dremel and a sanding drum to remove the broken part of the stem and even out the line of the end of the stem.

I took it back to the work table and reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer. I reamed the cake back to bare briar so that I could work on the damage to the inner edge of the rim.

I took out my box of assorted nickel bands and found one that was the correct diameter and squeezed it until it was an oval. I dripped super glue into the open crack and pressed it together to dry. Then I heated the band with a heat gun and pressed it on to the cracked shank.

I used a folded piece of sandpaper to sand the tenon slightly so that it fit snugly in the shank. The fit of the stem to the band and shank looked good so that part of the job was finished.

I set up the topping board and the 220 grit sandpaper and topped the bowl to remove the damaged rim. I used a folded piece of sandpaper to bevel the inner edge of the rim inward like it had been originally.

I wiped the bowl down with acetone to remove the finish and the spots of white paint that were on the top of the shank. I repeated the wash until the finish was clean and then wiped it down again with isopropyl alcohol.

With work on the bowl at a good stopping point I decided to do some work on the stem. I had to cut a new button and taper the stem toward the new button. There would have to be shaping done as well opening the slot on the end of the stem. I used a rasp to cut the edge on the lip of the button and to sand down the taper of the stem. I used a series of needle files to further shape the button and the taper.

I cleaned up the taper and the button with a sanding board that I picked up at a beauty supply house. It makes the edge clean and works well to even the taper on the stem.

The hole in the end of the new button was elongated and oval but needed to be opened more and made into a “Y” shaped slot whose inner edges tapered toward the airway and the slot shaped like an eye – open enough to take a pipe cleaner without any difficulty. I used three different needle files to open the slot. The first was a round file, followed by an oval file and ending with a flat oval that worked well to cut the edges of the slot.

I sanded the stem with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to smooth out the surface on the stem and also to bevel the edge of the button toward the slot.

With the interesting grain pattern and the fills on the side of the bowl I decided to use a dark brown aniline stain. I applied it with a dauber and then flamed it. I applied it and flamed it a second time to make sure the coverage was even.

When the stain was dry I wiped down the bowl and shank with isopropyl alcohol on cotton pads to remove the top coats of the stain and make it more transparent.

I sanded the bowl with a fine grit sanding sponge and then wiped it again with the alcohol to clean off the dust. I gave it a second coat of a medium walnut stain as a top coat.

I buffed the top coat of stain with White Diamond and then brought it back to the work table and took the following pictures. The angles on the stem are looking good. The shape of the button and the taper of the stem worked well with the pipe.

I sanded the stem with medium and fine grit sanding pads and then applied some liquid white out to the stamping on the stem to try to make it stand out more clearly. I sanded the stem with my usual array of micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads.

I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and when it was dry buffed the stem and bowl with White Diamond and gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect and preserve it. I finished by buffing it with a soft, flannel buff. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The newly shaped stem came out fairly well. I like the overall look of the finish and the band on the pipe. It is ready to join the other Old Pal in the rack.

Restemming and Refurbishing a Planter Opera Pipe

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This is the fourth bowl that I chose to work on from the antique mall lot. It had some great potential to clean up well as it was by far one of the least damaged of the bowls. It is stamped Planter over Made in France on the left side of the shank. There is no other stamping on the bowl or shank. There is no shape size or numbering on the shank. The right side is unmarked. I looked it up online and did not find any maker for the pipe. Pipephil did not have in on his logos and stampings pages nor did any of the other sites I frequent when searching for info online. I turned to my books and found out from “Who Made That Pipe” that the brand was made by Comoy’s in France. I checked Lopes book and it was not listed. The bowl itself was pretty clean on the inside and the interior of the shank was also clean. It barely looked to have been smoked. There were a few remnants of unsmoked tobacco on the walls of the bowl. On the exterior, one side of the bowl was clean and the other was covered with a greasy, dirty buildup. There was some nice looking grain under the grit and grime – both birdseye and cross grain. It looked like it would clean up nicely. There was one small fill on the right side of the bowl. The metal band was tarnished and yellow. The bowl did not come with a stem when I bought it at the antique mall.

I went through my can of stems and found one that would fit with very minimal adjustments. I sanded the tenon with a folded piece of sandpaper and it fit well against the shank. There were some issues on the diameter of the stem. It appeared that it was slightly out of round on the right side. It would need to be sanded on the right side, top and bottom for a perfect fit.

The band was not totally in place on the shank. It had slid toward the end of the shank over the years so I needed to heat it and press it into place. The benefit to this was that it heated up the yellow buildup on the band and it came off quite easily with some silver polish/metal cleaner. I scrubbed the band with some Hagerty Tarnish Preventative Silver Polish that I bought years ago at a jewelry shop. It removed the tarnish and oxidation and with repeated scrubbing it cleaned out the tarnish in the hallmarks.

I scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the greasy buildup on the right side of the bowl and shank. I followed that up with a wipe down of isopropyl alcohol to finish removing the grime. I sanded the stem on the right side to remove the excess vulcanite and make it line up with the band. I always look at the end view of the pipe and see if the diameter of the stem matches the edge of the band that it will sit against. I strive to make it the same all the way around as I think it looks better when done that way. I used 220 grit sandpaper and a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to get the fit right. In the photos below the pipe is shown after all the scrubbing and fitting of the stem.

You can see from the few steps taken with the pipe that it was a very simple clean up. It took more time to fit the stem that it did to clean up the bowl and band. I gave it a quick buff with White Diamond before working on the stem. I took it back to the work table and sanded the stem with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge (the pink square pictured above is one of those sponges). I then sanded the bowl and stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads.

I finished by rubbing down the stem with Obsidian Oil and when it had been absorbed into the stem I buffed the stem and bowl with White Diamond. I gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect and give it a shine. I finish with a soft flannel buffing pad on the buffer. The finished pipe is pictured below. Sometime today I will load a bowl and give it a smoke.

A “King’s Imperial” Opera Pipe Reborn

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Blog by Steve Laug

Looking over my latest box of pipes that I picked up at an antique mall in Edmonton, I chose to work on one that did not need to be restemmed and had a bit of a mystery attached to it. In the photo below it on the right side just above the batch of stems that were included in the purchase. It was hard to read the stamping while I was in the shop as I had forgotten to bring along a loop to examine it but I could read Made in London England stamped on the underside of the shank near the stem. It was priced at $20 which I figured it was worth in this condition so I added it to the lot.

When I got home I looked at it more closely under a magnifier and saw that the stamping read “King’s Imperial” Made in London England. The pipe was rusticated in an identifiable manner that I had seen on several pipes before so it looked promising. The finish was actually far rougher than it appears in the photos below. The stain was gone in many of the high spots and the low spots in the rustication were also pretty raw briar. There were two burn marks on the top back side and front side of the bowl that had darkened, though they were not scorched and rough. There was also a rough place on the left side bottom front of the bowl where it looked as if it had been knocked about. These marks would make it unlikely that I would be able to stain the bowl a natural tan colour. The bowl was oval both inside and outside. The rim had some scorching and darkening. It had been reamed in the centre of the oval but both ends were still caked and needed to be cleaned. The stem was oxidized and had a shallow tooth mark on the topside near the button.

I have a sharp bladed Japanese letter opener that was a gift from my grandfather that worked very well to ream the oval ends of the bowl. I proceeded to slowly scrape away the buildup of carbon and took the cake back to the bare briar.

After reaming the bowl I dropped the bowl into an alcohol bath to soak for an hour and then scrubbed it with a brass bristle tire brush to clean up the surface of the bowl and to scrub the burned areas on the bowl. I also put the stem into an Oxyclean bath to soften the oxidation on the vulcanite so that it would clean up more easily when removed.

After an hour of soaking the alcohol bath I took the bowl out and dried it off with cotton cloths. I scrubbed it with a soft bristle tooth brush to remove any remaining grit in the grooves of the finish and then dried it off again. I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to remove stubborn areas of the old finish. I wanted the bowl clean and free of any remnant of the old finish before I was ready to restain the briar. I sanded the rim with a fine grit sanding sponge to clean off the softened tar buildup and wiped it down with the acetone as well. I used a dental pick to pick out grime that was stubbornly remaining in the grooves of the rustication. I finished by cleaning out the inside of the bowl and shank with clean isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs until they came out clean.

I decided to try and stain the pipe with a light brown stain – almost tan coloured to mimic the original appearance of the bowl. I mixed one part dark brown stain with 3 parts isopropyl alcohol to make a light brown wash. I applied it to the rusticated surface with cotton swabs and flamed it once it was done. I restained it and reflamed it a second and third time to give it an even coverage.

Once it was dry I buffed it lightly with White Diamond to see where things stood. When I brought it back to the work table I took the following photos to give me a clearer picture of the look of the pipe. The burn marks were not covered and in fact seem to be highlighted by the light stain. I set the bowl aside for a while to think about what I would do with it.

With the bowl set aside I turned my attention to the stem. I took it out of the Oxyclean bath and dried it off. The next two photos show the top and bottom of the stem. The oxidation is even and soft over the surface of the stem. The Oxy does not remove oxidation on stems but merely serves to soften it. When I dried it off with the cloth that it is pictured on it took a lot of oxidation off the surface.

I decided to use Bar Keepers Friend on this stem. I wet the stem with a wet cotton pad and then sprinkled the surface with the powder. I scrubbed it with the wet pad and a dry pad to scour off the oxidation. The next three photos show how well the Bar Keepers Friend work to remove most of the oxidation. There were some stubborn spots around the shank and the button that would take more work, but it was definitely cleaning up well.

My tendency in cleaning up a pipe is to work on the bowl for a bit, set it aside and work on the stem and cogitate about what I plan to do to address issues on the bowl. In this case while I worked on the stem I was thinking about how to address the darkened marks on the bowl. The light stain was not working and a darker brown would not work either. I set aside the stem and wrote a quick post on two of the forums I am part of and asked about the brand. I had not heard of the “King’s Imperial” brand before and decided to ask about it. A friend on one of them did not have information on the brand but posted a couple of photos of a Hardcastle Sandhewn pipe that he had refurbished to show similarities in the finish of my pipe. When I looked at his pipe I saw the solution to taking care of the burn marks and darkening. Here are a couple of photos of the Sandhewn pipe.

Hardcastle had used a contrast stain on this pipe that made the grooves of the rustication black and the high spots on the briar were brown. There was my solution staring me in the face. I set up my staining cloth and put the bowl on the cloth. I applied the black aniline stain and flamed it to set it in the grooves. Once it was dry I buffed it with Red Tripoli to highlight the high points on the rustication and remove the black stain from those areas. The photos below show the pipe after the staining and the buffing. The contrast stain worked well on the burned and darkened areas of the bowl.

The contrast was still not quite what I wanted as it was too dark for my liking. I wiped the bowl down with isopropyl alcohol on cotton pads to remove more of the black from the high spots on the bowl and shank. I also wiped down the smooth rim area as I wanted it to match the high spots on the bowl.

I took the pipe to the buffer again and buffed the bowl and stem with Tripoli and then with White Diamond to give it a shine. The contrast now was exactly what I was aiming for with the staining so I was pleased with the results.

I set the bowl aside and worked some more on the stem. I sanded it with a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the stubborn spots of oxidation at the button and the shank end. I then used my usual array of micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. Each photo below shows the progressive deepening of the shine and the blackness of the vulcanite.

I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and when it was dry buffed the pipe and the stem with White Diamond. I was careful in my buffing around the stamping on the bottom of the shank as I did not want to further damage the stamping. I applied multiple coats of carnauba wax to the bowl (lightly touching it against the buffing pad so that it would not cake up in the rustication) and the stem. The finished pipe is pictured below.

This morning while I worked on the pipe, I checked on the forums to see if there was anyone that had information on the brand. Bill, on Pipe Smokers Unleashed forum, had come across a photo online that had the same stamping but one additional line – Blakemar Briars. The stamping can be seen in the photo below. The “King’s Imperial” stamping was identical. My pipe was stamped Made in London England while this one said Made in England. The Blakemar Briars was the addition that gave the first clue.

After reading this I sent an email to Mike Billington at Blakemar Briars to ask about the brand. He replied with the following email.

Hi Steve
It is possible that the “King’s Imperial” pipe was made here, it depends on the age to some extent. My Uncle used to make pipes for John Redman Ltd during the 60’s and 70’s and early 80’s and I continued to do so until the early nineties. The King’s Imperial range was one of John Redmans pipe ranges during that time, but Redmans also had them made by other pipe makers; they also did some pipe making “in house”- so while it is possible that the pipe was made here, it is not definite. From around 1992 until 2005 (I think), Redman’s brands were taken over by Gerald Grudgings of Loughborough in Leicestershire and during that time any Kings Imperial produced were definitely made here.

My memories only go back to the early 70’s but if you send a photo, I can tell you if it seems familiar to me

thanks
Mike

I immediately sent him photos of the pipe as it was when I found it, showing the stamping on the bowl. I am waiting to hear back from him. But I found it interesting to learn that John Redman Ltd had Blakemar Briars make pipes for them during the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and into the early 90’s. To find out that King’s Imperial was a range of Redman pipes during that time was also invaluable. Some of the other historical notes of interest in Mike’s email were that Redman’s had others making pipes for them and that they also did pipe making in house. I am hoping that Mike can remember and give a bit of certainty to the dating on this old opera pipe. I will update this post as I gather new information.

Walt Disney pipe –AJ Verstraten (aka Bananabox-Ninja)

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I am happy to see AJ back at his refurbishing work and writing about what he is working on. This pipe is particularly interesting in that it is a Disney Pipe. I have not seen much about these pipes and have enjoyed AJ’s work and write up. Thanks AJ for doing this and allowing us the pleasure of seeing the Disney pipe.

Greetings. When I first joined the PRF, a little over 18 months ago, there was a subject on the forum in which members could share with the other members what they thought was their dream pipe.

I was still rather green behind the ears when it came to brands, shapes and sizes so I didn’t reply in it at first. However, after a few months I found this article on Pipesmagazine.com:
http://pipesmagazine.com/blog/pipe-smokers-of-the-past/walt-disney-american-icon-inventor-of-pop-culture-pipe-smoker/ It was an interview with Brian Levine who explained about the fact that the Walt Disney Company sold pipes and pipe tobacco in the parks up until 1991/93.
This tickled me; the fact that the ‘wholesome WD Company’ sold tobacco and especially pipes with their logo on it was too good to be true. It was then that I decided a Walt Disney pipe would be my dream pipe.

So I shared this with my fellow Dutch pipe smokers on the PRF and explained that since I live in the Netherlands it would be an interesting challenge to try to acquire on for a reasonable price.

Thus my quest started and ended a mere three weeks later when I was not out bid on this eBay lot:

A tobacco pot with two pipes, the one on the left being a Disney pipe. The closing bid was $19.53 for the whole lot though my mood was a bit adjusted when I found out the shipping cost would be $42,-. Still, corrected to Euros it was a nice price for something so rare for a European.

When the pipe came it was very well packed and had survived the transit wonderfully. The other pipe was a Kaywoodie which I will write about in the future.

The first thing that struck me was that the pipe seemed to be only smoked a few times. The mouthpiece was oxidized through time and air but on the whole it was in good condition.

The inside of the bowl was lined with meerschaum, wetting a finger with spit and pressing it against the meerschaum I concluded it to be pressed – meerschaum instead of block meerschaum.

A rule of thumb (no pun intended :-)) is that when your wet finger sticks to the meerschaum it has a higher absorption rate and is thus most likely to be block-meerschaum. The pipe also confirmed the story from Levine that most of these pipes were basket-pipes stamped with the WD logo, though this one was of better quality than I expected.

First I cleaned the inside with 96% alcohol and pipe cleaners. They came out rather clean on the first go.

The soot and coal on the rim were rubbed off easily with a little spit and an old sock. And with 1500 grit sandpaper I smoothed the bowl a little, I decided to leave the brown spots on the meerschaum as I didn’t want to ruin the look of the pipe should the spots run deeper than I anticipated.

Then using the motor and abrasive wheels I removed the oxidation on the mouthpiece.
And with a needle file the hard to get oxidation near the tip. The picture is made just after the abrasive wheels.

The pipe before buffing

The buffing was done with brown paste, followed by white, carnauba wax and a buffing on the fluffy wheel.

No Name Pot Brought Back to Life from the Brink

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This bowl came to me with a batch of bowls needing different degrees of work. This old-timer needed cleaning as the buildup of grime and grit that was ground into the bowl was thick. The surface was coated with a greasy black substance all around the top of the bowl and the sides. The bowl/shank junction was incredibly grimy. The inner rim was out of round and the outer rim and the top of the rim were in rough shape. The outer edge had been hammered around the sides and the top had dents and cuts in the surface. The shank looked to be slightly shorter than I have come to expect on this shape of pipe; though the drilling and the mortise were original. The shank had definitely not been shortened. The bowl was caked and the buildup thickest around mid bowl. There were quite a few small pink fills around the bowl sides. There was no stamping or identifying marks on the pipe. There had been some sanding done around he shank and it had left behind some fairly deep scratches.

I went through my can of stems and found one that fit quite well. It did not need work on the tenon diameter as the fit was snug. The stem was bent and would need to be straightened to give it a proper fit to the bowl. Once the stem was in place it was clear that the shank was out of round. The bottom edge of the shank was somewhat thicker than the stem at the same spot. I would need to work on the flow of the shank from the bowl to the stem union to insure that the fit was smooth and the transition seamless.

The stem was badly oxidized so I figured heating it to straighten it would actually soften the oxidation and bring it to the surface. I used a heat gun on the low setting to heat the stem. I generally hold it about 4 or more inches above the heat source and hold so it bends in the correct direction as it softens. In this case it did not take long for the vulcanite to heat and the stem to return to the original straight position. I decided to leave a slight bend in the stem as I like the look of on the pipe.

The next two photos show the stem after heating and straightening. The variation in the diameter of the shank and the stem is also clearly visible in these two photos.

Since the shank had no stamping to preserve I decided to sand the shank and the stem to even things out and to bring the shank into round. I used 220 grit sandpaper to remove the excess briar and to shape the taper on the stem. I sanded the stem as well to remove the softened oxidation and make the cleanup simpler.

I set up a topping board and anchored a piece of 220 grit sandpaper on the surface to provide a flat straight surface to sand the top on. I twisted the top into the sandpaper in a clockwise motion to remove the tars and rim damage on the bowl.

I wiped down the surface of the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to remove the grimy buildup on the finish. The black tarry substance took some elbow grease and hard scrubbing to remove. The inner rim would need some work to bring it back into round but that would wait until after I reamed the pipe.

I sanded the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper and medium and fine grit sanding sponges to further remove the finish and the grime. I worked on the inner edge of the rim with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to bevel the inner edge into the bowl. This minimizes the appearance of the bowl being out of round. It also removes burn damage and smooths the look of the rim as a whole.

I decided to try something different on this bowl in terms of stain. It had some great cross grain and some nice birdseye grain that I wanted to highlight. It also had some ugly pink fills that I did not want to pick out and refill. This led me to try a black aniline stain. Before I stained it I used a black permanent marker – a sharpie to line through the pink fills. I blended them into the grain of the wood with the pen. I heated the bowl with the heat gun to open the grain and then applied several coats of black aniline stain, flaming the stain between each application. Once the stain was dry I wiped the bowl down with isopropyl alcohol on cotton pads and then sanded the bowl with a medium grit sanding block. I wanted to remove the black stain from the higher/harder areas of the briar while leaving it in the grain patterns.

I sanded the bowl with a medium grit sanding sponge and then wiped it down with isopropyl alcohol to remove the dust. I remarked the fills with the black Sharpie. In the four photos below the marked fills are visible and the finish has about all the black removed that I wanted to take off.

I rubbed the bowl down with Olive oil on a paper towel and rubbed it into the finish. I sanded the bowl with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-2400 grit, while the oil was wet as the oil gives the pads a bit more bite. I worked on the marked areas to blend them in with the sanding pads. I also sanded the stem with the micromesh sanding pads and the Olive oil at the same time. The next four photos show the finish after it had dried over night. I then buffed it on my buffer with White Diamond and gave the bowl several coats of carnauba wax. You can see how well the black sharpie blended into the finish. The pink fills have all but disappeared in the finish.

I sanded the stem with my usual array of micromesh – the difference this time was all pads were used to dry sand the stem – 1500-12,000 grit. In between each grit I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and rubbed it into the vulcanite before sanding with the next grit pad. Once I had finished with all grits I gave the stem a final rub down with the Obsidian Oil.

I gave the pipe several more coats of carnauba wax on the buffer and then buffed it with a soft flannel buff to bring out the shine. I was aiming for a stem shape similar to what I had seen on the Castello 55 shape and wanted that slight bend downward in the final look. While the pipe is certainly no Castello, I like the final look of the stem and the bowl. It certainly has come a long way from the bowl that came in the lot I received in the mail. This one should make a good addition to someone’s rack once it leaves here. The next four photos show the finished pipe.