Tag Archives: removing tooth marks in a horn stem.

Restoring a Horn Stemmed Meerschaum Figural

by Steve Laug

In November I received an email from Mario about working on some of his Dad’s pipes. Here is what he wrote to me.

I am desperately seeking help restoring and repairing some of my dad’s smoking pipes. I have tried reaching out to the only two known pipe repair establishments I could find in the entire country but one is not currently taking repair orders and the other said she didn’t want to try to repair these pipes without having even seen them. Would you be willing to take on the repairs or can you recommend anyone? Thank you much!!!—Mario

I wrote him back and asked him to send me photos of the pipes. He sent some single photos of the meerschaum bowl and stem, several of the leather clad Canadian and the photo of the rack and six pipes shown below. I looked through the photos and this is what I saw. There were two leather clad pipes a Canadian and a Pot. Both of them were cracked on the shanks and had been self-repaired with wire to hold the cracked shank together. The leather cladding was torn and the stitching was rotten and broken around the bowl. To me they were both irreparable. There was a lovely older Meerschaum figural with a horn stem that needed a good cleaning and repairs to the horn stem. There were two Knute Freehand pipes with original stems that were dirty but fixable. The plateau on the smooth one had a large chunk of briar missing. There was a Wilshire Dublin with a chewed and misfit stem. Finally, there was a billiard that had been restemmed with a fancy GBD saddle stem on it. They were a messy lot but I told him to send them on to me. They arrived yesterday and the condition of the pipes in the photos was confirmed. They were a mess and needed much work. I have included Mario’s group photo below to show the lot.I have also included three of the photos of the meerschaum that Mario sent to me as well. The first of the photos show the bowl top and what is either a metal cup lining the bowl or at least a metal rim top/cap. The meerschaum shows some great colour/patina as well as some chips and scratches and perhaps some repaired cracks in the surface. The horn stem also shows some wear and tear on the horn surface and some roughening. This afternoon I decided to start working on the fifth of the pipes from Mario – a figural carved freehand. It was a figural with a richly carved bearded man wearing a lion’s head as a cap on his head and a metal rim cap. The stem was made of horn that had lots of tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. The stem is dry and some of the striations are separating at the button end. The tenon has been wrapped with waxed thread to soften the fit of the stem in the mortise of the meerschaum. The bowl had a thick cake on the walls and a heavy lava coat the metal insert or the rim top. Which one is true will become clearer as I work on it. It was internally a mess. The finish was dirty and had grime ground into the sides of the bowl. That in many ways obscured the beauty of the patina on the bowl. There were nicks and deep scratches in the beard and in the smooth parts of the bowl but otherwise it seemed sound. The carving and filigree as well as scratches and nicks. There was no stamping or identifying marks on the meerschaum shank. I took photos of the pipe when I unpacked it to examine it. I have included those below. I took a photo of the bowl and rim top to show the condition of both. You can see the darkening on the metal insert rim top. There was a heavy cake in the bowl. The grooves in the carved meer are very dirty with debris. I also took photos of the stem showing the tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button.I took photos of the carving around the bowl. To me it looks like a mountain man wearing a bear’s head hat. The beard and carving are well done. The eyes even have lots of character. The side profile shows the bear’s head hat or head dress. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the parts. It is a well-proportioned pipe.I noted the tenon on the horn stem was wrapped with thread and then waxed. It would need to be cleaned up but it was interesting. It certainly was a self repair of the fit of the stem.It was now time to clean up the pipe. II checked the metal rim cap and found it was not a bowl insert but rather just a rim cap. It was dirty but easily removed.I scraped the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to remove the thick cake on the walls. I sanded the bowl walls with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a dowel to smooth out the bowl walls. The walls were clear of damage and felt smooth to touch. I scrubbed the externals of the bowl and shank with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I worked over the bowl, shank and rim top with the soap and then lightly rinsed it off warm water. The bowl looked extremely good. The grime was gone and the existing patina looked very rich and variegated. It is a beautifully carved pipe. I cleaned the metal rim top with 0000 Steel wool and a tooth brush and reset it in the bowl and rim top. It looked much better and smelled cleaned.I cleaned out the internals of the shank and the airway in the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. The shank was quite dirty but the airway in the stem was surprisingly clean. For awhile now I have been using Clapham’s Beeswax Salad bowl finish for waxing meerschaums. It is a combination of Beeswax and Carnauba. I worked it into the grooves with a shoe brush and into the deep grooves with cotton swabs. I let it harden then buffed it with a soft cloth to raise the shine. The patina looked very good. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the horn stem. I sanded it with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. I wiped it off between pads with an Obsidian Oil impregnated cloth to remove the debris of the sanding.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with an Obsidian Oil cloth after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil. I put the horn stem back on the Figural Carved Mountain Man Meerschaum pipe and buffed the pipe. I gently buffed waxed bowl with a clean microfibre cloth to raise the shine. I gave the stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the stem with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up really nicely and the patina gave depth to the carving. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This is a beautiful Figural Carved Mountain Man Meerschaum – the horn saddle stem and patinaed meer combine to give the pipe a great look. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 ½ inches, Height: 2 ¼ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¾ inches wide x 2 inches long, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 3.56 ounces/101 grams. This is the fifth of six pipes that am restoring for Mario from his Dad’s collection. I look forward to hearing what he thinks of this newly restored pipe. One more to go then the lot will go back to him. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it!

New Life for a Czechoslovakian Gold Spot Rusticated Pot Sitter with a Horn Stem

Leave a reply

By Steve Laug

A few weeks ago, I visited my Dad and family in Idaho Falls, Idaho. I stayed with Jeff and we went through pipes he had in boxes that needed clean up. I pulled a few of them out that caught my eye and brought them home with me. The next pipe on the table is one of those. We purchased it on 05/20/24 from an estate in Long Island, New York, USA. It is a rusticated pot with a smooth crowned rim cap. It is stamped on a smooth panel on the underside of the shank and read Gold Spot [over] Made in Czechoslovakia. The stamping of the Gold Spot brand had been done multiple times and was a bit hard to read. The finish was heavily rusticated with a finish even rougher than the Sea Rock finish. It was very dirty with a lot of grime built up in the valleys and ridges of the rustication. The bowl had a moderate cake in it and the rim top had a thick coat of lava built up. The inner edge of the bowl had lava on it and it appeared to have some damage. The horn stem had a push tenon. The tenon was metal/aluminum and had a stinger apparatus in the end. The stem was in rough condition with a lot of worm holes around the left side where it met the shank. There were also a lot of worm holes on both sides of the stem ahead of the button. There was also a worm hole on the underside of the stem mid stem. I took a few photos of the pipe in the car on the way home and have included them below. I took a photo of the rim top and bowl to show the condition of both of them. The bowl had a thick cake and lava build up on the rim top. The inner edge was coated in lava but also appeared to be rough from previous reaming. The photos of the horn stem show the worm holes on the top at the stem/shank junction and on the underside mid stem. There were deep worm holes and tooth damage on both sides just ahead of the button.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. The stamping, though double stamped was readable as noted above. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo to show the proportions of the pipe.I decided to do a bit of digging on the brand of the pipe. The rustication on the bowl and the stamping Made in Czechoslovakia is the same style as a pipe I did back in April of 2016. That one was an Old River is a stylized signature and this one is a Gold Spot in the same style of signature. I am including the information I gather on the blog I wrote on the Old River pipe. I had asked for information on the brand and was able to gather a lot of help. Here is the link to the blog (https://rebornpipes.com/2016/04/28/restoring-an-old-sea-slug-or-an-old-river-chubby-bent-apple/).

I received some responses on the blog. One of the most helpful ones was from a fellow named Tomas. Here is what he wrote to me:

Hello Rebornpipes, I am your big fan from Czech Republic in Europe. Old River pipes comes from Czechoslovakia, made in factory in “Prosec u Skutce”. This factory still works under name BPK.

Having that information was a great boost on identifying this pipe maker. I checked on Pipedia and found a link to BPK (https://pipedia.org/wiki/BPK). I quote:

A long tradition of producing pipes. BPK company exports pipes to more than 40 countries. The production of pipes has been traditionally connected with small town Prosec u Skutce since 1842. Prosec is situated in the heart of Czech Republic, approximately 150 km (93 miles) far from Prague. Since the change of political situation in 1989 the company BPK, Ltd has been continuing in the traditional production.

I Googled BPK pipes and found this link (https://www.pipeshop-saintclaude.com/bpk-343). I quote what it told me about the brand below:

Located in the town of Proseč, Czech Republic, the BPK workshop makes pipes since 1842. The firm succeeded at a time when pipe market was growing. At first, BPK pipes were actually not made with briar, but with other types of wood: alder, maple or pear tree. M. Zabor Bernard Kopperle (officer of the company) will only begin to use briar in 1910 for his pipes. The result is stunning because of the briar properties, particularly for tobaccos combustion: more heatproof and better for smokers when it comes to the taste. The BPK pipes success was immediate, and pipes were therefore exported in numerous neighbor countries. In the late 30s, more than 600 craftspeople worked for the production of BPK pipes! Nowadays, these pipes are still liked by smokers thanks to their classical design. Their silhouettes are simple and without any flourishes. Last criterion, and an important one: BPK pipes are proposed at an affordable price!

That gave me history on the brand and some connection to present pipes that are made by BPK but I still wanted to find a connection to the older company before the 1992 separation of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. That gave me a possible end date for the pipe. Though I cannot definitively prove it I am fairly certain that the pipe was made by BPK. I cannot find any listings for Gold Spot Made in Czechoslovakia pipes. The similarities to the finish on this one and the rustication on the various Old River pipes made by BPK lead to make the connection.

Now it was time to work on the pipe itself. I decided to do some work on the stem first. There were a significant number of worm holes in the material as visible in the pictures below. There were also some worm holes and tooth marks on the top and the underside of the stem ahead of the button. I wiped down the stem surface with alcohol on a cotton swab to remove any oils or debris from the worm holes or tooth damage areas. Once they were clean I filled them in with several layers of clear CA glue and set the stem aside to let the repairs cure.While the stem repairs cured I turned my attention to the bowl. I used a PipNet Pipe reamer first to take out the majority of the cake. It was a deep bowl so I used a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to clean up the remaining cake in the bowl and to scrape off the lava on the rim top. I used a dowel wrapped with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the walls of the bowl. I checked for damage on the bowl walls and it was in good condition. I scraped the rim top with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. I cleaned up the inner edge of the bowl with a folded piece of 220 sandpaper. I scrubbed out the inside of the shank, mortise and the airway in both the stem and the bowl. I used pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol. It cleaned up very well.I scrubbed the exterior of the briar with a tooth brush and undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the build up on the surface of the briar and clean off the lava on the rim top. I scrubbed it and then carefully rinsed the bowl with warm water. I dried it with a soft cotton cloth. It certainly looked significantly better and the patina remained in the wood. I polished the smooth briar with micromesh sanding pads to minimize the scratches in the briar. I dry sanded with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiped the bowl down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding debris. By the end of the nine pads the briar took on a rich shine and the rim top looked very good. I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. It is a paste/balm that works to deep clean the finish, enliven and protect the briar. I worked it into the briar with my finger tips o make sure that it covered every square inch of the pipe. I set it aside for 10 minutes to let it do its work. I buffed it with a cotton cloth. The briar really began to have a deep shine. The photos I took of the bowl at this point mark the progress in the restoration. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. The repairs to the stem surface had cured. I used several files to flatten the repaired areas ahead of the mouthpiece and around the shank end. I cleaned up the file areas with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the stem surface. I sanded the stem with 320-3500 grit sanding pads to break up the remaining oxidation. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with an Obsidian Oil impregnated cloth. It began to look good.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. Once I had finished the polishing I gave it final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I put the Gold Spot Made in Czechoslovakia Rusticated Pot bowl and stem back together. I polished the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the scratches in the briar and the repaired horn stem. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The reddish/brown stains worked amazingly well with the polished horn taper stem. The grain around the bowl and shank and looks quite remarkable. This is truly a beautiful BPK Gold Spot Rusticated Pot. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 inches, Height: 1 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.98 ounces/55 grams. For now, this one will join the Old River Pipe in my collection and be enjoyed with some good Virginia very soon. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me. Cheers.

As always, I encourage your questions and comments as you read the blog. Thanks to each of you who are reading this blog. Remember we are not pipe owners; we are pipe men and women who hold our pipes in trust until they pass on into the trust of those who follow us.

Restoring an Old KBB Palmyra Horn Stem Bent Billiard with a Wind Cap

2 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is an older KBB Pipe with a horn stem that a friend, Rob sent me. It has a nickel band on the shank and a nickel rim and wind cap. The briar has been stained with a dark purple stain and is a great contrast to the polished nickel and the horn stem. The finish was dirty and there are scratches in the finish. The nickel rim cap is dirty on the underside with tars and darkening. The hinge holding it on the cap is missing one of the anchors holding it in place. I am quite amazed that the hinge pin is not missing. The bowl has a moderate cake in the bowl and around the metal inner edge of the rim. It is quite dirty on the inside. The pipe is stamped on the left side of the shank and reads PALMYRA. On the polished nickel band it is stamped with KB&B in a cloverleaf over NICKEL PLATED on the left side. The horn stem is held in place by a threaded bone tenon that is excellent shape. The stem had tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside of the stem. The horn stem was worn and dry looking. Rob wrote me an email about the pipe asking if I would work on it. I have included the email below.

Hi Steve!

Greetings from Kamloops… hope you had a great holiday season. A while back, I picked up a KBB Palmyra on EBay (pictures attached) and I was looking into having it restored. It’s a cool little pipe with a horn stem… I think it’s 1920s era? I don’t mind fixing up estates now and again, but I’d like this one to be restored by someone with a little more know-how than me. It basically needs a thorough cleaning, minor repairs, and a repair to the hinge of the wind cap. Would you be interested in restoring it? And do you know what it might cost, offhand?

Have a great weekend, Rob

He sent the following photos which I have included below. They reveal the condition of the pipe and gave me a sense of what would be needed. When the pipe arrived yesterday I took it to the worktable. I took it out of the box and took photos of it before I started working on it. The pictures that Rob sent above told the story very clearly. The finish looked okay but there were some nicks and dents in the briar. The stain was a dark purple/oxblood colour that hid the grain but it is the classic stain that was on the bowl when it was made. The nickel on the band and rim edge were clean. The cap needed polishing and the inside of the cap was dirty with tars, oils and build up. The horn stem had tooth marks on the top and underside ahead of the button. I took a photo of the rim top and cap to show the condition. You can see that part of the hinge material is missing at the bottom edge of the pin below. I have inserted a red arrow in the photo below showing the missing hinge piece. I opened the cap and took a photo of the inside. The top of the cap is dirty as noted above and quite rough. The rim cap is also dirty and will need to be cleaned. I also took photos of the stem to show the tooth marks in the surface. I took a photo of the stamp on the shank side. There is some gold leaf still in the stamp that I would touch up after the clean up. I took a photo of the stem and bowl to give a sense of the size and proportion of the pipe. I decided to start with the stem work. I sanded out the tooth marks on the stem surface with 320-35000 grit sanding pads to remove the tooth marks in the surface of the stem. Once I was able to remove the marks in the stem surface and started polishing the horn surface. It looked much better.I polished the vulcanite stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding it with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry.I polished it further with Before & After Pipe Polish – using both the Fine and Extra Fine Polishes. I gave it a rubdown with Obsidian Oil one last time and set it aside. I set the stem aside and turned my attention to the bowl. I removed the cap and the hinge pin from the one side of the cap to free it from the bowl so that I could work on it. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the metal lined inner edge of the bowl. I also cleaned up the rim cap top at the same time.I scraped the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. I removed all of the cake on the bowl walls. I sanded the bowl walls smooth with a piece of dowel wrapped with 220 grit sandpaper. The bowl was smooth and undamaged.I cleaned up the top of the wind cap with a worn 1200 grit micromesh sanding pad to remove the grime on the top of the cap. I also worked on the build up on the inside of the cap with the same piece of 1200 grit micromesh. It removed the grime but did not damage the polished nickel.I cleaned out the internals in the shank and the airway in the stem and shank with pipe cleaners and isopropyl alcohol. It was surprisingly clean and it took very few cleaners to leave it clean.I touched up the light spots on the bowl sides and on the joint of the shank and the bowl with a Mahogany stain pen. The colour matched perfectly. Once it had cured I would polish it and blend it further. I worked Before & After Restoration Balm deep into the smooth finish to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I hand rubbed it with my fingers and worked it into the finish then set it aside to dry for 10-15 minutes. I wiped it off with a soft cloth. I buffed the bowl with a cotton cloth to polish it. It really began to have a deep shine in the briar. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. The grain on the bowl stands out with interesting lines moving across the sides of the bowl and the shank. I touched up the gold gilt in the stamping on the left side shank with Rub’n Buff Antique Gold. I worked it into the stamping with a tooth pick and buffed off the excess with a cotton pad. It looked quite good with the retouched stamp.Now it was time to work on the broken hinge on the cap. The right side of the hinge cap was present as was the hinge pin. The right side had broken off somewhere in the life of the pipe. I used a soldering iron and some solder wired to build up a cap over the left side end of the hinge pin. I opened the lid and soldered the end over the pin on the inside of the cap first. I closed the lid and built it up on the outside of the hinge. I used a small flat file to flatten out the hinge end on the inside and the outside of the cap. I finished it up with a Dremel and a sanding drum to further flatten it out. I screwed the horn stem back on the KB&B Palmyra Bent Billiard and carefully worked the pipe over on the buffing wheel using Blue Diamond to lightly polish the stem. I buffed the bowl and stem to raise the gloss on the briar and the vulcanite. I gave the pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished KB&B Palmyra Bent Billiard is shown in the photos below. The purple/oxblood stains on the smooth Billiard shaped bowl works well with the polished nickel band and the polished horn stem. The dimensions of the pipe are: Length: 4 ½ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside Diameter: 1 ¼ inches, Diameter of the chamber: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.38 ounces/39 grams. This is an interesting pipe with the dark stain on the bowl, the gold stamp on the left side of the shank and shank, the nickel wind cap and band all work with the polished horn stem. I really like how well the parts work together. This one will soon be on its way back to Rob. I think he will enjoy himself with this beautiful little old timer. I look forward to hearing what he thinks of it once he sees it.