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Restoring a Cased Set – 2 JBV & 1 M&T Bent Billiards – Part 1

Blog by Steve Laug

I was chatting with Chris van Hilst from Tobacco Pipe Restorers one day using Messenger and he was selling this old set of pipes. Two of them were stamped JBV in an oval and one was a M&T Best Briar & Bands. The set was missing the third JBV pipe and one of the stems was for the M&T. The silver was dirty and the bowls caked but there was something about the pipes that really attracted me. We talked prices and made a deal. I had him send the pipes to Jeff in Idaho as it was easier to deal with than sending them to Canada. I had him send me a couple of photos of the set that are shown below. The first is the pipes sitting in the case. It shows that there is some kind of cigarette holder and a tamper missing from the set. The second photo shows the JBV in an oval stamp on the left side of the shank of one of the pipes. I could also see hallmarks in the silver but was not able to clearly read them. Jeff received them pretty quickly and put them aside. My daughters went down for my Dad’s 90^th birthday so he took the opportunity to send them north with them on their return trip. He had not had a chance to clean them so I was left to my own devices on this set of three. When they arrived, I took a photo of the case before I opened it and of the case open showing the pipes. It is covered in leather and is kidney shaped. It is lightly stained but other than a few nicks it is in great condition.There was some gold leters on the front edge of the case that reads FOURNISSEUR DE SM LEROI DES BELGES. It translates from Belgian French to read PROVIDER HM KING OF BELGIAN. Or the Provider for His Majesty King of Belgium.I opened the case and took a photo of the pipes on the inside and the stamping on the inside of the lid. It reads J.B. Vinche over “Au Nabab” over Bruxelles. That is what it reads as best as I can make out. It is pretty blurry.I took photos of each of the pipes before I started to work on them. I started with the pipe on the left side of the photo above and worked my way across for the photos. The first pipe below is the one on the left. It is stamped JBV in an oval on the left side of the shank. The silver ferrule is also stamped JBV in an oval over BRUX over three hallmarks that are hard to read. The first appears to be a flower, the second a person and the third is ARG over 900. The pipe is in rough shape. The finish is shot; there is silver polish on the shank ahead of the ferrule. There are some gouges in the top and underside of the shank. The JBV Oval was originally gold leaf. There is a thick cake in the bowl and the rim top is beat up. There are big chunks of briar missing around the outer edge of the rim. The rim top is chipped and damaged and the inner edge is in rough condition. The pipe is very dirty. The second pipe is shown below and is the one in the center position in the case. It is stamped BEST BRIAR & BANDS with each word over the next on the left side of the shank. One the right side it is stamped M&T in a football shaped oval. The silver ferrule is also stamped with a BBB vertically on the side of the band next to the shank. Next to that is the same M&T stamp in an oval over three hallmarks that are hard to read. The first appears to be a flower, the second is 933 and the third is a crescent moon. The pipe is in rough shape. Once again the finish is shot; there is silver polish on the shank ahead of the ferrule. There are some gouges in the top and underside of the shank. There is a thick cake in the bowl and the rim top is beat up. There is a crack running down the back side from the rim halfway to the shank. The rim top is dented and damaged and the inner edge is in better condition than the first pipe. The pipe is very dirty. The third pipe is shown below and is the one on the right side of the case. It is stamped JBV in an oval on the left side of the shank. The silver ferrule is also stamped JBV in an oval over BRUX over three hallmarks that are hard to read. The first appears to be a flower, the second a person and the third is ARG over 900. The pipe is in rough shape. The finish is on this one is also shot; there is silver polish on the shank ahead of the ferrule. There are some gouges in the top and underside of the shank. The JBV Oval was originally gold leaf. There is a thick cake in the bowl and the rim top is beat up. There are big chunks of briar missing around the outer edge of the rim. The rim top is chipped and damaged and the inner edge is in rough condition. There looked like there could be a crack in the bowl down the left side. Like the rest of the pipes in this set the pipe is very dirty. There were two stems in the set. You can see from the photos below that they were different sizes. In the first photo the top stem is more delicate. It is narrower at the tenon end. It is for the M&T pipe while the bottom one is for the JBV pipes. The stems both are in decent condition with a little oxidation and minimal tooth chatter. There are no deep tooth marks so that is something to be thankful for. I knew that the set was older but I was unfamiliar with the brands. I had not heard of JBV so I did a bit of research on the brand and found an interesting link to an old catalogue. It turns out that the JBV is short for J.B. Vinche Company in Brussels. I have included the information on the brand that I found in the link as well as the link below.

This company maintained a factory in Brussels, Belgium, but records indicate that it also operated a retail establishment at 34, Rue Notre Dame des Victoires, in Paris under the name “Au Nabab” where, no doubt, it offered its product line for sale to the public.

https://www.facebook.com/tobaccopipeartistory/photos/a.111646685586370.24977.101191206631918/111646972253008/?type=3&theater

I also included some photos of a J.B. Vinche Catalogue from 1875. I checked on the Pipephil website to see what I could find there. Generally I find the site one of the most helpful in quickly confirming information on a brand. In this case it came through with a great bit of information. I did a screen capture of the pertinent section of the link. You can check it out further on the following link. http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-v2.html.

The information included in the capture reads:

The brand has been created in Bruxelles in 1864 by Jean Baptiste Vinche and run after him by his son Victor. Marcel and Rene Vinche (3^rd generation) managed the corporation from 1927 on. The brand is famous for its meerschaum pipes but briar pipes were also produced after 1938. In 1965 Jacques Vinche (4^th generation) entered the family firm. Jeff and Mia Koopmans from Hilson Pipes joined in 1977. Today (2009) Ben and Wim Koopmans manage the business.Pipedia confirms this information at the following link: https://pipedia.org/wiki/Vinche.

I could not find out any information on the third pipe – the M&T Best Briar Band pipe. I checked in all of my usual sources and came up empty. Does anyone know anything about the brand? Let me know.

Armed with the background information, I decided to start on these pipes by reaming all three of them. The cake in each was quite thick and the damage to the rim and bowl made me proceed with caution. I was concerned about the cracked bowl in the M&T pipe as well as the potential crack in the second JBV pipe. I started with the first JBV pipe and reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer starting with the first cutting head and working my way up to the second and lightly working on it with the third one. I took the cake back to bare briar to check out the interior of the bowl. I followed up by reaming it with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe knife and finally sanding the bowl with 180 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. I moved on to the M&T Best Briar Band pipe and reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer starting with the first cutting head and working my way up to the second and lightly working on it with the third one. I took the cake back to bare briar to check out the interior of the bowl. I followed up by reaming it with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe knife and finally sanding the bowl with 180 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. I moved on to the second JBV pipe (the one that I thought had a possible crack). I started with the smallest cutting head on the PipNet pipe reamer and turned it gently in the bowl one twist and the bowl split in half in my hands. I was sick when I felt it break. I have never had that happen in all these years of working on pipes. It really was unbelievable. I held the pieces together and took the cake back to bare briar to check out the interior of the bowl. I used a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe knife to scrape away the remnants of cake. The photo below shows the bowl in half with the reamer next to it.This is not what I wanted to do next! I had planned to work through each of the pipes and have a nice set! Now I had to deal with this one and because it was part of an old set I felt obligated to try to put it back together. I was just sickening to have the second original bowl break in my hands. Why couldn’t it have been the cracked M&T bowl? But since it was the other JBV bowl I needed to repair it. At this point this blog also took a turn. I would do the rest of the first part of the blog on the bowl repair of this particular JBV pipe. I would have to follow up with at least one more part on the other two pipes in the set.

I turned to repair the bowl. I decided to pin the two halves together and then fill it and line the bowl with JB Weld. It would be a process. I drilled 8 small pin holes in the front half of the bowl and put stainless pins in the holes. I matched the two halves together and marked the holes on the other side of the bowl. I drilled matching holes. Once I had the holes aligned I painted each half with gel super glue and pressed the halves together and held them in place until the glue set. I filled in the cracks around the sides and bottom of the bowl with briar dust and super glue. I used a dental spatula to apply the patch all around the bowl. I pressed the mixture into the crevices that remained in the sides and bottom.When the repair hardened I sanded it with 180 grit sandpaper to blend it into the surface of the bowl. I also repaired the chips out of the edges of the bowl with super glue and briar dust. I sanded the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper and smoothed out the repaired areas and sanded the rest of the bowl at the same time. I carefully avoided the stamping on the shank so as not to damage that area. I topped the bowl to remove the damage to the rim top. I had hand sanded it with sandpaper to start the process and filled in the damaged areas with super glue and briar dust. Now it was time to top it. Once I had it topped I wiped the bowl down with alcohol to remove the dust and the remainder of the finish on the shank and bowl. I cleaned out the inside of the mortise and shank as well as the airway into the bowl with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs. The airway was clogged so I pushed a pipe cleaner through into the bowl. The mortise was like a Peterson’s sump and it was filthy. It took a lot of work to clean it out.I sanded the exterior of the bowl with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. At this point I paused in sanding the exterior and turned my attention to repairing the inside of the bowl. I mixed a batch of JB Weld and put a pipe cleaner in the airway into the bowl to keep the airway from being covered with the mixture. I applied the mix to the inside of the bowl with a popsicle stick. I pressed it into the cracks and build up the damaged areas to protect it from further damage. With that I called it a night, set the bowl aside to dry and turned out the lights. In the morning I sanded out the excess JB Weld with 180 grit sandpaper wrapped around a dowel. I wiped the bowl down with a damp paper towel to remove the dust. The photos below show the bowl at this point. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad to remove the dust. I stained the bowl with a Tan aniline stain. I had found that the stain was probably mislabeled as it had a definite red cast to it. I applied it with the dauber and flamed it with a lighter to set the stain in the finish.Once the stain cured I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. It cleans, enlivens and protects the briar. In this case I also found that it blended the stain well on the surface of the briar. I polished the silver with a jeweler’s cloth to polish and remove the tarnish. I reapplied the gold to the stamping on the shank using Rub’n Buff Antique Gold. I applied it in the stamping using the tip of a sanding stick. I let the stamping sit for a few minutes then buffed off the excess product.I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to making a stem for this pipe. Remember I mentioned that the second stem in the case was for the M&T pipe and was too small in diameter for the shank of the second JBV pipe. I found a Bakelite stem in my box of stems that only needed to be shaped to fit the shank of the pipe. I tapered the end of the stem with a Dremel and sanding drum to match the taper of the other stem. I sanded it with 180 grit sandpaper to smooth out the Dremel marks and further taper it.I sanded out the tooth chatter and reshaped the edges of the button with 220 grit sandpaper. I also smoothed out the flow of the stem.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with Obsidian Oil to wipe away the sanding dust and bring some life to the Bakelite. With the stem and bowl done it the first installment of this blog is complete. It is time to reconnect things and take some final photos. I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the entire pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. This frustrating old pipe that split in half had been brought back to functional life and it does not look to bad to my eye. This is a long one. For some of you I am sure you are wondering what is wrong with me to take time to fix this one. To you I say it was worth the lessons that I learned and it is still a smokable pipe. Thanks for reading.

Recommissioning a GBD International Carved Rim Bent Bulldog London Made

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Blog by Dal Stanton

This Bulldog is simply cool. It was one of those wonderful surprises one hopes for when you buy many pipes in one fell swoop on eBay. In many of my restoration blogs I’ve mentioned the Lot of 66 which I landed last year while back in the US. What can I say – God knew that I was restoring pipes to benefit the Daughters of Bulgaria and this Lot of 66 has been a gift that keeps on giving. It isn’t possible to see all the pipes in the landscape pictures provided and one hopes in the percentages – there has to be some good pipes in the Lot! Here is the Lot of 66 that I saw then and have pictured several times before. I’m not positive, but the GBD Rustified Rim Bulldog is on the extreme lower right below – only his bowl showing.Many of my restorations for the Daughters come from people seeing a pipe in my “For ‘Pipe Dreamers’ Only” section on The Pipe Steward blog. I came up with the idea of this ‘before restoration offerings’ when I found that when people visited us here in Bulgaria, they would know about our work with the Daughters of Bulgaria and that I restored pipes that benefited that cause. Almost always they wanted to see what pipes I had in the “Help Me! Basket” and they would choose one to be restored. The interesting thing I discovered was that people live in hope for what something can become. Estate pipes can be pretty nasty, but people know the amazing wonders of what the restorative processes can produce and so they see the potential and trust me to realize that hope as I bring a pipe to The Pipe Steward worktable on the 10^th floor of a former Communist apartment block in Sofia, Bulgaria! What a story! I’m living the dream 😊.

Chris, a dedicated pipe man and regular contributor on the Facebook group, ‘The Gentlemen’s Pipe Smoking Society’ was ‘Pipe Dreaming’ while tooling around looking at the offerings and saw the GBD International Bulldog. What attracted him to the Bulldog was the unique rustified rim with hearty agreement from me. It adds a flair that you don’t often see on a London Made Bulldog. The bent stem is cool, too, adding a bit more flare. Here are some of the pictures Chris saw in the “For ‘Pipe Dreamers’ Only” page: Chris commissioned the GBD Bulldog, which put it in the queue for restoration. After the restoration is completed and published, I then place a value on the pipe resulting from my research. The commissioner has the first opportunity to claim the pipe from The Pipe Steward Store. Chris will have first dibs on this Bulldog when completed.

GBD (Pipedia’s article on GBD), was the handshake enterprise started by three French ‘Master Pipemakers’, Ganneval, Bondier and Donninger in Paris in 1850 to manufacture Meerschaum pipes, which was the primary material used in manufacturing pipes along with clay. This was true until the discovery of briar in Saint Claude, France, a discovery that changed the pipe manufacturing world. In 1902 Marechal and Ruchon sold GBD to A. Oppenheimer & Co. in London, which began the shift of GBD to being primarily a British enterprise, even though GBD pipes continued to be produced in Paris and Saint Claude, until 1981, with the closing of the French operation when the name, GBD, was merged with the Cadogan Group. I enjoy rehearsing the historical developments of pipe names and companies because they add to the enjoyment and appreciation of restoring pipes.

I take some additional pictures of the GBD International Bulldog on my worktable. The nomenclature has on the left side of the shank, a GBD circled with an oval over INTERNATIONAL over LONDON MADE. The right side has LONDON ENGLAND over 546, the shape number. The shape number lines up as a Bulldog, ¼ bent, Diamond shank according to Jerry Hanna’s GBD shapes chart listings in Pipedia. The dating of the pipe is pre-1980s. The stem’s brass rondel along with the “London, England” stamp indicates a pre-Cadogan era GBD. The merger was 1981. This information is clear.

There’s some information that is proving to be a bit more difficult to mine in my research. I’ve contacted Al Jones (Upshallfan), a regular contributor to rebornpipes, on a few GBDs I’ve restored in the past. Al is a gold mine of information about GBDs and I appreciate his help. Previously, he had sent me a PDF he had gleaned from now defunct www.perardua.net/ entitled ‘GBD Model Information’. From that PDF I found this reference regarding the ‘International’ line of GBD. I clipped it:I was excited to get a lead on what appears to be a GBD pipe line of “carved top rims” that were stained black. The reference in the second line is to a 1976 catalog where I could hopefully find more about the International line. Hopeful of finding this catalog, I went to the internet. Unfortunately, I could find nothing. Also disheartening, the usual go to page for catalogs, Chris’ Pipe Pages, I discovered some time ago, now seems to be defunct. Sad. So, again I sent Al a note with some questions. His reply came very quickly with this picture of at least one ‘GBD International’ from the 1977 Tinderbox catalog. The writing is not easy to make out but the “M.” example of the International line is a nice looking oval shank Volcano shape which I can make out has a carved rim like the Bulldog. With this information, my thinking is that the GBD Bulldog I have is dated from 1976 but earlier than 1981. Again, much thanks to Al Jones!Looking at the GBD International Bulldog itself, it is in decent condition. There is some cake build up in the chamber and the carved rim shows some expected grime but not too much. The twin dome grooves are full of debris and need to be cleaned. The bowl itself looks very good – it has some expected grime, but the briar looks exceptional underneath. It will look good when cleaned up. The stem has some deep oxidation and the bit shows some dents and tooth chatter that will need correcting.

I begin the restoration of this GBD International Bulldog by adding the stem to a soak using Before & After Deoxidizer. After running pipe cleaners dipped in isopropyl 95% through the internals of the stem, it joins 5 other pipe stems in queue for restoration. I leave the stem in the soak for a few hours then fishing the GBD stem out, I wipe it off with a cotton pad wetted with light paraffin oil. I also put a pipe cleaner through the stem to push the fluid out and follow with a pipe cleaner dipped in isopropyl 95% to assure that the airway is clear. After cleaning the stem of the Deoxidizer, I can still detect oxidation in the vulcanite. I take another picture of the stem with the aperture open more to show what I’m seeing.I decide to give the stem another soak in an OxiClean solution. After covering the rondel with petroleum jelly, I put it in the soak. I’m not sure if the brass rondel will react or not to the OxiClean, but I take no chances.While the stem is in the OxiClean cooker, I turn to the stummel. First, I use the Pipnet Reaming Kit to remove the carbon cake from the Bulldog’s chamber. It takes 2 of the 4 blade heads available in the kit. I follow this using the Savinelli Fitsall Tool to fine tune more by scraping the chamber walls removing more carbon. To get down to fresh briar, I then wrap a 240 grit piece of sanding paper around a Sharpie Pen and sand the chamber. To clean up, I wipe out the carbon dust with a cotton pad wetted with isopropyl 95%. The pictures show the progress. Moving along with the stummel, I use undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap with a cotton pad to scrub the surface of the briar. To clean the rim, I use a bristled tooth brush with Murphy’s to clean the carved angles and valleys. I then rinse the bowl with cool tap water. The last thing I do is take a sharp dental probe and run it through the twin dome grooves to remove the small debris that had lodged in the grooves. With my wife’s help, I record a picture of this surgery.Since I like working on clean pipes and I know new stewards like smoking with clean pipes, I turn to the internals of the stummel. Using cotton buds and pipe cleaners with isopropyl 95%, I go to work. I’m thankful to discover that there is little resistance. Later, at the end of the day, I’ll clean the internals further by using a kosher salt and alcohol soak.With the internals clean, I turn again to the briar surface. To enliven the tired finish and to remove the small nicks and cuts that come from wear, I wet sand with micromesh pads 1500 to 2400, then dry sand with pads 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000. With each cycle, I enjoyed watching the grain emerge. This GBD International Bulldog has nice grain – nice vertical flames rising to the carved plateau. I’m liking this. I also want to freshen the carved black plateau – rim. I use a black furniture dye stick to apply to the rim. Later, when I apply compound, I’ll blend the black more, so it has more textured matte depth. Now, back to the stem. The GBD stem has been soaking in OxiClean as a second salvo against the oxidation in the vulcanite. After taking it out of the OxiClean bath, I use 600 grade paper and I wet sand the stem. I work on the areas that show the deeper oxidation. I then use 0000 steel wool and work over the entire stem, paying close attention to the area around the rondel. I’m not 100% satisfied, but I may do more after I work on the bit. I take a picture of the upper bit and the lower bit to show the tooth dents. The upper is not bad but the lower has two significant clinch bites and some damage to the button lip.To lessen the severity of the dents I heat the vulcanite using a Bic lighter by painting the dented areas with a flame. As the vulcanite heats, it naturally expands and retakes some of the original ‘foot print’ of the dent. I heat both upper and lower. The upper will easily sand out but the lower still has work to do.To fill the dents and rebuild a little of the button, I use Starbond Black Medium CA glue. I spot drop the black CA glue on the dents and then I use an accelerator to quicken the curing time.I then use a flat needle file and 240 grade sanding paper to sand down the patches. I use the file to freshen the button – to reestablish crisp button edges.The following two pictures show the lower bit/button work – first in progress then completed with filing and 240 paper.I continue the smoothing and erasing of the 240 scratches by using 600 grade paper and then finishing with 0000 grade steel wool. The patches look good, oxidation seems to be abated and the button shaping will be greatly appreciated by a new steward!I now turn to micromesh pads by first wet sanding with pads 1500 to 2400, then dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000 then 6000 to 12000. After each set of three I apply Obsidian Oil to revitalize the vulcanite. The stem looks good. Turning now to the stummel, to enrich the briar grain I apply Before & After Restoration Balm. I put a little on my finger and work it into the briar surface. As I work it in, the liquid thickens into a wax-like substance. After some minutes, I wipe off the Balm using a clean cloth. As the Balm comes off, the surface buffs up nicely.With my day ending, I continue cleaning the internals of the stummel. I use a kosher salt and alcohol soak. I fashion a wick by stretching and twisting a cotton ball. I insert the ‘wick’ down the mortise into the airway. I then fill the chamber with Kosher salt which, unlike iodized salt, leaves no aftertaste. I then situate the stummel in an egg crate giving it stability and then add isopropyl 95% with a large eye dropper until it surfaces over the salt. After a few minutes I top the alcohol once again and then turn out the lights.The next morning the soak had produced results with soiled salt and the wick absorbed more oils and tars. I remove the expended salt to the waste and wipe the chamber with paper towel. I also blow through the mortise to remove any remaining salt particles. I then expend a few more pipe cleaners and cotton buds to clean up left overs from the soak. The internals are as fresh as I can make them.I reunite stem and stummel and mount a cotton cloth buffing wheel to the Dremel, setting the speed at the slowest. I then apply Blue Diamond compound to the entire pipe. I also work on blending the black matte plateaued rim. What I discover regarding the rim is that when I simply buff it with the Blue Diamond compound, is shines it up! The exact opposite than dulling it down to a matte, charcoal look. Then I came up with the idea of simply wetting a cotton pad with alcohol and dabbing it over the rim to dull the finish. It worked like I was hoping. I take a picture of before and after. It’s difficult to see different shades of black in a photo! But it does look good – the effect is striking. After completing the compound application and blending the rim, I wipe the pipe with a felt cloth to remove residue compound dust in preparation for the wax. I then switch to another cotton cloth wheel on the Dremel, increase the speed to about 40% full power and apply a few coats of carnauba wax to both stummel and stem. After application of the carnauba, I give the pipe a rigorous hand buffing to raise the shine.

Oh my. The grain on this GBD International London Made shouts for attention! I’m pleased with the results. The flame grain emerges from the heel of the bowl – out of densely populated bird’s eye and swirls to reach toward the dome of the stummel, culminating in the craggy plateau of the rim. There’s a lot going on with this bent Bulldog. It is headed to The Pipe Steward Store and since Chris saw the potential of this GBD International, he will have first dibs on bringing the Bulldog home. The sale of this pipe benefits the Daughters of Bulgaria – helping women and girls (and their children) who have been trafficked and sexually exploited. Thank you for joining me! I can’t resist starting off with a before and after picture lest we forget!

Transforming a Stately Peterson’s System Standard Republic of Ireland 312

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Blog by Dal Stanton

This Peterson’s System Standard Republic 312 came to me in the Lot of 66 that I secured last year on the eBay auction block. This eclectic collection of pipes has been good to me and beneficial for the Daughters of Bulgaria as I’ve recommissioned many pipes of this Lot and they are now in the hands of new stewards. This Pete can be found in the picture below just cattycorner to the lower left of the Sculpted Gourd Calabash that was already recommissioned and with a new steward in Washington State, USA – a US Airforce pipe man serving his country. The Pete now on my worktable was commissioned by a long-time friend and colleague who worked with us while we lived in Ukraine several years ago – before we lived here in Bulgaria. Debbie contacted me from her present home in the US state of Montana about acquiring a special pipe for her husband’s birthday. Unfortunately, James’ birthday was coming on a faster timetable than I could accommodate, so we settled on a special Christmas gift. She looked through the offerings on the www.ThePipeSteward.com section called, For ‘Pipe Dreamers’ Only and after getting input from James’ best friend, settled on the Pete. When I asked her why the Pete, the response was that it was a manly looking pipe as well as its origins – the Republic of Ireland. James’ rich heritage finds Irish roots, and Debbie felt that this Pete’s disposition would suit James well. What a great wife! So, in the queue the Pete 312 went and now he’s on my worktable.

Not long ago, I enjoyed restoring my first Peterson’s – a System Standard 313 which allowed me the opportunity to look more closely at the history of this well-known Irish pipe name. What I found interesting and helpful was the description of the classic Peterson System Pipe. When this design hit the market in the late 1800s it was innovative then and continues to be popular today. Two design innovations were the focus: a trap (or sump) that collected the moisture in the mortise and the well-known ‘P-Lip’ stem, which stands for ‘Peterson’. This design was supposed to be superior by directing the smoke to the upper part of the mouth rather than burning the tongue. It is also engineered to compress the air as it moves toward the button with an internal narrowing of the airway. I found this helpful cut-out of the System Pipe at Pipedia’s article about Peterson.The System 313, I last restored, was quite a bit smaller than this larger System Standard 312. I found a very helpful Peterson’s System Standard shapes chart at the ‘Amazingmisterp’ blog site – link. It helpfully situated the 313 and 312 next to each other for an easy comparison – circled below. I enjoy looking at the nuanced shapes that Peterson has produced through the years. I can understand why they continue to be a very collectable pipe name and why it would be a great challenge to add to your collection the entire roster! As a ‘Made in the Republic of Ireland’ stamped Peterson, it is considered to be Republic Era which spans anywhere from 1949 until the present (from the Pipedia article: A Peterson Dating Guide; A Rule of Thumb, by Mike Leverette).The Peterson history is captured in a short article found in Pipedia which included a bit here:

History pertinent to our purposes began in the year 1865; the year Charles Peterson opened a small tobacco shop in Dublin. Later in 1875, Charles Peterson approached the Kapp brothers, Friedrich and Heinrich, with a new pipe design and with this, a very long-lived partnership was formed, Kapp & Peterson. This new pipe design is the now famous Peterson Patented System Smoking Pipe. By 1890, Kapp & Peterson was the most respected pipe and tobacco manufacturer in Ireland and rapidly gaining followers in England and America. In 1898 another of Peterson’s remarkable inventions became available, the Peterson-Lip (P-Lip) mouthpiece, also known as the Steck mouthpiece. So, for the purpose of this dating guide, we will study Irish history, relevant to our pipe dating needs, from 1870s until now.

With the Peterson’s System Standard 312 now on my worktable, I take some pictures to get a closer look and assess his condition. The nomenclature is clear. On the left side of the shank is stamped in arched fashion, ‘PETERSON’S’ over ‘SYSTEM’ over ‘STANDARD’ in straight letters. Above this stamp, on the nickel ferule is ‘K&P PETERSONS’. The right side of the shank bears the ‘MADE IN THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND’ placing it in the Republic Era – from 1949 until the present (from the Pipedia article: A Peterson Dating Guide; A Rule of Thumb, by Mike Leverette) The shape number, 312, is below it.

Assessing the condition of this larger, stately Pete, there’s cake in the chamber that needs to be cleared to allow fresh start. The rim has some lava caked on it and some burn damage from lighting the tobacco. The left front of the stummel is darkened from the briar over-heating in the same area that appears to be the lighting point over the rim. I see very nice briar under the dull finish. The heel of the stummel appears to have two larger fills that I’ll need to take a closer look at. The heel is also skinned up. The P-Lip stem has heavy and deep oxidation as well as calcification on the button and some tooth chatter. I also detect two deep gashes on the upper and on the lower stem – almost like something sharp was clenching the stem. That will need repair.

With the assessment completed, I start the restoration of James’ Christmas Pete by placing the heavily oxidized P-Lip stem in a bath of Before & After Deoxidizer along with five other pipes’ stems that are in queue for restoration. The Pete is on the far left – first in line of this batch.While the stem is soaking for several hours in the Deoxidizer, I turn to the Peterson stummel. I start my using the Pipnet Reaming Kit. Starting with the smallest blade head, I go to work. I use two of the four blades available to do the heavy lifting on cake removal. I then fine tune the reaming by utilizing the Savinelli Fitsall Tool by scaping the chamber wall. Then, after wrapping 240 grade paper around a Sharpie Pen, I sand the chamber revealing fresh briar. Finally, I clean the chamber using cotton pads wetted with isopropyl 95% to remove the residual carbon dust. With the carbon cake removed, I inspect the chamber and it looks great. No problems with crack or heat fissures. The pictures show the progress. Now I turn to cleaning the external bowl using undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and cotton pads. I also utilize a brass wire brush on the rim. After scrubbing, I rinse the bowl in cool tap water. The rim is not in good shape and will have to be topped to clean it up. The two fills I saw on the heel of the stummel are not solid and are not flush with the surface. I use a sharp dental probe to dig out the old filler. I will patch these later. With my day ending, I decide to move forward on the heel fill patches to allow them time to cure through the night. I do additional excavation of the old fill material with a sharp dental probe to remove what I can. I then wipe the area with a cotton pad wetted with isopropyl 95% to assure that it is clean. I mix a small batch of CA glue and briar dust to create a putty. Using a toothpick, I gradually mix the CA glue with the briar dust until it reaches the viscosity of molasses and then apply the briar dust putty to the old fills using a dental spatula. I apply more than needed to create a mound to be sanded down and blended after cured. I set the stummel aside and turn off the lights. Morning has come and first order of business before heading out for the workday is to pluck the P-Lip military style stem out of the Before and After Deoxidizer bath. I allow the stem to drain for a few minutes then I use cotton pads with light paraffin oil to wipe the raised oxidation off the stem. I also use alcohol to clean the surface as well as with pipe cleaners to make sure the airway is cleared. The Deoxidizer has done a good job, but I still detect oxidation that will require sanding the vulcanite. The button also is rough with a combination of tooth dents and calcification ridges that linger. Of course, the twin ‘pincer’ gashes remain at the mid-stem. The Before & After Deoxidizer bath is the first salvo.I decide that the second more aggressive salvo to attack the deep oxidation, gashes and tooth dents is to use 240 grade sanding paper over the entire surface of the P-Lip stem – of course, care is given to safe-guard the ‘P’ embedded on the stem. After completing sanding with 240 grade paper, I wet sand the stem using 600 grade paper. Then, using 0000 grade steel wool, I sand/buff up the stem. The sanding process removed the major difficulties with the dents and gashes. I’m hopeful as well, that the oxidation was also dispatched.While my focus is still on the stem, I apply Before & After Fine Polish, working the polish in with my fingers. After letting it set a few minutes I wipe the polish off with a cotton pad then in the same way, apply Before & After Extra Fine Polish and let it absorb for a few minutes. I then wipe it down again with a cotton pad. These polishes not only help to revitalize the vulcanite but also to continue removing the oxidation.Moving forward, using micromesh pads 1500 to 2400, I wet sand the stem. Following this, I dry sand using pads 3200 to 4000 then 6000 to 12000. After each set of 3 I apply Obsidian Oil to continue refreshing the vulcanite P-Stem. I love the glossy pop of the vulcanite after the micromesh process. I take pictures to show the progress and I put the stem aside to dry. Turning to the Peterson stummel, the briar dust and CA glue patches have cured and time to file and sand the mounds down. First, using a flat needle file I file down the excess putty mounds almost to the briar surface. I take a picture of the starting point, then the filing process. Then, switching to 240 grit paper I continue the sanding process to the briar surface. The picture below shows how after the excess is sanded away, the briar dust putty is left providing a new, stronger fill in the briar blemishes. I then switch to 600 grade paper to finish the sanding to this point. Flipping the stummel over, I tackle the significant rim damage. I take a picture to get a closer look. The rim is darkened from scorching but also it has developed dips in the surface plane from burn damage. To repair the rim and establish a clean, new plane surface, I top the bowl. Using a kitchen chopping board, I place 240 grit paper on it and gently rotate the inverted stummel in circles – checking often to make sure I’m not leaning into a soft area. After a few rotations I take a picture of the rim. The picture below shows the degree of damage to the rim by revealing where the board is not making contact with briar – the dips in the rim. The next picture shows where I stop topping with the 240 grit paper. I don’t want to take more briar off the top. I kept my eye on the nickel shank ferule which was very close to the rim plane as I was topping. I did not want to scratch it up! After the 240 grit, I replaced it with a sheet of 600 grit paper to erase the scratching created by the 240 grit paper.The darkened areas on the rim (picture above) are residual effects of scorching. To minimize this, I will cut an internal rim bevel to remove the damage as well as adding a touch of class to this already classy Peterson’s System Standard. I start with a coarse 120 grit paper to do the initial beveling. I pinch the rolled piece with my thumb and rotate it around the internal rim circumference creating the even bevel. I follow the 120 paper with a rolled piece of 240 grade paper then 600. I repeat the same process for the external rim circumference. The bevel looks good. The pictures show the progression. I just realize that I became so involved in the technical aspects of this restoration that I forgot to clean the internals of the stummel! Back to the dirty work. I use pipe cleaners and cotton buds dipped in isopropyl 95% and go to work. I also use dental spatulas and probes to scrape the mortise walls. I also utilize a shank brush to scrub the airway and the mortise walls. I read how challenging Petersons are in the clean-up and this one is no exception. I expend a lot of cotton buds, alcohol and time and I seem to be making no dent in the gunk carnage. I finally halt this approach and decide to let it cook overnight in a kosher salt and alcohol bath. Using a cotton ball, I fashion a wick which I insert down the airway and into the sump area of the mortise. I fill the bowl with kosher salt, which, unlike iodized salt, does not leave an aftertaste. I then fill the bowl with alcohol and let it sit overnight. Time to turn out the lights. The next morning the kosher salt/alcohol bath did the job through the night. The salt is discolored and the cotton ‘wick’ has drawn tars and oils out of the internals. After removing the expended salt into the waste and wiping the old salt out of the chamber with paper towel, I blow through the mortise to clear out salt from the internals. I then follow by using pipe cleaners and cotton buds to make sure things are clean. Oh my…. The grunge continues unabated! This is one of the nastiest pipes I’ve tackled! I’ve read that Petersons are notoriously difficult to clean…. Since I’m running out of time – I need to go to work, I decide to do another kosher salt soak through the day while I’m working. Off I go…hopeful that the second time is the charm.Several hours later, home from work, and again, the salt is discolored, and the wick shows evidence of gunk extraction. Again, I clear the salt from the chamber and use additional cotton buds and pipe cleaners – I’m pleasantly surprised to find that the internals are indeed clean! I use only one cotton bud and pipe cleaner. I can almost guarantee, this Peterson is the cleanest it’s been since it came from the factory in Ireland!Turning to the stummel surface, to remove the old tired surface finish and nicks and cuts from normal wear, I wet sand the stummel using micromesh pads 1500 to 2400. I follow by dry sanding using pads 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000. I take pictures recording each step of the micromesh process. I enjoy watching the grain emerge – this is one of my favorite parts of restoration. To enrich and deepen the briar grain, I then apply Before & After Restoration Balm to the stummel surface. I apply some to my finger and work the Balm into the briar. It starts with having a light oil texture and then thickens as it’s worked into the surface – taking on a wax-like texture. I take a picture of the Balm on the stummel surface and set it aside to allow the Balm to absorb.After about 45 minutes, I use a cloth and wipe the Before & After Restoration off the stummel. As I wipe and rub it begins to start buffing up. I like how the Balm works – it is a subtle enhancement to the briar grain hue that deepens the color. I now mount the Dremel with a cotton cloth buffing wheel, set the speed to the slowest, and apply Blue Diamond compound to both stem and stummel. I apply the compound methodically around the briar surface using the table lamp to see the movement of the compound on the surface as I move the buffing wheel. As a fine abrasive, the compound removes the very fine blemishes on the stem and stummel surface – buffing the surface to it natural sheen. I change to another cotton cloth wheel and use the Blue Diamond to clean/buff the Peterson’s classic nickel ferule. When I finish applying the compound, I wipe the stummel and stem with a felt cloth to remove the compound dust in preparation for the carnauba wax application.Before I move on to applying the wax, I have one more project. The Peterson ‘P’ stamp on the stem needs some touching up. I use white acrylic paint to do the enhancement. I lightly apply a coat of the paint over the ‘P’ stamping and while still wet, I dab it very lightly with a cotton pad leaving a film – in the second picture below. It doesn’t take long to dry, leaving the ‘P’ filled with paint. I then lightly scrape the dried paint off the surface using the middle, flat section of a toothpick. The toothpick slides over the top of the ‘P’ leaving the freshened stamping. It looks great! I now mount another cotton cloth wheel to the Dremel, increase the speed to about 40% of full power, and apply carnauba wax to both stummel and stem. I follow this by giving the stummel and P-Lip stem a hand buffing with a microfiber cloth to raise the shine.

My oh my, did this Peterson come out nicely – he is stately. The stem reach gives a long flowing impression. The briar grain is rich with bird’s eye and swirls – pleasing to the eye. The 312 is a larger System pipe and feels full in the palm. I’m sure James will appreciate the gift that his wife has provided him under the tree this year and I’m thankful their support of the Daughters of Bulgaria – women and girls who have been trafficked and sexually exploited. Thank you, James and Debbie! Debbie found this Peterson’s System Standard Republic 312 in the “For ‘Pipe Dreamers’ Only” section of The Pipe Steward website where many pipes are available to be commissioned – all benefitting the Daughters of Bulgaria – a great cause helping women who are/were enslaved. Thank you for joining me! I start with a ‘Before & After’ picture lest we forget – an amazing transformation!

A Humpty-Dumpty Restoration/Reclamation of a piece of Kay Family History

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Blog by Steve Laug

Not long ago I was in communication with Alice regarding a pipe that had belonged to her Grandfather, William Kay. She had been keeping it in a drawer for many years and she took it out to pass it on to her nephew. When she opened the case she said that the amber stem was crumbling to pieces and the case itself was also crumbling. She said that it had been kept dry and safe in a dresser drawer for years so she was sadly surprised by the condition of the pipe. It was a piece of her family’s history but it was in sad condition. She really did not know what to do with it. She wrote to see if I would even be interested in it. She wanted to pass it on and thought I might want it. When I heard about it I wanted to see it before I accepted the challenge to work on it and assess whether I could stabilize the amber and resurrect the old pipe. I was not sure but I wanted to see it. Alice graciously took some photos of the pipe and emailed them to so that I could have a look at what she saw as she looked at it. The photos below tell the story. From what I saw in her photos I was hooked. I could see the “crystallization” of the stem and the chunks of amber in the broken case. It looked salvageable from the photos. Besides that, I wanted to see what I could do with the pipe. I loved shape of the bowl and the curve of the stem. The band was green which made me wonder what was happening to make it that way. The pipe had definitely seen a lot moisture along the way. To me it was certainly worth a try to restore it and the history of the pipe alone made me want to work on it. I wrote Alice back and told her I was interested. After several emails went back and forth between, the pipe was on its way to my brother Jeff’s home in the US as it is definitely easier to ship things within the states that to ship them to Canada. I would have to wait for a bit until I would see it in person.

It did not take too long for the package to arrive at my brother’s house. When he opened the box it looked much the same as Alice had described it so nothing more happened in transit. My brother shook his head when he saw it and I think questioned my sanity yet again. LOL! We shall see if I have any semblance of sanity left once I have it in hand and see what I can do. I figure at worst I will need to craft a new stem for it and at best I may be able to make the amber one at least functional and stop the breakdown of the amber. I asked Jeff to take some photos of the pipe so I could see what he saw. He sent me the following photos and they pretty much tell the story of the pipe’s condition.Two of my daughters visited their Grandad in the States for his birthday at the end of June and brought the pipe in a baggie back to Canada with them on their return. I wrote and asked Alice to send me a photo of her grandfather and a couple of paragraphs about him to give me a sense of background on this pipe. She did a great job capturing his personality and a bit of the unique character that went with it. It helped me see a bit of the man behind this Gordon pipe and gave me even more reason to see it come back to life. Here is what she wrote about her Grandfather, William Kay.

William Ewart Kay August 21, 1880 – June 6, 1938. His US Naturalization papers list his race as Scotch. (Not Scottish…Scotch) Born in Ontario, Canada, and ended up in Grassy Lake, Alberta somewhere around 1905. He married Lucy Evaleen Phipps in 1909 and they had 4 children. He was a rather interesting man and not always a very nice one. About 1917 he relocated the family to Auburn, Washington and came as a railroad strike breaker. No one talked about those years but my father told me that he was known as Scabby Bill Kay until he died. Railroad towns have no pity. The kids didn’t seem to suffer, at least.

I have his pocket watch. It is not a very expensive piece. According to whispered family stories, he often had a lady friend and this watch was a gift from one of them When he came home sporting a shiny new watch he told my grandmother (not a stupid lady) that when he was walking home a crow flew over his head and dropped the watch right in front of him. Still shaking my head over that tale! Grandmother outlived him by 26 years, happily. I think she loved every minute of not keeping his house.

My Dad said he was an amusing man, a good carpenter and became a strike breaker because there was no work in Canada in those years. My dad met him when they were both working on a government fish hatchery project in Auburn. That’s about all I know about the man. He died 10 years before my birth and the family rarely spoke of him. Times have certainly changed. Nothing is a secret any longer. Sadly, being a family elder means I have no one to ask!

Thanks for all this. I hope it makes it in a reasonable number of pieces. I am still amazed that it disintegrated so fast and in so many strange ways. It has been in its case in a dry dresser drawer forever. — Alice

I was unfamiliar with the brand so I did a bit of hunting on the internet for information on the brand. The inside of the case Gordon Best Briar in an oval on the lid. Gordon was also stamped on the left side of the shank in an oval. I did find a Gordon pipe on Pipephil’s site but the stamping and logo were very different so I am not sure it was the same maker. I also looked on Pipedia and found a listing for Gorden Pipes – spelled differently but the information that followed the name stated that it was an early 20^th century brand of Samuel Gordon and that the stamping was Gordon in a lozenge on the shank. Here is the link for that information as it does match this pipe (https://pipedia.org/wiki/British_Pipe_Brands_%26_Makers_E_-_H). There was no more information that I could find on the brand anywhere on the net. The time line fits pretty well with the look and make of the pipe I am working on.

Armed with that information and the backstory of William Kay I brought the pipe to my worktable started the rebuilding of the Humpty-Dumpty pipe. It was going to be a real challenge to put all the pieces together again. Rebuilding and stabilizing the stem was only part of the work. I was not sure that would even be possible because it really seemed to be disintegrating as I touched it. I am pretty certain that the stem is made of amber. I would know more once I tried to rebuild it and put the pieces back together. The tenon was loose in the stem and when I touched it I could see that it was not even connected.

The tenon was metal and it was rusted and deteriorating. It was stuck in the shank of the pipe. I assumed that the end in the shank was also threaded because the stem end was. I thought that it was screwed into a threaded mortise in the shank. The band was silver and the normal black tarnish was present. There was a lot of pitting and a green oxidation that came from the metal tenon and inside the case. The finish on the bowl was ruined and worn out. There was a lot of buildup and grime on the outside of the bowl that would need to be dealt with. The rim top looked like it might be the least damaged part of this old pipe because of the thick lava coat overflowing from the cake in the bowl. The airway from the shank to the bowl was clogged. This was definitely going to be a challenge. I took a photo of the parts of the pipe when I removed the stem from the tenon.I tried to turn the tenon with a pair of pliers to see if I could unscrew it from the shank. It did not take long to realize that I was not dealing with a threaded tenon at all. The tenon turned out to be a push tenon. It looked like a repair person sometime in the life of the pipe had converted it from a threaded shank and tenon to a push tenon. Their methodology was interesting to say the least. They had slipped a hard rubber tube over the worn threads of the original tenon and drilled out the threaded mortise to receive the push tenon – creative but damaging. He had lined the mortise with a paper washer to hold the tenon tight in the shank. Over the years moisture had gotten into the mortise and the paper was disintegrated and stuck on the tenon and in the shank. The threaded tenon conversion was full of rust as the original metal tenon had deteriorated with the moisture and wicked up the stem and around the band. It was a compound mess that would need creative solutions to be dealt with.The band was loose on the shank. The glue that had held it in place had long since deteriorated. I removed the green tarnished band from the shank and laid out the pieces of the pipe at this point in the process to show what I was dealing with.I decided to try to put all of the pieces of the amber stem together again. I greased a pipe cleaner and put it in the airway to keep the glue from filling in the airway. I glued it together with super glue gel and filled in the hole in the right side with the broken chunks of amber. I filled in the gaps around the chunks with clear super glue. I painted the surface of the rest of the stem with clear super glue to stabilize the stem material. Time would tell if it would hold together or not. I let the glue cure for over four hours and when I picked it up to look it over, it fell apart. The stem broke in half and there was a large hole in the right side of the stem. I had not fixed anything at this point but only made things significantly worse. I shrugged it off and glue the two parts back together again. I left the hole to deal with later. The photos below show the state of the stem after repairing the break. It was not looking very promising. I set the stem aside to cure for three full days – it was pretty depressing.I started to formulate a plan B – a new acrylic stem in case all the efforts on this older stem were for naught. I place an order for a stem with Tim West at J.H. Lowe and it is on its way here. I am hoping it will be a suitable replacement. In the meantime, I took all the pieces of the original stem that I had in the plastic bag that it came in and tried to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. I used an amber super glue gel to build up the edges of the broken part of the stem. I pressed the pieces in place in the hole to build it up and provide a base that I could fill in once the initial glue on the stem cured. I set the stem aside to cure for another couple of days. I did not want to take any chances with breaking it again.I kept looking over at it and wondering if my repairs would work in the long run. I could see that it was rough but I think it may form enough of a base for me to rebuild the stem with amber super glue once it cures. We shall see. I turned my attention to the filthy bowl. I had already removed the silver band from the shank as it was loose anyway. I used a sharp pen knife to scrape away the paper gasket that lined the walls of the shank. It fell apart as the knife cut it. I reamed the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife and scraped the rim top and inner bevel with the edge of the knife. I sanded the bowl with a piece of sandpaper wrapped around a dowel. I cleaned out the interior of the mortise, shank and airway to bowl. The airway was plugged and I could not blow any air through it from either the shank end or the bowl. I pushed a straightened paper clip through the airway to open it up again. I used alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners – smooth and bristle – to clean out the tars, oils and build up that had collected over the years. It was as much a mess on the inside as the outside.I wiped off the exterior of the bowl and shank with acetone on a cotton pad to remove the remnants of the old varnish finish and the grime that had been ground into the briar. At this point the pipe bowl was beginning to look pretty good. There was some nice grain on the bowl. Once I had the surface clean and free of the old finish and the debris of time it was ready for the next step in the process. I worked Before & After Restoration Balm deep into the briar on the smooth finish to clean, enliven and protect it. 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 is really beginning to stand out and will only do so more as the pipe is waxed. The stem was still quite a mess. Once the first coats of glue cured I used some thick amber super glue to fill in the larger holes in the right side of the stem and build up around the inserted pieces of the original stem. I needed to fill in some of the open space to stop the airflow through the repair. Once the amber glue had cured I filled in the small areas around the repairs with clear super glue. I set the stem aside and let the glue cure.The original tenon was a mess – it really was a hard rubber tube forced over a threaded metal tenon that was rusting and crumbling as well. The shank had been drilled out to remove the threads in the mortise so once again I am guessing that this was some repair person’s idea of creating a push stem. I had removed it earlier and put it aside. I created a new tenon for the stem. It was a threaded Delrin tenon – in this case the threaded portion on a Jobey system tenon was the perfect size for this stem. I would try fitting it once the glue had cured enough to not damage the stem further. I reduced the side of the hip at the top of the tenon to match the diameter of the mortise using files and sand paper. I set the tenon aside and called it a night.

In the morning I checked the stem and found that the glue had hardened on the stem so I sanded the repaired areas with 180 grit sandpaper to smooth out the surface of the repairs and blend them into the rest of the stem. Then I tried to fit the mortise to the stem and found that my measurements were correct and it fit perfectly. I carefully turned it into the stem and took the following photos. The stem was looking pretty decent at this point and the patch seemed to be hard and stable.I decided to be daring at this point and pushed the stem into the mortise of the shank and took some photos of the pipe at this point. Even though there was still a lot of sanding to do on the stem to smooth and polish it, I was making progress and I was excited to see what it looked like. I wanted to send the two photos to Alice so she could see the salvage job on Humpty. At this point the stem material is stabilized and I could see that the stem would be usable. Now I needed to see if I could make it look even better.I smoothed out the final touches on the repair with 220 grit sandpaper to blend the repairs into the surface of the amber. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with Obsidian Oil to give life back to the amber. I put the stem on the shank and set the pipe aside to work on the broken and damaged case. I glued the parts together with all-purpose white glue. I pressed them together until the glue set enough to let the parts hold when I laid the case down. I polished the stem with a polishing cloth. I buffed the bowl with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I carefully avoided the stamping on the left side of the shank so as not to damage it. I gave the bowl multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the bowl and stem individually it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It is great to be able to hold William Kay’s pipe in my hand as a solid and smokeable whole. I can’t wait for Alice to read this blog and see the finished pipe. I look forward to hearing from her. This was a challenging and a fun project to work on. Thanks for taking time to give it a read.

Refurbishing a Gourd Calabash

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Blog by Steve Laug

In the past weeks I finished up some pipes for a guy here in Vancouver and when he came to pick them up he brought some more for me to work on for him. I finished up some of the ones on the worktable so I decided it was time to work on these. The fourth pipe is a Gourd Calabash with a Meerschaum bowl. It is a nicely shaped gourd that makes up the base of the bowl. The meerschaum cup is in excellent condition – a few minor scratches and nicks in the bowl. The shank end is plastic/acrylic and seals the end of the gourd. It is made to fit a bent vulcanite stem. The meerschaum bowl had a thin and uneven cake. The upper half of the bowl was more thickly caked than the bottom half. I would need to ream it to even out the cake. There was some slight darkening around the inner edge of the rim top as well as some scratches and nicks in the top of the rim. The inside of the shank was dirty and needed to be cleaned. The black vulcanite stem had tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside of the stem near the button. I took photos of the bowl and stem to give a clear picture of the condition of the pipe before I started to work on it.I removed the bowl from the gourd bowl. The cork gasket was in tact but dry. The inside of the bowl had some build up of tars and oils on the walls.The bowl was dirty and the rim top scratched and worn. There was some darkening on the top and around the inner edge. There was also some uneven cake that is visible in the photo below. I scraped out the excesss cake with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to even the cake on the walls of the bowl. I sanded the walls smooth with sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. I worked over the top of the bowl and the inner edge of the rim top with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I removed the most of the damage to the rim top with the micromesh sanding pads. I was able to smooth out the scratches with the micromesh pads. I wiped the bowl down after each pad with a damp cloth. I scraped out the hardened tars on the walls of the gourd with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. This is done with care so as not to dig too deeply into the skin of the gourd. I just wanted to knock off the high spots and smooth it out. I blew out the debris onto a paper. I cleaned out the airway in the stem and shank, the mortise and shank interior with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. I forgot to take photos of this as I was on a roll and moving quickly through the process.I rubbed down the outer surface of the gourd with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the finish with my fingertips and finished working it in with a shoe brush. The balm worked to clean, preserve and enliven the surface of the gourd. I also rubbed some Vaseline into the cork gasket to soften and enliven it at the same time. I really like the effect of the product on the gourd bowl so I took some photos of the pipe at this point. Once the outside and inside of the gourd was as clean as I was going to get it I set the bowl aside and turned to address the stem. I sanded the tooth marks and chatter out of the stem surface with some folded 220 grit sandpaper.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads to remove the scratches in the acrylic. I wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. I polished the stem with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine polishes. I wiped it down with a cotton pad and gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil. I set the stem aside to dry. I put the stem back on the gourd bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I gave the gourd outer bowl, the meerschaum inner bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and 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 finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I have four more pipes to finish for him – these are some finds he made while pipe hunting. This is a fun bunch of pipes to work on. I look forward to moving through the rest of them. Thanks for looking.

FINDING THE NATURAL BEAUTY OF A KNUTE OF DENMARK FREEHAND

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Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Copyright © Reborn Pipes and the Author except as cited
https://www.facebook.com/roadrunnerpipes/

For after all, the best thing one can do
When it is raining, is to let it rain.

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in “The Poet’s Tale: The Birds of Killingworth,” in Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863)

INTRODUCTION
Longfellow’s powerful poem is about man’s intolerant bent for all things natural based on ignorance of the indispensability of even the smallest part in an ecosystem. It speaks to acceptance and “gentleness, and mercy to the weak, and reverence for Life.” The work is sad and satirical and, in the end, surprising in its song of survival, but, alas, will never be required reading in any public school.

Knute of Denmark is a second of Karl Erik, which Karl Erik Ottendahl (1942-2004) made his main brand. Ottendahl, an underrated and generous pipe maker who was a low-paid lithographer before he took up pipe carving as a hobby until it became his full-time vocation, understood the average smoker who made far less money than those fortunate enough to afford expensive varieties of the Danish freehand style of which he was an early crafter. He therefore dedicated his life and work to pipes of great natural beauty at bargain prices. Here is one that very much resembles the pipe in this blog, suggesting Ottendahl may have had a hand in making this Knute of Denmark.I suspect, or at least like to think, that Ottendahl read Longfellow’s magnificent poem, a couplet of which I quoted above, and if he didn’t, he would have enjoyed it. And it was raining in the Isotopes City while I restored this pipe.

RESTORATION The stem was savagely damaged, with the top lip all but gone and a small hole below it and the bottom having two gouges. Such long-term acts of mayhem must have been inflicted by someone with clear and severe anger issues who masticated the mouthpiece the way some people chomp on gum to stop smoking coffin nails. I gave it an OxiClean bath to start. At the same time, I stripped whatever dirt and stain (the latter of which I could see no signs) were present with an Everclear soak. The immediate appearance of dark reddish swirls in the alcohol surprised me. The OxiClean soak, which was complete first, shows in the pic below how filthy the stem was. Afterward, all I can say is it was clean. Figuring I had at least an hour before the stummel would be stripped, I filed off fine shavings from an old otherwise useless stem and made a nice little pile. The ironic part of that task was that the stem was once a fancy type similar to the one I was fixing and would have been a perfect replacement had it not been toasted! Then I added a few drops of black Super Glue, mixed it together with the shavings and quickly and liberally applied it to the stem after dipping a cleaner in petroleum jelly and inserting in the mouthpiece past the hole. WARNING: I forgot my usual process of lubricating a small sliver of card stock paper also and inserting it inside the stem in front of the cleaner, but it all worked out later – with some extreme difficulty. That done, I had 12-24 hours before it would be dried, way more than enough time to finish the stummel that was ready to come out of the Everclear. Checking out the progress of the alcohol soak, I was amazed by the almost blood red color of the 190-proof grain alcohol and guessed it was from residual maroon stain.For the first time after an Everclear soak, I wiped the still drying wood with a cotton rag saturated with purified water. The water took longer to dry, but the result was stunning. Despite the sandblasting, I believe what I beheld was the finest piece of briar I’ve ever seen. Its natural beauty shone through the crisp dullness. I reamed the chamber, used a small sharp pocket knife to cut away some excess buildup and sanded with 150-, 220, 320- and 600-grit papers, then retorted the pipe. The following shots show the tremendous improvement of the wood’s potential color and glow. I used the super fine “0000” steel wool in two of the photos only on the rim and shank opening. But look at the difference. Late that night, with the stem patch dry, I took out one of my files, a narrow triangle with medium-grit flat sides to remove the thick, uneven mess on the top of the stem that is a necessary by-product of the black Super Glue method of hole-filling. I was also able to remove most of the deep chasms on the bottom of the stem. I began the smoothing process with a dual 150- and 160-grit sanding pad and regular, rougher 150-grit paper.The effort to salvage the ruined old stem was worthwhile and a good start on a plan of total rehabilitation for personal use, but this pipe is for sale, and I know the more difficult work of re-building the bottom lip will take longer and not, in the end, be suitable to pass off to a buyer.

But as it happened, I had two other freehands with good fancy stems with which I could play musical chairs, a Ben Wade by Preben Holm I re-stemmed before and an estate Karl Erik I’m working on now that’s far too huge to support the smaller stem it came with. For now, I’m enjoying the BW with the damaged Vulcanite stem as the yellow Lucite one fits the Karl Erik. I liked the dark brown swirled Lucite stem that was on the Karl Erik better, and since the tenon of the BW by PH was too thin, the issue was settled. I sanded down the elegant brown Lucite fancy stem’s tenon and smoothed it with steel wool before micro meshing it. A thorough buffing on the wheel with red and white rouge on the stem and stummel, and it was done. CONCLUSION
In the spirit of nature, I used no stain restoring this freehand that needed no artificial help to reveal its innate beauty.

SOURCES
http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-k3.html
https://pipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Erik
http://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=2047

Refurbishing a Bjarne Hand Made Nosewarmer

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Blog by Steve Laug

In the past weeks I finished up some pipes for a guy here in Vancouver and when he came to pick them up he brought some more for me to work on for him. I finished up some of the ones on the worktable so I decided it was time to work on these. The third of them is a Bjarne bent apple nosewarmer with a short stem. It is another really beautiful pipe. The shape, the rich reddish brown finish along with the black acrylic stem with the bj logo all combine to make this a uniquely beautiful pipe. The bowl had a thin and uneven cake. The upper half of the bowl was more thickly caked than the bottom half. I would need to ream it to even out the cake. There was some slight darkening on the rim top as well as dents and nicks in the top of the rim. The inside of the shank was dirty and needed to be cleaned. The black Lucite stem had tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside of the stem near the button. There was one deep tooth mark on the top edge of the button. The short saddle stem looked good otherwise. I took photos of the bowl and stem to give a clear picture of the condition of the pipe before I started to work on it.I did a quick review of the history of the brand by turning to Pipedia. Here is the link https://pipedia.org/wiki/Bjarne. I quote from part of that article to give a short synopsis of the history of the brand.

With a demanding job it was hard to find time to make pipes in that quantity, and Bjarne had to choose. His dream had always been to have a company of his own, and if he wanted fo fulfill that dream, now was the time to do it. But to leave a promising career, in which he probably would have become a Danish ambassador in some foreign country, was indeed a big step to take. “Many thought I was crazy”, Bjarne says, “and one of them was my wife. But she supported my decision anyway.”

He made that decision in 1973, and became a fulltime pipemaker. But he soon realized that it was impossible for one person to handle all of it–he could not make a lot of pipes, sell them and collect money for them all by himself. So he decided to find some pipemakers to help him. In those days Preben Holm was one of the biggest makers of fancy pipes, and he employed a great number of pipemakers. But not all of them were happy to work for Preben,m so Bjarne recruited a few of those.

During the first years all of Bjarne’s pipes were sold in the USA, but at the end of the 1970s he visited the pipe show in Frandfurt and found that there was a market for his there as well. However, he found that the Germans wanted a completely different style of pipes–pipes in traditional shapes. So if he wanted to be successful there, he had to add a completely new line to his production. “It was not easy, we learned it the hard way,” Bjarne says. But they certainly succeeded, and for a number of years Germany became the top-selling market for Bjarne’s pipes.

The photo below shows pictures of Bjarne Nielsen. The photo is from the Pipedia article and comes from Doug Valitchka as noted below the photo.I then turned to the Pipephil website – http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-b5.html and did a screen capture of the article there on Bjarne pipes. Bjarne Nielsen distributed his own brand of pipes carved by Danish Pipemakers. It is stamped on the underside of the shank with Bjarne over Hand Made in Denmark. There are no other stampings or numbers on the shank. The pipe was obviously made prior to 2008 when Nielsen died.I started my clean up on this pipe by reaming out the bowl and smoothing out the cake on the walls. I reamed it back with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. I sanded it smooth and even with a dowel wrapped in 220 grit sandpaper. Once that was finished the walls were smooth and undamaged and the surface ready for a new cake.I worked over the rim top with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I removed the most of the damage to the rim top with the micromesh sanding pads. I removed the area on the rear that had been darkened. I polished the exterior of the bowl with the pads at the same time. I wiped the bowl down after each pad with a damp cloth. I touched up the cleaned up rim top with a Maple stain pen to match the colour of the rest of the bowl. The match was perfect and once the bowl was waxed and polished would be indistinguishable from the rest.I rubbed down the briar with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the finish with my fingertips and finished working it in with a shoe brush. I worked over the rim top to blend it into the rest of the stain. The balm works to clean, preserve and enliven the briar. I really like the effect of the product on briar so I took some photos of the pipe at this point. I cleaned out the airway in the stem and shank, the mortise and shank interior with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. It did not take as much as I expected to remove all the tars and oils in the shank and mortise. The stem had some debris in the edges of the slot in the stem.I set the bowl aside and turned to address the stem. I sanded the tooth marks and chatter out of the stem surface with some folded 220 grit sandpaper. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads to remove the scratches in the acrylic. I wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. I polished the stem with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine polishes. I wiped it down with a cotton pad and gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil. I set the stem aside to dry. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I carefully avoided the stamping on the underside of the shank. I gave both the smooth bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and 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 finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I have five more pipes to finish for him – one move from his personal rotation and four of them that are some finds he made while pipe hunting. This is a fun bunch of pipes to work on. I look forward to moving through the rest of them. Thanks for looking.

Refurbishing a Don Carlos Hand Made Ballerina

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Blog by Steve Laug

In the past weeks I finished up some pipes for a guy here in Vancouver and when he came to pick them up he brought some more for me to work on for him. I finished up some of the ones on the worktable so I decided it was time to work on these. The second of them is a Don Carlos Ballerina. It is another really beautiful pipe. The shape, the natural finish – combining a smooth and rusticated finish, the black acrylic stem and the treble clef mark that is the symbol of Don Carlos pipes all combine to make this a uniquely beautiful pipe. I have not worked on a Don Carlos product before this one and it was a beautiful pipe. The bowl was clean with very little cake – not enough to ream or remove. There was some slight darkening on the rim top. The inside of the shank was dirty and needed to be cleaned. The black Lucite stem had tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside of the stem near the button. The square saddle stem looked good otherwise. I took photos of the bowl and stem to give a clear picture of the condition of the pipe before I started to work on it.I did a quick review of the history of the brand by turning to Pipedia. Here is the link https://pipedia.org/wiki/File:DonCarlos.jpg. Courtesy of italianpipemakers.com – Don Carlos pipes are born of thirty-year experience, inspired by local tradition, when at the beginning of 1900, Primo Soriani was a pipe maker near Cagli. The briar used in Bruto Sordini’s workshop has been seasoned in an open place for two years at least. Each pipe, completely made by hand, is the result of a tidy selection of the rough material and then of elaboration of the shape. The chamber is always left natural, without coating, to allow the smoker the discovery of the interesting taste of briar. That’s because a pipe must be beautiful, but overall it must smoke in the best way.

The photo below shows pictures of Bruto and Rosario Sordini. The photo is from the Pipedia article and come from Doug Valitchka as noted below the photo.I then turned to the Pipephil website – http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-d7.html and did a screen capture of the article there on Don Carlos pipes. The information on that site will help me date the pipe that I am working on. It is stamped on the left side of the shank with the script of Don Carlos. On the right side of the shank it is stamped Fatta A Mano – Hand Made. On the underside of the shank it is stamped with the number 29 on a smooth band of briar. That number 29 tells me that it was made in 2006 (25+4).I started my clean up on this pipe by rubbing down the briar with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the rusticated finish with my fingertips and finished working it in with a shoe brush. I worked over the rim top to remove some of the darkening there. I could not remove it all but I was able to get rid of some of it. The balm works to clean, preserve and enliven the briar. I really like the effect of the product on briar so I took some photos of the pipe at this point. I cleaned out the airway in the stem and shank, the mortise and shank interior with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. It did not take as much as I expected to remove all the tars and oils in the shank and mortise. The stem had some debris in the edges of the slot in the stem.I set the bowl aside and turned to address the stem. I sanded the tooth marks and chatter out of the stem surface with some folded 220 grit sandpaper. I forgot to take photos of that part of the process and went on to polish the stem with micromesh sanding pads to remove the scratches in the acrylic. I wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I carefully buffed the smooth portions of the bowl and lightly buffed the rusticated portions. I gave both the smooth parts of the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad. I gave the rusticated portions of the pipe multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I have six more pipes to finish for him – two come from his personal rotation while four of them are some finds he made while pipe hunting. This is going to be a fun bunch of pipes to work on. I look forward to moving through the rest of them. Thanks for looking.

THE RHODESIAN CALABASH THAT LOST ITS GOURD

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Blog by Robert M. Boughton

6 And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made [it] to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd 7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. 8 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, [It is] better for me to die than to live.

— The Holy Bible (KJV), 4:6-8

INTRODUCTION
The unique and, one would not be out of line calling it, bizarre implement for enjoying pipe tobacco that is the subject of this post came to me in an estate lot of three “unbranded” examples. That’s just a euphemistic way of saying no-names. I never before bid on a lot with nothing but unknown pipes, much less heard of such a thing, but I wanted this lot so much I offered three times more than anyone in his right mind would even consider. The tactic worked. One other bidder offered 50 cents more than the price at the time and therefore drove the final cost up that much, but I would have loved to see the look on his face when the minimum bid popped up on his screen! I’m a little evil that way, I know.

The price I paid for the three has already been compensated with the sale of the top pipe below, a frayed straight brandy I cleaned and dressed up in a shiny black finish and sold for more than the lot cost. The African meerschaum in the middle that made me desire the lot at all is destined for my own collection.

Three no-name pipe lot courtesy adamcam1985_eBay

I have nothing against no-names. In fact, some of them have been favorites of mine, one of which, below, I’m sure will shock some readers here. Both of the no-names in the following photos came incidental to a couple of other lots filled with treasures the sellers could not have recognized, and they smoked as well as any pipe I’ve owned. And so, this is about the bottom pipe in the lot of no-names, a definite art deco wannabe that can only be described as a Rhodesian calabash, despite the lack of calabash gourd or anything like the traditional meerschaum bowl insert. Instead, the “insert” is made of wood I believe to be Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF), similar to plywood only much denser and stronger, and something that looks and feels like some sort of metal and therefore probably is. I’m sure it was made in China, if only because of the unmistakable color.

The refurbish was as easy as they come.

REFURBISH The newfangled calabash is comparable in size to other pipes in one way, having a length of 6”, but the chamber diameter is tiny at ⅝” x ⅝”. When I first held the pipe and looked it over, I thought it was brand new (pun intended). But closer examination showed carbon in the little insert bowl chamber and the larger enclosed bottom chamber, and the rim needed some work. After more than a little consideration, I determined the insert is MDF coated almost all over with whatever maroon finish of which the Chinese are so fond. It reminds me of a mushroom, truth be told. Unfortunately, after having no success removing the char from the bottom chamber with super fine “0000” steel wool, I escalated the process to 150-grit paper and took off enough of the Teflon-like red finish that there remained no reason not to finish the job. The steel wool worked well on the rim, though.The plastic stem had been gnawed well below the lip until it was, well, gnarly. I attacked it with a progression of 150-, 220-, 320- and 600-grit papers, followed by the full power of all nine micro mesh pads and, to finish it off, a buff on the wheel with red and white rouge. I don’t really know if the last measure did any good. You be the judge. And that, as they say, was that, except for a quick spin on the wheel to buff the rim.
CONCLUSION
All I want to know now is what’s up with the stinger? And BTW, one reason I chose the Biblical quote at the beginning is that I suspect it might be the origin of the term “losing your gourd.” I meant no blasphemy.

SOURCES
I do not believe there is a source for this perhaps – one at least would hope – unique pipe. But everything deserves its day in the sun!

RETURNING A CANADIAN POKER TO ITS RIGHTFUL GLORY

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Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Copyright © Reborn Pipes and the Author except as cited
https://www.facebook.com/roadrunnerpipes/

I didn’t do it. Oh, wait, THAT. Yes, I did do THAT.
— An appropriate example of cheekiness

INTRODUCTION
Last November, in a rare, impulsive act of sheer gullibility, or maybe wishful thinking gone wild is a better way to put it, I made one of the oldest mistakes other people – but not I – can do: I snatched up a collection of odds and ends on eBay labeled “Lot 3 Vintage Tobacco Pipes-Tobacco Tins-& Bags-1 Box,” somehow rationalizing that they were all connected, or at least, maybe, the pipes and some of the bags and box (the three pipes matching the combined number of two sleeves and one box, although it still didn’t occur to me that one sleeve matched the box). To compound the shame of this serious folly, I jumped on the great deal, at only $21.51 plus S&H, based on the following single blurry photo provided by the seller.

Credit omitted for obvious reasons

I mean, consider the clues my crazed mind somehow overlooked! You can do it without my help, which I can’t bring myself to give anyway. I won’t even claim I don’t know what I was thinking because it’s clear I wasn’t at all, in any sense of the word. Okay, so the package came in the mail. Well, indeed, there were three vintage pipes, a Grabow, a Yello-Bole and the poker I couldn’t then, in my bleary-eyed horror, identify; two sleeves, a Karl Erik and a Butz-Choquin; the one Karl Erik box, and the two olde-timey Revelation Smoking Mixture tins. And so, I struggled to reason, I got exactly what I asked for! God knows, and so do I, that I deserved it. Still, in my defense, however lame it may be, the seller was more than a little disingenuous with his hazy portrayal of the goods and failure to point out that the Yello-Bole has a fatal crack extending a third of the way down the front of its 1.5” bowl.

[The Revelation tins, for those who haven’t heard the story, once contained a blend of red Virginia, cube cut Burley, Latakia and Perique made at the time by Philip Morris & Co. Ltd. Inc. and said to be Albert Einstein’s go-to. The stuff looked like mulched, ancient twigs, tree and bush leaves, bark and other components one might find as groundcover in a forest as far from civilization as is still possible. But Revelation switched from tins to soft packaging in 1957, so I attempted to console myself with the thought that the latest addition to my small tobacciana collection is at least 61 years old. Then I realized that’s only five years older than I am. Does that mean I’m vintage? Needless to say, my attempt was a failure.]

Disheartened by my abject flop, I considered the options. I could return the whole lot, pan the seller in my feedback or bite the bullet and get on with my life. Not caring for any of these, I tossed all of it in disgust under my living room table with my stash of junk mail and old newspapers. In the intervening months, the pile grew and hid all of the discarded items I had banished from my mind anyway, until one day about a week ago when gravity made the pile shift, and I spied the red Butz-Choquin sleeve. So deep down had I stuffed the memory of the debacle that I didn’t recognize it, no joke. Approaching the sleeve on hands and knees, like an archeologist digging for treasure, I liberated the sleeve from the heap and began removing layer after layer of the paper trash.

In this fashion revealing the pipes, sleeves, box and tins, and bagging the paper mountain to throw in the trash, I could not help laughing. The poker caught my attention, and I remembered I had not established its maker but only assumed it was of the others’ ilk. I wiped away some crud on the smooth bottom of the rustic pipe and used my magnifying glasses trying to decipher the nomenclature but was unable to do so. Turning to the stem for a mark that might provide a clue, I saw what appeared to be three faded dots in a line from top to bottom, the middle one of them smaller than the others. From Pipephil, I discovered the pipe was a Brigham of the 600 series, and to my surprise, from Canada.

My face flushed and misted over with sweat from a rush of blood as my mind’s eye teleported me backward in time a few years. I’m sure Steve has forgotten all about this, having better things to store in his mind vault, but I’m cursed – or blessed – with total recall of every tasteless, fatuous or otherwise inappropriate thing I’ve ever said, for the most part well after the fact and only when something triggers a free association with the earlier mistake.

In this case, learning that Brigham is an old and respected Canadian pipe maker reminded me of an occasion several years back when I broke my usual habit of engaging my brain before my tongue, as my dear dad taught me. Something prompted me to blurt to Steve, “Are there any Canadian pipe makers?” I say blurt because such an ill-conceived question could not have been made in an email or else I would have researched it myself, but rather must have flown out of my mouth in a flash of cheeky, stupid impertinence during a telephone conversation. I also remember Steve’s pause before he replied with tact, “Yes, there are a few.”

Having now made a quick, easy online inquiry into the subject, I found one good source listing 30 far North American pipe makers, including larger brands and artisans. Brigham seems to be the biggest and best known. Notable among the artisans is Michael Parks of Bowmanville, Ontario, whose work is astounding. No doubt there are many more talented folks carving pipes in the vast Canadian provinces and territories, and to every one of them, I apologize for my ignorant question that now seems so long ago!

HISTORY
Roy Brigham must have been born with pipes in his genes. After serving as an apprentice to an Austrian pipe repair master, Brigham opened his own shop in Toronto in 1906. After 12 years, the venture included five other craftsmen and was already known across Canada for its excellent work. In 1918, Brigham and his team started making the company’s first pipes, and again the reputation for high quality and value began to spread throughout the country’s 3.9 million square miles.

Brigham’s son Herb joined the business in 1935, and the two were known as Brigham & Son. Together, they identified tongue bite, which at the time was thought to be caused by hot smoke from pipes, as the chief complaint of customers. Determined to get to the bottom of the problem, father and son experimented and learned that the symptom was caused not by heat but mild burning from tars and acids in the smoke. Trying various filters, they concluded bamboo and rock maple were the best materials. Bamboo being much more difficult to obtain, they settled on rock maple, and in 1937 invented what they called the Distillator and applied for the Canadian patent, granted the following year. That patent, №. 372,982, was for a metal insert in the mouthpiece which enclosed the non-porous rock maple insert that could be removed and cleaned several times before the effectiveness began to deteriorate. The fourth page is a clarification made sometime after the Patent Act of 1955 cited in its text.CAN. PAT. 372982 is stamped on the smooth bottom of the poker’s shank, below the Brigham mark, but as future changes were gradual and relatively minor and finished in the late 1940s after Herb rejoined the business following service in World War II, they appear not to have been filed but were relied upon based on the protection granted to the one and only Brigham patent for the Distillator. Therefore, a precise dating of the poker is impossible, although it looks to be made in the 1950s. Brigham has a remarkable array of pipes varying from traditional shapes to freehands to some that are just plain unique.

Canadian courtesy Smoking Pipes

Mike Brigham, Herb’s son, joined the family business in 1978 and began expanding the product list to include tobacco and accessories. This is likely when the company became known as Brigham Pipes Ltd. Until 1995, when the present name of Brigham Enterprises Inc., its incarnation today.

RESTORATION
Here is the Brigham rusticated poker as I received it. The first orders of business were to soak the stummel in Everclear and ream the chamber. After the soak, a light touch with super fine “0000” steel wool cleared the rim. I followed that with a double 150- and 180-grit sanding pad all around, the highlights of which are shown below. The second photo was taken after sanding the chamber with 150-, 220-, 320-, 400- and 600-grit papers. Working on the rim with papers from 220-600 grit followed by micro mesh 1500-12000, it shined up pretty well. While I was at it, I micro meshed the rest of the stummel, focusing on the rim, and the first and third photos following show the improvement. The next pics show how filthy an old, oxidized stem can be, and the aftermath of soaking in OxiClean. I don’t know what the loose, plastic film-like stuff is in the last shot below and was worried it would become a problem. Sanding the lips and areas below them with 600-grit paper took off the roughness, and a full wet micro mesh progression followed by dry made the stems shine. Also, the mystery film came off clean. The last photo shows how my initial belief that the stem mark was faded dots that would require filling in was wrong. They’re metal implants. Retorting the pipe was fast and easy since it was well prepped.Then it occurred to me I hadn’t removed the Distillator rock maple insert, which I did then. Brigham’s use chart indicates by the darker brown color of the insert that the pipe was smoked about 20 times since the last filter was added. I’ve ordered an 8-pack replacement box.My favorite part of most restores had arrived, in this case to buff the rustic area of the stummel with Halcyon II wax and the rim with White Diamond and carnauba. I used red and white rouge on the stem for a change since I had used it for several special pipes I’ll be blogging ASAP. CONCLUSION
I learned quite a bit about our neighbor to the north and now have a firm grasp on the fact that Canadians indeed not only make pipes, but beautiful ones. Nuff said about that. But boy, am I happy I jumped on that otherwise misleading eBay lot!