Tag Archives: repairing bite marks

Restoring an older Frank Bakelite Zulu

Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe that I brought to my work table came from the virtual pipe hunt that my brother and I did in Montana. I have written a few blogs about that hunt as it contained a lot of late 1890s and early 1900 era pipes. These included C.P.F., W.D.C. and some no name pipes from the same era. If you are interested in reading any of them, a quick search on the blog for “Virtual Pipe Hunt” will give you the links to a blog about the hunt and to other pipes that were included. This particular pipe was a Zulu shaped pipe with some interesting grain (birdseye, swirled and cross grain) on the bowl and a red Bakelite/Redmanol stem. The finish was very worn and there was some hard glue like residue stuck on the left side of the bowl that looked like the pipe had been glued to a display board of some kind. The top of the shank was stamped Frank in script over BAKELITE. There was a silver band on the shank stamped with the same Frank script over E.P. Silver (Electro Plated Silver).I was interested in differentiating the history of the S. M. Frank & Co. from Wally Frank. I knew that they were different companies and that eventually S.M. Frank became the owners of such brands as Kaywoodie, Yello-Bole, Reiss Premier, W.D.C. (William Demuth Company), Medico and Heritage brands. They also made the Frank brand of pipes of which the one I have in hand is one. This US based company has been around almost a century and a half and has been called the “oldest pipe house in America.” Wally Frank on the other hand was a company that existed alongside of S.M. Frank but was a totally different kind of company. They imported pipes from England, France, and Italy and even purchased American made pipes and stamped them with their brand name.I turned to Pipedia to get some background history on S.M. Frank & Co. I wanted to get a quick read on the brand. The link is https://pipedia.org/wiki/S.M._Frank. There was a section of the article called the Early History of S. M. Frank & Co. I quote from that now.

In the year 1900 Sam Frank Sr. started his own business, selling pipes and other tobacco items. His original office was located at 20 W. 17th Street, NYC. He was also closely associated with the sales staff of Wm. DeMuth & Co., selling their line of pipes. It was at this time that Mr. Frank first met Ferdinand Feuerbach and formed what would be a lifelong friendship. Mr. Feuerbach started working for the DeMuth Company in 1897 and by 1903 had become the production manager. In 1919, when Mr. Frank needed an experienced pipe man to run his pipe factory, located at 168 Southern Blvd., in the Bronx, he persuaded his old friend Ferdinand to join him. Mr. Feuerbach is credited with developing DeMuth’s popular Royal DeMuth and Hesson Guard Milano pipelines. In 1922, when S. M. Frank purchased the Manhattan Briar Pipe Co. the company incorporated…

In early 1937, the City of New York notified S. M. Frank of their intent to take by eminent domain, part of the land on which the company’s pipe factory was located. This was being done to widen two of the adjacent streets. As a result of this, S. M. Frank entered into negotiations to purchase the Wm. DeMuth & Co.’s pipe factory in the Richmond Hill section of Queens. It was agreed upon that DeMuth would become a subsidiary of S. M. Frank and all pipe production of the two companies would be moved to DeMuth factory. New Corporate offices were located at 133 Fifth Avenue, NYC.

In October 1943, Sam Frank Sr.’s passing marked a change of leadership of the company. Herbert Schloss, long-time friend and fellow salesman was named President, Ferdinand Feuerbach was Vice President and Treasurer, Charles Dietsch (Sam Frank’s nephew) was Vice President of Sales. William Feuerbach Sr., who joined the company in 1937, was named Assistant Treasurer. Sam Frank Jr. joined the company in 1948, after serving in the U.S. Marine Corps during the war. He worked in factory operations until 1950 when he was transferred to sales, covering various territories.

That gave me the history of the brand up until they started buying up other American Brands that later became company bywords. It gave me some sense of date for the pipe – it was made between 1900 when the company opened and 1922 when they took over the Manhattan Briar Pipe Company. The shape is very similar to pipes that came out from the Manhattan Briar Pipe Company during their pipemaking.

Jeff took some photos of the bowl and rim top to show the condition of the pipe. There was a very thick cake in the bowl which was heavier at the back of the bowl (that was interesting to me as it is very obvious in the photo below). The lava overflow on the rim top was also quite thick and flaky. The next three photos show the grain on the bowl sides and bottom. There is some stunning grain on this old pipe. The second photo shows the hard glue residue on the left side of the bowl that seems to have come from the time when the pipe may have graced a display box. The stamping on the top of the shank is readable. The script Frank is fainter than the BAKELITE stamp but both are readable. The stamping on the silver is also clearly stamped on the top side of the band. When I received the pipe the band was loose and it was upside down on the shank. When the stem was unscrewed off the shank the metal tenon was visible. The band fell off and it is clear that the shank was sanded more on the left side than the right which made the fit on the shank quite crooked. More of the band extended past the right side of the briar than the left side. The red Bakelite stem had a deep scar on the top side mid stem. There were a lot of deep tooth marks and indentations on the top of the stem and the button showed tooth marks.The next two photos of the stem show the deep tooth marks on the top of the stem, the wear on the button and the hole in the underside of the stem in front of the button. Both sharp surfaces of the button were worn down from tooth marks.Jeff did his usual thorough cleanup of the pipe. He reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer, scraped the rim top with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to clear off the lava build up. He cleaned out the internals – mortise, airway in the shank and stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the briar with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove all of the grime and hardened glue on the finish of the left side of the bowl. He rinsed the briar under running water and dried it with a soft cloth. He soaked the stem in OxyClean to clean off the Bakelite and cleaned out the airway in the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. When the pipe arrived in Vancouver it certainly looked different than it did when we picked it up off the table in Montana. I took photos of the pipe before I started working on it to show the difference after Jeff’s amazing cleanup. Jeff got the thick cake out of the bowl and scraped off the lava on the rim top. The inner edge of the bowl had some damage and was no longer perfectly round. The bowl was clean and looked very good. The rim top was lava free and was in decent condition.I took close up photos of the stem to show its general condition and the tooth chatter, marks and scratches on the top of the stem and the hole in the underside of the stem that was a bite-through. I also took photos of the metal tenon and the orific hole in the button end of the stem. I took a close up photo of the shank and band to show the stamping and the oxidation on the band. The band is slightly turned to the right and will need to be aligned.I took a picture of the pipe taken apart to show all of its parts. You can see the discolouration of the left side of the shank. If you look closely you can see that the left side and the underside have been filed down slightly which made the band fit poorly. The right side was unfiled and would need to be filed so that I could move the band toward the left. I built up the left side and the bottom of the shank with clear super glue. Once that dried I used a needle file to cut down the right side and top of the shank. I checked the fit of the band on the shank repeatedly through the process and when it fit correctly I glued it in place with an all-purpose glue. I set the bowl aside so that the glue could harden. While the glue set on the shank I set it aside and worked on the stem. I decided to repair the tooth marks on the top and bite-through on the underside of the stem. I put a pipe cleaner greased with Vaseline in the orific airway in the button and slide it under the bite-through. I mixed some Black and Amber super glue together and filled in the hole on the stem. I filled in the tooth marks on the top of the stem with clear super glue. I sprayed the stem surfaces with accelerator to speed up the hardening of the repair. I pulled the pipe cleaner out of the stem so that it would not stick in the airway.Once the repair hardened I used a needle file to reshape the sharp edge of the button and flatten out the surface of the stem on both sides. I sanded the cut on the top of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper until it was smooth. I sanded the rest of the stem and the repaired areas with the sandpaper until the repairs were blended into the surface of the stem sides. The mixture of super glue colours worked well with the reds of the Bakelite stem. I polished the repaired 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 with Obsidian Oil after each pad. I have found that it works well on the old Bakelite stems. With the stem finished and the glue set on the band I turned to work on the bowl. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to rework the inner edge of the bowl. I sanded out the damaged edge of the bowl and reshaped it to make it round once again. I did not bevel it, but kept it smooth to match the original bowl. I used the Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to clean up the reaming of the bowl and remove the remnants of cake that were left. I used a 1500 grit micromesh sanding pad to smooth out the sanded edge of the bowl. The last photo of the bowl shows the repaired inner edge of the bowl. I polished the bowl and rim with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down with a soft cloth after each sanding pad. I buffed the bowl with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel and gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. I took photos of the bowl once I buffed it. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed it with a carnauba wax buffing pad. I gave the stem and bowl several coats of wax. I was very careful to not push the stem to hard against the buffing wheel so that the Bakelite would not melt and cause more problems. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfibre cloth to polish it deeper. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It turned out to be a pretty pipe. The Bakelite red stem and the grain and finish on the bowl went really well together. Thanks for following along with me on this refurbishing journey.

Cleaning a Winfield, B.C. Find – A Republic Era Peterson’s Kapruf Lovat 75

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Blog by Steve Laug

I received a private message on Facebook from a friend of mine in Calgary about a couple of pipes that he found when he was traveling. He stopped by a little flea market in Winfield, B.C. and picked up a little Peterson Lovat and another that he thought might be a Peterson Canadian. I wrote him back and said that at least one was a Peterson but I was not sure of the other. He sent me a message with the photo below saying that he thought both were. He asked if would be willing to refurbish them for him. I wrote back and told that both were nice pipes and I would be happy to work on them for him. He laughed and said they were on their way to Vancouver.The pipes arrived early this week and I unpacked them both. The first pipe above was indeed a Peterson Lovat. It is stamped on the underside of the shank with the shape number 75 near the heel of the bowl. It is followed by Made in the Republic of Ireland mid shank and finally Peterson’s over Kapruf near the shank/stem junction. The finish on the pipe was very dirty with lots of grime and dust in the deep grooves of the sandblast finish. There were spots where the finish was almost smooth there was so much debris. The rim top was dirty but surprisingly free of lava overflow from the thick cake in the bowl. The stem was oxidized and dirty. The “P” stamp on the left side of the saddle portion had obviously been touch up with what looked like white out. There was still white debris overflowing the stamping. There were tooth marks like a line across middle of the stem on both sides. The airway in the p-lip button was still round and undamaged. This was a good find. I took the following photos of the pipe before I started the cleanup work. I took a close up photo of the bowl and rim top to show the condition it was in when I received the pipe. The cake was thick but was crumbly. I was pretty glad it was not a hard cake. This would come out quite nicely with a reamer. I also took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is faint in spots but it is still readable. I looked up the dates for the Republic Era on Pipedia and found that it extended from 1950 to the present time. The stamp for this era is “Made in the Republic of Ireland” in a block format generally in three lines but two lines have been used with or without Republic being abbreviated. https://pipedia.org/wiki/Peterson

The close up photos of the stem show the overall condition. It is pretty decent shape other than some light tooth marks on both sides mid stem and a lot of tooth chatter. There was some oxidation and what looked like the gummy substance from a price tag.I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer to remove the thick cake. I started with the smallest cutting head and worked my way up to the second cutting head to remove the cake and leave the inside of the bowl bare. I wanted to be able to check to see if there was any heat damage in the bowl walls (I was glad to see that there was not).I removed the stem and was surprised to see that it had an inner tube that extended the length of the shank. I lightly wiped off the debris from the stem, wiped it down lightly with alcohol to remove the gummy substance and put it in the Before & After Pipe Stem Deoxidizer to soak overnight.While the stem soaked it was time to work on the stummel. I scrubbed it down with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I scrubbed hard to remove the debris from all of the nooks and crannies of the sandblast. There were spots of paint splatter on the surface of the bowl as well as dirt and the scrubbing removed that. I rinsed the bowl down with running water to wash off the soap and the debris. I scrubbed it under the running water with the tooth brush and when it was finished, dried it off with a towel. The pipe was looking pretty good at this point in the process. With the externals cleaned and debris free I worked on the internals. I cleaned the mortise and airway in the shank with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners (bristle and smooth) and alcohol to remove all of the oils and tars from the shank.I laid the bowl aside and called it an evening. In the morning I removed the stem from the Before & After Stem Deoxidizer bath and dried it off. It looked significantly better than when I put it in the night before. The next photos show what it looked like when it was dry.I scrubbed around the inner tube with a cotton swab and alcohol to loosen the tars that held in place. I scrubbed out the airway from both ends with pipe cleaners (bristle and smooth) and alcohol until it was clean. I was careful inserting pipe cleaners in the airway in the p-lip button as it is easy to damage the stem and opening. I scrubbed out the aluminum inner tube and polished the outside with 0000 steel wool. Once it was clean and polished I put it back in the tenon as it provided a nice handle for me when I was sanding the stem.I sanded out the tooth marks and chatter with 220 grit sandpaper on both the top and underside of the stem. It was a simple job as they were not too deep in the vulcanite.When I took the stem out of the bath the white material in the P stamp had dissolved. My thought that it was not acrylic was confirmed. Whatever it was it dissolved in the bath. I decided to use some Rub’n Buff European Gold to touch up the letter stamp. I applied it with a cotton swab and wiped off the excess with a cotton pad. The new look of the letter is shown in the photo below.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 with Obsidian Oil after each pad. I gave it one final coat after the 12000 grit pad and set it aside to dry. I wiped the bowl down with a light coat of olive oil to give back some life to the briar. I gave it multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and buffed the bowl with a shoe brush and again with a clean buffing pad. The briar is really nice and the sandblast is a landscape of contrasts. I buffed the stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel and gave the stem several coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the stem and the bowl with a clean buffing pad to raise a shine on the briar and the vulcanite. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It really is a nice pipe with a beautiful finish. I think my friend in Calgary is going to enjoy this little beauty. Thanks for following along the restoration path on this one with me.

Restoring a Made in England Cumberland Acorn

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Blog by Steve Laug

The stamping on the next pipe that crossed my work table was faint but it read Cumberland over Made in England. There is no shape number and no other name on the pipe. There is nothing Cumberland about the pipe as far as I can tell – the stem is black vulcanite and appears to be original. The finish is sand blast and quite nice though there are some sand pits in the bowl that are quite large and have been filled in. The rim and bowl are in good condition. The stem was badly oxidized and had a few tooth marks but otherwise clean. Like I said nothing Cumberland about it. I looked on Pipephil’s site and as expected nothing with this name other than Dunhill. I looked at Who Made That Pipe and they list it as UNKNOWN. So the mystery remains. I have no idea who made this nicely shaped acorn but I know that it was made in England. Anyone have any ideas?

I received a comment on the blog and on my Facebook page both confirming what I asked regarding the maker of this pipe. Al Jones (upshallfan) and Dan Chlebove both figured it was made by Charatan. I did some searching online and found a Charatan Shape Chart on Al Pascia’s website. Sure enough, the shape was on the chart. It is the Salisbury Shape 173. Dan noted that it was an older one because it did not have the Double Comfort style bit on it. I think that the scar on the front of the bowl and the sandpit on the back make it a Charatan Reject. Thanks for the information gentlemen.My brother took the photo above and the ones that follow to show the condition of the pipe when it arrived in Idaho. The finish was very dirty and there was a lot of grime and dirt in the grooves of the sandblast. There was significant tar and darkening on the rim top and edges. The bowl had a thick cake and it had overflowed onto the rim top. The stem was lightly oxidized and very dirty with the slot almost closed off with tars. There were tooth marks and chatter on both the top and underside of the stem near the button and tooth damage to the sharp edge of the button on both sides.The next photo shows the cake and the overflow on to the bowl top. I have found that generally this kind of buildup protects the rim top as well as the inner and outer edges from damage.The next photos show the interesting sandblast finish on the bowl from various angles. Looking past the dirty finish it is an interesting blast. The first photo below shows the sandpit on the front of the bowl but future photos will give a better view of that spot.I have included both of the next photos because together they give a clear view of the stamping on the underside of the shank. The first one show the CUMBERLAND stamping though the Made in England stamp is blurry. The second is the reverse. The shank is stamped on the curve of the shank so it is hard to get a clear photo of both at the same time.The close up photos of the stem surfaces show the tooth marks, chatter and damage to the edge of the button on both sides.Jeff did his usual thorough cleanup of the pipe. He reamed the bowl and cleaned out the internals – mortise, airway in the shank and stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the briar with Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove all of the grim and grit in the finish and clean out the areas around the sandpits. He rinsed the briar under running water and dried it with a soft cloth. He soaked the stem in OxyClean to bring the oxidation to the surface and remove the grime. When the pipe arrived in Vancouver it certainly looked different than it did when we picked it up. I took the photos below to show the condition of the pipe when I brought it to the work table. The finish looked amazingly clean. The rim top looked better without the tars and buildup. There was some darkening on the rim top but the edges of the rim looked very good.The OxiClean had done the job and the oxidation was on the surface of the vulcanite stem. It was pretty green. I dropped it in the Before & After Pipe Stem Deoxidizer to soak for 24 hours while I turned my attention to the stummel. The “Harry Potterish” scar (flaw/sandpit) on the front of the bowl was quite deep but it was not cracked. To me it took away from the overall look of a nice sandblast. There was also a round sandpit on the back side of the bowl on the left toward the top edge that also needed attention. I used a brass bristle brush to scrub out the remaining debris in those areas. I filled them in with clear super glue to blend them into the surface of the briar better. When the repairs had cured I carefully wiped around the edges with acetone on a cotton swab to remove the excess glue. I have found that the super glue repairs leave a shiny spot on the finish if you don’t remove the overage. To blend the repairs into the briar even more I topped up the repaired areas with black super glue. It would blend in better with the final stain that I was planning on using on the briar. I cleaned up the areas with a cotton swab and acetone to remove any excess glue in the surrounding sandblast. I warmed the briar and stained it with a dark brown aniline stain. I applied the stain and flamed it several time until I had an even coverage on the stummel. I set the pipe aside for about an hour and worked on another pipe I have on the work table. When the stain had dried I wiped it off with alcohol on a cotton pad to make it more transparent and show some of the underlying grain. I like the contrast that happens in the finish when I wiped off some of the stain. Notice the repaired areas on the front and back side of the bowl. They blend in quite well with the darker finish. I gave the sandblast several coats of Conservator’s Wax and buffed it with a shoe brush to raise the shine. I really like the new colour on the bowl and find that the repaired areas really do blend in quiet well with the rest of the finish. It also blends in the darkening on the rim top and gives the pipe a richer new look. I took the stem out of the Before & After soak and dried off the stem with a rough cloth to remove the remnants of the soak and the oxidation that it had lifted. The next two photos show the stem after the soak. There is still some deep oxidation that will need to be addressed but it looks far better than it did when I started.I put the stem on the stummel and took some photos to get an idea of where I was at with the restoration. The pipe is going to look good once I am finished. I used some black super glue to repair the edge of the button on both sides of the stem. Once the repair dried I sanded the repairs and the rest of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to shape the button and to remove the remaining oxidation. I worked on the saddle portion of the stem carefully so as not to round the edges where it met the shank of the pipe. It was looking better but more work was necessary to bring it to a full shine. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and wiping the stem down after each pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished the stem with Before & After Pipe Polish to further remove the scratches left behind by the sandpaper. I dry sanded the stem with 3200-12000 grit micromesh pads to deepen the polish. I wiped the stem down after each pad and set it aside to dry after sanding with the 12000 grit pad. I put the pipe back together and polished it with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I find that Blue Diamond Plastic polish really takes out the scratches in the vulcanite stems. I gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and polished it with a clean buffing pad. I hand waxed the sandblast bowl with a final coat of Conservator’s Wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the bowl and stem with a microfiber cloth. The darker stain blended the repaired sandpits and the darkening on the rim top into the rest of the finish. It turned out to be a nice looking pipe – its dimensions are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 1/2 inches, Bowl diameter: 1 3/8 inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ inches. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I will be putting it on the rebornpipes store soon. If it interests you, send me an email to slaug@uniserve.com or a message on Facebook. Thanks for looking.

An Old Bakelite Stemmed Diamond Shank Bent Billiard

Cleaning and Restoring a Large Meerschaum Calabash Oom Paul

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Blog by Steve Laug

I was visiting my family in Idaho and staying with Jeff and his wife when this pipe arrived. We opened the box and took it out and I think both of us were surprised at how big it was. We took it out and turned it over in our hands to examine it. It was a huge meerschaum Oom Paul. The meer seemed to have an interesting colouring pattern coming up from the bottom of the bowl. The surface of the meerschaum was dirty and scratched. The rim top had a strange stepped up section that rose above the top of the rim. It was chipped and no longer round. The bowl had a cake in it and it did not seem to be as deep as the bowl exterior would have led us to believe. It was odd. The area around the raised section of the rim top was dirty and had a thick build up of tars and oils flowing out from the raised portion toward the outer edge of the rim. The stem was in rough condition at the button end but it aligned perfectly with the diamond shank. It was amber coloured Bakelite stem and I believe it was original. There were deep tooth marks and chatter on the stem at the button on both sides. The button itself was misshapen from tooth marks. I took photos of the pipe before I started the cleanup. The out of round portion that extends above the rim surface and the colouration pattern on the sides of the bowl made me wonder what I was dealing with in terms of the mechanics of this pipe. When I inserted my finger in the bowl, it is not as deep as the depth of the outer portion of the pipe. That too made me wonder.I took a close up photo of the rim top to show the condition of the bowl and rim at this point. You can see the rough inner and outer edges of the raised portion of the pipe. There was also scratching in the surface of the lower potion and a ring of darkening around the edge where the raised portion met the lower portion. This made me wonder if I was not dealing with some kind of bowl insert.I took photos of the stem damage on both sides of the stem. The button and the flat portion had a lot of tooth marks and chatter that left a very rough and uneven surface on both sides.I unscrewed the stem from the shank and found that the pipe had a metal tenon in the stem itself. That was a good sign in that it was not stuck in the shank.The next two photos show the cake in the bowl and how I used a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe knife to trim back the cake to bare meerschaum.I used a cotton swab to run a bead of alcohol around the raised portion of the bowl to begin to loosen it. I ran alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs through the mortise and shank of the pipe to clean out the tars. I ran a pipe cleaner into the airway in the bowl and as I pulled it back and forth the raised portion came loose on the pipe cleaner. I removed the inner bowl from the outer and was surprised by how deep the outer bowl was. The inner bowl was quite shallow and had the airway on the back side. In the bottom of the outer bowl there was a ball of cotton or wool that was used as a trap for moisture and a filter. It was brittle and crusty with old tars. It is visible in the third and fourth photo below. I used the Savinelli Fitsall Reaming Knife to ream the outer bowl. I scrubbed the inside and outside of the two bowls with SoftScrub cleanser and a tooth brush. I worked on the rim top with the scrub and tooth brush and was able to remove the tars and oils that were on that surface. Once it was clean I rinsed the pipe under running water. I dried it off with a soft cloth. The photos below show the bowl after the scrubbing and rinsing. The line on the bottom half of the bowl makes sense now. The colouration is all below the bottom of the insert bowl. Everything above the insert shows no colour at this point. The outer edge of the inner bowl was damaged. It almost looked as if someone had tried to remove it with a pair of pliers. The edge was very rough and no longer round. The inside edge and the outside edge was damaged. I used a Dremel and sanding drum to clean up the outer edge of the bowl. I sanded the bowl surface, the edges and the bottom portion of the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper and with 1500-2400 grit sandpaper. The next four photos show the bowl after my cleanup work. There was some darkening on the rim top that I was not able to remove without removing significant amounts of the meerschaum. I worked over the inner edge of the bowl with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I wanted to clean it up and make it more round again.One the bowl was cleaned up I put it back in the outer bowl and took a picture of how it looked in place in the meerschaum. I could easily put it in place and remove it with the tip of my index finger. The second photo below gives some idea of the size of the inner bowl.I polished the inner bowl with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. Each successive pad brought more of the shine to the surface of the inner bowl. I waxed the bowl edge and rim top with Clapham’s Beeswax and hand buffed it to raise a shine. I cleaned up the damaged portions of the stem with a cotton swab and alcohol to remove any debris in the deep tooth marks. I filled in the tooth marks and rebuilt the button surfaces to make the orific button round like it was originally. I layered on the amber super glue in the marks and on the button until the surfaces were slightly over filled.I put the stem in my ebony drilled block to allow the repair to dry on both sides.When the repair dried I recut the edges of the button on the top and underside of the stem with a needle file. I also smoothed out the surface of the repairs with the file to match the surface of the rest of the stem. I sanded the repaired areas on the stem surface and the button with 180 and 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surface of the stem and the button. I wanted the repairs to be as invisible as possible when the stem was examined. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit sanding pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. After the final sanding pad I gave it a final rubdown with the oil and set it aside to dry. I cleaned the end of the shank with alcohol and cotton swabs to remove the tars and build up on the shank end.I polished the meerschaum bowl with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down after each pad with a dry felt cloth to polish it further. I have found that the micromesh pads do not remove the patina in the colouring meerschaum. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed it with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel to raise a shine. I put the inner bowl on the end of my finger and buffed it with Blue Diamond. I buffed the stem, the inner and outer bowl with a clean buffing pad to raise a shine. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfibre cloth to deep the shine. I inserted the inner bowl in the outer bowl and hand buffed it all one final time with the microfibre cloth. It is a big pipe and fills the hand. It is definitely one that should be smoked sitting beside the fire, sipping your favourite beverage and reading a good book. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 3 inches (with the inner bowl inserted), Outer diameter of the bowl: 1 ¾ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ inches. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. Thanks for joining me in the process.

Restoring a Sad, Old MLC Bent Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

This older MLC bent billiard is a turn of the 20th century pipe. The initials stand for Mary Linkman Company. The company was named for the mother of the same Linkman who eventually branded pipes under that same name and then eventually became the Dr. Grabow pipe manufacturer with which we are familiar. If you have followed this blog for a while you have come to know that I love really old pipes and this one fits the bill. It is stamped MLC in an oval with no other stamping on the shank. The ferrule is brass and has faux hallmarks on the left side. They are worn but still readable with a bright light and a lens. It is another small pipe, slightly under 4 inches long and 1 ½ inches tall. The stem is Bakelite or Redmanol and has a lot of small spidering cracks in the flat portions of the stem on both sides. Both sides of the saddle are split the entire length of the saddle. There is very little tooth chatter or and minor tooth marks on both sides near the button. Jeff took the photos that follow before started the cleanup. (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-m6.html)The pipe was in really rough shape. The finish was worn and spotted with paint specks, grime and nicks in the briar. The stem was split and worn. The bone tenon looked good but the band on the shank was loose and spun around the shank. The wear and tear on the brass band and the tarnish left is a mottled mess. The bowl had been reamed somewhere in the process so the cake was not thick. The lava on the rim was light. The inner and outer edge of the bowl was undamaged. The rim close up shows the cake and the peeling lava on the surface of the bowl.Jeff took photos of the sides of the bowl and the bottom side to show the wear and tear on the finish. There were some deep gouges in the briar and a lot of paint speckles on the briar. The stamping on the left side of the shank is quite clear – MLC in an oval. It had originally been gold leaf but it was worn. The stamping on right side of the oval was lighter than the rest of the stamping.I did some digging on the net to see what I could find out about the MLC brand. I knew that it was a Linkman pipe but could not remember much about it. I turned to my go to site for quick information – Pipedia (https://pipedia.org/wiki/M._Linkman_%26_Co). The information did not add much to my understanding other than pin down the date to the late 1890s or early 1900s. Included in the article was a photo of Mary Linkman, her son Louis and August Fisher at their Chicago Office. The photo is from Mary’s obituary and is a fascinating piece of history. The scan of the photo and obituary are courtesy of August Fisher’s granddaughter.Jeff took some photos of the stem. The right side of the saddle stem was split from the end up to the transition to the blade of the stem. The right side also had a crack. It looked to me that someone had turned the bone tenon too deep into the stem and split the saddle. The flat surfaces of the top and bottom of the stem were filled with a series of small spidering cracks. The stem, like the bowl was covered with paint flecks or spray. You can see from the first photo that the band has been turned all the way around so that the worn faux hallmarks are upside down and on the wrong side. Jeff cleaned the exterior of the pipe with some Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush and rinsed it off under running water. He dried it off with a soft cloth and the soap had removed the paint flecks and the deeply ground in grime on the finish. He ran pipe cleaners and alcohol through the mortise and the airway in the shank and stem to remove dust and debris that had collected there. He carefully scrubbed out the cracks and splits in the sides of the saddle stem using a tooth brush and rinsing it in water. Once the pipe was clean, he packed it up and sent it my way for the repair and restoration work. I took photos of the pipe when I unwrapped it on my worktable. It is an intriguing little pipe that caught my attention. When I unscrewed the stem the ferrule fell off in my hand. I laid out the parts of the pipe and took the following photo. It shows the nicks, dents, sandpits and flaws in the briar. The band looked as if it was never glued to the shank. The briar is clean and the inside of the ferrule had no remnants of glue. It was clean.I took some close up photos of the stem to show the cracks and splits in the saddle portion. The stem was worn and battered. The bone tenon was darkened from tobacco smoke and tars. The edges on the tenon were worn down and when the stem was on the pipe it was over turned or over clocked. I cleaned out the cracks in the side of the saddle stem with a dental pick and a damp cotton swab until the inside of the crack was clear of debris that would cause the stem repair to be very visible. I dried the stem off with a cotton pad. I filled in the cracks on both sides of the stem with amber super glue and set the stem aside to dry.When the repair had cured I sanded it smooth to blend it into the rest of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper. I sanded all of tooth chatter and marks out of the surface of the stem as well to smooth out all of the damage. I wanted it to disappear into the amber Bakelite. After I had smoothed out the repair I polished it 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 and set the stem aside to dry. (I almost forgot to add this piece of information. Just before I polished the stem I painted the threads on the tenon with clear fingernail polish to build them up so the stem would align properly when I put it in place.) The bowl needed a lot of work. I wiped the bowl down with acetone and filled in the nicks, dents, flaws and sandpits in the briar with clear super glue. I sanded the fills smooth with 220 grit sandpaper until they blended into the surface of the briar. I wiped the bowl down again with alcohol on a cotton pad to remove the sanding debris. I gave the shank end a coat of white all-purpose glue and put the ferrule in place with the faux hallmarks aligned with the stamping on the shank side. I left it to dry and worked on another pipe for a while. Once the glue had set I sanded the bowl and the ferrule with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to smooth out the scratches left behind from sanding with the 220 grit paper. The photos below show the bowl at this point in the process of the restoration. I stained the bowl with a dark brown aniline stain and flamed it to set it in the grain. I figured that the dark brown stain would hide the repairs and give the bowl the original rich colour. I set it aside to cure while I went to work for the day.I buffed the bowl with red Tripoli on the buffing wheel to remove some of the heavy coat of stain. I sanded the bowl with 2400-6000 grit micromesh sanding pads to make the finish more translucent so the grain would stand out when it was polished. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and set it aside to dry. I touched up the gold filled MLC Oval with Rub’n Buff European Gold. I applied it with a cotton swab and hand buffed the excess off with a cotton pad.I carefully buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl and 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 photos of the finished pipe are shown below. It has come a long way from what it looked like when I started. It turned out to be a beautiful pipe that has served pipe men well for well over 100 years. Thanks for looking.

Restoring a Lovely Carved Pine Cone Bent Meerschaum

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Blog by Steve Laug

I think Jeff was drawn to this one because of the interesting carving on the bowl and shank, the developing colour on the meerschaum, and the colour and patterns of the acrylic stem. I think he knew I would be interested in it as well. It came in a case that was a bit large for the pipe so I think it may not have been the original case for this meerschaum. Even though it is too large, it does protect it and holds it firmly in place. The shank and the bottom of the bowl have darkened nicely. The rest of the pipe is also darkening with the colour moving from the dark bowl bottom and lightening as you move up the bowl. The rim was dirty with tars and oils and there was a cake in the bowl. The stem has tooth marks and chatter on the top and the underside near the button. The first five photos were the ones that the EBay seller posted with the description of the pipe. To me the pipe showed a lot of potential and I was looking forward to hearing from Jeff if he thought it was a nice as it looked once it arrived in Idaho. We talked and he was pleased with the overall look of the pipe. There was one of the ends of a pinecone “leaf” that was cracked and poorly repaired but otherwise it just needed a cleanup.

Jeff took photos of the pipe when it arrived in Idaho before he started his cleanup work. It looked pretty good – the seller’s photos and description matched what he saw when he had it in hand. When he opened the case the left side of the pipe looked really good. There were no chips of cracks, not damaged areas on the bowl side. The fit of the stem to the shank was perfect.He took this photo of the pipe when he took it out of the case and I was hooked. I really liked the sense of how the pipe captured the pine cone. The shank and base are the stalk and branch that the pine cone hangs on. The sides of the bowl curving over the rim gave the clear picture of a pine cone. It is well carved.The grooves and small crevices on the rim top were filled in with tars and oils. The deep open areas of the rim were not visible under the grime. There was also a lot of dust deep in the grooves of the carving. The underside of the shank and the bottom of the bowl also formed the cluster that held the cone. The bottom of the bowl had darkened significantly to a rich brown patina. The shank had darkened to a dark brown with shades of the rich brown peeking through the grooves. The swirls of colour in the Lucite stem match those in the patterns of the bowl. The close up photo of the rim top shows the cake that had formed in the bowl and the thick lava that was filling in the grooves of the carved rim top. The rich browns of the underside of the bowl are really beautiful and give the pipe character. The transition from the bowl to shank shows the various shades of colour that were developing in the meerschaum. The only flaw if you will, or damage that I could find in the carving was one of the “leafs” of the cone was cracked on the bottom third of the bowl on the right side. It had been repaired with a black rubber cement like substance but there was a lot of seepage from the glue below the repair and the crack had never fully sealed. At least the broken portion was not lost as is often the case in pipes that we purchase as estates.Jeff removed the stem from the shank and exposed the Delrin push tenon on the end of the stem and the fitting that was in the shank itself. The amber portions of the stem were very translucent.The turned stem looked good with the pipe bowl and with a little imagination you can envision a tree branch holding the pine cone in place. The third and fourth photo below are close up photos of the stem surface and show the damage to the button surface and the tooth chatter on both sides of the stem. I love the swirling patterns in the stem material as they remind me of the colours of pine sap that I used to get all over my hands when I was a kid cleaning up our yard. I feel like there is a certain redundancy to this section of the blogs that I do on my restoration projects. But I write it each time to keep the cleaning process focused for those of you who read the blogs to learn our methods. So here it is again. Jeff cleaned the pipe with his usual thoroughness – he reamed the bowl and cleaned out the internals with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush and rinsed it under running water to remove the soap. He focused his work on the rim top to remove the cake and lava on the grooves and crevices of carving there. He cleaned up the stem surface and the internals in the stem to remove the tars and oils in the airway. When the pipe arrived in Vancouver it was in clean shape and ready to be restored. I took some photos of the before I started to work on it to show its condition. Jeff was able to remove the grime and build up from the grooves of the rim top. When I received it the lava was gone from the rim and it was clean. His cleaning had still left behind the patina on the meerschaum so it still showed some colour. The bowl was spotless and the cake was gone leaving behind bare meerschaum walls.The close up photos of the stem show the tooth marks on the top and underside of the button. They are the only deep marks on the stem. I have circled them in red in the photos below. The rest of the stem has tooth chatter but no deep tooth marks.I decided to repair the broken/chipped piece of meerschaum on the right side of the bowl. It was loose so I removed it and cleaned off the black epoxy that held the piece to the bowl. I scraped off the glue and cleaned the piece with a cotton swab and alcohol. I was able to remove much of the brown/black glue overflow between the pieces. Some still remained but it was not nearly as thick as before. I put drops of clear super glue on the chip itself and on the area where it fit and slid it in place with the point of a dental pick. I aligned the two parts and set the bowl aside to dry. The fit looks far better, though there is still a thin black line between the two parts. It is shown in the photo below.I filled in the tooth marks on the top and underside of the button with amber super glue. Once the glue had dried I sanded the stem surface with 220 grit sandpaper to blend the repairs in to the button surface. I sanded out the tooth chatter on the stem surface until it was smooth. I used a needle file to recut, shape and clean up the sharp edge of the button. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and wiping the stem down with damp cotton pads to remove the sanding dust. I dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads to polish it further and wiped it down after each pad. I buffed the stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. A soft touch is critical when polishing acrylic – a heavy hand and you overheat the acrylic and it melts and makes a mess. Melt it and it makes more work for you. I buff gently to keep from making more work. I gave the bowl a light coat of Clapham’s Beeswax Polish. The polish needs to be heated and put on lightly to ensure that it does not fill in the grooves in the meer. I hand buffed it with a shoe brush and a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. I put the stem back on the bowl and hand buffed the pipe a final time to give it a deeper shine. The colouration that is beginning to work up the shank toward the bowl is beautiful. The colours on the bowl are progressively darker as you work your way up the bowl. The rim colour once it was cleaned is getting darker as well but is no longer coloured with tars and oils. The acrylic stem goes really well with the colouring meer bringing out some of the same colours in both as the stem darkens. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 ½ inches, Bowl diameter: 2 inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ inches. I think this is a pipe that will join my collection. I really like the stem and bowl and how they work together – the pine cone shape and the variegated stem work together like a branch and a pine cone. Thanks for looking.

Cleaning up an Echt Bernstein Dublin Shaped Meerschaum

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Blog by Steve Laug

Something about the shape of this old meerschaum canted Dublin or Zulu that caught my brother’s eye so he picked it up and added it to the lot he was cleaning up to send my way. The worn red leather case had gold letters embossed on the edge just above and below the latch. At first I thought Echt Bernstein was the brand name but after a bit my high school German kicked in and I realised that it was not. The name was German and it read on the top edge of the case Echt Bernstein which means Genuine Amber and on the lower edge read Echt Naturmeerschaum which translates as Genuine Natural (Block) Meerschaum. The pipe is quite probably of Austrian origin and could have been made by Strambach. That is not provable because the pipe is not marked at all. But the German stamping on the fitted case lends itself to that idea.I looked up Strambach on Pipedia to see if there were any hints about the pipe I had in hand (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Strambach). I quote from that article some of the pertinent information.

In 1904 Edmund Jolitschke founded a company that, at the begining, produced cigar and cigarette mouthpieces and later meerschaum pipes. In 1922, Robert Strambach became the leader of the company and he expanded the business. He produced meerschaum pipes and Calabash pipes, and he developed a system to produce the meerschaum mass (this is a convolute of small sepiolite pieces, grinded down, and pressed together with a bonding agent). In 1974, Edith Corrieri succeeded to her father. She is a master-turner, and today, she is the only producing high quality calabashes and meerschaum pipes in Europe…

…(ed. quoting Edith Corrieri, current owner) My company was started in 1904 by my uncle Edmund, and in 1922 my father Robert took over the firm. In the following fifty years my father expanded the firm with many ideas e.g. he developed a special technique to transform raw meerschaum into workable material (so-called meerschaum masse), the secret formula to which he revealed to me shortly before his death. As I was the only child I had the chance in 1974 to become one of the first females in the field of pipe making. After three years of training I received a diploma as Master of Pipemaking. Today we are the only manufacturer of Meerschaum and Calabash Pipes in the European Union and are still making our pipes according the same age-old formula. In 1981 STRAMBACH PIPE CO. was awarded the Austrian “State Seal” for exceptional quality.”

Jeff took photos of the pipe as he opened it and removed it from the case. All of the previous and the following photos were taken before he cleaned up the pipe. Inside the lid of the case it read in English the same thing that had been stamped on the exterior of the case – Real Block Meerschaum in an arc over a six point star and Genuine Amber in an arc under the star.Jeff removed the pipe from the case and took some photos of it fresh from the case. The shape of the bowl was quite beautiful and there was colour beginning to happen on spots on the bowl and rim edge. The rim was exceptional dirty with a lava overflow from the cake that had formed in the bowl. The stem appeared to be a replacement – not genuine amber but an acrylic amber that obviously had been added later in the life of the pipe. The stem showed tooth marks and chatter on both the top and underside near the button. The slot in the button was not smooth but looked to be much like the slot cut in stem blanks that I purchase currently. The shape and the colour seem older but I cannot be certain of that. I know that it is not Bakelite as the colour goes all the way down into the bite marks and does not lighten as it goes deeper. Jeff took a close up photo of the rim top to show the build up and the darkening – not colouration of the meerschaum but burn and tars that was on the surface of the meer. The second photo below shows the shape of the bottom of the bowl. The meerschaum is quite clean and shows little scratching and damage. The smooth and gentle curves show a quality of carving that is not seen too much in more current production meers.The tenon on the pipe is a metal threaded tenon that screws directly into the mortise of the meerschaum and directly into the stem. The tenon has the same threads on both ends so it is reversible and interchangeable. It was incredibly dirty and caked with tars, oils and debris. The airway in the tenon was quite plugged with the tars.The stem itself had tooth chatter and marks on both the top and the underside near the button. In the photos it appears to be white but in reality as the stem is cleaned up the acrylic material is the same colour all the way through the bite marks. Jeff cleaned the pipe with his usual thoroughness – he reamed the bowl and cleaned out the internals with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior with Murphy’s Oil Soap. And worked over the rim top to remove the cake and lava on the surface of the meerschaum. He also removed the marks and grime that was on the exterior of the bowl and shank. When it arrived in Vancouver it was in clean shape and ready to be restored. I took some photos of the before I started to work on it to show its condition. While Jeff was able to remove the tars and lava buildup on the rim top there was still some debris and buildup on the surface. As I examined it I could see that it sat on top of the rim surface rather than down in the meerschaum itself. The surface of the meer was smooth and undamaged so cleaning off the layer on the rim top should come off easily.Jeff was also able to remove the debris around the bite marks in the top and underside of the stem surface. You can see from the photos that the stem material remains the same deep into the marks.I used a fine grit sanding sponge to gently top the bowl. It is a flat surface and I turned the bowl into the sanding sponge. I carefully kept the rim flat against the surface of the sanding block. I worked it on the sanding block until all of the remaining buildup was gone. I polished the bowl and rim with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads. I wiped the meer down with a damp cotton pad. I dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads and wiped it down with the damp cotton pad after each micromesh pad. The photos below tell the story. I lightly sanded the area around the tooth marks to provide a rough surface to provide a surface for the repair to bond to the stem material. I cleaned out the tooth marks with a dental pick and alcohol on a cotton swab to remove any debris on the surface. I repaired both sides of the stem with amber super glue and set the stem aside to dry in the block of ebony.When the glue had cured I filed the repairs close to the surface of the stem and sanded them with 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surface. The repair on the underside of the stem still showed some damage so I refilled it with amber superglue and smoothed out the repair. When it dried I sanded it with 220 grit sand paper. The third photo below shows the underside after the touch up repair was blended into the stem surface.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and wiping it down after each pad with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads and continued to wipe it down after each pad. When I had finished polishing it with the 12000 grit pad I gave it a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry. I put the stem back on the pipe and buffed the bowl and stem lightly with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba and the bowl several coats of Clapham’s Beeswax Polish. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise a shine and hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The dimensions on this pipe are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 2 inches, Bowl diameter: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: 3/4 inches. The photos below show the finished pipe. It looks far better in person than in these photos. If you are interested in adding the pipe to your collection contact me at slaug@uniserve.com or send me a message on Facebook. It will be going on the rebornpipes store shortly. Thanks for looking.