Tag Archives: Repairing tooth marks with black super glue

A Rare Find – A Pair of Fieldcraft Dulwich Quaints

Blog by Steve Laug

My brother found this pair of Dulwich Quaints – one a sitter, kind of bent poker and the other a kind of pickaxe shape. The shape and the look of them were unique and there was something about them that immediately drew me to them. They are not big pipes but they have full sized bowls. The stems were made out of very good vulcanite. The briar was quite nice even though both pipe sported a few fills. The bent poker is stamped DULWICH over Quaint on the left side of the shank and Made in England on the right side. On the underside of the shank it is stamped Fieldcraft and the shape number 102. The pickaxe is stamp DULWICH over Quaint on the left side and Made in England on the right and on the underside it has the shape number 126. I have hunted high and low for information on the brand using the Dulwich moniker as well as the Fieldcraft one. Both take me nowhere. One of the earlier pipes I repaired was stamped with the Fieldcraft name and the shape number was clearly a Orlik Pipe Shape. In this case I have no idea who the maker was. Both are interesting old pipes. The poker shaped sitter had hardly been smoked with over half of the bowl undarkened briar. The stem had some tooth chatter on the underside near the button but other than being oxidized it was a clean pipe. The finish on it was also pretty decent with a few small fills toward the bottom of the bowl on the left side and the front. There was some scratching in the briar as well particularly on the bottom of the bowl. The pickaxe was in rougher shape all the way around. It had a thick cake in the bowl with lava on the rim. The front right rim edge and top had been badly beaten against something that left the briar very rough. The stem was oxidized and had a line of calcification. There was tooth chatter on both the top and bottom sides near the button. I took a close up picture of both rims to show what they looked like when I started the refurb. The poker had a slightly crowned rim that is undamaged and has no lava or tars. The pickaxe is another story. I reamed the bowl of the pickaxe with a PipNet reamer using the smallest cutting head. I took the cake back to bare briar so that I could repair the rim damage. I wiped both bowls down with acetone on cotton pads to remove the finish and the grime that was particularly prevalent on the pickaxe. I sanded the rim of the pickaxe with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the damage to the surface of the front edge and top. I sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge and then with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-24000 grit. I wiped the rim down with acetone. I buffed both bowls with White Diamond on the wheel to get a natural shine. I cleaned out the mortise and the airway on both pipes with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and alcohol. I cleaned out the airways on both stems with alcohol and pipe cleaners. I sanded the stems with 220 grit sandpaper to clear the surface of the oxidation and the calcification on the pickaxe stem. I scrubbed the bite marks on the underside of the stem and used black super glue to repair them. I sanded the poker stem with 220 grit sandpaper and removed the tooth marks on the underside of the stem near the button. I rubbed the stems down with some Obsidian Oil and put them back on the bowls to get a quick look at how the work was coming along.I scrubbed the stems with Meguiar’s Scratch X2.0 Fine scratch and blemish remover. It worked really well on the pencil stem on the pickaxe and not as effectively on the thicker stem of poker.I wet sanded the stem of the pickaxe and the stem on the poker with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and then rubbed the stem down again with the Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded the stems of both with 3200-4000 grit micromesh and then gave them another coat of the oil. I finished sanding them with the 6000-12000 grit micromesh pads and gave them a final coat of oil and set them aside to dry. The briar was naturally finished so I did not stain either bowl. I gave them a light coat of olive oil and then buffed the stems and bowls of both pipe with Blue Diamond on the wheel. I gave them both several coats of carnauba wax. I buffed them with a clean flannel buffing pad and then by hand with a microfiber cloth. The finished pipes are shown in the photos below. Do any of you who are reading this have any information on either Fieldcraft or Dulwich pipes? I have seen and repaired several over the years and so far have been unable to identify them beyond the initial one that was an Orlik made pipe. Thanks ahead of time for any help that you may have.

A Sparkling Metallic Dr. Grabow Viking with Three Bowls

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Blog by Steve Laug

This older Dr. Grabow Viking came to me as a gift from a Facebook friend. He gave it to me along with some other pipes for me to enjoy restoring. This one is stamped next to the heel of the metal base – Viking Pat. Pend. The metal is sparkling metallic silver. It has flecks throughout the paint that make it sparkle and shine. When it came it was together in a plastic sandwich bag. The base unit was tired and dirty. The bowl on the base was caked with an over flow of lava onto the rim. The other two bowls had been reamed and cleaned. The finishes on all three were dirty and dull. The rims on all three bowls show damage from burns or being knocked out on a hard surface. When I removed the bowl the interior of the base was caked with the thick lacquer of the juices of tobacco as it burns. It looked to me like it had not been cleaned in a long time and the black thick oils had hardened like rock in the base. The airway was clogged with debris. The stem had collapsed from being bitten on. The tooth marks were deep but did not go through into the airway. The sharp edge of the button was worn almost smooth. I was not able to push a pipe cleaner through the airway from the button or from the airway in the bottom of the base.

I took a few close-up photos. The first shows the inside of the base and the build up there. The second and third show the bite marks on the stem. The second photo shows the top of the stem and the bite mark on that surface, though not looking bad in the photo, collapsed the airway and made it impossible for a pipe cleaner to pass through. The fourth photo below shows the stamping on the bottom of the base.

I scrubbed out the inside of the base with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. I also used a brass bristle brush. I opened the slot and airway in the stem with a flat needle file. I inserted the needle file and pushed the indentation on the top of the stem upward to clear the airway. It took a lot of fiddling with the file to open the slot completely. I cleaned the airway and stem with pipe cleaners and alcohol.

I repaired the tooth marks with black super glue and set the pipe aside for the evening to allow the glue to cure. I have not had good luck with this kind of fill using the accelerator as it tends to cause air bubbles in the dried glue.

G10

I reamed the cake in the one bowl with a Pipnet reamer and took the cake back to bare briar.

G11 G12

In the morning I sanded the repairs on the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth the surface of the repair and blend it with the stem. I used a needle file to sharpen the edges on the button.

G13 G14 G15 G17

Once I had the surface smooth I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit pads and then rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded the stem with 3200-4000 grit pads and gave it another coat of oil. I finished dry sanding it with 6000-12000 grit pads and gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil. I set it aside to dry.

G18 G19 G20

With the base finished I set it aside and turned my attention to the bowls. I topped all three bowls on the topping board. The short bowl that I reamed had some dents and rim damage. The other two had burn marks and rounded edges that needed to be cleaned up.

G21 G22

I wiped the bowls down with acetone on cotton pads to remove the finish and the grime.

G23 G24

I stained all three rims with the light brown stain pen for the first coat. I then gave all three bowls several coats of Cherry stain Danish Oil and buffed them to a shine.

G25 G26 G27 G28 G29

I finished the restoration by buffing the bowls with Blue Diamond and then giving the bowls and the stem several coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the whole pipe with a clean buff and then with a microfibre cloth to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. Each photo shows a different angle and includes the base with all of the bowls in place.

G30 G31 G32 G33 G34 G35 G36 G37 G38 G39

Another Painful 70s Era E.A. Carey Magic Inch Apple Restored

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Blog by Steve Laug

Reading the title of this blog you might wonder why I called it another painful Carey pipe. As this refurb description unfolds I think it will become clear what I mean by the title. In the Montana pipes that my brother Jeff sent me there were four E.A. Carey Magic Inch Patent pipes. I worked on the first one in the photo below, the Freehand and found that the bowl was a piece of cake. Getting the plastic apparatus cleaned in the shank was a challenge that took a lot of pipe cleaner and patience to move through. Because of that I have honestly been avoiding working on any of the others in the foursome. I have worked on a lot of others that have been sitting just because the cleaning is a pain, but more importantly trying to clean up the chewed up stems and getting any kind of shine on them is painstaking. The plastic cleans up well enough and I am able to repair the bite marks. The dents will not raise with heat, the inside of the stem takes a lot of scrubbing and is cavernous so lots of cotton swabs are sacrificed and lots of pipe cleaners. The plastic does not take kindly to the boiling alcohol of a retort so I am left to do the work by hand. Then once cleaned polishing the stem feels like an impossible challenge. I don’t remember how many hours of sanding with micromesh pads and then carefully, lightly buffing with the buffer went into bringing the shine on the Freehand so the lot just sat taunting me in my refurb box.

Finally, a few days ago I went through the remaining threesome to see if I had any sudden urge to work on one of them. I looked them over one at a time, examining the internals, the condition of the rim and the briar and also the stem….argghh. The stems on all of them have identical chew and bite marks. All were a mess. One of them stood out to me though and I ventured into working on it. It is the second pipe down from the top in the photo below (I have circled it in red).
Before I jumped into working on it I figured I better take some of the advice noted in the photo to the left. These Carey’s are time consuming and I find myself frustrated often in the process of polishing the stem.

I knew without looking to deeply at this old pipe that it would be another one that drove me to the edge. The finish on the briar was dull and dirty. There was some interesting grain poking through – birdseye on the sides and cross grain on the back and front. The stamping was very clean and sharp. The rim was crowned and had a significant lava overflow build up on the top. The good thing was that there was no damage to either the inner or outer edge of the rim. The bowl still was half full of unsmoked tobacco but appeared to be heavily caked. It was hard and dense. The stem was a mess. Once I took it off the apparatus extending from the shank there was still a dirty papyrate filter in place on the tube. The inside of the stem was dark and oily. The outside was covered with deep tooth marks and also a generous case of tooth chatter. There was also a gummy substance on the clean top half of each stem that probably came from price tags that were in place at the antique shop where my brother found them.

I took the next two photos to show the set up of the apparatus with the papyrate filter in place and the state of the bowl and the rim.

The lava overflow on the rim took a lot of elbow grease to scrub it clean. I used Murphy’s Oil Soap and cotton pads to scrub it until I had it clean. I wiped down the rest of the bowl with the soap and then rinsed it with running water. I dried of the bowl and then cleaned out the shank with pipe cleaners and alcohol.

With the briar clean and the internals of the bowl and shank clean I gave the bowl a light wipe down with olive oil so that I could see the grain more clearly. I took the next photos to show the beauty of this bowl.

The next photo shows the stamping on the left side of the shank. The right side is stamped Grecian. I set the bowl aside to work on the stem. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper and a fine grit sanding sponge to clean off the tooth chatter and the grime. I wiped it down with alcohol on the outside to prepare it or the repairs on the deep tooth marks. I used black super glue and put drops into the dents, leaving a bubble so that when it dried and shrunk down the dents would be filled and could be sanded.

When the glue dried I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper once again to blend the patches into the surface of the stem.

Before going any further I decided it was time to clean out the inside of the stem. I used cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and alcohol to clean out the internals. With the inside cleaned and the repairs smoothed out I sanded the stem with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. They removed many of the scratches and the stem was beginning to take shape. I was not getting too excited however as this was when the tedious work really started. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and then gave the stem a coat of Obsidian Oil. It does not absorb into the stem material so I use it to give me more bite between the various grit pads of micromesh. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads and gave it another coat of oil. I buffed it lightly with White Diamond and then finished sanding with 6000-12000 grit pads. I gave it a last coat of oil to wipe down the dust and then hand buffed it.

I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond Polish on the wheel and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buff and then buffed it by hand with a microfibre cloth. I don’t know how many hours I have in this stem but it certainly seemed to take forever. The bowl cleaned up great and the briar is quite remarkable. The beauty of the grain comes through clearly and the finished pipe looks great. I have two more Carey’s to clean up but I think I will wait awhile to tackle them. This one gets me half way through the lot. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. Thanks for looking.

Rode Hard Put Away Wet – A Tired Julius Vesz shape 31 Zulu/Canted Dublin

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Blog by Steve Laug

When I walked by the display case in the antique mall and saw the classic Vesz finish and the O logo on the stem I knew I was looking at one of Julius’ pipes. It was in very rough shape. The stem was covered on the topside and underside from the button forward for about an inch with a lot of dents and bite marks. On the topside there was a bite through – not large, more of a pinhole sized hole. There was also a lot of calcified buildup on the stem. The stem was over bent and the flat bottom of the bowl and shank did not rest on the desk top when laid down. The stem arch kept it from happening. The button and crease had were also worn. The rest of the stem was oxidized. The bowl finish was dirty and worn with white paint spots on the bowl. The stem was very tight and hard to remove but when I did remove it the tars on the end of the tenon were thick. The inside of the stem was so filled that the airway was virtually clogged. The slot on the end of the stem was plugged but for a hole the size of a pencil lead. The rim was damaged and worn from tapping it out on hard surfaces. There were large dents and worn areas. The inner edge was blackened and on first glance looked to have burned damage. It was hard to tell for sure but it also looked to be slightly out of round due to the damage to the inside edge. The bowl was heavily caked with a concrete like carbon build up. I tried to ream it and found it too hard to cut as it stood. The inside of the shank had heavy carbon and tar buildup. The pipe is stamped on the flattened bottom of the shank. Toward the front of the bowl it is stamped Circle 3 which denotes the price point of the pipes. Julius stamped them 1-6 to denote the price. That is followed by the shape number – in this case 31. The final stamping is Julius Vesz over Hand Made. To soften the concrete like cake so that I could ream it more easily without damaging the briar I put the bowl into an alcohol bath to soak for a while. I also wanted to remove the grime from the rustication on the bowl and the soak would facilitate that. While the bowl soaked I worked on the stem. I cleaned the inside of the stem with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and isopropyl alcohol. I also sanded the calcification with 180 grit sandpaper and 220 grit sandpaper to remove the build up from the surface of the stem. The tooth marks are very evident in the photos below. I took the bowl out of the alcohol bath to ream it and found that indeed the alcohol had softened the cake enough to make reaming a very easy task. I reamed it with a PipNet reamer starting with the smallest cutting head and working up to the size of the diameter of the bowl. I topped the bowl and removed the damaged surface of the rim. I set up a topping board and used 220 grit sandpaper to gently and carefully remove the damage. I sanded the bowl in a circular pattern on the board as I find that doing so does not leave as deep scratches in the finish. Once I had removed the damage I could see the state of the inner edge of the rim. It had some darkening but it was still solid. There were no deep burned areas that needed to be removed. I set up a heat gun and heated the bent stem to reduce the bend to a point where the pipe would sit up right on the flat bottom of the shank and bowl. I also heated the tooth dents to raise them as much as possible before I sanded them. Once the stem was heated and flexible I inserted it in the shank and pressed down on the bend to adjust the bend to allow the bowl to sit without falling over. The tooth marks did lift quite a bit and are visible in the last two photos of the foursome below. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and then with medium and fine grit sanding sponges to clean up the dents as much as possible. The surface needed to be cleaned and prepped for the work of filling the dents with black super glue. I washed down the dents with alcohol to remove the sanding dust. I filled the holes and built up the dents in the button lip with black super glue until they were overfilled, then sprayed them with the accelerator to harden the glue. I sanded the fills with 180 grit sandpaper and then with 220 grit sandpaper to begin the process of smoothing them and blending them into the surface of the vulcanite. I continued to sand with the 220 grit sandpaper to shape the crease and the button as well as the surface of the patches until they were at the same level as the surface of the stem. I sanded the stem after that with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to further blend it into the stem surface. It took a lot of sanding to blend it into the surrounding vulcanite. I rubbed down the stem with Obsidian Oil to make the scratches and trouble areas very visible. I also rubbed down the bowl with olive oil and wiped it off and set it aside overnight to let the oil be absorbed into the wood. In the morning I took the following set of two photos to show the state of the pipe when I began to do the finishing work on it. I sanded the stem with fine grit sanding sponges to clean it up further and remove the deeper scratches. I then sanded it with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads. I finished the stem work by buffing the stem with White Diamond on the wheel to finish the polish. I gave it several coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a soft flannel buff to raise the shine. The bowl had a heavy ghosting of aromatics – it was overwhelming and no matter how many times I cleaned it the smell remained. I filled the bowl with cotton balls, pressed them down and then filled the bowl with isopropyl alcohol with an ear syringe until the cotton was soaked. I set the pipe bowl in an old ice-cube tray that holds it upright and let the alcohol and cotton do their work to pull out the oils from the briar and sweeten it. I have moved more and more toward using cotton instead of coarse salt. It seems to work just as well and is less of a mess in the clean up stage. I let the pipe sit with the alcohol and cotton balls for about three hours. The photo below shows the oils that were drawn out of the bowl. The cotton turned a yellow-brown and was almost dry. I took the cotton balls out of the bowl and cleaned the shank and bowl with pipe cleaners. I put the stem back in place on the pipe and gave the pipe a hand polish with some Halcyon II Wax. I hand buffed it with a shoe brush to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown below. The look and feel of the pipe is far better than when I started. The repairs to the stem and button worked well and blended in nicely to the stem. The topping of the bowl removed the damaged portion and the blackening of the inner edge of the rim is merely a character trait. This is one that will stay in my collection. It smells sweet and is ready to smoke.

Restoration of a Barclay Rex HGP Briar Root Labelled “THE DUKE”

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I read a post by dmcmtk on Pipe Smokers Unlimited Forum regarding a pipe he picked up that was a Barclay Rex with a white spot on the stem. He had written to the store and received a response that the pipe was made for them by Dunhill. I had no idea that Dunhill had made pipes for the NY shop so I began to hunt down some of these pipes looking for the tell-tale white dot on the stem. I found some on Ebay under the Barclay Rex shop store there and one stood out to me and seemed to call my name. The write-up on the ad read:

“This is a HGP Stubby Briar Root estate pipe that has been carefully restored on-site.The stem is in excellent condition and has very little visible wear; there are a few nicks on the bowl. This pipe was made by hand for Barclay Rex and likely dates to before 1960. The letters HGP actually stand for the craftsman’s initials.”

The story and the shape intrigued me and it had the white spot on the stem. I was hooked. It had a buy it now price so I went for it. I contacted the store and paid the bill and the pipe was mine. I was not too concerned about the condition as I would work on it anyway. The ad said that it had been carefully restored on-site so I would see what that meant when it arrived. The photos below were on Ebay and give a good idea of why the shape caught my attention. I wrote to Barclay-Rex to find out a little background information on this pipe and the stamping it showed in the pictures. I received this email response:

Dear Steve,
This was made by a pipe maker who worked for Barclay Rex for a time in the mid-20th century. His initials were HGP and he would stamp his pipes as such. We are unsure why the maker decided to place a white dot on his stem, but we have come across one or two more of his with the same combination. Unfortunately, his full name has been forgotten with time.
– barclayrex1910

When the pipe arrived it was in good shape. The stamping indeed was HGP over Briar Root on the left side of the shank and The Duke on the bottom of the shank. Part of the shank and bottom of the bowl was flattened so that it was a sitter. I took it apart to examine it more closely. It was anything but cleaned and restored. The stem was rough – there was oxidation next to the band that went quite deep. There was a gouge on the right side of the stem that was quite deep. The top and the bottom of the stem from the taper to the button had obviously been modified to make a more pronounced taper. The file marks were still evident in the vulcanite. The width of the button end of the stem had also been modified and was narrower than originally designed as the sides of the stem also showed file marks. The button itself had a orific opening but someone had modified it into a poorly shaped slot. The stem had deep tooth marks on the surface of top and bottom near the button. There was a bite through on the top side next to the button. The angle of the taper was very abrupt and sharp with distinct cut marks. The tenon was fit for a filter by the appearance of it and the inside was very tarry. A filter would not have fit with all of the buildup in the stem. The bowl was another story. It was out of round with burn marks on the inner edge that needed some work. It had been reamed so that was not an issue. Then inside of the shank was filthy. The tars and oils were thick against the end of the mortise.

I decided to work on the stem first. I wanted to address the taper of the stem and cleanup the file marks and gouge in the top portion. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the scratches and reshape the taper. This took quite a bit of sanding to reshape the angles and edges of the stem. There was a slight hip on both sides of the stem that needed to be sanded out to get a smooth flow to the lines of the sides. The next series of photos show the progress in reshaping and repairing the stem. I worked on the taper first to remove the sharp angles of the sides and top of the taper and work on a flow to the profile of the stem. I sanded the gouge on the top right side of the stem until it disappeared and also worked on the transition from the flattened top and bottom of the taper and the round end next to the shank. The wet spot on the first photo next to the button highlights the spot where the small hole in the top of the taper was. At this point the taper is smooth and the transition is beginning to look right. The profile shot below shows the work that has been done. I continued to sand and smooth out the taper to give it a look similar to a Peterson tapered stem. The first photo shows the taper after all of the shaping. I rubbed some Vaseline on a pipe cleaner and inserted it in the orific slot in the button so that I could patch the hole in the top side of the stem. The second photo below shows the size and placement of the hole. I used black super glue for the repair and sprayed it with the accelerator to harden it more quickly. I found that the accelerator allows me to sand more quickly but curing actually takes longer. I sanded it with sanding sticks to smooth it out and then build it up several more times to give more thickness to the stem at the button. I reshaped the sharp inner edge of the button with a needle file. After sanding with the sticks I sanded the patched area with 220 grit sandpaper and then with medium and fine grit sanding sponges to smooth out the scratches and blend in the superglue patch with the rest of the stem surface. I finished sanding the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-3200 grit pads and dry sanding with 3600-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each three grit sequence of pads and let it sit until absorbed before continuing with the next set of three pads. When I finished sanding with the last three grits of micromesh I rubbed it down with a final coat of Obsidian Oil and when dry put the back on the pipe and gave it a buff with White Diamond. I set the stem aside and turned my attention to the bowl. I decided to top the bowl to even out the rim as most of the inner rim damage did not go too deeply into the bowl. Topping it would smooth out the rim and allow me to correct the damage that made it out of round. I set up the topping board with the 220 grit sandpaper and sanded the top until the rim was smooth and the burn damage was minimized. I sanded the inner edge with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to further mask the damage to the inner rim. I sanded the topped bowl with medium and fine grit sanding sponges and then with 1500-4000 grit micromesh sanding pads. I cleaned out the sanding dust from the bowl with a damp cloth and wiped down the top of the bowl with an alcohol wipe to prepare it for restaining. I decided against restaining the whole bowl and to just stain the rim. Thanks to Greg I have a set of staining pens that make this kind of thing quite easy. I started with the lightest stain pen and then used the medium stain pen to match the colour of the bowl. I buffed it with White Diamond and then gave the bowl and rim a quick buff with carnauba wax. After the buffing I sanded the band with the micromesh sanding pads and then polished it with a polishing cloth. The finished bowl is shown in the photos below. The next photo shows what I did next, though in retrospective I probably should have done this first, I did not. I cleaned out the inside of the shank with isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners to remove the tarry buildup in the mortise and airway of the pipe. Once I finished cleaning out the inside of the pipe I gave it a quick buff with White Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax, buffing with a soft flannel buff between coats. The finished pipe is shown below. The restoration and refurbishment are complete and now it can be honestly said that it has been “restored”. The amount of work it took to bring this pipe back to a finished look was far more than I expected when I bid on it. I honestly was surprised at how dirty and unfinished it was when it arrived. Now I have a pipe that I can be proud of and enjoy smoking. The look and feel in the hand is exactly what I like and I look forward to firing up the first bowl in it very soon.

Refurbishing a Comoy’s Tradition Shape 4 Bulldog

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When hunting for estate pipes I always am on the lookout for certain brands that feel like a win when I find them. I have found a few of them over the years. Some of those brands are Dunhill, Comoy’s, GBD and BBB. Added to that are a few older American brands such as CPF and GFB. On a current hunt I did exceptionally well and found four GBD pipes and two Comoy’s pipes. The first one I have been working on is stamped Comoy’s Tradition and is a shape 4 bulldog. In my mind Comoy’s knew how to make the quintessential bulldog so I was glad to find this one. However, the previous owner had modified the shape dramatically and made it almost unrecognizable due to his changes. I bought it anyway and went back to the books to see what the original shape must have looked like. In the brochure photo below it is the third pipe down labeled Tradition.

Now for the modifications. The next set of four photos show the pipe’s condition when I bought it. The briar is a beautiful piece with no fills or flaws in it. The grain is very nice with a mix of flame, straight and birdseye. The stain is the typical two stage stain that is present on the Tradition pipes that I have seen – a dark understain with a walnut brown stain over that. The bowl when I received it was slightly caked with a small build up of tars and cake that overflowed on the back edge of the top of the rim. There was a slight series of marks on the bevel above the rings where the pipe must have been dropped on concrete or gravel. I don’t believe the stem is an original as the shape is a bit different from the ones I have seen and it is missing the logo. It is also missing the step down tenon that I have come to associate with these pipes. The stamping is weak on the left side though visible. It is not present at all on the right side of the shank. The bottom of the bowl, shank and stem have been sanded flat to make the pipe a sitter. It appeared that the owner merely laid the pipe on a flat sander and never bothered to smooth out the scratches or refinish the bottom of the pipe. He knew what he was doing because he left just enough briar on the bottom of the shank to not go through into the airway and on the bottom of the bowl to leave it still thick enough to protect it from burning out.

The photo below shows the flattened underside of the pipe and the scratches that are visible in the briar and the vulcanite stem.

I reamed out the bowl with a PipNet reaming set beginning with the smallest cutting head and progressing to the one that fit the bowl. I cut back the cake to the bare wood so that I could build it up again evenly. It had tended to be thick around the top of the bowl and about half way down the bowl thinned out. I cleaned out the bowl and shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and Everclear

I heated the surface of the stem with a lighter to lift the bite marks on the stem surface. The ones on the topside of the stem lifted quite well and a little sanding repaired them. The ones on the underside were deeper and required more work. Several of them lifted but one in particular was very deep and the fibers of the vulcanite were broken. This required a patch with black superglue. There was also a small divot out of the button on the top side that I repaired with the black superglue. I set the stem aside to dry while I worked on the bowl.

I wiped down the bowl and rim with a cotton pad and saliva. I scrubbed the tars and carbon on the rim with the cotton pad and saliva until it was gone. It took a bit of scraping and a lot of elbow grease to remove the buildup but once it was clean the stain was still in very good shape. I also scrubbed the bevel of the inner edge of the rim to clean it and polish it as well.

Once the superglue was dry I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the excess and smooth out the surface of the patch. I sanded it until it was well blended into the surface of the stem. The next two photos show the patch after sanding with 220 grit sandpaper and then with a medium grit sanding pad.

I sanded and stained the flattened bottom of the pipe with a medium walnut stain to blend it in with the rest of the pipe. I sanded the stem with my usual regimen of micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit pads. I buffed the entire pipe with White Diamond and then rubbed in a coat of Obsidian Oil into the stem.

I buffed the pipe and stem with multiple coats of carnauba wax and finished with a clean flannel buff to bring out the shine. The next series of four photos show the finished pipe. Though the previous owner’s modification certainly changed the profile of this old pipe, I think the finished product still looks very good and should continue to provide a good smoke.

After reading Al’s comment below, I did a bit more comparison work with Tradition colours both on line and in my own collection. They tended to be slightly more red than the walnut colour of this bulldog. Armed with that information I decided to give it a coat of Minwax red mahogany stain to bring out the reds a bit more in the briar. Below are the updated pictures of the pipe. In real time the addition of red brings the colour into the same spectrum as the other Traditions in my collection. Thanks Al for the nudge.

Churchill’s Bent Pot

11 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

I saw this pipe come up on Ebay and love the shape. Some have called it a bent pot but I am not sure that the name captures the shape but I will call it that nonetheless. Churchill’s was not a brand I was familiar with but it looked very good. The stamping on the pipe is very simple on the left side of the shank it is stamped Churchill’s and on the right side it is stamped Matt Grain. The bowl had been reamed back by the seller before shipping and was well done. No damage to the roundness of the bowl. The inside of the shank was filled with chips of carbon from the reaming and they were stuck in the tar in the shank. The buildup was enough that the stem did not seat in the mortise and there was a gap in the fit of the stem and shank. The rim had some tarry buildup. The stem sat at an angle to the shank as if the tenon was bent slightly. There were three deep tooth marks on the top and the bottom of the stem near the button. The oxidation was present but not heavy at this point. The stem was also plugged with tars and the airflow was very constricted. There was an old English style C stamped on the stem. The first nine photos below were provided by the Ebay seller.

I am fairly certain that the pipe came from Churchill’s Tobacco Shop in Norwich, England. I found the following information on the Pipes and Logos website http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-c4.html On the site there is a small paragraph which I have copied as follows: “Churchill’s Tobacco shop is situated in St Andrew’s Street at the corner of Bridewell Alley in Norwich, England. The shop was next to a church and at the bottom of two hills, and that’s how it became “Churchill’s”. Former manager: John Elvin (retired on May, 31 2008). Current owner (2008): Keith Garrard.” I have included these pictures from that website as they show the stamping on both the shank and stem that is identical to the pipe that I have just refurbished.

According to the Churchill’s website it is the last remaining specialist tobacconist in Norwich, originally standing at 32 St Andrews Street for over 23 years. http://www.churchillsofnorwich.com/index.php?_a=viewDoc&docId=1 The site also notifies the shop’s clients that Keith Garrard, who had a wealth of knowledge and was an avid pipe and cigar smoker himself, passed away on 23rd March 2012. His wife Coral continues to maintain the business in his honor.

I decided to try to remedy the bent tenon on the pipe to begin with. I heated it in a cup of boiling water to try to adjust it and tighten the fit in the mortise. I was able to adjust the fit and get a good tight seat with no gap between the shank and the stem. However, in the process the water oxidized the stem badly. The four photos below show the adjusted fit of the stem and also clearly show the bite marks on the stem – top and bottom near the button.

I scrubbed the inside of the shank with Everclear and cotton swabs. I cleaned the airway with bristle pipe cleaners and then fluffy pipe cleaners. I continued to scrub it until the pipe cleaners and cotton swabs came out clean. I cleaned the rim of the bowl with saliva and a cotton pad until the grime was gone. It took a bit more than a cotton pad and saliva so I also used a very fine grit sanding block to knock off the remaining tar, being careful to not break the finish.

The stem took a bit of work as it was plugged with grit and tar. I used a dental pick to clean out the slot. To the right of the stem in the photo is some of tar and grit I picked out of the slot. I used a straightened end of the pick to clean deeply in the slot. I then used pipe cleaners soaked in Everclear and pushed them through the blockage. I also opened the slot with needle files to facilitate easy access with pipe cleaners. The slot was very narrow which also made the blockage hard to get at.

I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the surface around the bite marks. In the next three photos the bite marks are visible. I heated them to lift them as much as possible. The bite marks on the top were less troublesome than the ones on the underside. Fortunately the stem was quite thick so that the tooth marks did not go all the way through the vulcanite.

I picked the tooth marks clean with a dental pick and then used black super glue to patch the deep marks that remained. Once the glue had cured and was hard I sanded the patches with 220 grit sandpaper and then a medium grit sanding sponge to smooth out the surface and blend in the patch. The next three photos show the patch after it had been applied and after sanding.

I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit to finish removing the oxidation and the scratches left behind by the various sandpapers I used. The next series of photos show the progress of the shine after each group of sanding pads.

I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil and rubbed it into the surface of the stem. Once it had dried I rubbed it and polished it with a shoe brush before taking the pipe to the buffer. I buffed it with White Diamond and then carnauba wax. I gave it a polish with a clean flannel buffing wheel. The next four photos show the finished pipe. I really like the way the matte finish came alive. The grain really pops. This was an easy refurbish as the finish was in very good shape under the top layer of grime.

rebornpipes

reclaiming old and worn estate pipes

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Churchill’s Bent Pot

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