Tag Archives: repairing tooth marks

Repairing a stem on a beautiful little Dunhill Bruyere 3206 Pot

Blog by Steve Laug

On the work table at the moment is a beautiful little Dunhill Bruyere pot. It had some serious gnaw marks on the stem. There were tooth dents that were deep on the top and the bottom sides of the stem. Fortunately they did not penetrate the airway. The pipe is in great shape. The finish was in excellent shape. The rim was clean but had been lightened quite a bit. It had hardly been smoked so I am wondering if somewhere along the way it had been used as a prop and the individual had just bitten down hard!

I removed the stem from the bowl and gave the rim a quick clean and then a coat of an opaque aniline based oxblood stain that matches the Bruyere finish. I flamed it and set it aside to dry while I turned my attention to the damaged stem (unfortunately I was in grand rush to work on the stem and the pipe and forgot to take photos of the pipe when I received it. Instead you will have to trust the descriptions and look through the repairs).

I used a dental pick to clean out the debris in the deep dents and the crack along the edge of the button. I used the heat gun to raise the dents as much as possible but sadly they were of the nature that the heat did not do much to raise them. I then wiped down the dents and crack with alcohol to remove any debris in the area to be repaired. I filled in the dents on both sides of the stem with black super glue. You can see in the next two photos the bubble of super glue next to the edge of the button. I decided to let it cure rather than use an accelerator so I set it aside to do so.

Once the repair had cured (several hours later) I sanded the patches with 220 grit sand paper to blend them into the surface of the stem. I sanded the repair to the button as well to blend it in without changing the profile of the end of the stem.

I sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to minimize the scratches left behind by the sandpaper and to further blend in the repair. I used a needle file to sharpen the edge of the button and then sanded it with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper and a little bit of water. You can see from the next two photos that the patches are blending into the stem nicely.

I moved on to wet sanding the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads. The scratches are disappearing and the patches are blending in to the point that if you did not know where they are you would not see them. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil before going further with the micromesh pads.

I wet sanded the repairs with 3200-4000 grit micromesh pads to further blend in the repaired areas. I spent extra time working on the repair to the small crack on the top of the button. I wanted that spot to blend in well and be smooth to the touch.

The repair to the top of the button and along the top side of the button needed a little more work to get them to be less visible and more blended. The repair on the underside was really looking good. I cleaned up the repair on the button and then used some clear super glue applied with the tip of a dental pick. Once it cured I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper and then the same set of wet dry sandpaper and micromesh pads that I commented on above. Finally the repair blended well.

I buffed it with Blue Diamond and gave it several coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buff and then hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth.

The finished pipe is shown below. The darkening of the stain on the rim and the repaired stem are finished and the pipe is almost ready to send back to the owner.

Breathing New Life into an LHS Sulgrave

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Blog by Steve Laug

I have become a fan of older LHS pipes and restored quite a few of them lately. I am always on the lookout for different LHS lines that I have not seen. Recently I picked up this LHS Sulgrave from a fellow on the Dr. Grabow Collectors Forum for $15. It is a line that I had not heard of before. He described it as a lightly smoked briar pipe. When I saw it I wanted it as it was my kind of shape. Never sure what to call this shape – bent banker, squat apple – not sure but I like it. He gave the following description in the sale listing. The shank is stamped Purex Sulgrave arched over LHS in a Diamond on the left side. The stem has two light coloured dots on the left side. The pipe is 5 1/8 inches long from the bottom of bowl to end of bit. The bowl chamber diameter is 7/8 inch and bowl depth is 1 1/4 inch. There is light caking in bowl. There is light tooth wear on end of the stem near the button. It has normal wear and tear (dings, oxidation and scratches) for an estate pipe. Nice overall shape and condition. Here are the photos that he included when I emailed him for details.

When the pipe arrived I was not disappointed. The shape was perfect. The description was accurate and the only variation that I could see was that the stamping did not include PUREX on the shank. Not a big deal in my book. The bowl was unevenly caked and appeared to have been reamed. The back side of the bowl had a thicker portion of cake that gave the inside wall on the back side an uneven and out of round look. I was pretty certain that with a good reaming and a light sanding the rim would look better. The stem was over bent and there was a slight crease on the underside of the bend. There was a coat of wax or some kind of coating on the stem and bowl. The stem was oxidized. In the first photo below you can see slight imperfection in the vulcanite stem. I have circled it to highlight it in the photo below. It is not a hole or worn spot, it is actually a thread of cord in the rubber. Its presence gives some idea of the date of manufacture as recycled rubber was used in WWII pipes.

The stem also had a lot of tooth dents and chatter along both top and bottom with some very deep marks on both. I tried to capture them in the next two close-up photos but they are still not very clear. The odd thing was that the dents went up the stem over an inch. The slot in the button was not centred and appeared to have left the factory that way. The dents were deep enough that I was concerned regarding the thinness of the stem surface over the airway. The mortise and airway in the shank were dirty and the end of the mortise was chipped away. It looked as if there had originally been a stinger in the tenon but it was no longer with the pipe.

I also have included the next close-up photo of the rim and the bowl interior to show the cake that gave the bowl an out of round appearance. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer using the largest cutting head. I took the cake back to bare wood to even out the inner edge of the bowl. I wanted to get rid of the cake so that I could smooth out the edge.

I folded a piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out inner edge. It took a little effort remove the inner edge damage and clean up the roundness of the bowl.

I wiped down the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to remove the tars and the wax coat on the briar. With them removed the outer edge of the bowl showed damage as well. The bowl had been knocked about on the front edge particularly. The grain on this pipe was lovely.

To minimize the outer edge damage I topped the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper on a topping board. I sanded it to remove the damage to the top of the bowl and clean up the outer edge of the bowl.

I cleaned out the shank and the bowl with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to remove the grime inside. It took quite a few of both to clean out the shank but finally they came out clean. I heated the stem with a heat gun to try and lift some of the dents to the surface and to also take out some of the bend. I also wanted to smooth out the sharpness of the bend on the bottom side.

I cleaned out the airway in the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. The heat had raised most of the dents significantly. The ones that were left in the stem needed to be sanded out and then filled to take care of them. I used 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the surface. I also worked on the curve on the underside of the stem to make it less sharp looking.

The dents in the stem needed to be filled to bring the surface back to smooth flowing condition. I used a black super glue to fill the surface and set the stem aside to dry for several hours. Once dry, I sanded the fills with 220 grit sandpaper and then used a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to feather them into the surface of the stem.

I used a needle file to clean up and sharpen the edge of the button and give it more definition. I sanded the sharp edge with sandpaper and then sanded it with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads and then let it dry after sanding with a 12,000 grit pad.

I buffed the pipe with White Diamond and Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel to polish and remove the slight remnants of oxidation that had come to the surface. I gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean flannel buffing pad. I brought it back to the table and hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below.

Dave’s Four Dot Sasieni

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Blog by Andrew Selking

I’ve been out of touch for the past few months, between moving, home renovation, and finding a new job my free time has been limited. Dave is sneaky though, he sent a picture of a pipe he bought and asked me if I thought I could fix it. Of course I said yes. Here is the pipe as it looked upon arrival. There is an obvious chunk missing from the button, but there is also a small crack on the other side of the stem. That was uglier than it looks.

I did my normal procedure of cleaning the inside of the pipe first. Dave was kind of worried about how the alcohol might affect the finish, so I used new alcohol and only left the bowl in for about 45 minutes. I soaked the stem in an Oxyclean bath.

The tar on the rim came right off after removal from the alcohol bath. Next I reamed the pipe using my Castleford reamer, used a brush on the inside of the shank, followed by a retort of the bowl. As I suspected the pipe was pretty clean.

Before dumping out the Oxyclean, I ran a pipe cleaner through the stem. It was not too dirty. I followed that by a retort and more pipe cleaners. That was the easy part, the fun was about to begin.

As you can see the missing chunk is a problem. The crack on the other side looked like it could keep going, so I drilled a hole to stop it. You might notice a slight micro crack to left of the main crack. Turns out there was a chunk of vulcanite hanging on like a loose tooth. Of course it came out very easily, leaving a stem that was missing most of the button on both sides.

The first thing I do when building a new stem is fit some rolled up wax paper inside the stem. I’ve found that the CA glue does not stick to it and it helps give shape to the inside of the stem. I use ground charcoal (which I purchased at the pet store and ran through a coffee grinder and sifter) and CA glue. I started by filling in the hole that I drilled to stop the crack. Once I had that filled in and sanded smooth, I started building up the stem below the button. I forgot to mention that I use CA accelerator throughout the process. I find that you can work the glue within 2 to 3 minutes instead of having to wait overnight.

Once the stem was repaired, I put layers of clear tape on the stem under the button to serve as a form for the glue. Once the tape was even with the button, I started adding CA glue and charcoal. I put a small amount of charcoal on the bottom of a plastic cup, add a drop or two of CA glue and mix it with a push pin. I use the push pin to add the material to the stem, followed by a few drops of accelerator. Once the material is built up, I start to sand and file it into shape. I use needle files and 400 grit sand paper. This gets me to the final step, which is addressing the micro pits.

I filled the micro pits with a mixture of CA and charcoal, but used much less charcoal than before. I used 400 grit sandpaper and needle files to get the final shape. I then used 1500-2400 grit micro mesh with water to smooth it all out. Since the bowl was in nice condition and I wanted to preserve the finish, I started polishing with 3200 grit micro mesh. I used a progression of 3200-12,000 grit micro mesh on both the bowl and the stem. Here is what it looked like once it was ready for the buffer.

I polished the stem using my rotary tool with a felt pad and white diamond, followed by carnauba wax. My rotary tool has variable speed and I use the lowest setting. I used white diamond and carnauba wax on the bowl with the buffing wheel. Here is what the pipe looked like when I finished. This is my second repair of this type. My ultimate goal is to do repairs that look like the original. Thanks for looking.

Revamping a Bavarian Folk Wine Pipe Made in Italy

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Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.naspc.org
http://www.roadrunnerpipes.com
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

“Voters in the southern German state of Bavaria [April 7, 2010] voted for Germany’s strongest smoking ban, meaning lighting up in bars, restaurants and beer tents at Munich’s famous Oktoberfest will be ‘verboten.’”
― David Levitz, journalist, Agence France-Presse

INTRODUCTION
Who would have dreamed that those crazy, fun-loving Bavarians who have been hosting the annual Oktoberfest since October 12, 1810, the day Crown Prince Ludwig (later King Ludwig I) married Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen; the culinary health scoffers who gave to the world such artery-hardening treats as Weisswurst, Schweinshaxe, schnitzel and spaetzle, and for snacks and dessert, laugen pretzels, apfelstrudel, Baverische crème and zvetchgenkuchen – would ban smoking in all public buildings just months before the bicentennial of the world’s biggest excuse to get betrunken?

Bavarians are even so fond of beer and schnapps that they have a great little saying: Saufen bis zum Verlust der Muttersprache, or drink until you forget your mother tongue. And if you’ve ever seen many German tourists, how many of them didn’t look like triple bypass candidates? Of course, everyone knows smoking kills more people than drinking and/or diet-related maladies…right?

One 31-year-old Garden Grove, California woman who lost her job and started a blog, and has written a book but is still searching for a publisher, has a particularly active gift of gab. She blogged, “Bavaria’s cuisine is a monster truck. It crumples the delicate-by-comparison culinary offerings of Spain, Italy, and France like tiny little Fiats and Peugots in its path… It is rich and doughy and filling and is the only thing on the planet that can soak up German beer. Every other fare will simply hide in the corner of your stomach, petrified at the sheer awesomeness of the brew that resides in there with it, and it will never get digested.” Perhaps the most succinct line from this particular blog is, “Germans do it with bigger sausages.” [http://www.everywhereist.com/7-badass-bavarian-foods-you-must-try/] I, for one, can’t wait until the book comes out.

If the world is going mad as far as singling out tobacco as the great evil, then Bavaria may now be the capitol for the insanity. Maybe all that ice bockbier and apfelstrudel have saturated their bodies and have nowhere left to go but the brains.

At any rate, there remains for those of us who still appreciate the virtues of pipes and their tobaccos the glorious contributions of German craftsmanship in general and Bavarian in particular. And more along the lines of the subject of this blog:

When I emailed Steve a few photos of my new acquisition from eBay, for less than $11, I was happy as usual to receive a response but, I must admit, a little disheartened to hear of the 20 hours he spent restoring the 1810 Meerschaum Bowl masterpiece above. Then I considered the facts that his folk pipe was part meerschaum, and of course suspected he had, as his masterful skills and (if I may be so bold) somewhat obsessive creative bent allow, more than just restored it. He had in fact, of course, re-worked parts of it, as I learned when I read with pleasure his July 7 account. I mentioned the conjecture that Steve is a born pipe maker to my mentor, Chuck Richards, who with not an inkling of surprise to me that Steve has made a few pipes in his time. I therefore hereby suggest a blog by our host on these endeavors, which I am certain I am not alone in my curiosity to hear about and see.

Alas, as shall be seen, my Bavarian Three-Piece Folk Wine Pipe – not counting the screw-in bit – pales in comparison, although it did present problems I had not before encountered. Starting with the bit, the eBay photos revealed one gash that appeared to be so deep that it must have pierced the air hole. As Lady Luck provided, however, such was not the case. On the other hand, there turned out to be three bad divots in the bit, not counting the severe wounds just below the lip, top and bottom, from grinding teeth. Then there were the countless scratches on every piece; the well-caked chamber; scorching of what I believe is the ornate but aluminum wind cap; a serious cleft in the alternative wood shank, the variety of which I have not yet determined, and a hole in the bottom piece, where the wine is placed, too deep for any fix other than wood putty.

All of these complications, I knew, would be nothing compared to the task of cleaning and sanitizing a pipe with a form that defied retorting. Noting this anticipated cleaning conundrum with a quip, “That’s entirely rhetorical,” in fact, was the reason for Steve’s second reply to my email where he mentioned the time he spent on his folk pipe.

By the way, I owe a final nod to Steve, as well as the owner of my local tobacconist who confirmed his assessment, for identifying my Bavarian folk pipe (which turns out to be a no-name Italian version) as being designed to add wine.

RESTORATION This, as it happens, is how I decided to approach the restoration: piece by piece.

Without thinking – you might say a bit compulsively on my own part – I already cleaned and polished the wind cap before snapping the last shot above.

Other than the almost unconscious cleaning and shining of the wind cap, inside and out, with Everclear-soaked cotton cloths, super fine steel wool and mostly 500-grit paper except for a few tough spots requiring 320, I saw no reason not to dive in with the bit. After all, filling the crevasses – and I can only imagine the drunken stumbling about that caused them – would take several days of layering with black Super Glue and drying time in between. The remainder of the restore was finished in a day and a half of intense work. I gave the bit a good soak in an OxiClean solution to start and cleaned out the mess inside with about six bristly cleaners dipped in Everclear before they came out clean.

With that process begun and the pipe disassembled, I returned to the main tobacco chamber (remember, this three-parter has a second chamber at the bottom for wine) and used my Senior Reamer to take out most of the fairly even though excess cake. After that I swabbed it out with some alcohol-soaked cotton gun cleaner squares and finished the removal of char and smoothing with 200-, 320- and 500-grit paper. The yellowing of the cap’s inside area is the fault of my photography, not lack of attention. I know nothing of body work on cars, which is the kind of detail work the metal rim requires, and despite my restoration of this pipe for my own enjoyment, any tips on eliminating dings in metal, preferably without removing the entire rim piece, will be appreciated. Since the pipe is staying in my own collection, after all, I have a long time to work out that part.

I turned my attention to the outer bowl, first scrubbing out the draught hole with bristly cleaners soaked in alcohol – quite a few, in fact. Then I used 320-grit paper to remove both the old finish and the scratches, starting with the rough, un-sanded opening of the draught hole showing before and after below.

From 1500-4000 micromesh, I prepped the bowl for buffing. I liked the natural, lighter shade of the briar and chose not to re-stain it, proceeding straight to the buffer wheels. I used white Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba.

The shank was what I expected would take most of the work, and I was right. I sanded the wood with 200 and 320 paper, deciding the cleft in the unknown wood gave it a certain character. Besides, it wasn’t going anywhere without the kind of serious reshaping Steve is into. I sanded it again with 500-grit paper and micro-meshed all the way. The ferrule was dull and scratched. I used micromesh on it and then Lincoln black boot stain, which I flamed, let cool and wiped clean with 4000 micromesh. Finally, I used Lincoln brown stain on the shank’s wood and used 4000 micromesh to take off the ash. I buffed it with white Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba, and used red and white Tripoli on the ferrule. Onto the final stage – the bottom chamber where the wine is added. Here it is after sanding with 320-grit paper.

By the time I cleaned it out with bristly cleaners and Everclear, when added to those used for the other parts, I had a pile about as high as Steve’s from his meerschaum bowl folk pipe, only much grimier except for the last that came out clean.

Now take a closer look at the right side, first with the small hole that could neither be sanded away nor ignored, then filled with a dab of wood putty. I let it sit and harden until the next day, when I colored the putty with an indelible brown marker and squeezed a drop of Super Glue over the mark.

Late that night, I sanded off the roughness of the dried Super Glue and smoothed the whole piece with micromesh. And here is the finished, waxed result, without re-staining. At last, I was ready to assemble the separately restored parts and wipe it all down with a soft cotton rag.

The only nomenclature, just under the bottom ring in the last photo, reads Imported Briar over Made in Italy.

CONCLUSION
This restoration involved two firsts for me: filling a hole with wood putty, as basic as that is, and more significantly, the importance of considering each independent part of the whole. Never before had I encountered a pipe with more than a bit connected to a shank that in turn attached to the bowl. The simple addition of a second chamber for wine with two openings – one for the shank and the other for the regular tobacco chamber – forced me to approach the project from an angle that was novel to me. The ultimate restoration was a unique pleasure for me, and I am happy to report that the finished folk pipe smokes quite well, even without wine. I look forward to seeing how it works with Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider.

Now I have just a few final words on the Bavarian tobacco ban. It seems they tried the same thing in 2008, but the result was a scoff law that the authorities didn’t even try to enforce. Let’s hope that all of the pipe smokers in the southern German state of Bavaria unite to overcome the 61% of voters who decided to deny them the right to run their own lives.

A Very Simple Cleanup on a Dr. Grabow Regal Dublin

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Blog by Steve Laug

This pipe came to me in a box of pipes that a friend brought by for me. He was getting rid of a bunch of the pipes that he no longer smoked and thought I might enjoy cleaning them up. This one is stamped on the left side Regal over Dr. Grabow and on the right side, Imported Briar over Adjustomatic over Pat. 2461206. When I took it out of the box it had a half stem. The rest of it had been broken off and it was about 1 ½ inches long. I took it off and put the bowl back in the box. I have no idea what I did with the old stem; I have looked for it for a while now as I wanted to pirate the Adjustomatic tenon from the stem. It will show up when I least expect it and I will deal with it then. Yesterday I took the bowl out of the box and was looking it over. It was in very decent shape. The finish was clean. There were some lighter marks on the back right outside edge of the rim but other than it was clean. There was no cake in the bowl. It was worth a little time to see what I could do with it.

I went through my can of stems and found a Dr. Grabow stem that was the proper diameter. It was in decent shape. There were tooth marks on the top and underside of the stem next to the button. The button itself had some tooth dents. There was some calcification on the surfaces as well. The tenon and stinger were black with tars and oils but would clean up easily enough. The only thing with this stem and tenon is that it was not an Adjustomatic stem but it would do.

I cleaned out the shank and mortise with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and alcohol. The shank was pretty clean and it did not take much to remove the little that was there. I removed the stinger and cleaned out the stem with alcohol. It too was not in to bad of shape on the inside. I cleaned the stinger and tenon with alcohol and 0000 steel wool.

I heated the stem and raised the tooth dents as much as possible and then sanded them smooth with 220 grit sandpaper. One of the divots was a little too deep to raise so I filled it with a small batch of black super glue and sanded it smooth.

I used a needle file to redefine the sharp edge of the button and make a clean line on both sides of the stem. I sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches from the vulcanite and then wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and then wiping down the stem with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads, gave it another coat of oil and then continued with 6000-12000 grit pads. Each successive grit of pad made the patch disappear and blend into the surface of the stem. I gave the stem a final rub down with Obsidian Oil and let it dry.

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 on the wheel and then hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth for a final deep shine. The following photos show the finish pipe. It should work well for many years to come. This one is for sale should anyone wish to add it to their rack. Email me and let me know.

Repairing and Restemming a York (KBB) Diamond Shank Bent Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

When I was traveling in Idaho my brother and I took the family for a trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. On the way we stopped in a little town called Victor, Idaho. There was an antique shop there in the town and I found four more old pipes. The first of these reminded me of an old WDC Diamond shank billiard that I have. This one was stamped YORK on the left side of the shank and from research it may have been made by KBB. It was in rough shape. The shank had been cracked and repaired with glue and a piece of twisted wire. The stem obviously had a broken tenon and the previous owner had carved it down to fit in the shank anyway. The bowl had a thick cake and the finish was gone. The rim was damaged on the front outer edge and there was some tar on the rim.

On the right side of the bowl near the shank junction there was a pink putty fill that was coming out. Most of the putty had fallen out of the briar. This would need to be repaired. When I got back home I took the pipe out of the bag to have a look. The silver end cap had some hallmarks but they were the faux hallmarks that I have found on older American made pipes to give them a touch of class. All four edges of the band were split. I removed the stem and looked inside the mortise and could see that a major part of the briar was missing on the right side of the shank under the cap. With little effort I removed the cap and sure enough a huge chunk was missing out of the briar. In fact the whole right side under the cap was gone. There was a small crack that had been repaired earlier. There was a small hole in the shank to stop the crack and the crack was glued and clamped with the wire. This was going to take a bit of work to bring it back from the brink of destruction. I clipped the wire with a pair of wire cutters so that I could work on repairing the broken portion of the shank. This repair would take some careful and time consuming work to rebuild the missing portion of briar. I reamed the bowl to clean out the thick cake. It was crumbling so I wanted it removed so that the repair of the shank would be less dirty. I use a PipNet reamer to take the cake back to the bare briar.

The first step in rebuilding the broken area was to clean up the damaged ends of the remaining briar. Once it was clean I put clear super glue on the raw edge of the broken spot and tamped the end into some briar dust. I repeated the process until the edge was repaired as much as possible with this method.

During the process I also picked out the broken putty fill and replaced it with briar dust and super glue. I sanded the flat surface of each of the four sides of the diamond shank smooth with 220 grit sandpaper until the cap slid easily over the shank. I also faced the end of the shank on the topping board.

The next step in the process of rebuilding the shank and the mortise was a little more difficult than the briar dust and super glue rebuild. It involved working on the internals of the shank. I glued the end cap in place with wood glue and clamped it in place to take care of small splits in the edges of the metal cap. Once that dried and set, I mixed white wood glue with briar dust to make putty. I tamped the mixture into the remaining areas of the shank with a dental pick and dental spatula until the area was filled solid looking once again. The next two photos show the rough repair on the inside of the mortise and shank. The broken area is gone! The holes are filled in and the repair is complete. Once the glue set I would have to clean up the mortise and make the walls smooth. The edges of the metal cap, looking at it from the end are damaged and I will not be able to repair them.

While the shank repair cured I worked on the rim. There was a thick tar build up that was like rock on the back edge and the front edge of the rim had been knocked against something hard and was rough. I decided to top the bowl to remove the rock hard tar and also minimize the damage to the front of the bowl. I used a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper and worked the rim against the sandpaper until the damage was minimized. Once I had it smoothed out I put some briar dust and super glue on the remaining divot on the front edge of the bowl as a fill. When it dried I sanded it smooth and lightly topped the rim once more to even out the repair with the rest of the rim. (That picture will be shown shortly.) The stem that came with the bowl was damaged beyond repair. It had been repeatedly been cut off by the previous owner and hacked at until it fit in the damaged tenon. It was not a stem I would use again on this pipe. I went through my can of stems and found a faux p-lip stem – the airway came out the end of the button rather than on the top. It was old enough to work on this pipe and with some modification I thought it would look just right. The problem was that it did not have a tenon. When I found it the tenon was missing and the end of the stem had been drilled out to receive a replacement tenon. I am currently out of Delrin tenons so I used a thin vulcanite stem as the sacrificial tenon. I glued the tenon on the donor stem in place in the diamond shaped stem with super glue and then cut off the stem with a hacksaw. I left a piece of vulcanite that was longer than necessary so that I could work it to a proper fit in the repaired shank.

The next photo shows the repaired stem and tenon and the topped bowl before I put the two parts together. I used a Dremel to remove the excess material on the new tenon and shortened it to the depth of the mortise in the shank. The next photo shows the repaired fill on the bowl side with another photo of the new stem. Once the shank repair was dry I used a needle file to clean up the rough areas and smooth out the inside of the mortise. I gave it several more coats of glue and briar dust to buildup the areas that had shrunk as the glue dried. I continued to work it with the files and sandpaper until the fit was correct. I cleaned out the airway to the bowl and the inside of the mortise with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners in preparation for putting the new stem in place. The next two photos show the newly fit stem. There was still work to do to fine tune the flow of the diamond stem sides to match the flow of the diamond shank but the look is clear at this point in the process.

I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to fine tune the fit. When I had it the way I wanted, it was time to bend the stem. I used my heat gun to do the work. In this case I quickly set it up on the dryer in our laundry room (shh don’t tell my wife I did this) and heated the stem. I bent it over an old rolling pin that I use for this purpose until the bend in the stem matched the curve of the bottom of the bowl. I set the bend by holding the stem under cool running water.

The next two photos show the newly bent stem and give an idea of how it will look with the pipe once it is finished.

With the easiest part of fitting a stem completed I went on to do the laborious and tedious part of sanding and more sanding to get the fit just right. To do this without rounding the edges of the stem at the shank stem junction I use a plastic washer placed between the two areas. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the transition and make the angles square (or at least as square as possible on these old pipes where every side has a different angle and width). When I had the fit of the stem correct it was time to polish it. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I needed a break from the stem work so I turned my attention to the bowl. I rubbed it down with a light coat of olive oil to highlight the grain. I took a few photos to show what it looked like at this point. It is certainly looking far different than it did when I started working on it. There is a deep richness in the red tones of the briar.

I decided to highlight those tones with a dark brown aniline stain thinned by 50% with some isopropyl alcohol. I applied it and flamed it to set it in the grain. I hand buffed it with a cotton cloth to get an idea of the coverage. It was still too dark to my liking so I would need to address that.

I wiped the bowl down with some acetone on a cotton pad to remove some of the stain and make the grain show through better.

I buffed the bowl with White Diamond and then gave it the first of many coats of carnauba. I don’t know about you but by this point in a long refurbishment I get a bit anxious to see what I have accomplished. It always seems that it is going to go on forever so I rewarded myself by putting the stem in place and taking a few photos to see what I had achieved.

For comparison purposes I took the next two photos of the pipe with the old stem next to the new one. You can see how badly hacked the vulcanite was from the previous owners salvage work on his broken pipe. The pipe is beginning to look like a very different pipe than when I started. That always encourages me!

Now it was time to finish up with this long project and get the stem done. I dry sanded it with 3200-4000 grit micromesh sanding pads and then rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil once again. I then dry sanded it with 6000-12000 grit pads and gave it a final coat of oil and let it soak into the vulcanite.

I buffed the stem and bowl with Blue Diamond and then gave them both multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed them with a clean soft flannel buff to raise the shine and then hand buffed the pipe with a microfibre cloth to finish. The completed pipe is shown below. It has come a long way from the pipe I started on this morning. I had a quiet day at home and between reading and napping finished the work on this old timer. From what I can find out in my research and from Who Made That Pipe, the pipe may well be from the old KBB pipe works. Thanks for looking.

Restoring a No-Name Bent Rhodesian

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Blog by Aaron Henson

Still being relatively new to the pipe collecting/restoration hobby I have been a bit selective when it comes to the pipe I purchase. I typically look for shapes that have visual or tactile appeal and pay little attention to the name on the stem. And in that line of thought, ever since seeing the GBD 4292 for the first time I have wanted a pipe of this shape. So when I came across this no-name bent Rhodesian on eBay, I quickly placed a bid. It’s not that there were no markings on this pipe. The left side was stamped with STANDARD on the shank and a white 5-point star on the stem. The right side of the shank was stamped with Bruyère in script over Garantie.

A week later the package arrived in the mail and happily, the pipe was just as described and there were no surprise chips or cracks that the seller forgot to mention in the advertisement.

Stummel Inspection
The grain was very nice with some birds eye on the right side and a kind of flame grain on the left. There was some minor denting on the heel but the only real wood flaw was a large fill on the left side The color of the fill did not blend well with the grain and it detracted from look of the pipe. Around the rim there was some chipping and charring; damage not uncommon in a used pipe. The only other major issue that I found was the that the twin groves around the bowl were not very deep and had been worn completely away on the right side.

Stem Inspection
The stem was in very good shape. There were some tooth marks on the bottom side of the stem with moderate oxidation overall. The singer was removable and had a modest build up of tar. The biggest issue with the stem was the loose fit to the stummel – which didn’t become apparent until after the shank was cleaned.

During the inspection I decided to change the stain and finish of the pipe in order to highlight the grain and camouflage the large patch. So I began by setting the stummel to soak in 95% isopropyl alcohol to remove finish and loosen the tars and cake. I set the stem to soak in the same solution in a different container for the same reasons. After an overnight soak, I began cleaning the stem with pipe cleaners, running them through until they came out clean. To address the oxidation, I placed a small dab of petroleum jelly over the star and set the stem to soak in a solution of 50/50 chlorine bleach and water. After 20 minutes – when the bubbles had subsided – I rolled the stem over in the solution and let it go another 20 minutes. Then I removed from the bath, rinsed with fresh water and set the stem aside to dry. I didn’t get back to the work bench right away, so after a 36 hour soak, I removed the stummel from its alcohol bath and wiped it dry. I then reamed the bowl with 40 grit sand paper wrapped around a ½” diameter dowel (although this method works well, I did finally order a Castelford pipe reamer from Amazon). Once the cake was removed and the chamber cleaned, I went to work on the shank. Pipe cleaners and cotton swabs removed the remaining gunk inside the shank.

The chips and charring around the rim could only be cleaned up by topping the bowl. I use a sheet of 220 grit sandpaper laid on a flat surface and worked the stummel around in the circular motion. Even pressure and constant checking ensured that the rim was flat and level. I didn’t get the deepest chips because I was concerned that anymore material off the top would change the look of the pipe. Looking back now, I could have filled these chips with a briar dust patch. Maybe I will go back and do that this fall.

I sanded the remainder of the bowl with 320 – particularly around the large filled area and decided that the fill was in good shape and not worth removing. The fill proved to be of a darker color and that went along with my finishing plans.

The parallel grooves around the bowl were next on the list. On the right side they had worn away until they were barely visible. I went to my local hardware store and searched through the saw blades until I found what I was after: a thin fine toothed mini-hacksaw blade that just fit the width of the existing grooves. I trimmed the end of the blade with shears so I would have more clearance around the shank. Using the existing groves as a guide, I carefully worked my way around the bowl deepening and redefining the grooves. As usual, I found that not rushing yielded the bet results.

Returning to the stem, I tried applying heat to raise the tooth mark but that did not answer. So I roughened the tooth marks with 320 grit paper and fill of the divot with black superglue in multiple thin layers, letting the glue dry completely (12 hours) between layers. Once the final layer of superglue was dry, I feathered out the patch with 320 grit paper. Then I began the sanding/polishing process by wet sanding with 400 – 4000 grit paper stopping every few grits to dry the stem and apply a light coat of mineral oil. I didn’t touch the star on the stem until I got to the 2000 grit paper not wanting to damage the logo. Once I finished polishing the stem with 6000 – 12000 grit paper I oiled the stem and set it aside.

I wanted to provide some contract to the grain of the pipe and to make the grooves really stand out. The original grooves did not have a contrasting color. I began with a coat of Black Fiebing’s leather dye. In retrospect, I should have thinned it down some. After the stain dried, I had a difficult time removing it. Acetone wipes and eventually light sanding removed most of the dye but left enough to highlighting the grain. I wanted a little more color so I applied a 3:1 diluted coat of Fiebing’s Ox Blood dye. This had the result of giving the pipe a pink hue that had me more than a little concerned. Happily, it all came together with multiple thin coats of olive oil. I left the oil on the stummel until it soaked in and then applied the second and third coats. The third coat did not soak in, so I wiped in clean and set it aside to rest for a couple of days. Before taking the pipe to the buffing wheel and thought I would address the loose stem. I tried bee’s wax, which has worked in the past, but the stem remained too loose. After a little research I heated the tenon over the heat gun and then inserted a nail set into the air hole and let the tenon cool. This technique only enlarges the end of the tenon rather than the full length of the tenon, which is a better repair. I went through the heating/cooling process several times until I got a snug but not tight fit. Another thing to be aware of when heating the tenon is that the softened tenon may ‘sag’ a little. If this happens, then you may be left with a little gap between the stem and shank.

From here, I assembled the pipe and took it to the buffing wheel. I use an inexpensive Sears buffing system that fits into the chuck of my drill press. I found on previous projects that gearing down the drill speed to 1200 rpms was important to maintain control and not overheat the pipe. I finished with three coats of carnauba wax and buffed to a shine.

Midterm Exam #4: Re-Refurbishing an Unknown Bulldog

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Blog by Anthony Cook

It’s time for the fourth and final midterm exam! This one is an “unknown” bent bulldog that I picked up from eBay. I snagged it because I liked the shape and it was cheap. What I didn’t know at the time, but became immediately apparent when the pipe arrived, was that the end of the shank had been shattered into at least three pieces and glued back together. There was no stamping on the pipe, but I don’t think that was always the case. It was likely sacrificed during the shank repair. The repair is fairly obvious in my photos below, but I assure you that it was not nearly so in the seller’s. The right combination of lighting and angles can cover up a multitude of sins, folks. Caveat emptor.

The exposed cracks weren’t the worst part of the story though. The repair did as much damage to the pipe as the crack did. An alarming amount of material had been taken off while sanding out the excess glue. It’s difficult to see in the photos, because from any one angle everything looked correct. However, if you held the pipe in hand and rolled it around you would notice that no two faces on the shank were equal. The shank was no longer a diamond shape; it was a trapezium. The repairman hadn’t paid much attention to keeping the surfaces level either. So, there was a subtle undulation to the line of the shank as it went from thick to thin and back again several times along its length. There was also very little effort made to blend the repaired area into the rest of the pipe, and several shallow “steps” were visible where the two surfaces met. There was at least an attempt to match up the stem to the shank, but that only gave the stem the same odd angles and even they didn’t quite match up to the ones on the shank. All in all, it was a bit of a travesty. Here are a few photos taken just after it arrived.

That was all far more than my tender, noobie hands could handle at the time. So, I cleaned the internals of the pipe and put it away for later, but not before adding a bit of bend to the stem that it seemed to have lost over time.
I’ve finished up work on all the rest of the pipes in that first batch. So, this week it was time to put a collar on that dog and turn in my final midterm.

I started (or restarted I should say) by dropping the stummel into an alcohol bath for a couple of hours to soften any coating that might be on the pipe. I had quite a surprise when I removed it later on. It looked fine when it was fresh from the bath, but a hazy, white glaze began to form on the surface as it dried. I hadn’t seen anything like this before and I’ll admit to a brief moment of panic. I assumed that this was probably the result of some type of coating reacting to the alcohol. So, I wiped the stummel down with acetone taking extra care around the shank repair, since acetone will break down superglue. That did the trick and the stummel cleaned up nicely. I set up the retort to see if I could remove any more tar buildup from the pipe. I flushed the shank about 10 times with boiling alcohol before allowing the pipe to cool. I noticed that the vial appeared to be losing a lot of liquid during the retort. The cotton wasn’t discolored. So, it wasn’t gassing out through the bowl. It really had me scratching my head until I saw a spot of moisture on the shank when I was removing the retort. For some reason, it wasn’t sealing well at the mortise and I’d need to look into that before I went much further. I gave the pipe a post-retort scrub of the stem and shank, and then inspected the crack repair for gaps. The surface of the glue joints looked airtight, but I noticed that the glue hadn’t penetrated very deep. The joints left shallow fissures inside the mortise and along the shank face. I used a small pushpin to place a little super-thin CA glue directly into the fissures, and then used a toothpick to apply a thin layer of the CA around the end of the mortise to create a seal inside as well as out.

When the glue was dry, I sanded out the interior patches with sanding needles and a piece of 400-grit sandpaper wrapped around a small dowel. I refaced the shank on my topping surface in a manner similar to how I would top a bowl (pressing lightly into the paper and using a circular motion). The following pictures show the patches when fresh and after they had been sanded out. You can also get some idea of the irregularities in the shank by comparing the differences in the face angles and wall thickness around the mortise. After that, I reattached the stem and ran a retort through it again to test for leaks. The outside of the stem and shank stayed dry as a bone through the whole process. So, I began addressing the pipe’s cosmetic issues.

I lightly topped the bowl and chamfered the inner rim to remove the scratches and dings. Then, I steamed a few dents out of the finish by pressing a screwdriver that had been heated over a tea candle into a wet cloth placed over the dents. Finally, I used CA glue and briar dust to patch a few, small gouges and missing fills and sanded them out with 220-grit and 320-grit sandpaper. While I worked on the stummel, the stem had been soaking in an Oxyclean bath. I removed it and scrubbed it down with a Magic Eraser to remove any oxidation. I used black CA glue to fill the tooth dents on the top and bottom of the stem. Once that had dried I sanded it down with 220-grit paper. The stem button needed to be rebuilt since it was worn and dented. I wrapped several layers of clear tape around the stem just below the button to create a form to make a crisp edge and also inserted a Vaseline smeared wedge of cardboard into the slot to seal it. Then, I applied thick, black CA glue in several layers to the end of the stem to begin building the new button. It wasn’t a pretty thing to look at when I removed the tape, but the edge was sharp and there was enough material to work with. I trimmed away the glue artifacts created by the tape molding with an X-Acto blade and rough-shaped the new button with 220-grit paper. Once the button started taking shape, it was time to do something about the other end of the stem and also the deformity of the shank. This was the part of the exam that I had not been looking forward to. Up to this point, everything had been the equivalent to multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank questions. There were a couple of challenges, but nothing too rough. The next part was more like the essay section.

After a lot of thought, I finally decided that there just wasn’t enough material left around the stem to square everything back up. So, I thought I’d try some trickery of my own. If I couldn’t make everything right, maybe I could use a little more finesse and subtlety than the original repairman did to make it at least look “righter”. If ya can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

I used 220-grit sandpaper to start carefully nudging the edges of the shank and stem saddle this way and that to give them an appearance of alignment. All the while I paid special attention to keep the faces as level and even as I could. There was very little technical skill involved. I was basically just freehanding. Once I had corrected the lines as much as I could, I began blending the reworked areas into the rest of the pipe with 320-grit. The photo below shows the progress somewhere early in the reshaping phase. Honestly, I was at this for a while and kind of lost myself in the middle of it. So, I didn’t get many photos. When I was as satisfied as I was likely to be with the shape of the shank and saddle, I went back to work on the rest of the stem to finish it up. I continued shaping the button with 320-grit and 400-grit paper. Then, I smoothed the entire surface by lightly sanding with 600-grit and 1200-grit paper. Finally, I polished the stem with micro-mesh pads 1500-12000. The stem work was wrapped up. So, it was time to do the same for the stummel. The off-kilter shape of the shank made it difficult to find a band that would fit well. It took three attempts before I found one that would work. I used a method for shaping a round band for the diamond shank similar to what Steve has previously written about here, but it took quite a bit of reworking to get it to conform to the now strange dimensions of the shank. I’m still not quite happy with how it fits, but I’m not sure what I could have done differently. There was nothing left to do at that point but to address the finish of the stummel. I wanted the final color to be close to the original but a little darker to help hide the bit of crack repair that was still visible. I heated the stummel over the heat gun to open the grain and then applied Fiebing’s black dye to the stummel. I then sanded down the surface with 400-grit paper to remove the remaining scratches and most of the black stain, except for what had set in the grain and recesses of the rings. Next, I applied a mahogany stain before sanding with 600-grit and 1200-grit paper. I took the stummel to the buffer and gave it a quick Tripoli buff, and then applied a final stain of British Tan.

The stummel was polished with micro-mesh pads starting with 3600-grit and working through to 12000-grit. I then buffed the entire pipe with white diamond compound and gave it several coats of carnauba wax to finish it up.

I leaned back in my chair and checked the clock on the wall. There were only minutes to go and most of the other seats were already empty. I had to admit that this was really as good as it was going to get. So, with a sigh, I stood up from my chair, gathered my exam materials, and delivered them to the desk at the front of the room…

NEPAL PROJECT PIPE SALE 12 – Restoring an Iwan Ries Blackruf Bent Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

This is the twelfth pipe from the box of pipes that I was gifted by a good friend of mine with the instructed purpose of cleaning them up and selling them with all of the proceeds going to the aid of earthquake victims in Nepal. Once again all funds raised will all go to the SA Foundation, and organization that has worked in Nepal for over 15 years helping provide recovery, housing and job training for women who are victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking. The ongoing earthquakes (over 300) that continue to shake Nepal have left much in ruins. The SA Foundation Project there was able to find new housing for the women and help with staff as well. Every dollar raised from the sale of these pipes will go to the work in Nepal.

This one is Iwan Ries & Co. Blackruf, or sandblast billiard. It is stamped very clearly on the left side of the shank, Iwan Ries & Co. over Blackruf. There are no other stampings on the pipe. The finish is in the best shape of all of the pipes in this lot that I have worked on. The sandblast is not deep and the finish is a mix of blasted birdseye and swirls. That makes it an interesting blast. The exterior of the bowl is not round as the blast removed a lot of the wood near the top left edge of the pipe. It is still nice and thick but is out of round. The bowl needed a light reaming and the shank and airway were dirty. The rim was very clean and the inner edge is sharp and undamaged. The stem was oxidized and had tooth marks on the top and underside near the button. Most of the oxidation was on both ends of the stem. The stem was also slightly twisted from the bend back to that it did not sit correctly. The button on the top side was quite thin and worn down and the sharp edges on both the top and bottom had been smoothed out. The tenon was unique to me in that it was rounded at the end. Once it was cleaned up and repaired this would be a beautiful looking pipe.

I took some close-up pictures of the rim and the stem to show how they looked when I brought them to the work table.

The next photo shows the rounded end of the tenon, the oxidation on the stem and also the dusty buildup on the bowl in the grooves of the sandblast. I reamed the bowl back to a thin cake with a PipNet reamer. There was a lot of tobacco debris in the bowl, stuck to the sides that needed to be removed and the cake was uneven so I wanted to even it out and make it easier to rebuild the new cake.

I scrubbed out the mortise and the airway to the bowl with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. It took quite a bit of scrubbing to get them clean and to remove the “crud” (technical term) that had collected there over the years. I used a thin, sharp knife to scrape out the thick ridge of “gunk” (another technical term) in the mortise. I cleaned out the stem with pipe cleaners and alcohol and also sanded the surface of the dents with 220 grit sandpaper and then wiped it down with alcohol to prepare it for the repairs. I filled the deep dents/tooth marks with clear superglue and let them dry (one side at a time). On the top side I also built up the button edge to give it some additional thickness.

Once the glue had dried I used a needle file to redefine the sharp edge of the button against the surface of the stem. I sanded the patches with 220 grit sandpaper until they were even with the surface of the stem so that they blended in better. I sanded the repairs with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to reduce the scratches on the surface.

I wanted to rebend the stem to take out the twist in the end. I set up a heat gun and heated the stem so that it would go back to its original shape. That is one of the things I love about vulcanite – is that it seems to have “memory” and returns to the shape it was before bending or twisting. It took some time to heat and straighten it out. A secondary benefit of heating the stem is that it smooths out all of the scratches and gives the stem a mat look. I rebent it over an old rolling pin to get a straight bend. I held it in the bend while I cooled it with running water. I polished it micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and rubbing it down with Obsidian Oil when I finished this first set. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads and rubbed it down with oil again when I finished that set. Finally I dry sanded it with 6000-12,000 grit pads and gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry.

I buffed it with Blue Diamond Plastic Polish on the wheel to give a deep shine and to remove any final scratches.

I buffed the bowl lightly with Blue Diamond and the stem once again before giving them both a coat of carnauba wax. I gave the bowl a light coat so as not to fill in the grooves and repeated several more coats on the stem. The finished pipe is shown below. It is ready for the next pipeman who will enjoy smoking this beauty.

This Iwan Ries Blackruf bent billiard is quite a large pipe, basically a Group 4/5 in Dunhill terms. The shallow mixed grain blast makes it interesting to look at and the feel of it in the hand will make it quite tactile when heated up and smoked. The stain is a combination of dark browns and black that gives it a multidimensional look. It should make someone a great addition. If you are interested in this pipe email me with an offer at slaug@uniserve.com and we can discuss it. The entirety of the sale price will go to the Nepal project. I will pay the postage so that does not get taken off the proceeds. If you are interested in reading about the SA Foundation you can look at their website at http://www.safoundation.com.