Tag Archives: repairing tooth marks

Restoring a Dunhill Shell Billiard 42121

Blog by Steve Laug

Of all my finds on my recent pipe hunt this little Group 4 Dunhill Shell is one of the favourites. It has a great sandblast that really had some nice craggy grain. The finish was in good shape. The rim was dirty and had a slight build up of oils and tars. The bowl was caked with a thick cake. The stem was oxidized and also had a calcium buildup for the first inch of the stem. The stem had an inner tube inside that was slightly bent that kept the stem from seating correctly in the shank. There were several shallow bite marks on the top and bottom sides of the stem near the button. Internally the stem and shank were surprisingly clean. It is stamped on the underside of the shank with 42121 Dunhill Shell over Made In England and next to the D of England was an underlined and superscript 20 next to that was an underlined 23. Using John Loring’s Dunhill Briar Pipe book the dating is 1980 as seen by the underlined 20 slightly elevated and following the D. The underlined 23 indicate that it was sold in 1983, due to the one year guarantee.The next photo shows the buildup on the rim that needed to be dealt with in a cleanup and restoration of the pipe.I cleaned out the shank and the stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and 99% isopropyl alcohol until the cotton swabs and pipe cleaners came out clean. I scrubbed down the bowl with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap on cotton pads and then rinsed it off with running water. I dried it with a cotton towel.I scrubbed the rim with a soft bristle brass tire brush to clean off the tars and oils and open up the sandblast on the rim. I scrubbed it with a soft cotton pad and alcohol to remove the pieces left behind by the wire brush.I touched up the finish around the edges of the bowl rim and the end of the shank. I also touched up spots on the sides of the bowl and the bottom of the shank. I used the Guardsman Stain pens that Greg sent me to do the touch up work. I chose to use the lightest stain pen as it matched the colour of the bowl precisely. When I use these pens I always start with the lightest stain and work toward the darkest until I get a match. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and then with medium and fine grit sanding sponges to remove the oxidation and the calcium deposits. I “painted” the tooth marks with the flame of a Bic lighter to lift them closer to the surface and then sanded what remained with 220 grit sandpaper and the sanding sponges.Taking a cue from Al Jones I made a plastic washer to put between the shank and the stem to make the sanding of the saddle simpler. I could sand right up to the edge without damaging the end of the stem and rounding the edges. I sanded the stem with my usual array of micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. Between each set of three pads I rubbed down the stem with Obsidian Oil before moving on to the next set of three. When I had finished with the 12,000 grit pad I took the pipe to the buffer and buffed the stem with White Diamond. I lightly buffed the bowl and the stem once again with the White Diamond and then used Halcyon II wax on the bowl and carnauba on the stem. I hand buffed the pipe with a shoe brush and raised the shine. The finished pipe is shown below. I am looking forward to loading an aged bowl of McClellands 5100 and having the inaugural smoke in this beauty.

John’s First Restoration – A Danish Sovereign Peewit #30

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When John and I got home from our pipe hunt we spent the evening and the next morning working on the pipes he had found. We figured that the best way for him to learn how to refurbish pipes was to work on this lot together. That way he would learn as he worked with me on the pipes and we could discuss any issues that might arise during the process of the cleanups. He was intrigued with the idea and liked working with his hands so it seemed like this might be a part of the pipe smoking hobby that he could use to unwind and clear his thoughts from the heavy work of his day to day work as a Presbyterian minister. For his first pipe to refurbish he chose to restore a Danish Sovereign Peewit Shape #30. It is shown in the picture below and is the second pipe in the first row at the top. Walking through the entire process with him on this pipe and one of the others that he did taught him everything from removing the cake, cleaning the finish on a bowl and restaining it to cleaning and polishing a stem to the point that it shone. Once again I forgot to take photos of the pipe before we started but remembered after I had reamed it with a PipNet reamer. The bowl was badly caked and the rim had a thick buildup of tars and oils. The briar had a nice blast on it and the stain was worn in quite a few spots. The stem was odd on this particular pipe. The tenon had a sleeve on it that added diameter. It appeared that somewhere along the way the shank had been redrilled larger than the original tenon so the sleeve was a necessity. The bowl was drilled way off centre to the right so the airway entered the bowl on the right side of the bottom of the bowl. The bowl itself was round but the pipe itself was way out of round with far more briar on the right side than the left. John scrubbed the bowl with a tooth-brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime and the old finish. He used a dental pick to remove the remainder of the buildup on the top of the rim. He rinsed it under running water to remove the soap and grime and dried it with a soft cloth. He used a dark brown stain pen (thanks Greg) to match the stain on the bowl in those areas on the shank and rim where the stain had worn off. He buffed the bowl with White Diamond and then gave it several coats of carnauba wax and hand buffed it with a shoe brush. The stem needed a lot of attention. There were some tooth dents in the surface of the stem on the top and bottom side. We set up the heat gun and heated the vulcanite to lift the dents. We also adjusted the bend in the stem while we were at it with the heat gun. The next photo of the end of the tenon shows the sleeve that had been added to the tenon to increase the diameter. John sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the calcification and the oxidation. He also used that to sand out the remnants of the tooth marks after we heated the stem. He then sanded the stem with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratch marks left behind by the sandpaper. Once finished he moved on to sand with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I had him rub the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads. He buffed the stem with White Diamond and then we waxed it with some Renaissance Wax (he will not have access to a buffer at home so I was trying work as much as possible without one). I had John give the pipe another coat of Renaissance Wax and buff it with a shoe brush to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown below in all of its new sheen. I think John will enjoy smoking this one. I know when I refurbished my first pipe it seemed to smoke exceptionally well. I think it is the time spent bringing it back to life that makes this happen. Great job on this one John, it is a refurbished pipe to be proud of. Be sure to let us know how it smokes when you fire it up.

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.

Restoring an older KBB Yello-Bole Imperial Dublin

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Blog by Steve Laug

This is the last of the pipes I picked up when I was down in Washington State with my wife for 38th Anniversary. It is an older KBB (no ampersand between the two B’s). It had no shape numbers on the right side of the shank, but on the left side it had the KBB in the cloverleaf/club and next to it was stamped Yello-Bole over Imperial over Imported Briar. The Imperial stamping had been over-stamped with a cross hatch pattern. The bowl was in decent shape. The finish had dark soiling and oils on both sides of the bowl. There were also some dark spots on the sides of the bowl. There was a heavy coat of varnish over the bowl except for the worn spots where the oils and darkening was. The rim was heavily caked with tars and oils. The bowl was caked from the top half way down the bowl, though the yellow honey coating was still visible on the bottom half of the bowl. There were some burn marks along the outer edge and top of the rim.

Again since Yello-Bole is one of my favourite older US brands I did some more reading online to see if I could narrow down when this one was made. I have come to understand that these older Yello-Boles are great smoking pipes and underrated. I turned to one of my go to sources of information on all things KBB and Kaywoodie – the Kaywoodie forum http://kaywoodie.myfreeforum.org/ftopic13-0-asc-0.php. There I found a very helpful article by Dave Whitney that helped narrow down the date. The pipe I have has the shovel drinkless mechanism, the KBB-in-a-clover logo on the left side of the shank and the yellow circle on the stem. From what I can ascertain from Dave’s information it seems to have been produced between the years of 1938-42. I am fairly certain that it did not come from the later period of 1945-50 (World War II) since it did not have the aluminum stem ring and the aluminum drinkless mechanism which came out during those years.

The photos below show the pipe as it was when I found it in the antique shop. The stem is made of nylon rather than vulcanite. It has the yellow circle inset in the top near the shank of the pipe. The button area was chewed and dented. There was a shallow dent on top of the stem and deeper ones on the underside of the stem next to the button. The button had been chewed down and had deep dents on the underside while the slot had been dented in so that it was not longer straight. I sanded the stem down and was able to remove the dents on the topside. The underside tooth mark was too deep to sand or even heat and raise. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the chatter further up the stem and then picked the area clean around the large dent with a dental pick. I wiped the stem down with alcohol to clean off the dust and then filled it with black super glue that I purchased from Stewmac online. I filled it the first time and sprayed it with an accelerator. Once it dried it had shrunken and left a divot in the stem surface. I refilled it with the glue and then sprayed it again with the accelerator. I set it aside overnight to cure and worked on the bowl. The bowl and rim were caked with an uneven cake so I reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer to take it back to the briar. The cake was soft and once I removed it from the middle portion of the bowl I could see the yellow coating on the bottom half and partway down from the rim. The only portion that was darkened was in the centre of the bowl. I set up my topping board to remove the hard tars on the rim and also the burn damage. Fortunately the burn damage did not go too deep but merely sat on the surface under the tar coat. I wiped down the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to remove the finish and as much of the dark staining on the side of the bowl as possible. The dark spots were deep in the finish of briar so I was not sure I would be able to remove them. Even after wiping down the bowl repeatedly the dark stains on the sides remained, lighter though still present. The dark spots appeared to be ink stains and they too remained. I decided to let the bowl soak in an alcohol bath overnight and address it again in the morning. The next morning I removed the bowl from the alcohol bath and found that it had done its magic. The stains were gone and the ink stains were significantly lighter. I cleaned out the shank with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and alcohol. I kept cleaning until the pipe cleaners and swabs came out clean. I stained the bowl with Fiebings Dark Brown aniline stain. I applied the stain and then flamed and repeated the process until the coverage was even. I wiped it down with alcohol on cotton pads to remove some of the opaque colour of the stain and to make the grain more visible. I buffed the bowl with White Diamond. The next three photos show the bowl at this point in the process. Once I had finished the work on the bowl to this point I decided to work on the stem. I used a coarse grit sanding stick to cut the sharp edge of the button. While it worked relatively well I could see that the hardened super glue needed something with more teeth to cut into the repair. I used a file to take off the overfill on the repair and then followed that with the sanding stick and 220 grit sandpaper.
I sanded the stem further with the 220 grit sandpaper and then with medium and fine grit sanding sponges to remove the scratches in the surface. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. Between each grit of micromesh I wiped the stem down with olive oil. I have found that the olive oil allows the micromesh sanding pads to really cut into the surface of the nylon stem. I cleaned up the stinger with alcohol and cotton pads and then 0000 steel wool. I gave the bowl a coat of walnut stain and boiled linseed oil to bring out a shine. I wanted the pipe to have a similar shine to what it originally had when it left the factory but did not want to use a varnish coat. I wiped it on the bowl with a cotton pad and then set it aside to air dry. Once the finish had dried I buffed the pipe with White Diamond and then gave it several coats of carnauba wax and buffed to a shine with a soft flannel buff. I hand waxed the stem with Paragon Wax as I find that the nylon stems are hard to buff. Without a light touch the wheel can do irreparable damage to the nylon stem. The heat generated by the buffer will actually cause the stem to melt. The final photos below show the finished pipe cleaned, polished and ready to enter into the next years of its life. I think that this one will outlive me if properly cared for by the next pipeman after me.

Working by Candle Light- Raising Tooth Dents

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Blog by Greg Wolford

Browsing my Twitter feed this morning I noticed a conversation between Steve (@rebornpipes) and Peter Jones (@edpipeclub) about raising tooth marks on a stem with different methods of heat application. The methods discussed were using a soldering iron or a heat gun; Peter had access to the former but not the latter. I tweeted him that a candle flame is also a good option and Steve suggested I post a blog about that. So, without further introduction, here we go!

I use a heat gun if the dents are very deep, or I’m bending a stem, in the shop. But since I’ve been doing more restoration work in the kitchen, upstairs, I have found a candle to be a simple and effective tool for smaller, more shallow dents. A Bic-style lighter will also work for this method but I find myself with a “hot thumb” too often for my tastes using that!

Although about any candle would likely do, I prefer to use a tea candle, such as this:
They are inexpensive and small, which makes them easy to work with. And since my wife uses them for her potpourri-type pot, I almost always have them on hand.

What I do is light the candle and hold the stem about 2″ above the flame, maybe a little more. It’s fairly important to keep the stem moving so as to not burn the stem; if the stem is acrylic or nylon keeping moving and higher above the heat is all the more important as, in my experience, ties materials will burn or catch fire with less “notice” and faster than vulcanite. Often with vulcanite you’ll smell an almost burnt-rubber smell before any damage is really done, and this is a sure sign you need to cool the stem; I keep a Tupperware type container of cold water beside me as I do any of this kind of work, no matter what me heat source.

A Video Demo of the Process

After a couple of minutes you’ll notice that the dents are raising up, the heat decompressing the material the stem is made of. Depending on the depth and size of the dent, it can take anywhere from one “pass” to three or more to get the dent as decompressed as possible. If the dent is too large/deep a fill will be required to get it completely level again.

I hope this extra “weapon” in your restoration arsenal is helpful to you; this method may not always be the best way to go but often will be more than sufficient and quick to set up and break down.

Restoring a Tracy Mincer “The Doodler”

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A pipe I picked up on a recent trip to La Conner, Washington was a billiard that has the drilled flutes from the top to the bowl of the bowl all the way around. It is stamped “The Doodler” over Imported Briar on the left side of the shank. On the right side of the bowl is a burn mark that covered two of the rings. The finish was in good shape. The outer edge of the rim had cuts and broken edges from hitting the bowl to empty it. On the back side of the bowl one of the rings have two notches out of the lower edges. The inside rings of the bowl were unstained. Usually on a Doodler there is a scoring ring around the top of the rim. On this rim that was missing on most of the rim. The bowl had a poorly developed cake and the shank was dirty. The rustication on the bottom of the bowl was rough in the grooves and smooth on the surface. The stem was original and had a stepped down tenon. There was also some oxidation on the stem and tooth chatter on both sides near the button.
I wiped down the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to remove the finish. It took some scrubbing to remove the finish and the buildup on the rim. Once the finish was removed the burn on the right side was very clear. It fortunately was not too deep in the briar and would be less problematic to minimize when I refinished the bowl. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer. I used the third cutting head and took back the cake to the bare briar. I had to also use the second head to remove the cake from the bottom of the bowl. I cleaned out the shank and the bowl with isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. I used many of each and was able to remove much of the tars and oils in the shank. The pipe cleaners and cotton swabs came out very dirty so I decided to set up a retort and boil out the shank and airways with hot alcohol. The alcohol in the test tube was heated with the votive candle and the boiling sent the hot alcohol into the shank. I had plugged the bowl with a cotton pad. I repeated the process until the alcohol came out clean. Once I removed the retort I cleaned out the interior of the stem and shank with pipe cleaners and cotton swabs and more isopropyl. The remainder of the oils came out with this cleaning. I sanded the bowl with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to smooth out the damage to the rim and the burn area. I followed that with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads. After sanding I wiped it down with isopropyl alcohol on a cotton pad. I stained the bowl and shank with a dark brown aniline stain thinned 2:1 with isopropyl. I flamed the stain and then repeated the process until the coverage was even. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and then with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. I followed that by sanding it with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. Between each set of three pads I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I buffed the bowl and stem with White Diamond and then gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax to shine and protect. I buffed it with soft flannel buffing pads to give it a final shine. The finished pipe is shown below. It is now joins my other Doodler and Holy Smoke Pipes in my pipe cupboard. If it is anything like the others it will smoke very well and stay cool throughout the entire smoke due to the drilling all around the bowl.

Thanks to Father Tom I have a Base for the Yello-Bole Airograte Bowls

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Blog by Steve Laug

Those of you who have followed the blog for a long time will get the irony of the title. I have written quite a few Father Tom stories over the years and have had them on the blog. I am hoping that a book of these stories will be published in the near future. Anyway on the Pipe Smokers Unlimited Forum I posted that I was looking for a base unit/stem for some Yello-Bole Airograte pipe bowls that I had been gifted. I had refurbished the bowls and written of them here on the blog: https://rebornpipes.com/2014/07/17/restoring-a-couple-of-yello-bole-airograte-bowls/ Father Tom sent me a private message saying that he had one and would be glad to send it to me. We exchanged a few messages and settled on a trade. Last evening when I got home from work I was greeted by a package from him. The pipe had arrived. He had put a Grabow Viking bowl on the stem just for traveling and when I opened the box and removed the pipe from the wrappings I was excited to get to work on it. I removed the Grabow bowl and went to work cleaning the stem. I used pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol to remove the buildup from the bottom of the base and the dental pick to clean out the threads.
Once it was clean I used Vaseline to lubricate the threads so that the bowls would turn easily into the base. I applied it with cotton swabs to get it into the threads. In the background are some brass screens that Tom sent along that go in the base between the bottom and the bowls. The open bottom on the bowls sit against this screen. Tom has found that these brass screens work far better than the original metal plate with holes that originally formed the grate for the bottom of the bowls. He says they clog far less frequently. The Airograte base has two small airholes in the sides of the bowl just below the ledge where the grate or screen sits. These tiny holes allow air to the bottom of the tobacco when smoked. When air is drawn in the bowl, it enters through these small airways. In this particular base the airways were clogged. I used an unfolded paper clip to open them again. I pushed out the clogs from both sides of the base from both the inside and the outside. The airflow is now unrestricted in those airways. I put the brass screen in place in the base once I had the cleaning finished. The bowl will screw on top of the screen and the tobacco when loaded will sit on top of the screen. With the above statement about the bowl sitting on top of the screen I thought that it might be helpful to take a photo of the two different bowls. The one on the left is the bowl for the Airograte while the one on the right is for Grabow Viking. The Airograte is more of a tube that sits on top of the grate. The tobacco burns on the grate. The Viking bowl also fits perfectly on the nylon stemmed pipe I have written about earlier. I am pretty certain that the nylon one is also a Grabow though it is unstamped. The photo below shows the bowl from the nylon pipe and the Grabow bowl from the bottom. While I was cleaning up the bowl base I noticed the Patent and Patent pending information on the bottom of the bowl. This made me curious to see exactly what was patented/patent pending. I went to the US Patent Office on line ( http://patft.uspto.gov/ ) and searched the number on the bottom of the base. I was able to find that the patent had been applied for in 1949 by Samuel Lawrence Atkins of New York City. The patent was for the airograte that sat between the airway in the bowl and the tobacco and the two small holes in the bottom sides of the bowl. It was designed to give a dry and even burning smoke and keep bits of tobacco from entering the airway and mouthpiece. I have included a copy of the patent document with a diagram below. I find that it is always interesting to read the pitch that is made in terms of purpose for the design. The ongoing hunt for the perfect pipe continues to this day. With the bowl finished, the base cleaned and the airway opens and clean all that remained was to tidy up the stem. The nylon stem, though similar to the ones on Vikings and Falcons had a slimmer profile. The thinness made it very comfortable in the mouth. There was tooth chatter against the button on the top and the bottom of the stem as well as some deep tooth marks mid stem that had been poorly sanded out leaving dents in the flat surface of the stem midway up the stem on both sides. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the tooth chatter and to smooth out the flow of the taper. I followed that by sanding with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to work on the scratches. Once the dents and scratches were gone I worked on the stem with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-3200 grit pads. I found it really frustrating work to try to remove the scratches and marks. Wet sanding did not seem to really do the job – so I started over with the pads and a drop of olive oil. The oil seemed to do the trick. It proved to be the right medium for the micromesh. It gave bite to the pads and really worked quite well. I continued to sand with the drop of oil through the 3200-4000 grit pads. The scratches really began to disappear and the stem was getting smoother. I did the same with the 6000-12000 grit pads and a drop of olive oil. Once I had finished sanding the stem with the micromesh I gave it a light buff with White Diamond. A light touch is essential when buffing nylon stems or you make more of a mess than you started with. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and when dry I coated it with Paragon Wax and hand buffed it. Below are some photos of the pipe with each of the two bowls in place. I really like the looks of the finned shank on this one. The flat stem makes it very comfortable. I am looking forward to loading a bowl and trying out the patented “Airograte” screen that is on the bottom of the bowl.

Yellow Acrylic Stem Patch – Part 3 – by Joyal Taylor (aka holymolar)

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This is the third part of Joyal’s article on the yellow acrylic stem patch. His earlier parts of the article chronicle the various methods and procedures he has used in his try to get a matched patch on the acrylic stem he was working on. Please read the earlier installments to see the complete experiment. Part 1 can be found at this link: https://rebornpipes.com/2014/07/08/stem-patch-using-amber-super-glue-joyal-taylor-aka-holymolar/ Part 2 can be found here: https://rebornpipes.com/2014/07/08/yellow-acrylic-stem-patch-part-2-joyal-taylor-aka-holymolar/

This time I tried Behlen’s yellow powder w/ StewMac’s thick clear superglue.
This is the best so far. Good color and opaque. Some of the powder didn’t mix in but it all polished smoothly. I had to leave the patch thick at the edge because every time I tried to sand it smooth it to the acrylic, I would remove more of the original color from the acrylic and have to add more patch material. Oh well, this may be as good as I can do, for now.

Using Charcoal Powder and Black Super Glue to Repair a Bite Through on a Nylon Stem

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Blog by Steve Laug

With all of the blog posts recently on repairing stems I decided to do a little work on one I had here. I wanted to use a black superglue and carbon mixture to see what I could do with this seriously damaged stem. It was a Medico pipe stem bearing the stamping F. The F stamping is a Medico brand mark but this stem was a different diameter than the shank of the pipe that it had come attached to so I replaced the stem on that pipe. I was left with this one and almost threw it away because the hole was large and on both sides of the stem. That combined with the fact that the stem was nylon would make it less desirable to repair for me. There were also deep tooth marks all around the holes. But I figured it was a perfect stem to do experiments on so went ahead with the repairs. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to highlight the tooth marks and the holes. The button itself had dents in it as well and the crease had been flattened.

I cleaned out the debris from the hole with a dental pick (rather than the Dremel and bur that Joyal uses) and sanded around the edges of the hole with 220 grit sandpaper. I removed all of the loose or damaged material from the hole so that the edges were solid. I sanded them to roughen the edges slightly to provide a surface for the glue to bond to. I used a cotton pad and alcohol to clean out the dust from sanding and picking. I cut a piece of cardboard the same shape as the slot in the stem and greased it with Vaseline. I slipped it into the slot. I made sure that the Vaseline did not ooze out into the hole on either side.

I used Stew Mac Black super glue to build up the edges of the holes. I find that I get a much stronger patch/repair if I slowly build up the patch with multiple layers of the glue. I mixed in some carbon powder taken from a charcoal digestive capsule. I put the glue on the edges of the hole; mixed in the carbon and then more glue more carbon to build the first layer. The next series of four photos show the gradual build up of the glue and carbon. The glue was allowed to cure over night between each layer of the repair. I sanded lightly between the layers to roughen the surface of the patch and smooth out some of the pitting. I find that doing so provides a surface for the new layer to bond to.

Once the patch had thoroughly cured and hardened I sanded it. I test the hardness by pressing a fingernail into the patch. If it is not hard I let it sit longer. Once it is hard I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the patch. I used a small needle file to redefine the edge of the crease. Nylon turns white when sanded and so did the patch fortunately. The patch was slightly darker than the stem at this point but would blend in with further sanding.

I sanded the stem with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches. I further redefined the crease to sharpen it. The repairs are visible in the photos as slightly darker than the stem colour at this point.

In the process of the sanding I noticed that the dents in the button itself were not filled enough so I cleaned them out and filled them with black super glue. I also used black super glue to refill some spots on the surface of the blade that seemed to be pitted after the sanding. I sanded these after they were dry using 220 grit sandpaper followed by medium and fine grit sanding sponges. Once the surfaces were flat and smooth to my liking it was time to turn to sanding with the micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads. I went back to the sanding sponges several times when I found that some of the scratches were not adequately removed. I then repeated the wet and dry sanding with the micromesh pads until the surface was shiny and smooth and the patches blended into the stem.

I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and when it was dry hand buffed the s tem and then resanded with the 3200-12,000 grit micromesh sanding pads.

I polished the finished stem lightly with White Diamond. You have to have a very light touch when buffing nylon as the heat the buffing creates melts the nylon and creates a mess. In this case I just lightly touched it and then gave it a light coating of carnauba wax and then hand buffed it. I gave the stem several coats of Paragon Wax and hand buffed it. The finished stem is shown in the photos below.

Reparing a Cumberland Stem on a Kaywoodie Regent Bulldog 98B

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Blog by Greg Wolford

I’ve been hoping to add a Kaywoodie Regent to my collection for some time now. A month or so ago we were out-of-town on vacation when I happened upon one in an antique store. There were actually several pipes in this vendor’s case, most of which I wasn’t interested in. Other than the Regent, there were also two other Kaywoodies I was interested in: a Relief Grain and an extra long Canadian. They all looked to have pretty good bones in the dark little store so I made them mine.

When I got them back to where we were staying I eagerly opened them up to see what I had. I found that they were a lot dirtier and caked up than I thought. I also now got a really good look at the damage to the Regent’s stem; this was going to take some trail and error I knew.

When I got home I took some better photos, showing the damage to the stem. There were deep teeth marks on the top and bottom of the stem and the edge of the side where the clover logo is was almost gone completely. This was going to take a lot of time and some research to get it even close to decent again I now realized.

My first step was to try some experiments on a Medico VFQ. Although I ended up with a good looking and smoking pipe, the experiments were somewhat in vain: the stems on the VFQ turned out to be nylon. So I now turned to some fellow restorers on the PSU Forum for hints. tips and ideas – and they really came through with many ideas and several new articles posted by Joyal. Some of the best advice for this project come from JoeMan: the idea of using activated charcoal powder with Gorilla brand super glue.

This project took days to complete do to all the patching a rebuilding of the stem. So, I didn’t do a great job documenting it all with photos and because of the extended time frame of the project I may miss a step or two in this article; I apologize in advance for these things.

The fist thing I did (after thoroughly cleaning the stem with pipe cleaners and alcohol) was try to raise the dents as much as I could with heat from a candle; there was little success here.

Now I began the filling and shaping process. This took many forms and layers: I used clear super glue, both “regular” and gel, mixing in some of the StewMac black glue at times, and also Gorilla brand super glue both with and without charcoal powder mixed into it. one of the challenges was to add strength and black-color in some places while not covering up too much of the red in the Cumberland stem. Another challenge was to build up that chewed up side so the end of the stem would have the proper shape again.

The StewMac glue was too thin and took so long to dry that it wasn’t much help to me on this project. The Gorilla glue, both “plain” and with the charcoal powder mixed in, was a big help; it is thicker and dries quite fast, especially when the powder is mixed in.

Another thing that added time was the way I went about this repair. There were multiple layers needed, as well as different thicknesses, so I would apply a patch, let it cure, and then shape it as I needed, and then start the whole process over again. I did this many times to get an acceptable result. This photo is after almost all of the layering and shaping was done:

I used needle files and a vulcrylic file for most of the shaping. I also used 220 grit sandpaper. After I had the final shape I was happy with I wet sanded with 320/400/600 and then micro mesh through 12000 grit; after 600 and every few grits thereafter I also polished the stem with Meguiar’s Scratch X2.0,which helps me see if I’ve missed anything along the way. The next four images are before micro mesh and after:

As you can see, this stem came out pretty nicely and is more than useable now. Then lines came out well, to my eye, and the rebuilding and patching blended rather nicely.

I didn’t do a lot to the stummel; the nomenclature is readable but very weak. There are some small “pocket” marks but I think they give the pipe an air of character so I basically left the stummel as I found it, sans, the thick cake, mess of tars and oils in the shank, and the buildup on the rim. The rim did require a very light topping and a round or two with the medium touch up marker to give it a head start on matching the patina on this rest of the wood. I only very lightly buffed the pipe with white diamond and carnauba wax and ending with a soft clean buff and hand polish with a micro fabric cloth.

I just noticed there is a bit of wax residue that I missed in the photos. Oh well, that’s easy enough to take care of after while ….

I’m very happy with how this project came out. It will soon find its way, I think, onto my rack where I can hopefully enjoy it for many years – unless my wife learns of its collectors appeal and potential value, then I might be in trouble!

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