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The 1st Restoration of 2020 – An Ascorti Business KS Hand Made Billiard

Blog by Steve Laug

On December 30^th my family and I went to Bellingham – ostensibly to do a bit of Christmas shopping at the mall there, visit Trader Joe’s and a few other stops. I also wanted to get in one last pipe hunt for 2019. We ate breakfast at the Old Town Café on Holly Street in Old Bellingham. They have great food and a great atmosphere. Check it out.After breakfast the girls and I visited a few of my favourite antique malls in the area. One was closed but two were open and we were early customers. I went through the first one with care covering every shelf, display cabinet and nook and cranny and no pipes were to be found. That happens sometimes and I was wondering if the pipe hunt would end up being a bust. I rarely come away empty handed but there is always one of those days. We entered the second shop and after going through three aisles of display cases and coming up empty handed I entered the last aisle. There is a display case in that aisle that generally has a few pipes in it and potentially one of two of interest to me. It is the last part of the store I stop at and this day was no different. I came to the case and looked through the glass case at the lighters, knives, cheap meerschaums and corn cobs. I was beginning to wonder if it was going to be a bust. Then low and behold, underneath the stems of a cob and meerschaum I saw what looked like a briar.

I went to the counter to get the clerk to open the case for me so I could have a better look at the hidden pipe that I had seen. She left me to my hunting and I carefully moved the pipes that had been hiding the briar. It was a larger billiard with a rusticated finish and a smooth rim. I lifted it out of the case and turned it over in my hands. The pipe was dirty with a thick cake in the bowl and some darkening on the smooth rim top. But on the smooth panels on the shank I saw the stamping the were readable. The left side read Ascorti Business KS and the right side read Hand Made Italy. The stem had the characteristic Ascorti A logo and their unique saddle cut. I did not even look at the price. I closed the case and carried my find up to the counter to seal the deal. We negotiated the price and when we came to an agreement the bill was paid and the pipe was mine! When I got to the car I took some photos o fthe pipe as it looked when I picked it up. I sent a copy of the photos to Jeff to show him my find. I took a close up photo of the rim top so Jeff could see its condition. There was a thick cake in the bowl – thicker from mid bowl to the bottom. The top of the bowl seems to have been reamed with a knife. There is some darkening and light lava on the smooth rim top. The acrylic stem photos show the tooth marks on both sides. Overall the tooth marks are light and should be able to be sanded smooth. There is one on the top side that is a little deeper and may need to be repaired. There is also some damage on the edge of the button that will need to be addressed.I took a photo of the stamping on the left side of the shank and the saddle portion of the stem. The stamping is clear and reads Ascorti with the tail of the T forming a pipe. Underneath it is stamped Business followed by KS. The stamp on the stem is a classic Ascorti “A”. Most of the white that would have filled it in is worn off.Once I finished the last of Bob Kerr’s Dunhill pipes last evening I set this pipe aside as the pipe I would work on New Year’s Day. This morning I started by reaming the pipe. It had a rock had cake. I had to start the reaming with the smallest cutting head on the PipNet reamer and worked my way through three of the four cutting heads. That reamer usually does the job with a light cleanup from a pipe knife. But not this time! I used a KleenReem to take more of the cake back from the walls of the bowl and smooth out the hard spots. This was a tough cake. I finished with that and turned to the Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to clean up the remaining ridges and bumps in the walls around the airway at the bottom of the bowl. I sanded the walls of the bowl with a piece of dowel wrapped in 220 grit sandpaper. Finally I was able to remove the cake from the walls and leave them smooth. I took a photo of the reamed bowl and you can see how much cake was removed. It is a large bowl. You can also see the darkening and light lava coat on the inner edge and bevel of the bowl.I scrubbed the bowl and rim with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I was able to remove much of the grime from the rim top and the grooves and valleys of the sandblast finish. I rinsed it under warm running water to flush away the grime and dust in the soap. The following photos show the cleaned rim and bowl sides. I worked on the remaining debris and darkening on the rim top with 220 and 400 grit sandpaper. I was able to remove all of it and leave behind a clean rim top.I polished the rim top with micromesh sanding pads to bring out the shine in the smooth briar. I wet sanded it with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiped off the dust after each pad. I paused and took a photo of each side of the shank to show the stamping. The first photo shows the left side and the second shows the right side.I rubbed the bowl and rim down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the rim top and rusticated briar with my fingertips and with a horsehair shoebrush to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed the pipe with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. I really like watching the Balm do its magic and bring the briar alive. I was in a rush to see what the rim and the finish looked like and almost overlooked cleaning out the inside of the pipe. Never to late to go back though! I cleaned out the mortise and airway in the shank and stem with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and alcohol.With the bowl done it was time to address the stem. The dents in the top and underside were not too deep. I would be able to sand out most of them and whatever remained give a light fill. I would also need to repaint the A logo on the left side of the saddle. I could not heat the stem with a lighter as acrylic does not have the “memory” of vulcanite so It does not work. I took photos of the stem as a reminder.I sanded the stem surface with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper and was able to remove the majority of the dents in the stem surface. There was a deeper pit on the top side ahead of the button and on the right side of the button edge. I wiped down the areas that I was going to fill with a cotton swab and alcohol to remove the dust and debris. I filled them in with clear Krazy glue. I built up the damaged edge of the button on the underside as well.Once the repair had cured I sanded the surface of the stem and the button edges with 220 grit sandpaper to blend in the repairs. I started my polishing of the stem with 400 grit wet dry sand paper. I rubbed the stem down with Denicare Mouthpiece Polish. I have found it is a great pre-polish for my use as it shows me areas that I need to work on with the micromesh sanding pads. I decided to touch up the A on the left side of the stem before polishing the stem further. I used Paper Mate Liquid Paper and fill it into the deep grooves of the stamping with a tooth pick. Once it has dried I scrape off the excess with the tooth pick and polish it with micromesh sanding pads.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust. I polished it further with Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I buffed it with a soft cloth to raise a shine. I put the bowl and stem back together again and buffed it lightly with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel to raise the shine on the briar and the acrylic stem. The buffing also removes minute scratches in the two materials and adds depth to the shine. I gave the stem several coats of carnauba wax and the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing wheel and then by hand with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe was alive now and look great to me. It has a great feel in the hand that is very tactile and should really pop when smoked. The bowl will also develop a deeper colour with smoking. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 ¼ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. This rusticated Ascorti Business KS Italian Hand Made is a beauty should make someone a great pipe. It is one that will be on the rebornpipes store very soon. If you are interested let me know. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. This was an interesting pipe hunt find to bring back to life. Here’s to a year ahead of pipe restoration!

Fashioning a Second Churchwarden, “Made in England” for a Special Christmas Gift

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Blog by Dal Stanton

I completed the first Christmas CW project by repurposing an Italian Permofilter rusticated bowl and mounting it on a Warden stem. It is to be a gift for my son, Josiah, who came to Bulgaria from St. Louis to celebrate Christmas in Sofia, Bulgaria, with Mom and Dad! Josiah’s Churchwarden came out well!Our daughter, Johanna, also has come to Bulgaria for Christmas. She and her husband, Niko, arrived first and so my work fashioning a CW as a Christmas gift for Niko is a bit clandestine trying to keep it a secret until Christmas Day! Niko hasn’t been easy to figure out for a pipe gift! I was first going to give him a sculpted Meerschaum because I knew he had one before – a cheaper one that disintegrated in his hand while smoking it. Yet, after he arrived, he saw that I was working on a Churchwarden for ‘someone’ who had commissioned one (actually, it was Josiah’s Churchwarden that I had commissioned myself!) and he wanted a Churchwarden, which was also on his priority list to add to his collection. When I fished around regarding which he would rather have – trying not to spill the beans that I was gifting him a pipe, he said that a Churchwarden was higher on the list. So, the Sculpted Meerschaum goes back into the inventory benefiting the Daughters of Bulgaria – our work helping women and girls who have been trafficked and sexually exploited!The bowl I’m repurposing is from an unbranded petite bent Billiard that is marked only with the nomenclature, ‘Made in England’ on the left shank side and a shape number on the right, ‘950’. I acquired this pipe in the ‘Lot of 66’ and it has been waiting for someone to commission him in the For “Pipe Dreamers” Only! collection. It is an attractive pipe and the grain shows much potential. I did a quick search of the main shape number charts of English pipe names such as BBB and GBD but found no reference to a shape 950 that helped me with identifying the origins of this pipe.Now with the stummel on the worktable to transform it into a Churchwarden, I take more pictures to take a closer look. The chamber has light to moderate cake build up and the lava flow over the rim is thick. The rim width is also imbalanced with a thinning of the rim on the front left. Undoubtedly, the point where the former steward drew down the flame to light the blend.The rim also has its share of nicks, cuts and chips. The stummel also has several dents and pits here and there which need addressing. As expected, the grime is thick on the darkened stummel. Yet, the grain underneath shows great potential. The grain is primarily vertically oriented around the stummel. The stummel has the feel of having some age. By the shape and looks of it, I would guess that it is from the 1960s or earlier. The plan is to transform the petite bent Billiard into a Churchwarden by mounting it to a precast Warden stem that measures 8 5/8 inches in length. I acquire Warden stems from Tim West at www.jhlowe.com. I begin this CW Christmas project for Niko with the cleaning of the stummel. First, after spreading paper towel to aid in cleaning, I use the Pipnet Reaming Kit to address the cake build up in the chamber. I again take a close-up picture of the chamber showing the light cake build up to mark the start. I use only the smallest of the 4 blade heads available in the Pipnet Kit. Transitioning to the Savinelli Fitsall Tool, I scrape the chamber walls further and follow by sanding the chamber wall with 240 grade paper wrapped around a Sharpie Pen. The left-over carbon dust is then removed with a cotton pad wetted with isopropyl 95% and after an inspection of the walls, I find no problems with heating. Moving now to the cleaning of the external surface, the surface is scrubbed using a cotton pad wetted with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap.A brass wire brush is also helpful in scrubbing the rim top addressing the lava caked on it. I also utilize my Winchester pocketknife to scrape the rim. To rinse the soap, the stummel is transferred to the kitchen sink where the stummel is rinsed with warm water. Using different sized shank brushes with anti-oil dish soap, the mortise and airway are cleaned. Finally, after rinsing and back at the worktable, a picture records the results of the cleaning. The old worn finish is all but gone revealing the briar beneath. The scratches and imperfections are very evident mingling with the distinctive grain patterns. Next, using cotton buds and pipe cleaners wetted with isopropyl 95%, cleaning the internals is addressed. As the picture below shows in stark visual imagery, the internals were a bear to clean! Using a small dental spoon, I also excavate a lot of tars and oils scraped off the mortise walls. From what I am able to see and feel down the mortise with the probe, the internal design has a trap and the angled airway is drilled over the top of the trap angling toward the draft hole entering the chamber. The trap has done the job of collecting the gunk, but the steward did not seem to know that frequent cleaning of the trap would keep this guy in better shape! Finally, after many expended pipe cleaners and buds, they began to emerge lighter. Later, the internal cleaning will continue with an alcohol and kosher salt soak further to clean and refresh the internals.Now looking at the stummel, I know that the shank will be undergoing a good amount of sanding to shape the shank during the stem fitting process. Therefore, the restoration work that I now do on the stummel external surface will not progress beyond the shank sanding at this point. I start at the top looking at the rim’s condition. It’s in bad shape with nicks and chips around the rim’s edge and the scorching damage resulting in the thinning on the left front quadrant. I use the topping board to begin addressing these issues. With 240 paper on top of the chopping board that serves as the topping board, I rotate the inverted stummel several times on the board. After a few rotations, I stop to look. With this first picture, the contours of the rim thinning are clearer. I continue to rotate on the topping board.These next pictures show the progression of the topping a step at a time. I stop with the 240 topping even though edge damage remains. I will rectify this with beveling instead of removing more rim real estate. I switch the paper to 600 grade and smooth the rim top further with this finer grade sanding paper. After several rotations on the board, I’m satisfied with the topping board results. Nice looking bird’s eye grains are peeking through the rim surface.Addressing the edge problems, 120 grade paper is used first to cut an outer edge bevel to remove the remaining cuts and chips on the edge. Following the 120 paper 240 grade paper is used to smooth out the bevel.Again to freshen the rim lines after the beveling, I do a very quick topping again with 240 and 600 grade paper.I finish the rim repair by sanding the bevel on the outside and inside rim edges with 600 grade paper. It looks good. I move on.Continuing now to address the stummel proper, I will do what I can to spare the remnant nomenclature on the shank sides as I sand out the problems on the stummel. I use sanding sponges to address the cuts and dents on the stummel surface. First, using a coarse sponge to sand, I follow with a medium grade and a light grade sponge. Wow! This block of briar is impressive with vertical flame grain running around the bowl and as you would expect, bird’s eye grain populating both the heel and rim. Very nice. I’ve progressed all I can now with the stummel until the stem sizing and placement is completed. The first step in this process is to size and fit the Warden precast stem’s tenon into the mortise. As with the first Churchwarden gift project for my son, Josiah, Niko’s Churchwarden Made in England bowl’s mortise is measured to establish the ideal target measurement for the tenon. This measurement is 8.61mm. 40mm is added to this ‘target size’ to establish the ‘fat size’ target. This is a conservative sizing of the rough tenon in order to patiently and more slowly sand the tenon to the target size. This allows for customizing the tenon as well as avoiding the danger of cutting too much with the Pimo Tenon Turning Tool. The ‘fat size’ is right at 9mm.Next, to establish a starting measurement sizing of the rough tenon of the precast Warden stem, the PIMO tool is used. To do this, the first step is to drill the airway with a drill bit provided by the PIMO kit to allow the PIMO tool’s guide pin to fit the airway. After mounting the drill bit on the hand drill, the airway is easily enlarged with the bit. Next, after mounting the PIMO tool on the hand drill, using the Allen wrenches provided by the PIMO kit, I adjust the carbide cutter arm to be just a bit smaller than the rough tenon size. This is simply to cut a uniform starting measurement size. I accomplish the initial cut and take a measurement of 9.46. The difference between this measurement and the fat target of 9mm is .46mm. Again, I adjust the carbide cutter arm to close this gap. After adjusting, I do a test cut by only cutting a little of the tenon and then measure. The reason for doing the initial test cut is that if you over cut and the tenon is too small… well, you have a very loose fit! My test cut was too much – 7.63mm! The target size, actual mortise measurement is 8.61mm. After widening the cutting arm, I make another test cut and measure – 8.93mm. This is good enough for achieving the fat target. I complete the tenon cut at 8.93mm. I take the cut all the way to the stem facing – making sure that there is a square cut and no shouldering on the stem facing.Transitioning now to sanding, I first use a coarse 120 grade paper to do the heavy lifting. As I sand, I test periodically to see the progress of the tenon’s entry movement into the mortise. I grip the paper around the tenon and then with my other hand rotate the stem to create the sanding movement. This keeps the tenon round as well. The pictures show the progress. When the tenon is close to fitting, I switch to 240 grade paper. The stem finally seats into the mortise.When I eyeballed the shank size and the stem next to it, I knew that the shank was a bit larger than the stem and I would need to sand the shank some to taper the shank toward the stem size. When the stem was seated, I saw how much of an overhang there was – it’s not a little.This angle however, revealed another issue that I did not foresee. On the lower shank, just below the stem is the hollow caused by the angled drilling of the airway. I take a close-up of this cavity and then remove the stem to show the inverted mortise and drilling. Oh my. This creates some challenges. As if to add insult to injury, I discover another issue. The tenon has a slight rock or wiggle when it’s fully engaged. What this means is that the front of the tenon was sanded down too much and is not in contact with the mortise wall. The tenon closer to the stem facing is making contact. When I pivot the stem vertically, it rocks a little. Not good. I decide to address the lose tenon first and think about the rest. To expand the tenon, I use a drill bit to insert into the airway. I choose a drill bit which is the next size larger than what will fit into the airway. I then use a Bic lighter to heat the tenon to warm the vulcanite. When the vulcanite is warm enough, it softens and then I push the bit in the airway which expands the tenon. After heating and inserting the bit, I take it to the kitchen sink and run cold water on the tenon to set the expanded vulcanite. With the aid of a pair of pliers, the bit is retracted and again the tenon is inserted into the mortise. The procedure worked well – the tenon tightened and there is now no rocking. Moving on. After giving some thought to the conundrum of the shank and Warden stem placement, I recognize that I will not be able to save the bowl’s scant nomenclature. To taper the shank in a balanced way, will require the sanding to start further up the shank. I also decide that I will fill the drilling channel with briar dust putty to remove the hollow and make this area solid. Finally, I decide to fit the shank with a band to mask the hollow as well as to give the emerging Churchwarden an added bit of class. First, to fill the drilling channel, I mix a small amount of briar dust and thick CA glue. I use a plastic disk as a mixing pallet and to help with cleanup I put scotch tape down to mix on. After putting a small amount of briar dust on the pallet, thick CA glue is placed next to it. Using a toothpick, the briar dust is pulled into the CA glue and is mixed with the toothpick. When the mixture thickens, I use the toothpick to trowel the putty into the drilling channel in the mortise. I then set the stummel aside allowing the putty to cure through the night – lights out!The next morning, the putty has cured, and I go to work filing the fill to match the curvature of the mortise. A half-circle tapered needle file does the job well. The next pictures show the patch material now filling the hollow of the airway drilling and as well the necessary sanding to remove the excess overhang of the shank facing over the stem. To begin the sanding to remove the excess over the stem facing and to taper the shank, a coarse 120 grade paper makes the work more efficient. The sanding includes the entire shank to provide a more gradual tapering toward the stem. Without this, a ‘stuffed pants’ appearance is left. The stem remains engaged in the mortise throughout the sanding process.After a good bit of sanding, the alignment is looking good. As usual, on the sides where the precast stem seams are, the sanding is more directed. The pictures show the alignment at this point using 120 grade paper alone. The tapering of the shank looks good. I mark the upper side of the stem with a piece of scotch tape so that I later refit the stem with the correct orientation. The next thing I want to see it how a band or shank cap will work. Some months ago, the word went out about a pipe man on French eBay selling bags with a variety of copper rings, bands, caps, and spacers at a very decent price. I don’t know who started the rumor – Steve, Paresh, Victor?, but several of us were able to order a supply for our work desks. The package containing the supply had a card, Pipe Estate at www.pipes-estate.com. I have been waiting for an opportunity to utilize this addition to my inventory.After dumping the multitude of copper fitments on my worktable, it was fun taking a closer look at all the available sizes and shapes. But the question always is, will there be one in all these that will work??As if I were holding the Holy Grail, I found a few that looked hopeful, but one was perfect. A copper shank cap that fit the shank perfectly and reaches over the end of the shank to provide a spacer. Perfect!Remounting the stem, I oohed and awed at the beauty and wonder of this addition to the creation of this Churchwarden going to Niko for Christmas! There was a sacrifice in having to sand away the ‘Made in England’ marking on the shank which bums me out in a huge way, but I’m pleased with the shank tapering and the contribution of the copper shank cap to the ensemble. The rest of the Warden stem is awaiting sanding, but for the time, I continue sanding to smooth and finish the stummel. Following the coarse 120 paper that did the main work on the tapering, 240 and 600 grade papers continue the process of smoothing the shank surface. Next, I put the stummel aside and continue sanding the remainder of the Warden stem with 120 sanding paper. I also use a flat needle file to shape the raw, precast button. Following the filing and 120 grade paper, 240 grade continues the smoothing process by erasing the scratches left behind by the coarser filing and sanding. Following the 240 paper, wet sanding with 600 grade paper erases the scratches of the 240 sanding and then applying 000 grade steel wool completes this phase of the sanding process. One picture of the entire stem is taken followed by closeups of the upper and lower bit. The full regiment of micromesh pads is applied next by wet sanding with pads 1500 to 2400 then dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000. Between each set of 3 pads, Obsidian Oil is applied to vitalize the vulcanite stem. Again, I take one picture of the entire stem from the orbital shot and two closeups of the upper and lower bit after the final 3 micromesh pads.With the micromesh process completed, it is time to bend the Warden stem. I like to draw a template of a bend so that I’m not simply eyeballing the process. The general goal is to have the mouthpiece of the Warden stem on a parallel trajectory with the plane of the rim. On the diagram below, I draw a horizontal line representing the plane of the rim. I also rough sketch the current disposition of the unbent stem. Then I rough in a bend starting about 1/3 the distance from the shank and complete the sketch parallel with the rim plane. This is the guide template.The hot air gun focuses on the area about 1/3 up the stem for the first bend attempt. I bend the fat part of the stem first to have a more even and sweeping bend as it takes longer for the fat part to become supple than the thin part. As the stem is rotated over the hot air, gentle pressure is applied and when the stem starts to bend, I know it’s reaching the state of shaping. As the bottom third becomes supple, I move the heating up the stem a bit now to warm the middle. All the while rotating back and forth and around.After the stem heats enough using the hot air gun, I place the pipe on the template and hold it in place until it holds its position. I’ve found that even though it takes longer this way, I’ve lost the shape I want if I transition the pipe to the kitchen to run the stem under cool water to quicken the cooling. The first attempt is good. There’s a nice flowing bend but the final trajectory is a little wide.The second attempt is very close to what I want, but it’s still a hair wide.One more time heating does the trick. This time I take the stem to the sink and run it under cool water to cool the vulcanite and hold the bend that has been created.With the Warden stem completed until the final polishing phases, I turn again to the stummel. Using the full regiment of micromesh pads, with pads 1500 to 2400 I wet sand, followed by dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000. The bowl’s grain emerges through the process and I like what I’m seeing. The bowl is fully wrapped with a vertical flame grain with bird’s eye grain populating the heel and rim – as you would expect being the cross-view perspective of the flame grain. With the hour growing late, I continue the internal cleaning and refreshing process using a kosher salt and alcohol soak. The first step is to fashion a ‘wick’ from pulling and stretching a cotton ball. The wick serves to draw tars and oils out from the mortise cavity. Using a stiff wire, the wick is guided down the mortise. Then the bowl is filled with kosher salt which doesn’t leave an aftertaste as the iodized version. The stummel is then placed in an egg carton for stability.Using a large eyedropper, isopropyl 95% fills the bowl until it surfaces over the salt. After a few minutes the alcohol is absorbed, and I top off the alcohol one more time and set the stummel aside to soak through the night.The next morning, the soiling of the salt and wick evidences the processes active through the night. The tars and oils were drawn from the internal briar surface. I toss the expended salt and wipe the bowl with a paper towel. I also blow through the mortise to loosen and remove any remaining salt crystals.To make sure all is cleaned, one cotton bud and one pipe cleaner dipped in isopropyl 95% were all that was needed to verify the results of the internal cleaning – cleaned! I move on.Next, using Before & After Restoration Balm, the external briar is freshened and enlivened. Mark Hoover’s Restoration Balm (www.ibepen.com) works very well to bring out the natural hues and to deepen them. I place some of the Balm on my fingers and work it into the briar surface. Afterwards, I place it the stummel aside for about 20 minutes to allow the Balm to do its thing. Then the excess Balm is wiped/buffed off with a micromesh cloth. The results are as hoped – a beautiful piece of briar is now more beautiful. Before moving on to the fine polishing and waxing phase, the copper shank cap/band needs to be attached to the shank. I test fit the cap over the shank and insert the stem. The fit still looks good. Next, with great caution, I place a drop of thick CA glue on the end of a toothpick and this apply the glue to the inside of the ring/cap. Using the end of the toothpick, I run the glue around the entire underside and then slip it over the shank and press it into place. I do this without excess glue seeping out from around the edges – relief! I do not reengage the stem for a few minutes to allow the CA glue to cure – I don’t risk getting glue on the stem! On the home stretch! With a cotton cloth buffing wheel mounted to the Dremel with the speed set at about 40% full power, I apply Blue Diamond compound to the stem and stummel avoiding the copper band. When completed, I use a felt cloth to buff the pipe to remove compound dust before applying the wax. Next, changing to another cotton cloth buffing wheel maintaining the same speed, carnauba wax is applied as well to the stem and stummel followed by a rigorous hand buffing with a microfiber cloth to raise the shine.

Wow! The grain on this stummel catches the eye with the flame grain circling the bowl. This bowl works well as a Churchwarden. The size is perfect, and the shank pitch puts the long flowing Warden stem at a nice trajectory. The addition of the copper band/shank cap is classy and works very well to transition the bowl and the stem. I believe my son-in-law, Niko, will enjoy this Churchwarden which will be wrapped and waiting for him under the tree! Thanks for joining me!

Restoring a 1925 “Ao” Dunhill London 113 Billiard from Bob Kerr’s Estate

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Blog by Steve Laug

As I continue to work through the pipes in Bob Kerr’s Estate I am enjoying choosing different brands that he had to focus on for a bit. I had eight more from his Dunhill collection that I decided to go back to and finish working my way through that sub collection of the estate. Out of the 8 pipes six were Bruyere finished pipes, one was a Made in London (turns out it is also a Bruyere finished pipe), and one was a Root Briar. What follows is a list of what I saw when I examined the 8 pipes. As I finish the pipes I will include the link to the blog on that particular pipe for easy reference. I have already restored 16 pipes from this subgroup so you can do a quick search to read about the work on the Shell Briars and Tanshell Briars that were in that part of the collection.

Bruyere 656 F/T Made in England 2 Circle 4A – Group 4 size Bruyere made in 1962. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, bowl caked and lava overflow on the rim top. Bowl is out of round, damaged edge.
Bruyere 112 F/T Made in England 9/11 Circle 2A – Group 2 size Bruyere made in 1969 and sold in 1971. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, bowl caked and lava overflow on the rim top. Bowl is out of round, damaged edge.
Bruyere 0333 Made in England 16 made in 1976. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, bowl caked and lava overflow on the rim top. Bowl is out of round, damaged edge.
Bruyere 41061 Made in England 18 made in 1978. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, bowl caked and lava overflow on the rim top. Bowl is out of round, damaged edge. I finished the restoration on it. Here is the link to the blog – (https://rebornpipes.com/2019/12/24/restoring-a-1978-dunhill-bruyere-41061-from-bob-kerrs-estate/).
Bruyere 142 F/T Made in England 7/9/11 Circle 4A – Group for size Bruyere made in 1967 and sent out in 1969 or 1971. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, bowl caked and lava overflow on the rim top. Bowl is out of round, damaged edge.
Bruyere A Inner Tube Patent No. 5831412 Shape 34. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, bowl caked and lava overflow on the rim top. Bowl is out of round, damaged edge. Missing the inner tube.
(Ao) London 113 Made in England 5 PAT N°158709/14. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, bowl caked and lava overflow on the rim top. Bowl is out of round, damaged rim edges.
Root Briar 31032 Made in England 18 – made in 1978. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, bowl caked and lava overflow on the rim top. Bowl is out of round, damaged edge. I finished the restoration on it. Here is the link to the blog – (https://rebornpipes.com/2019/12/23/restoring-a-1978-dunhill-root-briar-31032-billiard-from-bob-kerrs-estate/).

I finished work on #8 and turned my attention to #7 a heavily abused Billiard with a tapered stem. The pipe was stamped on the left side of the shank with the Ao number next to the bowl/shank junction. That is followed by Dunhill over London. On the right side of the shank it is stamped Made in England 5 with “Inner Tube” underneath that with PAT N°158709/14 underneath. I turned to the PipePhil website to see if I could pin down the time from for the entrance of the inner tube and also see if I could clear up the date of the patent number on the pipe (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/root-bru-guide.html). I did a screen capture of the pertinent info on that below.It appears that the pipe stamped as this one is with the Made in England 5 with “Inner Tube” over Pat. No. places this pipe as a 1925 Pipe. I went on to a separate page on the site to see if I could identify the Ao stamp (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/bruyere1.html). From there is appears that the stamp means that the pipe is a Bruyere from 1925and that also is attested by the “DUNHILL over LONDON” marking.

Chuck Stanion eloquently describes the Bruyere on the Smokingpipes.com site as follows (https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipes/new/dunhill/moreinfo.cfm?product_id=346421):

The Bruyere was Alfred Dunhill’s original finish upon launching his brand of premium pipes and smoking accessories and was the only Dunhill finish from 1910 until 1917. Even after the addition of other finishes, the Bruyere maintained a high level of popularity, becoming synonymous with what is thought of, even today, as the quintessential pipe. To achieve the iconic, ruby hue and saturation, a skilled craftsman painstakingly layers particular stains in a precise manner, then meticulously polishes the pipe to a high luster. The final result is, simply put, timeless.

On rebornpipes I have a blog by Eric Boehm on Dunhill shape numbers and I turned to that to help identify the shape number on this pipe. Eric notes that the shape number 113 designates a Billiard with a tapered stem. (https://rebornpipes.com/2012/11/01/dunhill-pipe-shapes-collated-by-eric-w-boehm/).

Now I knew I was dealing with one of Bob’s oldest Dunhill pipes. It was a 1925 Dunhill Bruyere with a patent number and stamping that established the date for me. It was time to turn to the pipe. There was a thick cake in the bowl with remnants of tobacco stuck on the walls. There was a lava overflow on the rim that filled in all of the damage to the surface of the rim top and edges. Once it was cleaned I would have a better idea of the condition of the rim top. I could see however that there was definitely damage to both the inner and the outer edge of the bowl. The grain that is poking through the grime and oils appears to be quite beautiful – diagonal or flame grain and some birdseye grain on the heel of the bowl. The stem was oxidized and calcified toward the end with some tooth chatter. There were also some tooth marks on both sides of the stem ahead of the button and on the button itself. There was the classic White Spot on the top of the stem. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his cleanup work on it. Jeff took photos of the bowl and rim top to show the thick, hard cake in the bowl with remnants of tobacco stuck on the walls of the bowl. There was a lava build up on the smooth rim top and the edges of the bowl. The rim top looked pretty good but it was hard to know for sure. It appeared that there was damage at the back and the front of the inner edge. The outer edges looked good. Jeff took photos of the sides and heel of the bowl to show the condition of the finish. You can see the beautiful grain patterns around the sides of the bowl and shank. Even under the dirt and debris of the years it looked very good. The stamping is readable with a lens and a bright light. On the left side of the shank you can see Ao (which turns out to be the designation for a Bruyere finish) followed by Dunhill over London. On the right side it reads Made In England with the date stamp 5 after the D in England underneath that it is stamped “Inner Tube” over PAT N°158709/14. He included a pic of the White Spot on the stem. Jeff took photos of the top and underside of the stem showing the tooth chatter, scratching, calcification and oxidation on the stem surface and wear on the edges of the button. I am really happy to have Jeff’s help on cleaning up the pipes from Bob’s estate as the 125+ pipes were taking me a long time to do alone. He cleaned this filthy pipe with his usual penchant for thoroughness that I really appreciate. This one was a real mess and I was looking forward to seeing what he had done with this one when I took it out of his box. It looked amazing and CLEAN. He reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer and cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed out the internals with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs until the pipe was clean. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime and grit on the briar and the lava on the rim top. The finish looks very good with great looking grain around the bowl and shank. The rim top was the biggest issue with this pipe. The inner and outer edges were really quite rough and that would need to be dealt with. The stem looked a lot better. Jeff soaked the stem in Before & After Deoxidizer to remove the oxidation on the rubber. The pipe was ready for me to carry on the next part of the process. I took some close up photos of the rim top and also of the stem surface. I wanted to show how well it had cleaned up and what needed to be done. The rim top had a dent on the right outer edge and some darkening toward the back of the bowl and on the inner edge. There was also some burn damage on the front inner edge of the bowl. The outer edge looked very good. I also took close up photos of the stem to show the tooth marks and chatter on the stem surface.The stamping appeared to be as clear as it was before the cleanup work. This is just one of the things I appreciate about Jeff’s cleanup is that he works to protect and preserve the nomenclature on the shank of the pipes that he works on. I took some photos to show the stamping. Bob loved his Dunhill pipes and it was obvious that he enjoyed smoking them. Some appeared to be daily smokes while others he seemed to reserve for special occasions. Some seemed like they must have hung in his mouth while he did his carving while others were smoked in his chair. Having worked on over 60 of his pipes so far I am getting a feel for them. This one is in rough condition and I suppose it might well have been before Bob took up the trust. I suppose I won’t ever know for sure but it certainly has a long and interesting story if it could only tell it.

I am sure that many of you have read at least some of the other restoration work that I have done on previous pipes. You have also read what I have included about Bob Kerr, the pipeman who held these pipes in trust before I came to work on them (see photo to the left). Also, if you have followed the blog for long you will already know that I like to include background information on the pipeman whose pipes I am restoring. For me, when I am working on an estate I really like to have a sense of the person who held the pipes in trust before I worked on them. It gives me another dimension of the restoration work. Bob’s daughter wrote a short tribute to her father. I thank you Brian and tell your wife thank you as well.

I am delighted to pass on these beloved pipes of my father’s. I hope each user gets many hours of contemplative pleasure as he did. I remember the aroma of tobacco in the rec room, as he put up his feet on his lazy boy. He’d be first at the paper then, no one could touch it before him. Maybe there would be a movie on with an actor smoking a pipe. He would have very definite opinions on whether the performer was a ‘real’ smoker or not, a distinction which I could never see but it would be very clear to him. He worked by day as a sales manager of a paper products company, a job he hated. What he longed for was the life of an artist, so on the weekends and sometimes mid-week evenings he would journey to his workshop and come out with wood sculptures, all of which he declared as crap but every one of them treasured by my sister and myself. Enjoy the pipes, and maybe a little of his creative spirit will enter you!

It was time to get on with the restoration of this old and worn 1925 Dunhill Bruyere Billiard. I really appreciate the hard cleanup work that Jeff did on these pipes. They were a real mess when I sent them to Jeff and I have to tell you it was great that I did not need to clean this pipe. I decided to start the process by dealing with the the damage to the edges and the rim top of the bowl. I used some clear Krazy Glue to stabilize the ragged edges of the rim top. You can see the cuts and gouges but there are also some areas that looked like splintering. I spread the glue on the rim top to smooth and bind it all together. Once it cured I lightly topped the bowl to get a flat surface to work with. It looked good once it was cleaned up. It looks like a more radical topping than it actually is. I know some of you would have left it as it stood, but I decided to address the roughness. I was afraid it would splinter out and cause more damage so I chose to minimize the damage as much as possible without radically changing the profile. The inner edge of the rim looked bad at this point. Hacked and carved up. It would take a bit of work to reduce it. The outer edge also had some issues that would need to be addressed. I worked on the inner edge with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper and gave it a very slight bevel. I was able to remove much of the damage. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the damage on the outer edge of the bowl as well. The second photo below shows the rim top and edges after my work on them…though not perfect I think it is an improvement. I was hoping that polishing the rim top and briar would help to blend to the top with the bowl enough that I would not need to stain it. Remember I said that I gently topped it. When I wet the briar it actually looked very close! Here is hoping! I polished the briar on the rim top and bowl with worn micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads. I wiped it down after each pad with a damp cloth. I find that the worn pads do a great job polishing and still retain the original patina of the pipe. By the time I was finished the rim top was looking very close in colour to the rest of the bowl. I was not going to have to stain it. I rubbed the bowl and rim down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed the pipe with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. I really like watching the Balm do its magic and bring the briar alive. With the bowl done it was time to address the stem. The dents in the top and underside were the right depth for me to lift them. I “painted” the surface of the stem with the flame of a Bic lighter to raise the dents in the surface. I was able to lift most of them to the point that a repair would be less complex. I filled in the damaged areas on the top and bottom button edges and the small remaining dents on both sides of the stem with clear Krazy Glue. I sanded the surface of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the remaining oxidation in the vulcanite. I polished it with 400 grit wet dry sand paper. I rubbed the stem down with Denicare Mouthpiece Polish. I have a few tins of this laying around so I am trying to use them up. It does a pretty good job polishing the stem. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust. I polished it further with Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I finished by rubbing the stem down with some “No Oxy Oil” to protect the vulcanite. I am experimenting with the product from Briarville and tracking how it works so I can write a review of it. Once again at this point in the restoration process I am excited to be on the homestretch. This is the third of the Dunhill smooth pipes in Bob’s estate that I am working on. It is another one that turned out to be a beautiful 1925 Bruyere Billiard. It was in really rough condition so I really was looking forward to this point in the process when it is put back together, polished and waxed. I put the bowl and stem back together. I polished the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the scratches in the briar and the vulcanite. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The grain around the bowl and shank really came alive with the wax and polish. The black of the tapered vulcanite White Spot stem is a beautiful contrast to the reds and browns of the finished bowl and shank. This was another older Dunhill that was a lot of fun to work on thanks to Jeff’s cleanup work. The pipe is comfortable pipe to hold in the hand. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. This 1925 Bruyere Billiard is a beauty should be able to last beyond the life of the next pipeman or women who carries on the trust. I have a lot more of Bob’s estate to work on of various brands. Perhaps one of those will catch your attention. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. This is an interesting estate to bring back to life.

Restoring a 1978 Dunhill Root Briar 31032 Billiard from Bob Kerr’s Estate

11 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

As I continue to work through the pipes in Bob Kerr’s Estate I am enjoying choosing different brands that he had to focus on for a bit. I had eight more from his Dunhill collection that I decided to go back to and finish working my way through that sub collection of the estate. Out of the 8 pipes six were Bruyere finished pipes, one was a Made in London, and one was a Root Briar. What follows is a list of what I saw when I examined the 8 pipes. As I finish the pipes I will include the link to the blog on that particular pipe for easy reference. I have already restored 16 pipes from this subgroup so you can do a quick search to read about the work on the Shell Briars and Tanshell Briars that were in that part of the collection.

Bruyere 656 F/T Made in England 2 Circle 4A – Group 4 size Bruyere made in 1962. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, bowl caked and lava overflow on the rim top. Bowl is out of round, damaged edge.
Bruyere 112 F/T Made in England 9/11 Circle 2A – Group 2 size Bruyere made in 1969 and sold in 1971. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, bowl caked and lava overflow on the rim top. Bowl is out of round, damaged edge.
Bruyere 0333 Made in England 16 made in 1976. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, bowl caked and lava overflow on the rim top. Bowl is out of round, damaged edge.
Bruyere 41061 Made in England 18 made in 1978. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, bowl caked and lava overflow on the rim top. Bowl is out of round, damaged edge.
Bruyere 142 F/T Made in England 7/9/11 Circle 4A – Group for size Bruyere made in 1967 and sent out in 1969 or 1971. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, bowl caked and lava overflow on the rim top. Bowl is out of round, damaged edge.
Bruyere A Inner Tube Patent No. 5831412 Shape 34. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, bowl caked and lava overflow on the rim top. Bowl is out of round, damaged edge. Missing the inner tube.
Made in London 113 539/14. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, bowl caked and lava overflow on the rim top. Bowl is out of round, damaged rim edges.
Root Briar 31032 Made in England 18 – made in 1978. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, bowl caked and lava overflow on the rim top. Bowl is out of round, damaged edge.

I chose to work on #8 next, the sole Root Briar pipe remaining in the collection. Paresh had picked up an earlier one that I had finished to add to his collection in India. The highest honor for a Dunhill pipe is to receive the prestigious Root Briar appellation. Root Briars have been coveted by pipesmokers ever since they first debuted in 1931, due to the fact that each pipe must boast briar completely free of even the most minor of blemishes. Dunhill has the strictest of standards and expectations for quality with all of their pipes, and so any block of briar that comes to bear the Root Briar stamp must indeed be superlative.

The pipe was stamped on the left side of the shank with the five digit shape number next to the bowl/shank junction. It read 31032. That is followed by Dunhill over Root Briar. On the right side of the shank it is stamped Made in England 18 which would make it a pipe made in 1978. The shape number code can be broken down to give a lot of information. Typically Dunhill pipes are stamped with a four digit code. The first digit (1-6) denotes the group size of the pipe. In this case it is a Group 3 sized pipe. The second digit denotes the style of the mouthpiece (0,1=tapered, 2=saddle). In this case it is a 1 which matches the tapered stem on the shank. The third and fourth digits give the generic shape in the chart below. I have captured part of the chart to identify this pipe as a 03 or a straight Billiard. When 5 digits occur, the meaning of the 4 first remains the same (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/shapes.html). There was a thick cake in the bowl with remnants of tobacco stuck on the walls. There was a lava overflow on the rim. The top and edges of the rim appear to be in good condition though there appears to be a little burn damage on the left front inner edge of the bowl. The outer edge looks very good. The grain on this is beautiful – diagonal or flame grain and some birdseye on the heel of the bowl. I think that there is a beautiful pipe underneath all of the buildup of years of use. The sides of the bowl had some darkening from oils and tars. The stem was oxidized and calcified toward the end with some tooth chatter. There were also some tooth marks on both sides of the stem ahead of the button and on the button itself. There was the classic White Spot on the top of the stem. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his cleanup work on it. Jeff took photos of the bowl and rim top to show the thick, hard cake in the bowl with remnants of tobacco stuck on the walls of the bowl. There was a lava build up on the smooth rim top and the edges of the bowl. The rim top looked pretty good but it was hard to know for sure. It appeared that there was damage at the back and the front of the inner edge. The outer edges looked good. Jeff took photos of the side and heel of the bowl to show the condition of the finish. You can see the beautiful grain patterns around the sides of the bowl and shank. Even under the dirt and debris of the years it looked very good.The stamping is readable and on the left side of the shank you can see the shape number 31032 as noted above followed by Dunhill over Root Briar. On the right side it reads Made In England with the date stamp 18 after the D in England. He included a pic of the White Spot on the stem. Jeff took photos of the top and underside of the stem showing the tooth chatter, scratching and oxidation on the stem surface and wear on the edges of the button.I am really happy to have Jeff’s help on cleaning up the pipes from Bob’s estate as the 125+ pipes were taking me a long time to do alone. He cleaned this filthy pipe with his usual penchant for thoroughness that I really appreciate. This one was a real mess and I was looking forward to seeing what he had done with this one when I took it out of his box. It looked amazing and CLEAN. He reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer and cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed out the internals with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs until the pipe was clean. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime and grit on the briar and the lava on the rim top. The finish looks very good with great looking grain around the bowl and shank. It looked like there were some dents in the briar on the right side of the bowl that would need to be dealt with. The stem looked a lot better. Jeff soaked the stem in Before & After Deoxidizer to remove the oxidation on the rubber. The pipe was ready for me to carry on the next part of the process. I took some close up photos of the rim top and also of the stem surface. I wanted to show how well it had cleaned up and what needed to be done. The rim top had some darkening toward the back of the bowl and on the inner edge. There was also some burn damage on the front inner edge of the bowl. The outer edge looked very good. I also took close up photos of the stem to show the tooth marks and chatter on the stem surface. The stamping appeared to be as clear as ever on the shank sides. This is just one of the things I appreciate about Jeff’s cleanup is that he works to protect and preserve the nomenclature on the shank of the pipes that he works on. I took some photos to show the stamping. Bob loved his Dunhill pipes and it was obvious that he enjoyed smoking them. Some appeared to be daily smokes while others he seemed to reserve for special occasions. Some seemed like they must have hung in his mouth while he did his carving while others were smoked in his chair. Having worked on over 60 of his pipes so far I am getting a feel for them.

It was time to get on with the restoration of this beautiful and worn Dunhill Root Briar Billiard. I really appreciate the hard cleanup work that Jeff did on these pipes. They were a real mess when I sent them to Jeff and I have to tell you it was great that I did not need to clean this pipe. I decided to start the process by dealing with the dents in the briar on both sides of the bowl. I heated a knife with the flame on our gas stove and dampened a cloth. I put the cloth over the dents and applied the hot knife to the surface. The heat generated steam and lifted the dents. I applied the knife several times before I was happy with the look of the bowl. I then went on to address the damage to the inner edge of the bowl. I worked on the inner edge with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper and gave it a very slight bevel. I was able to remove much of the damage. There was still a slight “dip” in the edge at the front. The photos show the progress. I polished the briar on the rim top with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-4000 grit pads and I wiped the bowl down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth. The grain progressively stood out as I polished the pipe with the pads. I paused the polishing to restain the rim top to match the rest of the pipe. I used a walnut stain pen and was able to get the match. The rim top would need to be polished but the colour was right so time would tell.I continued to polish the bowl with 6000-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads. I wiped it down after each pad with a damp cloth. I rubbed the bowl and rim down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed the pipe with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. I really like watching the Balm do its magic and bring the briar alive. With the bowl done it was time to address the stem. The dents in the top and underside were the right depth for me to lift them. I “painted” the surface of the stem with the flame of a Bic lighter to raise the dents in the surface. I was able to lift most of them to the point that a repair would be less complex. I filled in the damaged areas on the button edge and the small remaining dents in the underside of the stem with clear Krazy Glue. Once the repair had cured I used a flat needle file to reshape the button and edges. The stem is starting to take shape. I sanded the surface of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the remaining oxidation in the vulcanite. I polished it with 400 grit wet dry sand paper. I rubbed the stem down with Denicare Mouthpiece Polish. I have a few tins of this laying around so I am trying to use them up. It does a pretty good job polishing the stem. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust. I polished it further with Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I finished by rubbing the stem down with some “No Oxy Oil” to protect the vulcanite. I am experimenting with the product from Briarville and tracking how it works so I can write a review of it. Once again at this point in the restoration process I am excited to be on the homestretch. This is the first of the Dunhill smooth pipes in Bob’s estate that I am working on. It is a beautiful Root Briar 31032 Billiard. I always look forward to this point in the process when it is put back together, polished and waxed. I put the bowl and stem back together. I polished the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the scratches in the briar and the vulcanite. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The grain around the bowl and shank really came alive with the wax and polish. The black of the tapered vulcanite White Spot stem is a beautiful contrast to the browns of the finished bowl and shank. This is Dunhill was a lot of fun to work on thanks to Jeff’s cleanup work. The pipe is comfortable pipe to hold in the hand. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ¼ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. This 78 Root Briar Billiard is a beauty that I am still trying to figure out whether to sell it or buy it. It will take a bit of time and once I decide I will either enjoy it or it will be going on the rebornpipes store. I have a lot more of Bob’s estate to work on of various brands. Perhaps one of those will catch your attention. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. This is an interesting estate to bring back to life.

A Brigham Patent Era Select 2199 Club (Lovat) from Bob Kerr’s Estate

2 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

As I continue to work through the pipes in Bob Kerr’s Estate I am enjoying choosing different brands that he had to focus on for a bit. He had six different pipes from Brigham in his collection so I decided to work my way through that sub collection of the estate. Out of the 6 pipes, #5 has a ruined bowl with a crack all the way around it as well as a cut off aluminum tenon. #6 went to Paresh Deshpande in India for his collection. That left behind four pipes for me to restore – #1, #2, #3 and #4. Here is the list of what I saw when I examined the 6 pipes.

Brigham 503T Can. Pat. 372982 5 Dot Stack. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, thick cake and lava overflow on the rim top. Rim top has is worn and damage on the back edge. I have finished restoring this one. Here is the link: (https://rebornpipes.com/2019/12/21/a-brigham-patent-era-special-grain-stack-from-bob-kerrs-estate/).
Brigham Made In Canada 691 3 Dot Canadian. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, thick cake and lava overflow on the rim top. Rim top is worn and damaged.
Brigham Made In Canada 2199 2 Dot Lovat. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty and worn. Stamping is worn. There is a thick cake and lava overflow on the rim top. Rim top is worn and damaged.
Brigham Made In Canada 1 Dot Bing Crosby Style Pipe. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty, thick cake and lava overflow on the rim top. Rim top is worn and damage on the back edge.
Brigham Made In Canada 6 Dot Bent Billiard. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. The aluminum tenon has been cut off. Finish is dirty and worn with paint on the bowl. There is a thick cake and lava overflow on the rim top. Rim top has a crack on the right side.
Brigham Made In Canada 4 Dot Canadian. Stem is oxidized, tooth marks and chatter near the button, some calcification with damage to the button. Finish is dirty and stamping is worn. There is a thick cake and lava overflow on the rim top. Rim top is worn and edges are damaged.

I chose to work on #3 next because of the issue with the stem. It is a Brigham Mixed Grain Lovat. It was stamped on the left side of the shank with faint stamping visible with a lens under light. It reads Brigham over Can. Pat. 372982. On the right side of the shank it was stamped with the shape number 2199. There was a thick cake in the bowl with remnants of tobacco stuck on the walls. There was a lava overflow on the rim. The top and edges of the rim appear to have some damage all the way around the bowl. The grain on the shank and bowl was a combination of grains. Once again, I think that there was a beautiful pipe underneath all of the buildup of years of use. The stem was oxidized and calcified toward the end with some tooth chatter. There were also some tooth marks on both sides of the stem ahead of the button. There was a bite through in the underside of the stem next to the button. There was a pattern of two brass dots on the left side of the saddle stem. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his cleanup work on it. Jeff took photos of the bowl and rim top to show the thick, hard cake in the bowl with remnants of tobacco stuck on the walls of the bowl. There was a lava build up on the top of the rim and the edges of the bowl. The rim top looked pretty good but it was hard to know for sure but it appeared that there was damage all around the inner edge. The outer edges of the rim looked to be in decent condition. Jeff took a photo of the side and heel of the bowl to show the condition of the finish. You can see the beautiful grain around the side of the bowl and shank. Even under the dirt and debris of the years it looked very good. The stamping is very faint and cannot be captured even with a flash. He included a pic of the two brass dots on the stem and a few nicks in the shank edge.Jeff took photos of the top and underside of the stem showing the tooth chatter, scratching and oxidation on the stem surface and wear on the edges of the button. The second photo also shows the bite through on the underside near the button. The third photo shows a close-up of the hole. I am also including the information from Pipedia’s article on Brigham pipes. It is a great read in terms of the history of the brand (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Brigham_Pipes). Charles Lemon (Dadspipes) is currently working on a book on the history of the brand. Until that is complete this article is a good summary. I have included it below.

Roy Brigham, after serving an apprenticeship under an Austrian pipesmith, started his own pipe repair shop in Toronto, in 1906. By 1918 the business had grown to include five other craftsmen and had developed a reputation across Canada for the high quality of workmanship. After repairing many different brands of pipes over the years, Roy noted certain recurring complaints by pipe smokers, the most common referred to as “tongue bite”. Tongue bite is a burning sensation on the smoker’s tongue, previously thought to be due to the heat of the smoke (i.e. a “hot smoking pipe”).

He soon began manufacturing his own pipes, which were lightweight, yet featured a more rugged construction, strengthening the weak points observed in other pipes. The problem of tongue bite intrigued him, and he decided to make overcoming it a future goal.

About 1938, Roy’s son Herb joined him to assist in the business. The business barely survived the great depression because pipes were considered to be a luxury, not a necessity, and selling pipes was difficult indeed. In approximately 1937 [1], after some experimentation, Roy and Herb discovered that tongue bite was in fact a form of mild chemical burn to the tongue, caused by tars and acids in the smoke. They found that by filtering the smoke, it was possible to retain the flavour of the tobacco and yet remove these impurities and thereby stop the tongue bite.

Just as Thomas Edison had searched far and wide for the perfect material from which to make the first electric light bulb filaments, Roy & Herb began experimenting with many materials, both common and exotic, in the quest for the perfect pipe filter. Results varied wildly. Most of the materials didn’t work at all and some actually imparted their own flavour into the smoke. They eventually found just two materials that were satisfactory in pipes: bamboo and rock maple. As bamboo was obviously not as readily available, rock maple then became the logical choice.

They were able to manufacture a replaceable hollow wooden tube made from rock maple dowelling, which when inserted into a specially made pipe, caused absolutely no restriction to the draw of the pipe, yet extracted many of the impurities which had caused tongue bite. The result was indeed a truly better smoking pipe…

I wrote to Charles Lemon (Dadspipes) and asked him about the stamping on the pipe. He responded with information on all of the foursome. I am including the information on this particular pipe.

Hey Steve! Good to hear from you.

Shape 2199 is what most would call a Lovat. Brigham called it a Club for whatever reason- just to be different, perhaps!…As these are all Patent pipes, it’s more accurate to refer to their grade by name (the post 1980 grading scheme refers to Dots). Here is the original scheme:With the information from Charles’ message and the chart above that he included I knew what I was dealing with in terms of the stamping and the age of this pipe. I learned that this Patent Era 2199 is a Brigham Select (2-Dot) 01 Lovat or what they call a Club. It was made between 1938 and 1955. Most of Bob’s pipes were purchased in the 50s and 60s so my guess is that this is fits that time frame well. Now it was time to work on the pipe.

I am really happy to have Jeff’s help on cleaning up the pipes from Bob’s estate as the 125+ pipes were taking me a long time to do alone. He cleaned this filthy pipe with his usual penchant for thoroughness that I really appreciate. This one was a real mess and I did not know what to expect when I unwrapped it from his box. He reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer and cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed out the internals with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs until the pipe was clean. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime and grit on the briar and the lava on the rim top. The finish looks very good with great looking grain around the bowl and shank. Jeff soaked the stem in Before & After Deoxidizer to remove the oxidation on the rubber. When the pipe arrived here in Vancouver for the second stop of its restoration tour I was amazed it looked so good. I took some close up photos of the rim top and also of the stem surface. I wanted to show what an amazing job Jeff did in the cleanup of the rim top. The rim top was darkened with nicks and notches around the top and inner edge. There is a deep scratch in the rim top that looks almost like a crack. I have drawn an arrow to the spot on the rim top. The inner edge was a little rough and looked like the bowl had burned at some time in its life. I also took close up photos of the stem to show the tooth marks and chatter on the stem surface. There was a bite through on the underside of the stem near the button. I took the stem off the shank to show the aluminum tenon/tube that was used to hold the Brigham Rock Maple Distillator. The original Distillator (filter) had been filthy so after Jeff had cleaned the pipe up he threw it away. I will replace it once I have finished with the restoration.This was a tough pipe to photograph the stamping on because it was very faint. When it starts out faint it is very easy to lose even that remnant of a stamp. But one of the things I appreciate about Jeff’s cleanup is that he works to protect and preserve the nomenclature on the shank of the pipes that he works on. I took some photos to show the stamping. In the first photo the arrow on the left is pointed to where Brigham is stamped and the arrow on the right is pointing to the Can. Pat. Number. In the second photo the arrow points at the shape number. Thanks Jeff for being so careful in the cleanup. Much appreciated.Since this is another pipe Bob’s estate I am sure that some of you have read at least some of the other restoration work that has been done on the previous pipes. You have also read what I have included about Bob Kerr, the pipeman who held these pipes in trust before I came to work on them (see photo to the left). Also, if you have followed the blog for long you will already know that I like to include background information on the pipeman whose pipes I am restoring. For me, when I am working on an estate I really like to have a sense of the person who held the pipes in trust before I worked on them. It gives me another dimension of the restoration work. Bob’s daughter wrote a short tribute to her father. I thank you Brian and tell your wife thank you as well.

Now with all of the background on the line and the background on Bob Kerr it was time to get on with the restoration of this next mixed grain Brigham Select Lovat or Club as they call the shape. I am really coming to appreciate the hard cleanup work that Jeff did on these pipes. They were a real mess when I sent them to Jeff and I have to tell you it was great that I did not need to clean this pipe. I decided to start the process by dealing with the damage to the rim top and edges of the bowl. I topped it on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper. I topped it to remove the deep scratch on the surface of the rim at the front. I was able to remove the scratch. What was left behind was a dark mark on the rim top. Once I stained the rim top that should disappear. I worked on the inner edge with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper and gave it a very slight bevel so that it took care of the damage on the inner edge. The photos show the progress. I stained the rim top and edges with a Walnut Stain pen to blend in the colour with the rest of the bowl. It is a good match and once it is polished it will work well!I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-12000 grit pads and I wiped the bowl down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth. The grain progressively stood out as I polished the pipe with the pads. I rubbed the bowl and rim down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. I really like watching the Balm do its magic and bring the briar alive. With the bowl done it was time to address the issues with the stem. The deep dents in the top and underside with a bite through in the middle of the underside would make this a stem with multiple issues to deal with. The first photo shows the bite through. I “painted” the surface of the vulcanite to soften the rubber and then used the tip of a needle file to lift the deepest tooth marks and seek to flatten the stem surface (second and third photos). I was able to lift the tooth dents quite a bit on both sides but I would need to build up the stem surface on both sides.To prepare for the repair I wiped down the surface with alcohol on a cotton pad. I folded a pipe cleaner in half and coated it with Vaseline to make sure that the repair would not fill in the airway in the stem. I inserted it in the slot and slid it under the bit through.I mixed batch of charcoal powder and black superglue putty together on a piece of card. I learned from Dal to put a patch of tape on the card first so that the mix would not harden as quickly. It works like a charm by the way. I mixed the powder and black glue together with a dental spatula to get a thick putty/paste. I applied the putty to the top of the stem on both sides and pressed it into the bite through area. I sprayed the repaired areas on both sides of the stem with an accelerator so that the surface of the repair would be hard. I slid the pipe cleaner out of the airway and set the stem aside to let the glue cure. When the repair had cured I used a needle file to reshape the button and smooth out the repair. More work would need to be done for it to be correct but the bite through was gone! I sanded the repaired areas smooth with 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the rest of the stem surface. As I sanded some small air bubbles appeared in the surface of the repair. I filled them in with clear Krazy Glue and once it had cured sanded the surface again. I started the polishing process with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. It is starting to look pretty good! I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. Once I had finished the polishing I gave it a coat of a new product I am experimenting with from Briarville Pipe Repair. It is called “No Oxy Oil” and it is made to protect the stem from oxidizing. I set it aside to dry. With the pipe cleaned and ready to polish I put a new Brigham Distillator filter in the stem. The photos show the Distillator out of the tenon and in place in the tenon. It is a Maplewood tube that collects the moisture from the smoke and delivering a dry, cool smoke sans tongue bite. Once again at this point in the restoration process I am excited to be on the homestretch. This is the second Brigham from the four that are in Bob’s estate so I look forward to the final look when it is put back together, polished and waxed. I put the bowl and stem back together. I polished the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the scratches in the briar and the vulcanite. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The grain is quite stunning and really pops with the wax and polish. The repair to the stem surface looked really good and blended into the shiny black vulcanite stem. The black of the vulcanite stem along with the two brass pins is a beautiful contrast to the browns of the bowl and shank. This was another fun pipe to work on thanks to Jeff’s cleanup work. It really is a quite stunning piece of mixed grained briar whose shape follows the flow of the briar. The pipe is comfortable pipe to hold in the hand. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ¾ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. This beautiful pipe will be going on the rebornpipes store in the near future. I have a lot more of Bob’s estate to work on of various brands. Perhaps one of those will catch your attention. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. This is an interesting estate to bring back to life.

A Republic Era Peterson’s 301 System Standard Pot from Bob Kerr’s Estate

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Blog by Steve Laug

I am continuing to work on Bob Kerr’s collection of 9 Peterson’s System pipes that are ready to be restored. The next pipe on the table is a bit different from the other Standard System pipes that I have worked on from his estate. It is a pot shaped bowl with a different style stem. I have restored quite a few of his Petersons already so this is kind of subset of the Peterson Collection. You can read about those restorations in previous blogs. To be honest with you I have been dreading working on these 9 because when they arrived they were absolutely filthy and the reservoir in the shank was filled with tars and oils. It looked to me that they had never been cleaned. Jeff cleaned them for me and because of that I have been enjoying working on these Peterson’s particularly because Jeff has done such a thorough cleanup of them before I receive them. When I took it out of the box of the pipes that Jeff had cleaned up and sent back to me, I could see that it was stamped Peterson’s System Standard vertically on the left side of the shank next to the band. The right side of the shank was stamped Made in the Republic of Ireland over the shape number 301. The stamping is very faint but readable with a lens. It has some stunning grain around the bowl and shank that can be seen under the thick grime. There are also some deep nicks or flaws in the left and front sides of the bowl.

In many ways this was one of the dirtier System pipes if that is possible. There was a thick cake in the bowl with remnants of tobacco stuck on the walls. There was a lava overflow on the rim. The top and edges of the rim appear to have some damage all the way around the bowl. There was some damage on the back outer edge of the rim that looked as if it had been dropped. I think that there was a beautiful pipe underneath all of the buildup of years of use. There was some interesting grain poking through. The nickel ferrule on the shank end was oxidized and dented. The band was loose so it turned on the shank end. It is stamped K&P Petersons. The stem was oxidized and calcified toward the end with some tooth chatter. There were also some tooth marks on both sides of the stem ahead of the “P-lip”. There was also a deep mark mid stem on the underside. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his cleanup work on it. Jeff took photos of the bowl and rim top to show the thick, hard cake in the bowl and the lava build up on the top of the rim and the edges of the bowl. The rim top looked pretty good but it was hard to know for sure but it appeared that there was damage all around the inner edge. The outer edges of the rim appeared to have some serious damage on the back of the bowl. It is rough and could have been dropped or knocked out against a hard surface. Jeff took photos of the sides and heel of the bowl to show the condition of the finish. You can see the nicks and pits in the briar around the bowl. It does have some interesting mixed grain on the sides of the bowl and shank. There is also some cross grain and birdseye for those who love grain. Even under the dirt and debris of the years it looked very good. Jeff took photos of the stamping on the sides of the bowl and shank. The vertical stamping on the left side was faint but readable as you can see from the photo. It read Peterson’s System Standard. The stamping on the right side of the shank is also faint but it read Made in the Republic of Ireland with the shape number 301 underneath. The nickel ferrule on the shank end is stamped on the top and left side K&P Petersons. The ferrule has some dents and nicks in it that will need to be addressed. Jeff took photos of the top and underside of the stem showing the tooth chatter, scratching and oxidation on the stem surface and wear on the edges of the button. You can see the scratch in the vulcanite mid stem in the second photo. I am including the information from Pipedia’s article on Peterson pipes. It is a great read in terms of the history of the brand (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Peterson). I have included a bit of the pertinent history here.

1950 – 1989 The Republic Era – From 1950 to the present time, the stamp for this era is “Made in the Republic of Ireland” in a block format generally in three lines but two lines have been used with or without Republic being abbreviated.

During the 1950’s and 60’s the Kapp & Peterson company was still in the ownership of the Kapp family. However 1964 saw the retiral of the company Managing Director Frederick Henry(Harry) Kapp.

Pipedia also included a section of information on the System pipes including a diagram of the sytems look (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Peterson#Republic_Era_Pipes). I quote a section of the article in part and include a link to another article on Pipedia on the System pipe.

The Peterson System pipes are the standard bearers of the Peterson pipe family, famous for the excellent smoking pleasure they provide. Often imitated but never equaled, the Peterson System smokes dry, cool and sweet, thanks to the scientiﬁc effectiveness of the original design. The heart of the System is the unique graduated bore in the mouthpiece. This makes the suction applied by the smoker 15 times weaker by the time it reaches the tobacco chamber. The result is that all the moisture ﬂows into the reservoir and, thus cannot reach the smoker’s mouth. The Peterson Lip further enhances the effectiveness of the graduated bore by directing the ﬂow of smoke upwards and away from the tongue. This achieves a uniquely even distribution of smoke and virtually eliminates any chance of tonguebite or bitterness. Furthermore, the shape is contoured so that the tongue rests comfortably in the depression under the opening. Each “PLip” mouthpiece is made from Vulcanite. For the Peterson System pipes to work properly, the stem/tenon has to have an extension, the tip of which will pass by the draft hole from the bowl and into the sump. Upon the smoker drawing in smoke, this extension then directs the smoke down and around the sump to dispense a lot of the moisture before the smoke enters the extension and stem. On the System Standards and other less expensive systems, this extension with be made of Vulcanite turned integrally with the stem. On the more expensive System pipes this extension will be made of metal which screws into the Vulcanite stem. This extension on the earlier pipes will be of brass and the newer pipes will be of aluminium. Most smokers not knowing this function of the metal extension, assumes that it is a condenser/stinger and will remove it as they do with the metal condensers of Kaywoodie, etc. Should you have a System pipe with this metal extension, do not remove it for it will make the System function properly and give you a dryer smoke (https://pipedia.org/wiki/A_closer_look_at_the_famous_Peterson_Standard_System_Pipe).

I am really happy to have Jeff’s help on cleaning these 9 Peterson’s System Standard pipes as they are a real pain to get clean. He cleaned this filthy pipe with his usual penchant for thoroughness that I really appreciate. This one was a real mess and I did not know what to expect when I unwrapped it from his box. He reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer and cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed out the internals with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs until the pipe was clean. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime and grit on the briar and the lava on the rim top. The finish looks very good with great looking grain around the bowl and shank. Jeff soaked the stem in Before & After Deoxidizer to remove the oxidation on the rubber. When the pipe arrived here in Vancouver for the second stop of its restoration tour I was amazed it looked so good. Forgive the poor quality pics I took of the pipe at this point… not sure what happened. I took some close up photos of the rim top and also of the stem surface. I wanted to show what an amazing job Jeff did in the cleanup of the rim top. The rim top was darkened with nicks and dents in the top. There were notches around the inner edge almost looked like a knife had been used on it. The back outer edge was worn and rough. I also took close up photos of the stem to show the tooth chatter on the stem surface. There was also the scratch on the underside. It was still lightly oxidized. The P stamp on the left was faint but visible. You can also see the dents around the nickel ferrule. One of the things I appreciate about Jeff’s cleanup is that he works to protect and preserve the nomenclature on the shank of the pipes that he works on. The stamping on this one was very faint to start with so I was worried that it would disappear altogether with the cleanup. I took some photos to show the clarity of the stamping had neither worsened nor improved. Since this is another pipe Bob’s estate I am sure that some of you have read at least some of the other restoration work that has been done on the previous pipes. You have also read what I have included about Bob Kerr, the pipeman who held these pipes in trust before I came to work on them (see photo to the left). Also, if you have followed the blog for long you will already know that I like to include background information on the pipeman whose pipes I am restoring. For me, when I am working on an estate I really like to have a sense of the person who held the pipes in trust before I worked on them. It gives me another dimension of the restoration work. I asked Brian if he or his wife would like to write a brief biographical tribute to her father, Bob. His daughter worked on it and I received the following short write up on him and some pictures to go along with the words including one of Bob’s carvings. Once again I thank you Brian and tell your wife thank you as well.

Now with all of the background on the line and the background on Bob Kerr it was time to get on with the restoration of this next mixed grain Peterson’s System Standard 301 Bent Pot. I am really coming to appreciate the hard cleanup work that Jeff did on these pipes. They were a real mess when I sent them to Jeff and I have to tell you it was great that I did not need to clean this pipe. I decided to start the process by dealing with the damage to the inner edge and top of the rim. The first photo below shows what the rim looked like when I started. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper and worked on the flat surface as well as the inner edge. I gave it a very light bevel so that it took care of the damage on the inner edge.I filled in the damage on the back edge of the rim and the deep pits in briar on the front and left side with briar dust and clear Krazy Glue. Once the repair had cured I sanded the spots of the repair and topped the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper on a topping board. Unfortunately I did not document what the repairs looked like after sanding or topping but that will become clear in the photos that follow. I heated the briar with a flame of a lighter and stained it with Fiebing’s Dark Brown aniline stain. I applied it and flamed it to burn off the alcohol. I took photos of the bowl after staining. You can see the repaired areas as dark spots on the side and the top of the bowl. These will need to be sanded more but the pipe is looking pretty good at this point. I set the bowl aside to cure for the night, turned out the lights and headed to bed. In the morning I removed the nickel ferrule and buffed the bowl with red Tripoli on the buffing wheel to remove the “crust” on the stain. It was dark but otherwise it looked good. I wiped the bowl down with alcohol on cotton pads to make it more transparent. It is hard to see from the photos but the repairs actually looked good at this point. To further make the stain transparent I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-12000 grit pads and I wiped the bowl down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth. The bowl began to take on a finished shine. You can see the repaired area on the rim top and left side of the bowl but they look and feel better to the touch than before. I used the head of a Robertson style screwdriver to work on the dents in the ferrule. I usually use a piece of broom stick that has the rounded head on it but did not have one here at the moment. I place the head against the inside of the dent and tapped it with a small hammer to smooth it out. I was able to remove the majority of the dents around the ferrule. There are still small spots but it is significantly better than before.I spread some WellBond all purpose glue on the inside of the ferrule with a dental spatula and pressed it in place on the shank. I aligned the K&P Petersons stamp on the left side of the shank with the stamping.I rubbed the bowl and rim down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. I really like watching the Balm do its magic and bring the briar alive. I wiped off the scratch in the vulcanite with alcohol and filled it in with clear Krazy Glue. Once the glue cured I smoothed out the repair on the underside of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper. I polished it with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I rubbed the stem down with Denicare Mouthpiece Polish. I have a few tins of this laying around so I am trying to use them up. It does a pretty good job polishing the stem. I used some Papermate Liquid Paper to touch up the stamping on the left side of the saddle stem. I pressed it into the stamped letter “P” and let it dry. I scraped it off with a tooth pick and took a photo of the re-whitened letter. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. Once I had finished the polishing I gave it a coat of a new product I am experimenting with from Briarville Pipe Repair. It is called “No Oxy Oil” and it is made to protect the stem from oxidizing. I set it aside to dry. Once again at this point in the restoration process I am excited to be on the homestretch. This is the only Peterson’s System Standard 301 Pot from Bob’s pipes so I look forward to the final look when it is put back together, polished and waxed. I put the bowl and stem back together. I polished the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the scratches in the briar and the vulcanite. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The grain is quite nice and really pops with the wax and polish. The shiny black vulcanite stem is a beautiful contrast to the browns of the bowl and thick shank. This was another fun pipe to work on thanks to Jeff’s cleanup work. The polished nickel Ferrule works as a contrast between the stem and the briar and binds it all together. It really is a quite stunning piece of briar whose shape follows the flow of the briar. The pipe is comfortable pipe to hold in the hand. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. This beautiful pipe will be going on the rebornpipes store if you would like to add it to your collection and carry on Bob’s legacy. If not, I have a lot more of Bob’s estate to work on of various brands. Perhaps one of those will catch your attention. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. This is an interesting estate to bring back to life.

A Third Republic Era Peterson’s 1307 System Standard from Bob Kerr’s Estate

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Blog by Steve Laug

I am continuing to work on Bob Kerr’s collection of 9 Peterson’s System pipes that are ready to be restored. This pipe is the third of the large Canadian Imported Standard System 1307 pipes that I have in his estate. I have restored quite a few of his Petersons already so this is kind of subset of the Peterson Collection. You can read about those restorations in previous blogs. To be honest with you I have been dreading working on these 9 because when they arrived they were absolutely filthy and the reservoir in the shank was filled with tars and oils. It looked to me that they had never been cleaned. Jeff cleaned them for me and because of that I have been enjoying working on these Peterson’s particularly because Jeff has done such a thorough cleanup of them before I receive them. When I took it out of the box of the pipes that Jeff had cleaned up and sent back to me, I could see that it was stamped Peterson’s System Standard vertically on the left side of the shank next to the band. The right side of the shank was stamped Made in the Republic of Ireland over the shape number 1307. It has some stunning grain around the bowl and shank like the first one that I worked on that can be seen under the thick grime.

There was a thick cake in the bowl with remnants of tobacco stuck on the walls. There was a lava overflow on the rim. The top and edges of the rim appear to have some damage all the way around the bowl. I think that there was a beautiful pipe underneath all of the buildup of years of use. The nickel ferrule on the shank end was oxidized and is stamped on the top and left side K&P Peterson’s over three hallmarks. It is not dented or damaged. The stem was oxidized and calcified toward the end with some tooth chatter. There were also some tooth marks on both sides of the stem ahead of the “P-lip”. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his cleanup work on it. Jeff took photos of the bowl and rim top to show the thick, hard cake in the bowl and the lava build up on the top of the rim and the edges of the bowl. The rim top looked pretty good but it was hard to know for sure but it appeared that there was damage all around the inner edge. The outer edges of the rim appeared to be in good condition. Jeff took photos of the sides and heel of the bowl to show the condition of the finish. You can see the interesting birdseye grain on the sides of the bowl and shank. Even under the dirt and debris of the years it looked very good. The cross grain on the heel was beautiful. Jeff took photos of the stamping on the left side of the bowl and shank. The vertical stamping on the left side was readable as you can see from the photos. It read Peterson’s System Standard. He did not take a photo of the stamp on the right side of the shank but it read Made in the Republic of Ireland with the shape number 1307 underneath. The nickel ferrule on the shank end is stamped on the top and left side K&P Peterson’s over three hallmarks – a Shamrock, a shape that looks like a reclining lion and a tower. Typically these hallmarks are not like those in silver that help to date a pipe but are rather marks that make it clear that the pipe was made in Ireland. Jeff took photos of the top and underside of the stem showing the tooth chatter, scratching and oxidation on the stem surface and wear on the edges of the button. There were two deep dents on the top of the stem just ahead of the P-lip. I have included the information on the shape number on this pipe that I picked up on researching the previous pipes. It is another of the three Peterson’s System Standard pipes in Bob’s collection marked with the 1307 shape number. There are also 2 System Standards marked 307 and for the life of me I cannot tell the difference. They are virtually identical in shape, size and marking. I started my hunt for information by turning to a Peterson Catalogue that I have on rebornpipes and looked up the System Standard pipes (https://rebornpipes.com/tag/peterson-hallmark-chart/). I have put a red box around the 307 shown in the catalogue page shown below. That should give a clear picture of the size and shape of the pipe. But there was nothing to give me any information on what the first number 1 meant in the shape number 1307 pipe that I am working on. I decided to email Mark Irwin to see if he could point me in the right direction either in the book to something I was missing or to something else that might help.Since this is stamped the same as the previous two 1307 pipes, I am including the information on the unique numbering on it. Mark pointed me in the direction that I needed. I quote the pertinent part of his email. The red highlighted portion was the clue I was looking for on this pipe. I have already cleaned up several of Bob’s pipes that were sold through GT&C (Genin, Trudeau and Company, Montreal, Quebec).

The index at the back of the book is pretty good, and points you to all the GT&C goodies, but 155 has a photo from the catalog with your 1307, while 318 and 323 explain the rationale for the “1” prefix. In a nutshell, just drop the “1” and you’ve got the shape. My theory is that GT&C added this to aid them in warranty work, so they’d know the pipe was bought on Canadian soil.

I turned then to a previous blog I had written on a Kapruf 54 that had an odd shape number stamp and referred to the Canadian numbering system used by GT&C. Here it the link to that blog (https://rebornpipes.com/2019/08/09/back-to-bob-kerrs-estate-another-canadian-import-petersons-kapruf-a-54/). In the blog I included a link to a blog I did on the GT&C Catalogue that came to me in some paperwork the family gave me. I have included the cover of the catalogue and the page on the system pipes showin the 1307 shape. I have put a red box around the shape for ease of reference (https://rebornpipes.com/2016/09/13/petersons-pipes-brochure-from-genin-trudeau-co-montreal-quebec/). Be sure to check out the rest of the document on the link.

The GT&C Catalogue combined with the earlier Peterson Pipe Catalogue page make the link definitive. I am also including the information from Pipedia’s article on Peterson pipes. It is a great read in terms of the history of the brand (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Peterson). I have included a bit of the pertinent history here.

During the 1950’s and 60’s the Kapp & Peterson company was still in the ownership of the Kapp family. However 1964 saw the retiral of the company Managing Director Frederick Henry(Harry) Kapp.

With that information in hand I knew what I was dealing with in terms of the stamping and the age of this pipe. I knew from the information that the pipe was made during the Republic Era between 1950 and 1989. Most of Bob’s pipes were purchased in the 60s so my guess is that this is also a 60’s era pipe. I also knew that the pipe was brought into Canada by the Canadian importer, Genin, Trudeau & Co. in Montreal, Quebec. Noting above that the catalogue postal code puts it in the late 60s early 70s which also fits the story. Now it was time to work on the pipe.

I am really happy to have Jeff’s help on cleaning these 9 Peterson’s System Standard pipes as they are a real pain to get clean. He cleaned this filthy pipe with his usual penchant for thoroughness that I really appreciate. This one was a real mess and I did not know what to expect when I unwrapped it from his box. He reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer and cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed out the internals with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs until the pipe was clean. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime and grit on the briar and the lava on the rim top. The finish looks very good with great looking grain around the bowl and shank. Jeff soaked the stem in Before & After Deoxidizer to remove the oxidation on the rubber. When the pipe arrived here in Vancouver for the second stop of its restoration tour I was amazed it looked so good. I took some close up photos of the rim top and also of the stem surface. I wanted to show what an amazing job Jeff did in the cleanup of the rim top. The rim top was darkened with nicks and notches around the top and inner edge. The inner edge was very rough – almost looked like a knife had been used on it. I also took close up photos of the stem to show the tooth marks and chatter on the stem surface. The majority of the marks were on the underside. One of the things I appreciate about Jeff’s cleanup is that he works to protect and preserve the nomenclature on the shank of the pipes that he works on. The stamping on this one was very faint to start with so I was worried that it would disappear altogether with the cleanup. He was not only able to preserve it but it is clearer than shown in the earlier photos. I took some photos to show the clarity of the stamping. I have noticed that many restorers are not careful to protect the stamping in their cleaning process and often by the end of the restoration the nomenclature is almost destroyed. I would like to encourage all of us to be careful in our work to preserve this as it is a critical piece of pipe restoration! Since this is another pipe Bob’s estate I am sure that some of you have read at least some of the other restoration work that has been done on the previous pipes. You have also read what I have included about Bob Kerr, the pipeman who held these pipes in trust before I came to work on them (see photo to the left). Also, if you have followed the blog for long you will already know that I like to include background information on the pipeman whose pipes I am restoring. For me, when I am working on an estate I really like to have a sense of the person who held the pipes in trust before I worked on them. It gives me another dimension of the restoration work. I asked Brian if he or his wife would like to write a brief biographical tribute to her father, Bob. His daughter worked on it and I received the following short write up on him and some pictures to go along with the words including one of Bob’s carvings. Once again I thank you Brian and tell your wife thank you as well.

Now with all of the background on the line and the background on Bob Kerr it was time to get on with the restoration of this next mixed grain Peterson’s System Standard 1307 Bent Billiard. This is the last of the 1307 pipes that I am restoring. I am really coming to appreciate the hard cleanup work that Jeff did on these pipes. They were a real mess when I sent them to Jeff and I have to tell you it was great that I did not need to clean this pipe. I decided to start the process by dealing with the damage to the inner edge and top of the rim. The first photo below shows what the rim looked like when I started. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper and worked on the flat surface as well as the inner edge. I gave it a very light bevel so that it took care of the damage on the inner edge. The third photo shows the rim top after the shaping. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-12000 grit pads and I wiped the bowl down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth. The bowl began to take on a finished shine. I rubbed the bowl and rim down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. I really like watching the Balm do its magic and bring the briar alive. I “painted” the stem with the flame of a Bic lighter to raise the dents then lightly sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the area around the deep tooth marks. I wiped the stem down with alcohol and filled in the tooth marks on the top and underside as well as on the edges of the “P-lip” button itself with clear Krazy Glue.I used a small file to recut the button edge on both the top and underside and to smooth out the filled in areas on the stem surface on both sides. I smoothed out the repair on the button and on both sides of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper. I polished it with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. Once I had finished the polishing I gave it a coat of a new product I am experimenting with from Briarville Pipe Repair. It is called “No Oxy Oil” and it is made to protect the stem from oxidizing. I set it aside to dry. Once again at this point in the restoration process I am excited to be on the homestretch. This is the final 1307 from Bob’s pipes so I look forward to the final look when it is put back together, polished and waxed. I put the bowl and stem back together. I polished the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the scratches in the briar and the vulcanite. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The grain is quite stunning and really pops with the wax and polish. The shiny black vulcanite stem is a beautiful contrast to the browns of the bowl and thick shank. This last of Bob’s Peterson’s System Standard 1307 Bent Billiards was another fun pipe to work on thanks to Jeff’s cleanup work. The polished nickel Ferrule works as a contrast between the stem and the briar and binds it all together. It really is a quite stunning piece of briar whose shape follows the flow of the briar. The pipe is comfortable pipe to hold in the hand. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 ½ inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 3/8 inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. This beautiful pipe will be going on the rebornpipes store if you would like to add it to your collection and carry on Bob’s legacy. If not, I have a lot more of Bob’s estate to work on of various brands. Perhaps one of those will catch your attention. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. This is an interesting estate to bring back to life.

Another Republic Era Peterson’s 1307 System Standard from Bob Kerr’s Estate

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Blog by Steve Laug

I am continuing to work on Bob Kerr’s collection of 9 Peterson’s System pipes that are ready to be restored. This pipe is the second of the large Standard System pipes that I have in his estate. I have restored quite a few of his Petersons already so this is kind of subset of the Peterson Collection. You can read about those restorations in previous blogs. To be honest with you I have been dreading working on these 9 because when they arrived they were absolutely filthy and the reservoir in the shank was filled with tars and oils. It looked to me that they had never been cleaned. Jeff cleaned them for me and because of that I have been enjoying working on these Peterson’s particularly because Jeff has done such a thorough cleanup of them before I receive them. When I took it out of the box of the pipes that Jeff had cleaned up and sent back to me, I could see that it was stamped Peterson’s System Standard vertically on the left side of the shank next to the band. The right side of the shank was stamped Made in the Republic of Ireland over the shape number 1307. It has some stunning grain around the bowl and shank like the previous one but the finish was darker in colour under the thick grime.

There was a thick cake in the bowl with remnants of tobacco stuck on the walls. There was a lava overflow on the rim. The top and edges of the rim looked very good under the grime. I think that there was a beautiful pipe underneath all of the buildup of years of use. The nickel ferrule on the shank end is stamped on the top and left side K&P Peterson’s over three hallmarks. It is not dented or damaged. The stem was oxidized and calcified toward the end with some tooth chatter but surprisingly it did not have the deep tooth marks that I have come to expect from Bob’s pipes but the button edges were worn. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his cleanup work on it. Jeff took photos of the bowl and rim top to show the thick, hard cake in the bowl and the lava build up on the top of the rim and the edges of the bowl. The rim top looked pretty good but it was hard to know looking through the lava rear left of the bowl and had some darkening and a potential burn marks on the front and the back right inner edge. The outer edges of the rim appeared to be in good condition. Jeff took photos of the sides and heel of the bowl to show the condition of the finish. You can see the interesting grain on the sides and underside of the bowl and shank. Even under the dirt and debris of the years it looked very good. The cross grain on the heel was beautiful. Jeff took photos of the stamping on both sides of the bowl and shank. The vertical stamping on the left side was readable as you can see from the photos. It read Peterson’s System Standard. The stamp on the right side read Made in the Republic of Ireland with the shape number 1307 underneath. The nickel ferrule on the shank end is stamped on the top and left side K&P Peterson’s over three hallmarks – a Shamrock, a shape that looks like a reclining lion and a tower. Typically these hallmarks are not like those in silver that help to date a pipe but are rather marks that make it clear that the pipe was made in Ireland. Jeff took photos of the top and underside of the stem showing the tooth chatter, scratching and oxidation on the stem surface and wear on the edges of the button. There were two deep dents on the top of the stem just ahead of the P-lip. I wanted to find out information on the shape number on this pipe. It is one of three Peterson’s System Standard pipes in Bob’s collection marked with the 1307 shape number. There are also 2 System Standards marked 307 and for the life of me I cannot tell the difference. They are virtually identical in shape, size and marking. I started my hunt for information by turning to a Peterson Catalogue that I have on rebornpipes and looked up the System Standard pipes (https://rebornpipes.com/tag/peterson-hallmark-chart/). I have put a red box around the 307 shown in the catalogue page shown below. That should give a clear picture of the size and shape of the pipe. But there was nothing to give me any information on what the first number 1 meant in the shape number 1307 pipe that I am working on. I decided to email Mark Irwin to see if he could point me in the right direction either in the book to something I was missing or to something else that might help.Since this is stamped the same as the first of the 1307 I am including the information on the unique numbering on it. Mark pointed me in the direction that I needed. I quote the pertinent part of his email. The red highlighted portion was the clue I was looking for on this pipe. I have already cleaned up several of Bob’s pipes that were sold through GT&C (Genin, Trudeau and Company, Montreal, Quebec).

The GT&C Catalogue combined with the earlier Peterson Pipe Catalogue page make the link definitive. I turned to Pipedia’s article on Peterson pipes to see what I could garner from that information. It is a great read in terms of the history of the brand (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Peterson). I have included a bit of the pertinent history here.

During the 1950’s and 60’s the Kapp & Peterson company was still in the ownership of the Kapp family. However 1964 saw the retiral of the company Managing Director Frederick Henry(Harry) Kapp.

I am really happy to have Jeff’s help on cleaning these 9 Peterson’s System Standard pipes as they are a real pain to get clean. He cleaned this filthy pipe with his usual penchant for thoroughness that I really appreciate. This one was a real mess and I did not know what to expect when I unwrapped it from his box. He reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer and cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed out the internals with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs until the pipe was clean. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime and grit on the briar and the lava on the rim top. The finish looks very good with great looking grain around the bowl and shank. Jeff soaked the stem in Before & After Deoxidizer to remove the oxidation on the rubber. When the pipe arrived here in Vancouver for the second stop of its restoration tour I was amazed it looked so good. I took some close up photos of the rim top and also of the stem surface. I wanted to show what an amazing job Jeff did in the cleanup of the rim top. The rim top was burned and darkened with nicks and notches around the top and inner edge. I also took close up photos of the stem to show the lack of tooth marks and chatter on the stem surface. It was very clean. One of the things I appreciate about Jeff’s cleanup is that he works to protect and preserve the nomenclature on the shank of the pipes that he works on. The stamping on this one was very faint to start with so I was worried that it would disappear altogether with the cleanup. He was not only able to preserve it but it is clearer than shown in the earlier photos. I took some photos to show the clarity of the stamping. I have noticed that many restorers are not careful to protect the stamping in their cleaning process and often by the end of the restoration the nomenclature is almost destroyed. I would like to encourage all of us to be careful in our work to preserve this as it is a critical piece of pipe restoration! Since this is another pipe Bob’s estate I am sure that some of you have read at least some of the other restoration work that has been done on the previous pipes. You have also read what I have included about Bob Kerr, the pipeman who held these pipes in trust before I came to work on them (see photo to the left). Also, if you have followed the blog for long you will already know that I like to include background information on the pipeman whose pipes I am restoring. For me, when I am working on an estate I really like to have a sense of the person who held the pipes in trust before I worked on them. It gives me another dimension of the restoration work. I asked Brian if he or his wife would like to write a brief biographical tribute to her father, Bob. His daughter worked on it and I received the following short write up on him and some pictures to go along with the words including one of Bob’s carvings. Once again I thank you Brian and tell your wife thank you as well.

Now with all of the background on the line and the background on Bob Kerr it was time to get on with the restoration of this next mixed grain Peterson’s System Standard 1307 Bent Billiard. I am really coming to appreciate the hard cleanup work that Jeff did on these pipes. They were a real mess when I sent them to Jeff and I have to tell you it was great that I did not need to clean this pipe. I decided to start the process by dealing with the damage to the inner edge and top of the rim. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper and worked on the flat surface as well as the inner edge. I gave it a very light bevel so that it took care of the damage on the front and back side of the inner edge. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-12000 grit pads and I wiped the bowl down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth. The bowl began to take on a finished shine. I rubbed the bowl and rim down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. I really like watching the Balm do its magic and bring the briar alive. The stem had some deep gouges in the tenon end where it had been turned into the nickel ferrule. These needed some work to smooth out and repair. The top side of the stem had two deep tooth marks just ahead of the P-lip. I used a Bic Lighter to “paint” the surface of the stem with flame and lift them. I filled in the remaining small tooth mark with clear super glue. I sanded out the remainder of the tooth dents and the tooth marks in the underside of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper. I polished it with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. Once I had finished the polishing I gave it a coat of a new product I am experimenting with from Briarville Pipe Repair. It is called “No Oxy Oil” and it is made to protect the stem from oxidizing. I set it aside to dry. Once again at this point in the restoration process I am excited to be on the homestretch. I look forward to the final look when it is put back together, polished and waxed. I put the bowl and stem back together. I polished the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the scratches in the briar and the vulcanite. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The grain really pops with the wax and polish. The shiny black vulcanite stem is a beautiful contrast to the browns of the bowl and thick shank. This Peterson’s System Standard 1307 Bent Billiard was another fun pipe to work on thanks to Jeff’s cleanup work. The polished nickel Ferrule works as a contrast between the stem and the briar and binds it all together. It really is a quite stunning piece of briar whose shape follows the flow of the briar. The pipe is comfortable pipe to hold in the hand. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 ½ inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. This beautiful pipe will be going on the rebornpipes store if you would like to add it to your collection and carry on Bob’s legacy. If not, I have a lot more of Bob’s estate to work on of various brands. Perhaps one of those will catch your attention. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. This is an interesting estate to bring back to life.

A Project Close to My Heart; Restoring a Dunhill from Farida’s Dad’s Collection

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Blog by Paresh Deshpande

The next pipe that I have selected as my new project is a very special pipe for the following reasons:-

(a) Firstly, this pipe was in the trust of an adventurer who has been on expeditions to Antarctica, the Arctic and loved Dunhill pipes (and I happen to carry forward that trust with one of his Dunhill pipes).

(b) Secondly, is the reason why and how this pipe came to me. During one of the many Face Time chats with Steve more than a year ago, I remarked that in spite of the huge collection of British, American and Danish pipes that I had inherited, there was not a single Dunhill pipe in it and that how expensive it was to own one. Steve had then only recently acquired an estate lot that contained, amongst other pipes, seven Dunhills. We discussed each of the Dunhill and I zeroed in on one. A few days later, I received a parcel from Steve that contained the Dunhill pipe that I had selected and along with it came another Dunhill in classic Billiard shape. A call to Steve confirmed that the second pipe was not an error, but a surprise for me. He conveyed that should I decide to and thereafter be able to restore it; I could keep it!!

(c) Thirdly and most importantly, I treat this restoration as a tribute to the daughter who loves her father and desired to share that love and those memories with other pipers who wished to carry forward her father’s trust.

Well, with this as a background, the pipe on my work table once belonged to Late Mr. John Barber. His daughter, Farida had requested Steve to restore her Dad’s pipe and pass them on to others for her. Here is the link to the pipe that I had selected for carrying forward the trust of John Barber:-

https://rebornpipes.com/2018/07/07/faridas-dads-pipes-5-restoring-a-dunhill-root-briar-56-bent-billiard/

The above blog makes for a very interesting read to know the personality of Late Mr. John Barber and his adventures as conveyed by his daughter, Farida. The below picture has been picked from the above blog which Steve had done and the pipe that I had selected from Farida’s Dad collection (indicated with a yellow arrow) and the one now on my work table has been marked in blue circle.As with few other pipes from John Barber’s collection, this pipe too has very worn out and faint stampings. Under magnifying glass and bright light one is able to make out the very faint stamping on the left of the shank as “# 197” followed by “DUNHILL” over “BRUYERE”. On the right side the very faint stamping that is visible is “ENGLAND” and a circled “4” followed by the letter “A”. The high quality vulcanite stem bears the trademark Dunhill white dot.To be very honest, I am not very keen to ascertain the vintage of this pipe and lack of stampings don’t help either, since I know that all the pipes that belonged to Farida’s father are from 1950s to 1970s. Having worked on eight Dunhill pipes from my Mumbai Bonanza and researched each one, I roughly know that a Dunhill Billiard with long tapered bit with shape code # 197, similar to what I have on my work table, is from the period 1950 and 1969. This corresponds with other pipes that Steve had worked on from this collection.

I now move ahead with my initial visual inspection as it helps me chalk out a rough path or sequence that I would follow during restoration and also the processes that I would have to employ at each stage of restoration.

INITIAL VISUAL INSPECTION
This is indeed one pipe which I would have not have selected and worked on in the first place, even though it is a Dunhill, but for the provenance of this pipe and for the reasons mentioned above. The stummel is covered in dirt and grime of decades of uncared for use and storage. The stummel is very sticky to the touch and appears to be smothered in some kind of lard, could it be whale fat or fish oils from the Arctic or Antarctic expeditions that it had accompanied the previous owner? I would not know, but it is all prevalent over the stummel surface. Underneath all this lard, dirt and grime, the highest quality of the briar and solid feel in hand for which Dunhill pipes are renowned, can be seen and be felt. Beautiful cross grains along the shank bottom, front and back of the stummel await to be revealed in all their glory. Similarly, lovely bird’s eye grains on both the sides of the stummel should show up nicely when the surface is cleaned. A distinct patch on the left and right side of the stummel is prominently seen which could have been caused due melting of the lard (?) from the warmth and holding of the stummel while smoking. There is a prominent crack on either sides of the stummel extending downwards from the rim outer edge towards the heel for a few millimeters and is marked in red circle. The front and foot of the stummel is peppered with dents and dings. These should be addressed to a great extent when I sand the stummel surface to get rid of all the sticky substance and grime. Coming on to the assessment of the rim top surface and the chamber, it is immediately apparent that this is where the maximum damage lies!!!! There is an even layer of thick cake and appears to have been partially reamed before being stowed away. The rim top surface also appears to have been topped to address the severe charring to the inner edge of the rim at 6 o’clock and 12 o’clock direction (marked in red circle) and at the outer edge towards the front and back end of the stummel (marked in green semi circle). The inner edge is completely out of round and is at its thinnest in the 6 o’clock direction and along the left side of the chamber. A crack (marked with yellow arrow) is clearly visible on the left side atop the rim top surface in 9 o’clock direction which extend in to the chamber as well as to the outside as described in stummel condition above. The topped rim surface is considerably darkened and appears to have absorbed copious amounts of oils and tars. I plan to extract these oils through a salt and alcohol soaking of the chamber. The condition of the inner walls of the chamber will be ascertained only after the cake has been taken down to the bare briar. However, I envisage heat lines and fissures all over the inner walls what with the pipe being subjected to some serious use! And the smell of St. Bruno tobacco, Farida’s Dad’s favorite tobacco, is all pervading and super strong. The shank and mortise is completely clogged with accumulated oils, tars and grime and air flow is laborious to say the least. The edges of the shank end are out of round resulting in shouldering effect once the stem is seated in to the shank. The seating of the stem also appears to be a bit skewed towards the right side by a minuscule margin though not easily noticeable.The vulcanite stem has calcium depositions on either sides about an inch and a half from the button edge towards the tenon end. There are deeper bite marks on the upper and lower stem surface near the buttons in the bite zone. However, the buttons on either surface is undamaged. The tenon and horizontal slot show heavy deposition of dirt, oils and tars, adversely affecting the air flow.THE PROCESS
The restoration process started with sanding the bite zone of the stem with a folded piece of 220 grit sand paper to remove the calcium deposition and followed by internal cleaning of the tenon, stem air way and the slot with pipe cleaners and isopropyl alcohol. This was followed by cleaning the stem surface of all the oxidation by immersing the stem in “Before and After Stem Deoxidizer” bath overnight. This solution developed by Mark, pulls all the oxidation to the surface and makes the subsequent cleaning a breeze.The next morning, Abha my wife, took the stem out and cleaned all the thick sticky solution from the surface under running warm water. She blew out the solution that had clogged the airway and scrubbed out the raised oxidation with cotton pads and a piece of 0000 grade steel wool. She applied a little quantity of Extra Virgin Olive oil in to the stem to hydrate the vulcanite and set it aside. The initial sanding with a folded piece of 220 grit sand paper had evened out the minor tooth chatter and now that the stem is free of the heavy oxidation, I have a clear understanding of the damage that needs to be addressed, which by the way, is very minimal. I am pleased with the stem appearance at this stage.To raise the deeper bite marks from the upper and lower surface of the stem, I flamed the surface with a lighter flame. I went ahead and sand the raised bite mark with a 220 grit sand paper and sharpened the button edges. With a cotton swab and isopropyl alcohol, I wiped the stem surface to clean it of all the dust. I mixed superglue and activated charcoal powder and filled the bite marks and set it aside to cure. While the stem fill was set aside to cure, I worked the stummel and reamed the chamber with size 3 blade head of PipNet pipe reamer. Using my smaller sized fabricated knife, I removed all the cake from the areas which could not be reached by the reamer head. Very carefully, I removed all the charred briar from the outer and inner edges till I reached solid briar wood. With a folded piece of 220 grit sand paper, I sand the chamber walls to remove the last remaining traces of cake and wiped it with a cotton swab dipped in isopropyl alcohol. I am not very enthusiastic about the way the chamber appears at this stage. The inner edge at the rear has been pushed back significantly thinning the rim top surface. Also, the walls are peppered with numerous minor heat fissures/ lines making a web pattern. The crack, it is now clear, extends in to the chamber over the rim surface and on to the outer stummel surface. Another crack is now evident on the right side of the rim surface, but it’s superficial and not deep. Here is how the chamber appears at this stage, though not very encouraging, I say. Continuing with internal cleaning, I cleaned out the mortise, first by scrapping out the entire dried accumulated gunk with a dental tool. I further cleaned the shank internals with hard and regular pipe cleaners dipped in alcohol. Even after removing the cake from the chamber and cleaning the shank internals, the smells in the chamber are still very strong; in fact, my entire room smells of it!!Before I moved to the next stage in the process, I wanted to access the extent of charring over the outer rim edge. I gently scraped the charred briar from the outer rim edge with a sharp knife. Again not a very encouraging sight as the gaping saddle that was formed at the front and back of the stummel was anything that could be addressed by simply creating a bevel over the outer rim edge. Sad!! I have the option of addressing this issue either by topping the rim top surface or by the way of rebuilding the outer rim edge. I shall decide on the best course of action when I reach that stage.Next I decided to address the copious amounts of oils and tars that have been absorbed by the stummel giving it a considerably darkened appearance and a sticky feel in the hand. I stretched a cotton ball into a thick wick, wound it around a folded pipe cleaner and inserted it in to the shank and pushed it till it came out of the draught hole and packed the chamber, just below the rim, with Kosher salt. I topped the bowl with isopropyl alcohol using a syringe. I topped the bowl with alcohol again after 20 minutes when the alcohol level had gone down and set it aside overnight for the salt and alcohol to do its intended job. The next morning, the salt had turned a dirty and smelly brown and so was the wick and pipe cleaner in the shank. The ghost smells, the rim top dark coloration and the stickiness in the surface were still strong and hence I decided to give it a second salt and alcohol bath. This time around I used cotton balls in place of Kosher salt what with Kosher salt being more expensive and not readily available. I repeated the entire process described above and set the bowl aside overnight. By the next afternoon, the alcohol had drawn out maximum of the remaining oils and tars from the stummel surface and trapped it in the cotton balls. I am satisfied with the condition of the bowl internals with this cleaning.With the internals of the pipe cleaned and sorted, it was time to move to the external cleaning of the stummel. Using a hard bristled tooth brush dipped in undiluted Murphy’s oil soap, I very deliberately scrubbed the stummel, cleaning the surface thoroughly. I was very deliberate on the surface areas which were covered in fat-like sticky substance over which dirt and grime had accumulated over the years. I also cleaned the mortise with a shank brush and dish washing soap. I scrubbed the surface with a pad of Scotch-Brite to rid the surface of the slime. I was surprised to observe the stummel turning greasy white. This would need resorting to some heavy duty and abrasive methods to get rid of this grease from the stummel surface. Here is how the stummel appeared at this stage. I am happy that the salt and alcohol treatment had drawn out all the oils from the pores of the briar as can be seen from the cleaned up rim top surface. Next, I decided to stabilize the cracks that were observed prominently on either sides of the stummel extending downwards from the rim outer edge for a few millimeters. Under a magnifying glass, I marked the end point of the cracks and using a 1 mm drill bit, I drilled a counter hole at the base of the crack taking care that I did not drill a through hole. This ensures that the crack is stabilized and does not spread any further. With a heat gun, I warm the stummel and this expands the crack minutely. I fill this crack with clear CA superglue and firmly press the sides together. Once the superglue had sufficiently hardened, I apply a little superglue along the entire crack (rim top and side of the stummel) and press briar dust over it. This further stabilizes, strengthens and masks the fill in the cracks. I had reached that point in restoration where I had to decide on the way ahead for rim repairs. I could either top the bowl till I had a perfectly even round rim top, compromising on the shape and size or I could go for a complete rebuild. I decided on the latter as topping would significantly reduce the bowl size. Using a worn out piece of 150 grit sand paper, I completely remove the charred briar from the outer and inner rim edges in preparation for rebuilding the rim top. Using the layering technique (layer of glue followed by briar dust pressed on to this layer and repeating till the fill is over and above the intact rim surface), I completely rebuild the rim top and set the stummel aside for the fills to harden. While the rim top rebuild was curing, I decided to address the stem repairs. The stem fills had cured nicely and using a flat head needle file, I sand the fill to achieve a rough match with the surrounding stem surface. I further sand the stem surface with a folded piece of 220 and 320 grit sand papers to further blend in the repairs. However, a minor air pocket was revealed on the lower surface of the stem and I spot filled it with clear superglue and set it aside to cure and turned my attention to the stummel repairs again.The rim rebuilt surface had cured nicely. I could now proceed with reshaping the rim top and the inner rim edge to an even round. I mount a coarse 150 grit sanding drum on to my hand held rotary tool and setting a speed at half, I carefully sand off the excess fill from the rim top surface and the rim inner edge till I had achieved a rough match with the intact portion of the rim top and inner edge. I further top the rim on a 220 grit sand paper to achieve a seamless rim top surface. With a folded piece of 220 grit sand paper, I worked the inner rim to a crisp and perfectly rounded edge. I am very pleased with the rim surface rebuild at this stage in restoration. Staying with the stummel, I next decide to address the greasy white coating of whale fat or blubber or whatever fats that covered the stummel surface (remember all the Arctic and Antarctic expeditions on which this pipe must have accompanied Late Mr. John Barber!!). I sand the entire stummel surface with a piece of 180 grit sand paper. I frequently wiped the stummel with a cloth wetted in hot water to get rid of the loosened fat coating. A lot of elbow grease and few grueling hours later, beautiful bird’s eye grains and swirls began to make an appearance over the stummel surface. With renewed vigor, I completely remove the greasy white coat of fat from the stummel. I was careful not to sand the sides of the shank, but only wiping with hot water in an attempt to preserve the worn out stampings on this pipe. Though the surface has been cleaned up nicely, it appears dry and lackluster. I rub a small quantity of Extra Virgin Olive oil in to stummel to hydrate the briar and set it aside for the oil to be absorbed by the briar. The grains in the stummel now pop out and appear resplendent in their beauty. All the hard work up to this stage was well worth the effort and much more. The following pictures speak for themselves! To further smooth out the rim top, I topped the rim surface over piece of 320 grit followed by 420, 600 and 800 grit sand papers. Even though the cracks have now been exposed as a result of this topping, I am not overly worried as I am confident that the cracks have been solidly filled and stabilized.At this point I decided to work on the inner walls of the chamber. There are heat lines seen on the walls of the chamber and add to that the rebuilt inner edge using superglue and briar dust. To protect the walls and prevent the superglue and briar dust from coming in to direct contact with the burning tobacco, I plan to first coat the rebuilt part and the heat lined surface of the chamber walls with J B Weld followed by a second coat of activated charcoal and yogurt to the entire chamber which would assist in faster cake formation. J B Weld is a two-part epoxy Cold Weld that consists of two parts; hardener and steel which are mixed in two equal parts (ratio of 1:1) with hardening time of 5-6 minutes and complete curing time of 6-8 hours. I poured the contents of the two tubes and mixed it well. With a flat bamboo frond, I applied this mix, as evenly as possible, over the intended areas. I worked fast to ensure an even coat over the chamber walls before the weld could harden. I set the stummel aside for the application to harden and cure overnight. By next afternoon when I got back to working on this pipe, the J B Weld coat had completely cured and hardened considerably. With a folded piece of 150 grit sandpaper, I sand the weld coating to a smooth surface and continued till I had as thin a coat as was essential to protect and insulate the walls from the direct heat of the burning tobacco. Here are pictures of the process and the progress at this stage. Wanting a change, I decided to now tackle the stem fill which had been left curing for the last couple of days. Little did I know at this point that I was still some days away from completing the stem repairs!! I followed the golden rule of pipe restoration; “Less is more” and move ahead with sanding the fill with a piece of 220 grit sand paper without first using a flat head needle file. I followed it up with sanding the entire stem surface with 400, 600 and 800 grit sand papers. I finished the sanding regime with a 0000 grade steel wool. It was at this stage that I noticed the same dreaded air pocket and the fill was peeling out. With a dental pick, I completely removed the old fill and refilled it with a fresh mix of activated charcoal and superglue. I set the stem aside to cure overnight, third fill for the same spot!! With time still on my side before I hit the bed for the night, I decided to work on the stummel which had been set aside to absorb the olive oil. I thoroughly wiped the bowl with an absorbent paper towel to remove all the excess oils from the bowl surface. I polished the stummel, including the newly rebuilt rim top surface, wet sanding with 1500 to 12000 grit micromesh pads. I wiped the surface with a moist cloth to remove all the sanding dust left behind by the pads. I was very careful with the stamping as I desired to preserve as much of the worn out stampings as was possible. Though the rebuilt rim surface and outer rim edges stand out as sore thumb at this stage, I intend to mask the same with a dark stain. The stummel surface appears promising and I am absolutely in love the bird’s eye grains on this pipe. Next, I rub a small quantity of “Before and After Restoration Balm” in to the briar with my finger tips and let it rest for a few minutes. The balm almost immediately works its magic and the briar now has a nice vibrant appearance with the beautiful darkened grain patterns on full display. I further buff it with a horse hair shoe brush. While the stummel was set aside for the balm to be absorbed, I worked the stem fill which had cured over 24 hours. I sand the fill with a used and worn piece of 180 grits sandpaper and followed it with wet sanding the entire stem with 1500 to 12000 grade micromesh pads. I wiped the stem with a moist cloth to remove the dust and monitor the progress being made after every three grit pads. The stem polished up nicely and has a rich deep black shine to it. I applied a little Extra Virgin Olive oil to rehydrate the vulcanite and set the stem aside.Though the stummel had cleaned up nicely with a deep color to the briar, it was nowhere near the deep reddish brown coloration associated with the Bruyere line of Dunhill pipes; in fact it was much lighter. While restoring a Dunhill Bruyere from my Mumbai Bonanza (https://rebornpipes.com/2019/03/13/reconstructing-a-broken-stem-on-dunhill-bruyere-51671/), I had stained the stummel in cherry red stain and though the end results were great, it was not the original color associated with a Bruyere. The comments and suggestions received from esteemed readers of the write up pointed me in the direction of achieving this color!!! I decided to first apply a coat of DB followed by a final coat of red stain. However, when I went through my stains, I realized that I did not have Dark brown stain; the Feibing’s stain bottle had mysteriously dried out!!!!! The next best option available was the Cordovan. I consulted Steve and though he was not sure about the color, he encouraged me to go ahead and that is exactly what I did. I heated the stummel surface with my heat gun to open up the pores on the stummel so that the stain is well set while being careful that I do not overheat the fill, a lesson learned while restoring Steve’s Alexander Zavvos pipe. I dipped a folded pipe cleaner in Feibing’s Cordovan leather dye and liberally applied it over the heated surface of the stummel, flaming it with a lighter as I progressed. This helps in the setting of the stain in the grain of the briar. I set the stummel aside overnight for the stain to set. The next afternoon, I mounted a felt cloth buffing wheel on to my hand held rotary tool and proceed, as my dear friend Dal Stanton likes to say “unwrap the coat of stain to reveal the grains” on the stummel surface. Alas, there was no revelation of any sorts!! All that I saw was a dark stummel. You must understand my disappointment at this stage. I realized that the stain coat was too thick. I needed to lighten it up a bit and hence, with a cotton swab wetted in isopropyl alcohol, I wiped the entire stummel surface. Though the stain has lightened a bit, it was not the result that I desired. Here is how the stummel appeared at this stage. To further lighten the stain and “reveal” the stummel grains, I dry sand the entire stummel with 1500 to 12000 grit micromesh pads. The grains are now clearly visible. However, the trademark color of Bruyere line is still an illusion……it was browner than the reddish brown stain that I was looking for. I decided on giving the stummel a stain wash with a Cherry Red stain as suggested by Steve. I diluted the Cherry Red stain powder in 99.9% isopropyl alcohol in approx ratio of 1:4. With a cotton swab, I dabbed the diluted stain over the stummel surface, letting it set for a few moments and thereafter wiping it off with a dry clean cotton swab. I repeated the process till I had achieved the desired coloration. I am pleased with the color of the stummel which is as close as I could achieve, to the original Bruyere color. This time around, even the fills had absorbed the stain and blended in nicely with the rest of the stummel. To complete the restoration, I reattach the stem with the stummel. I mount a cotton cloth buffing wheel on to my hand held rotary tool and applied several coats of carnauba wax. I finished the restoration by giving the entire pipe a rigorous hand buffing using a microfiber cloth to raise the shine further. This dude has definitely come a long way from the condition it was in at the start.Now that the cosmetic aspects of this pipe have dealt with, all that remained was the functional aspect that needs to be taken care of. The minor heat lines and the J B Weld coated surface needs to be protected from the direct heat of the burning tobacco and for this; I coat the complete chamber walls with a mix of activated charcoal and yogurt and set it aside to harden naturally.I shared a few pictures of the pipe with my mentor, Steve, expecting some hearty praises on this restoration!! However, his keen eyes noticed an issue which had missed mine. He very gently pointed that a sterling silver band at the shank end would mask the shouldering that was inadvertently created!! This remark of his left me shocked!! Not at the remark as such, but at the fact that I had shouldered the shank end during the restoration process. Still smarting at being chided by my teacher, I revisited all the pictures and true enough, this issue already existed and I had missed out mentioning it in my initial inspection in the write up and hence missed it out during the entire process. I made necessary amendments to the post and had to keep the pipe aside till I reached back home during my leave where my local silversmith would fabricate one such ring for me.

I revisited the small, dingy and unsophisticated shop with rudimentary tools where the craftsman had built me a Sterling Silver ring for an Alfred Massin Meerschaum cutty that I had restored two months ago (https://rebornpipes.com/2019/10/09/complicating-a-simple-restoration-of-a-cutty-meerschaum/). The craftsman at the shop made me a perfect ring for the Dunhill shank end. This ring not only masks the shouldering, it also adds a touch of class while breaking the monotony of the pipe. I refreshed the bowl coating with activated charcoal yogurt mix and completed this project with a vigorous hand buffing with a microfiber cloth. How I wish I had carried my hand held rotary tool and some carnauba wax for a final polish while on leave!!! Nevertheless, the finished pipe has received a fresh lease on life and is now all set to stay with me for the rest of my time on this earth as part of my Dunhill rotation. The repairs are solid and blended in well with the surrounding surfaces. All that now remains is to load a nice English blend and enjoy a quite peaceful smoke… P.S. This perhaps would be the longest write up that I ever have posted on rebornpipes.com!! Apart from the Alfred Massin Meerschaum pipe that I have mentioned above, this project extended over a period of two months, just for the want of sterling silver band. Nonetheless, it was one project that I enjoyed working on and hope that my Guru and mentor Steve gives me passing marks on this test project (remember that it was a sort of test put forth by Steve for me!).

The most important aspect of this restoration was being able to live up to the belief and faith that Farida had entrusted in Steve and through him, in me, to carry forth the trust of her Father. It is while working on this project that I fully comprehend and understand what and why Dal Stanton calls himself Pipe Steward!! A perfect term coined by this well read gentleman, I say.

Farida, if at all you read this write up, I wish to let you know that it has been a privilege to have been afforded an opportunity to carry forward the trust of your father. As I puffed on this Dunhill, I could conjure up images of your father and his dogs amidst all the snow and loneliness…. A MAN, HIS FAITHFUL PIPE AND HIS BELOVED DOGS!! Thank you Steve and Farida…… and the pipe has a new friend!!

The CPF Arcadia: A Pipe Out of Time

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Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Copyright © Reborn Pipes and the Author except as cited
https://www.roadrunnerpipes2k.com/
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Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors

Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.
— Anonymous, quoted in “The Monkey’s Paw,” W.W. Jacobs, from The Lady of the Barge, 1902

INTRODUCTION
Whatever inspiration led Cliff Edwards to write the lyrics to the song that became Disney’s theme, “When You Wish upon a Star” – in which one’s heart need only be in the dream for no request to be too extreme, and fate will be kind – must have been, to be gentle to all of the Mouseketeers out there, in an alternate reality to mine. I’ve long had two rules: be careful what you ask for, lest you get it, and above all, never ask for what you deserve, because everyone has done things that should have had stiffer consequences. I’m not being cynical. From my experience, it’s just the way whatever Higher Power we call by various names helps us humans avoid being selfish and greedy, at least those who ask for guidance now and then if not more.

Of course, I’m not perfect, in fact, far from it. I found myself during the past two months or so becoming more and more fixated on acquiring not just any new pipe, but one made by the Colossus Pipe Factory. Then I began my hunt in earnest, with eBay searches and general Googling, but to no avail. At last I got a hit with a pair of pipes titled, in a somewhat jumbled way, “Vintage Smoking Pipe Tobacco Lot of 2 Arcadia CPF London England Briar.” From that description alone I thought maybe I was going to see something made by an Arcadia brand and a rare English CPF. There were enough photos, however, and they were good, to determine without doubt that a big, smooth poker stamped on the right MADE IN/LONDON ENGLAND was one mixed-up part of the seller’s heading, and CPF Arcadia was the other. The disarray of the title and the low price I paid – about $45 – told me the seller didn’t know what he had and the other bidders were not sure enough that the CPF was real to risk going higher.

Before bidding anything and after studying the pics of the alleged CPF – and I mean I really poured over every detail of them – I was certain it had to be a fake, except for the band on the shank.

From the photos that I snapped when it arrived in the mail with the poker I believe is a Ben Wade reject, the only authentic-looking parts of a CPF are the band, bone tenon and stem. Otherwise, honestly, I could see where the basic chunk of wood could have been fashioned into a stummel long ago before some Flower Child got ahold of it and turned the bowl into a psychedelic pin cushion, but I could not imagine anyone alive more than a century ago, especially the Old World masters employed by CPF, fashioning such a monstrosity, as I saw the pipe before its comic beauty grew on me. I even used the “m” word in an email I sent to Steve, with a link to the eBay sale, in which I more or less implored him to tell me it wasn’t real, meaning a genuine CPF.

Needless to say, I was shocked when Steve not only replied that the Arcadia was real and “very old,” an age distinction he had never before made to me, but that he had worked on a meerschaum like it a couple of years ago. Here are some before and after shots of Steve’s meerschaum, which indeed bear a scary resemblance to my old briar.

A.F. & Co./BBB Spotted Meerschaum photos courtesy Steve Laug.

The severe chicken pox-like similarities are undeniable, and I scrutinized every word and photo of Steve’s blog in hopes of connecting the dots (I’m so sorry, that just popped out) of the definitely funky tobacco pipe specimens. Struck by a gung-ho fit to research the abbreviation “AF&C0” in Steve’s third photo above, I interrupted my reading to find the answer before continuing and learning Steve already had done so: Adolph Frankau & Co. of England. Steve’s work restoring the meerschaum that he also dated to 1905, thanks to great detective work tracing the unique hallmarks on the sterling silver band, was phenomenal, in particular the addition of a Bakelite stem that he not only fitted to the shank but made look as old as the original stummel.

Now, in case anyone thinks my choice of details a mere glut of disconnected trivia, I’ll make my point. Steve took one look at the weird pipe for sale on eBay, flashed on the A.F. & Co./BBB meerschaum he gave new life and instinctively sensed a connection. I have to say, I had doubts despite the almost genetic resemblance. After all, there was no indication my CPF Arcadia was a Frankau import. By the time Steve and I connected on the phone to discuss the two pipes and other matters, I had restored the Arcadia and warmed to its charms. Although lacking any proof of the pipe’s date of manufacture such as Steve dug up for the meerschaum, certain minute observations and research led me to conclude it was created in the latter part of the 19th century. Steve concurred.

In particular, I finally figured out that the stem was not Vulcanite but black horn, and the metal band boasted that it was “Nickel Plated.” What kind of pipe brags about having a nickel plated band? Nowadays, that’s the bottom of the barrel. So I looked up nickel plating history online and learned that in 1837 the first crude electrochemical nickel plating of platinum was accomplished. Really? Someone thought to cover up the most precious metal with nickel? You bet he did, and in 1869 a better process that became the industry standard for 70 years was discovered. The purpose of nickel plating certain other metals, of course, remains nickel’s resistance to tarnishing and corrosion. The only logical explanation for the proud “NICKEL PLATED” stamp on the band of my CPF, therefore, is that the process was still relatively new. Given that point and the use of black horn stems being much less common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when amber and Bakelite predominated, I am satisfied the pipe was created in the waning years of the Victorian Era.

Returning to Steve and his inspired flash that the “knobby meer,” as he called it, and the CPF Arcadia are related, Steve told me he now questions whether the meerschaum is a real BBB, owing to certain unstated problems with the band. Steve is the expert, but this time I have to disagree and urge him to stick with his instincts. The notion of the meerschaum, knobs and all, being a bona fide BBB is no wilder than my briar, with its gaudy plastic bulbs and brass studs, being a genuine CPF, and I do not mean to suggest in a roundabout way that neither is the truth. Granted the extremity of different materials used to make the pipes, and the necessity of alternate methods for achieving the knobby looks, and still further suspending disbelief because of the admitted implausibility of the idea, I nevertheless can’t help thinking that the connection is the actual crafter of the two pipes. To be blunt, I think the same person made both of them. Of course, I will never be able to prove the theory. Well, isn’t that convenient, as the Church Lady used to say.

With a little more research, I was pleased to settle with much more certainty a question that nagged Steve in his blog of the unusual meerschaum: was there a connection between it and BBB? As several of the sources below show, the link is clear. Frankau, who started business in 1847, died in 1856. At that time, his widow was persuaded to continue operation of A.F. & Co. under the control of Frankau’s very young assistant, Louis Blumfeld, who was then only 18. Blumfeld started BBB (for Blumfeld’s Best Briar, later Britain’s Best Briar), the famous triangular symbol for which he trademarked in 1905 – again, the year Steve’s meerschaum was made – under the A.F. & Co. banner. BBB seems to be the first pipe maker with a trademark. And so the connection, if I haven’t made it obvious, is that A.F. & Co. owned BBB.

Arcadia, part of the modern-day Peloponnese, a peninsular region of southern Greece (capital, Tripoli), is also a reference to Greek mythology. The mythological Arcadia was named for Arcas, a hunter who became king of the utopic wilderness and is best remembered for teaching the skills of baking bread and weaving. In Arcadian myth, Pan, the god of shepherds, hunters and the wilds, is said to have roamed the region with dryads, nymphs and other spirits. The name, therefore, is an odd one for this pipe, unless it’s a reference to the Calydonian Boar killed by the king’s daughter, Atlanta.

CPF had an ephemeral but brilliant run from 1851 to c. 1915, producing with the unparalleled skill of its Old World craftsmen some of the most astounding pipes, meerschaum and briar, ever created. That’s all I need tell of CPF’s history, as Steve’s account in the sources below is the definitive authority. Another link to a few of the CPF beauties in Steve’s Wonderland collection shows examples that are far closer to what I had in mind when I was wishing for a pipe of that great brand to find its way to me.

But that’s what can happen to someone who wishes for something.

RESTORATION
A few close-ups show the peculiarities and problems I found. The first, featuring the front of the bowl, makes the little, round, plastic bulbs – which I did not yet know the means of connection to the bowl – appear red instead of their actual light brown. Scratches all over the uneven surface that is spotted with the bulbs and brass studs presented awkwardness to remove. The second shot, of the rim and chamber, has the correct color of the bulbs and at a glance seems the hardest part of the pipe’s repair but in fact was the easiest. The third pic made me happy the band was already spinning on the shank so I could leave it out of an early alcohol soak. The grime and stains would come off, but I knew I could not fill in the missing patches of nickel. Then there was the stem, top and bottom, with moderate tooth damage that would typically be no hassle to eliminate if it were Vulcanite.Before I continue, take a close look at the bowl and count the bulbs and brass studs. There are seven bulbs and four studs, and the arrangement may seem random. But look again, and you’ll see a very odd order: on the left side, the bulbs start on the top left to right and then down to the bottom right; the studs move diagonally from the lower left to the middle. On the right side, the opposite is true: the bulbs go from top left down to bottom left and then bottom right, and the studs are diagonal from top right to middle. On the front, three bulbs form a diagonal, tic-tac-toe line from top right to bottom left, or vice versa if you prefer. Finally, the back shows all four corners with bulbs. The person who crafted this pipe had a very playful sense of order.

Thinking the Arcadia stem was Vulcanite but knowing it would do no harm anyway, I tossed it and the one from the Ben Wade reject candidate in an OxiClean bath. The usual old dirt and tobacco residue came off both. The first pictures after the bath show the stem not yet fully dried, and the next three dry. This was when I snapped that perhaps the stem material was not Vulcanite and Googled black horn, although if I had ever heard of such a variety of that organic material, it was dredged up from my subconscious. I emailed Steve somewhat stupidly without photos. He replied that horn has striations that are visible under a magnifier, so I shot him back the above photos and asked if the last showed the kind of marks he meant. His brief response was, “Definitely horn.” In the meantime, I had followed up with 220-grit sanding and wet and dry micro meshing from 1500-12000.While the stem had been taking a bath, I soaked the stummel in Isopropyl alcohol. I was worried about the possible effects of the alcohol on the bulbs, but somewhat less catastrophic in the potential result than the Trinity Tests of the atom bomb south of Albuquerque nearing the end of World War II, I took a gamble.I started the next longer part by sanding the rim with 400- and 1000-grit papers, then the rest with 1000. Smoothing the chamber with 60- and 320-grit papers, I followed up with a full micro mesh of the rim and rest of the outer stummel.I thought Fiebing’s Dark Brown leather stain would be good for the stain.I performed the retort and decided to add a coat of Fiebing’s Burgundy. I was satisfied with the color result, but in the process of flaming and micro meshing after the latter stain, a couple of the bulbs went M.I.A. Faced with the not altogether unanticipated contingency of somehow having to replace a bulb or two, as I still considered them, I had already considered using small push pins, the kind for wall maps, and had found a couple of places online that carried close to the same shade of brown in case it became necessary. Hoping to avoid the time waiting for them to arrive by mail, however, I scoured this wannabe big city that is lacking in so many of the amenities found in the real thing. The best I could find was the following box of 200 map pins in every color but brown (any shade of it!). The good news was that they only cost $2.99 minus tax at a hobby store. I concluded it would be necessary to replace all seven of the bulbs for the sake of consistency and suppose I might have opted for a conservative dark blue or even black, but as Tom Cruise’s high school character in Risky Business put it, “Sometimes you just have to say what the @#$*!” Besides, Christmas is coming up. The smaller brown pin below was an original I twisted out.The one prospect I didn’t even consider until I examined the holes left by the missing “bulbs” was that some antique version of map pins might have been used when the pipe was adorned in such an unconventional way by its maker. But when the time came to remove the bulbs that were still intact, I found out they were indeed nothing more than map pins from more than a century ago. All I had to do was snip off the longer metal ends of the new ones and Super Glue them into the slots. I still don’t know how the brass studs are attached because I didn’t want to mess with them. I’m curious by nature, but I have limits. My dad always said, if it works, don’t fix it.

And so, without further ado, here is the finished CPF Arcadia. CONCLUSION
I’ve come to love this pipe out of time that should have been made in the Art Deco period, which didn’t really get rolling until 1925 and hit its peak in the 1930s art scenes of Europe and the U.S. – or even the hippie (or psychedelic, counterculture and what-have-you) movement of the 1960s into the ’70s). If this restoration taught me anything, it’s that sometimes wishing for something vague can lead to a happy ending. I’ve come to love this pipe and will happily keep it if it doesn’t sell. And it is for sale, for the right price on my site, or a good trade.