Tag Archives: restaining a bowl and rim

Restemming and Refurbishing an Arlington Imported Briar Pot

Blog by Steve Laug

I have a box with a few pipe bowls in it that need restemming. When I get low on pipes for refurbishing I take one of these bowls and restem it. Generally they are not even midrange pipes. Rather they are an odd assortment of no name bowls or low end bowls that I have picked up along the way somewhere. Each of these provides me with something to practice on in terms of staining, bowl topping, repairing fills, rustication or restemming. The one I worked on last evening is stamped Arlington over Imported Briar on the left side of the shank and no other numbers. The bowl was dirty and tarred with a thick and crumbly cake. The rim was tarred and dented but no roughening from hitting against something. The shank was full of tars and even a few cobwebs. The rustication was deep on the bowl toward the bottom at the bowl shank junction. The finish was gone and the briar was dirty.

There is not much information available on the brand. A search on Google did not turn up much other than some information from Pipedia. The Brooklyn, New York Company known as Arlington Briar Pipe Corporation mainly operated as a sub-contractor for other brands. Jobey pipes are said to be made by Arlington at an unknown point of time. Arlington’s own pipes are seldom seen. The article also included the following advertisement from the RTDA Catalogue.

I used the PIMO tenon turning tool to fit a tenon on a stem blank that I had in my can of stems. I fine-tuned the fit with sand paper until it fit well.I took the next series of four photos to show the state of the pipe before I worked on it.

I cleaned the inside of the shank and bowl with cotton swabs and pipe cleaners dipped in Everclear. The alcohol removed the grime from the shank. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer. The bowl is quite large – so I used the largest cutting head on the reamer. I wiped down the tars on the rim with alcohol wetted cotton pads to clean off the buildup as much as possible.

To clean up the rim damage I lightly topped the bowl with a medium grit sanding block. I also sanded the burn spot on the side of the shank to try to minimize it and see how deeply the damage went. It was still hard and not too badly damaged but to remove it I would change the profile of the shank so I left it as a character mark.

After topping the bowl I wiped the entirety down with acetone on a cotton pad. I wanted to remove as much of the remaining finish as possible to make a match between the rim and the rest of bowl easier to achieve.

I then sanded the stem to bring the diameter to match the shank. I also wanted to remove the entire casting overflow on the sides and the end of the stem. I used a Dremel with a sanding drum to remove the initial excess and to bring the diameter close to that of the shank. Then I used 220 grit sandpaper to finish the fitting. I cleaned up the scratches left behind by the sandpaper with a medium grit sanding sponge and then finally used a sanding block to sand the shank and stem to good smooth fit and flow. The next seven photos show the progress to a proper fit of the new stem.

I stained the bowl with a medium walnut stain in a linseed oil base. I rubbed it on the bowl with a cotton pad and then wiped it off with a soft cloth. I reapplied the stain until I had good coverage to the bowl. The bowl has some great grain in places and the deep grooves looked good with the new stain coat. Once the stain was dry to touch I buffed it on the wheel with White Diamond and set it aside to work on the stem.

I sanded the stem with my usual stack of micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit. I wet sanded with the first three grits of micromesh and dry sanded with the remaining grits. Once I had finished the sanding I gave the stem a coat of Obsidian Oil and rubbed it into the vulcanite.

When I had finished with the stem I reinserted it in the shank and took the pipe to the buffer again. I buffed the pipe and stem with White Diamond and then gave the entirety multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buff to give it a shine. The next four photos show the finished pipe.

A Dr. Grabow Special Rhodesian/Bulldog – A Makeover

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The last of the pipes from the Ebay lot below was the one in the bottom left corner of the photo. It was stamped Dr. Grabow over Special over Imported Bruyere on the left side of the shank. The finish was a varnish or polyurethane coat over the briar. It was bubbling and crackling. There was water damage on the edges of the rim. The briar itself was in good shape with no dents or roughening on the rim. The rim was slightly darkened but no dents or dings. The bowl was slightly out of round from poor reaming but very workable. The stem was a mess with chew marks on the top and the bottom for about an inch up the stem from the button. The stem was made of nylon and not vulcanite. The tenon was a push style and not a screw in stem. There was a shovel like stinger in the end of the tenon. The stem was loose in the shank and there was significant debris and buildup in the shank and in the stem. The second photo below shows the pipe as it was in the pictures from the seller.

I took it to my worktable this evening and went to work on it. I took the stem out and began to sand on the bite marks on the top and bottom of it. The next series of five photos show the progress of smoothing out the stem by sanding. I began with 220 grit sandpaper and worked up to a medium grit sanding sponge. By the fourth and fifth photo the bite marks are gone and some sanding scratches remain that will need to be worked out with micromesh sanding pads. I recut the edge of the button on the top and bottom with a needle file to clean up the angles. That is also visible in the last two photos. I also removed the stinger and cleaned it with 0000 steel wool and then polished it with micromesh sanding pads.

While I worked on the stem the bowl had been soaking in an alcohol bath to help loosen the varnish or urethane finish. My plan was to remove the finish totally and sand and restain the pipe once it was cleaned and sanded.

The alcohol bath softened the finish so when I dried it off the finish was cloudy. I have found that with this kind of finish I can use acetone on a cotton pad afterward to further remove the softened finish. The next two photos show the bowl with the finish removed. There is some nice looking birdseye grain coming through. Once the briar was clean I reglued the metal decorative band back on the shank and let it dry.

I sanded the bowl with the medium grit sanding sponge and then with 1500-2400 micromesh sanding pads. The next series of four photos are a little out of focus but the cleaned surface of the briar is visible and the grain that was underneath the finish is quite nice. I was also able to remove the water marks/damage that was along the outer edge of the rim and down the side of the bowl in the process of the sanding. I also cleaned out the shank with cotton swabs and Everclear. I did the stem as well and cleaned until the cleaners and swabs came out clean and white.

While the glue dried I worked on the nylon stem. I was able to remove all of the tooth damage. I wet sanded it with 1500-2400 micromesh sanding pads and removed the majority of the scratches left behind by the sanding sponge. I continued to rework the stem with these sanding pads until all of the scratches were gone and the stem began to take on a shine. (Photos 1-2 below show a top and bottom view of the stem).

I dry sanded with the remaining grits of micromesh sanding pads from 3200-12,000 grit. The stem took on its original shine. The next series of four photos show the stem as it moves through each level of polishing.

I wiped the bowl down a final time with acetone on a cotton pad to remove the sanding dust and grit. I dried it carefully and then it was ready to stain. I decided to use a linseed oil and medium walnut stain on this pipe. I felt it would make the grain show well and give the bowl a good protective coat. I applied the stain and wiped it off, reapplied and wiped it until I got the coverage I wanted on the bowl. The next series of four photos show the stained bowl.

I buffed the bowl and shank on the buffing wheel lightly with Tripoli and then with White Diamond to give it a shine. I then buffed it with carnauba wax and gave it several coats to protect the wood. I did not buff the stem on the wheel as the nylon heats too quickly on the buffing wheel and melts. I have made a mess out of more than one nylon stem. It does not seem to matter how light a touch I use the wheel and the nylon stems do not work well together. I gave the stem a coating of Obsidian Oil and rubbed it into the stem. I then hand applied several coats of carnauba wax and hand buffed the stem with a shoe brush and a soft cotton cloth. The finished pipe is pictured below. All in all it is not a bad looking old Grabow. It is clean and should smoke very well.

Rejuvenating A Nicely Grained Merchants Service Apple

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I bought a pair of older pipes on EBay for a good price. I have written about the refurbishment of the first – the ¾ bent Royal Falcon in an earlier blog post. This particular post is about the second pipe. It is pictured at the top of the first two photos below and on the left in the third photo. It is stamped on the left side of the shank with the words, Merchants over Service in block capital letters over London Made also in block caps though smaller stamp. There is a shape number stamped next to the above stamping and just prior to the stem – 519. The photos below were supplied by the seller in the EBay sale. The seller said that the finish on the pipe looked very good in the photos and the stem was in good shape without cracks, dents or tooth chatter. They also said that the bowl was clean but previously smoked.

While I waited for its arrival I did a bit of hunting on the web to find out what I could about the brand. There was not much information available and what was there was attached to Bing Crosby. What I found out about the brand on the internet turns out to have originally come from Jose Manuel Lopes great work called Pipes, Artisans and Trademarks. The Merchant Service Pipe was a former English brand of pipe made by Merchant Service Ltd. It was a firm created by Herbert Merchant (d.1944) and which later belonged to Holland Penny Limited. It turns out that the company was a favourite of the North American Entertainer Bing Crosby. That is not a lot of information and I would love to find some more. If anyone who reads this has more information please do not hesitate to post it in the response boxes below.

I took the pipe to my worktable this morning and worked on the stem. It was pretty clean though it had some oxidation on the left side next to the shank and some tooth chatter on the top and bottom of the stem next to the button. I sanded the stem with 1500 grit micromesh to remove the oxidation and to sand away the tooth chatter next to the button. I wet sanded with the micromesh pad until the finish was a matte black and free of oxidation and marks. The next four photos show the stem after this initial sanding.

The underside of the bowl was covered with many fills of a pinkish coloured putty that showed through the finish.

I decided to remove the largest of the putty fills and rework them with briar dust and superglue. To prepare the surface of the briar for reworking the fills I wiped down the surface of the bowl with acetone on a cotton pad. As I removed the grime and some of the dark buildup on the bowl a beautiful grain began to pop out on the briar. This one was going to be a beauty when I finished refurbishing it.

I cleaned out the inside of the pipe and stem before working on the fills. It took many pipe cleaners and cotton swabs to remove the buildup inside the stem and shank. The shank had a reservoir area below the airway and it had collected a lot of tars and build up. The stem was also dirty on the inside.

When I had finished cleaning it I removed the stem and turned the bowl over on the worktable to begin to pick out the putty in the fills. Once I had the putty picked out I wiped the surface down with acetone once again to remove the debris that might be left behind in the flaws. I packed briar dust into the cleaned areas and tamped it down into the grooves. Once it was tightly packed I dripped clear superglue into the repaired area and pushed some more briar dust into the superglue surface. When it was dry, which takes very little time, I would sand down the surface to make it match the bowl surface.

I sanded the superglue/briar dust fill with 220 grit sandpaper and a medium grit sanding sponge to remove the excess of the patch (I always overfill them as they tend to shrink as the glue dries). The third photo below shows the patch after the sanding has blended it into the surface of the bowl. I sanded it with micromesh sanding pads 1500-3200 grit to prepare the surface for the restaining. I wiped it down a final time with acetone on a cotton pad to remove all grit from the sanding. It was ready for a restaining.

I applied a dark brown aniline stain mixed with two parts isopropyl alcohol to one part dark brown stain. I used a cotton swab to apply it to the newly sanded area of the repair and flamed it and restained until it matched the rest of the bowl. When that was finished I gave a light coat of stain and flamed it to the entire bowl to blend in the restain on the bottom even more. The next five photos show the restained bowl bottom and then the retouched remainder of the bowl.

With the bowl finished and ready to go it was time to tackle the stem. I sanded it with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit and dry sanded with the remaining grits. The next three photos below show the progressive shine building on the stem. Once it was finished I buffed it with White Diamond and then rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil to protect it. When it had dried I put it back on the pipe and took it to the buffer.

I buffed the entirety (carefully around the stamping) with White Diamond a final time and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean flannel buffing pad. Once it was finished I loaded up a bowl of Balkan Sobranie Virginian No. 10 and went for a long walk on a cool and dry fall day in Vancouver. It is a great smoking pipe and one that is one of my favourite shapes.

A Canadian Pipe Maker I had never heard of: Leonard Payne Pipes

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Blog by Steve Laug

On a Saturday not too long ago I went on a pipe hunt in Vancouver. I began at the Vancouver Flea Market and worked my way back toward my home. I stopped a quite a few antique shops and “malls” in my hunt for old pipes. I found a few at the flea market and several old timers at the shops that I left behind. However, one pipe caught my eye. It was not a brand that I had seen before or heard of.It was a nicely shaped thick shanked apple that needed very little work. It had a bit of tarry build up on the rim, some tooth chatter on the stem and minor oxidation. It grabbed my attention. The stamping was Leonard Payne on the left side of the shank and Made in Canada on the right side. The stem bears a green dot in the centre of a white circle on the left side of the stem. I decided to do a bit of research on the web and found the following advertisement that highlighted the pipes.

Further digging with Google came up with this short note from alt.smokers.pipes forum. It was written by Mike Glukler of Briar Blues. I quote it below in full. (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.smokers.pipes/RrICLiVgE2o) “Leonard Payne was based in B.C. for many years. He came to Canada from England. He had shops in Surrey, B.C. and Kelowna, B.C.Interesting fellow. Gruff as the day is long. When you bought a pipe it was handed to you in a paper bag. No sock, no box. Most of his pipes carried a “carburetor” system at the shank / stem junction.Another Payne idea was his shanks. Almost all his pipes were two pieces. He’d turn the bowl and shank, then cut off the shank and reattach with glue (not always with the same piece of briar, so many did not match grains). His thinking was that the shank being the weakest link, if cut and glued would never break and thus “correcting”the weakest link.You may find his pipes on E-Bay on occasion listed as a Len Cayne. The P in his stamping looks more like a fancy upper case C.”

That is the extent of information that I could find on the pipe. It was a Canadian made pipe carved by an eccentric BC pipe carver. The one example I purchase was a single piece of briar without the broken and reglued shank that Mike mentions above. It is a light weight piece of briar and the fit of the stem and shank is very well done. The gap between the end of the tenon and the end of the mortise is very small – just enough to allow for expansion. The finish was very good and the stain well done.

My clean up on the pipe was very simple. I sanded out the tooth chatter on the stem near the button and polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit. I then took it to the buffer and used red Tripoli and White Diamond on the buffing wheels to further polish the stem. I reamed the bowl and cleaned the tars off the rim and polished it as well with White Diamond. I am careful when buffing the shank area where the stamping is so that I do not harm the stamping. Once I was finished with the polishing I gave the bowl and the stem several coats of carnauba wax. I polished the pipe with a soft flannel buffing pad. The finished pipe is pictured below.

Fast forward several months to a conversation had with a friend in Ontario via email. She had come across several Leonard Payne pipes and done the same research I did. She found the same information I did and sent me photos of the three pipes she found. We talked for a while and I offered to restem a pipe of hers. She sent me the pipe for work and then also the nice little Leonard Payne Zulu/Dublin pictured below.

She said that it needed some TLC but it was really in quite good shape. The finish was clean, though somewhat spotty. There were very few scratches or dings. There was a scuff mark on the bottom of the shank next to the stem and the stem was slightly scuffed in the same area. The rim was also clean. The bowl was already reamed and relatively clean. The bowl and shank smelled of Latakia but the pipe really seemed to be hardly smoked and certainly not broken in to the bottom of the bowl. The stem had some ripples in the surface near the button and in those were the remnants of tooth marks. The shoulders of the stem at the stem/shank junction were slightly rounded from sanding or buffing with the stem off the pipe. There were two small spots of oxidation around the logo.

I sanded the stems and shank with a fine grit sanding sponge and used a sanding block to reduce the rounding to the shoulders of the stem. I then sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit to polish the vulcanite. I rubbed stem down with Obsidian Oil and let it soak into the surface. Once it was dry I buffed it with White Diamond and then carnauba wax. The ripples in the stem are gone and the oxidation around the logo is also gone. My Black and Tan Cocker Spaniel decided to sit and “help” me this morning. He has learned that I generally have some dog chews at the work table but he gives me the illusion that he is really interested in what I am doing!

I set the stem aside and worked on the bowl. I found that though the finish was clean it was faded and spotty in places. I decided to give it a coat of medium walnut aniline stain mixed with linseed oil to even out the finish and give it a shine. I applied the stain with a cotton pad and then buffed it by hand with a cotton cloth when it was dry.

I reinserted the stem and gave the entire pipe a buff with White Diamond and then gave it several coats of carnauba wax. I finished by buffing the entirety with multiple coats of carnauba wax. The finished pipe is pictured below. This nice little pipe is cleaned, restored and ready to smoke. It joins the other Leonard Payne pipe in my collection.

A New Stem for a Barling’s Make Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

In talking with a friend a few days ago via email she mentioned that she had come across an old Barling pipe on US Ebay. She described it as a small billiard with nice grain, a few scratches and some over reaming in the bowl. The stem had a faded “W” or a crown on it the top. The stamping is Barling’s arched over Make on the left side and possibly a faint EL and a 3 near the bowl on the right side. She sent me the following two photos for me to have a look at the pipe.

From the photos and her description I was pretty certain the pipe stem was not original. It just did not look right in the photos above – the fit was off on the shank and the length was too short. I was pretty sure she had a replacement stem on the pipe. She packed it up and sent it off to me. I received it yesterday and took it to the work table. My assessment is below.

The pipe is old and very worn. The scratches that she mentioned were deeper than I expected from the photos. The finish was worn on the underside of the shank and in places on the sides of the bowl. There were some dark spots on the top and bottom of the shank that looked like stains from moisture or something sitting against the shank in a box. Several of the scratches had white markings in them. As she noted the bowl was over reamed but that too was worse than I expected. It had been reamed to the point that the walls were very thin all the way around and the inner edge of the bowl was out of round. In examining the tapered stem up close it indeed seems to be proportionally short in comparison to the length of the bowl and shank. The shoulders at the shank/stem union are rounded and the fit is not tight. The crown or “W” stamping she mentioned is very hard to see and I am not sure of the actual stamp. There were deep scratches on the vulcanite of the stem as well. In my opinion the pipe needed to be restemmed. The next three photos below show the pipe on my work table before I started fitting a new stem.

I had a slab cut stem blank in my box of stems that had a Barling like look to it. The tenon needed to be turned slightly and hand sanded to fit the shank well. The diameter of the stem at the joint of the shank and stem was larger and needed to be trimmed to fit well. The slab blank had casting seams along the edges, a tight slot and an unfinished look to the edges. I used a Dremel with a sanding drum to cut back the diameter of the stem at the shank. I also used it to sand away the casting marks and to smooth out the edges of the slab to give it a more finished looked. I took it back to the work table and sanded the saddle and slab with medium grit emery cloth to reduce the scratches left behind by the Dremel and to smooth out the fit to the shank. The next four photos show the state of the pipe after fitting the stem, using the Dremel and the emery cloth. The saddle still shows the marks of the sanding drum and needs more fine tuning to be a good tight fit but it is getting there. To me this stem looks more fitting to the old Barling’s Make billiard.

I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and a medium grit sanding sponge to fine tune the fit and to remove the scratches. I then sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit pads and used needle files to open up the slot in the button. I used the round, oval and flattened files to open and shape the slot. I sanded it with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the newly shaped slot. I then dry sanded with the remaining grits of micromesh from 3200-12,000 grit. The photos below show the progress of the sanding.

I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry while I worked on giving the bowl a new coat of stain to bring it back to life. I gave it a coating of Medium Walnut aniline stain and flamed it. I took it to the buffer and gave it a light buff with White Diamond on the buffing pad. I was careful around the faint stampings on the shank and hand buffed the shank.

I reinserted the new stem and gave the stem a buff with White Diamond and then waxed the entire pipe with carnauba wax. I applied several coats of the wax and the buffed it with a clean flannel buff to bring up the shine. The finished pipe is pictured in the four photos below. The new stem gives the pipe a much more dignified new look. I can’t wait to get it back to the owner and see what she thinks of the “new” look her pipe now sports!

Restoring An Interesting Piece of Pipe History – An Art Deco C.B. Weber Streamliner

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Blog by Steve Laug

In a recent EBay purchase I picked up a unique pipe that has a flowing look to it. I was intrigued to figure out the history and any information I could find regarding it so I went on a hunt on the web. One of the first articles I came across is found in the link below. http://streamlinesdeluxe.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/weber-streamliner-pipe-2/ The author of the blog makes a brief reference the pipe I found and even has a picture of it. He speaks of the stem being made of something other than vulcanite. Other references I found in online pipe forums spoke of the fact that the bowl was not made of briar but of some composite material. Others said that the bowls were made of American hardwoods. Interestingly no one spoke of what hardwoods were used. I have hunted high and low on the web and can find nothing definitive on the pipe’s manufacture or composition.

I broadened my search to information on finned pipes. I did not want information on Porsche design pipes or metal finned pipes but was looking for anything on wooden finned pipes. I came across the following information on a patent taken by a carver/designer named Wayne Leser. His diagrams and patent application is included below and it can be seen that it is actually very close to CB Weber’s Streamliner. His patent was applied for through the US Patent Office in January of 1941. I assume the patent was granted as it is on the Patent website. Weber’s design seems to be elongated a bit more than the Leser design but the tear drop shape of the outer bowl and the similarly tear drop shape of the drilling match quite well.

I can find no further information on Wayne Leser so I have no idea if he sold his concept to Weber, or worked for Weber. If anyone has further information on that connection it would be great to learn about it. Please post a response below.

The pipe I picked up is pictured below in photos from the EBay seller. The photos were not very clear so I could not see the condition of the pipe very well but I was intrigued by it nonetheless. It looked like the bowl was in good condition. The stem however, appeared to be a replacement stem and the fit was poorly done. In the second photo below it is evident that the junction of the stem and shank does not meet.

When the package arrived from the seller I took the pipe to my worktable and photographed the condition of the pipe. The pipe was in fairly decent condition. The left side of the bowl was clean. It is stamped Streamliner in script over C.B. Weber & Co.

There were two small divots in the shank just below the stamping. I thought at first these might be dents but they are actually spots where the wood is missing. The right side of the bowl is also in good shape. The fins are intact all the way around the bowl with no chips or breakage. The rim was tarred and had a small burn spot on the point at the front of the bowl. The stem was definitely a replacement stem. In my reading I had found copies of the logo that was originally on the stem and also the fact that the stem had a stinger apparatus as part of the fitments. This stem had neither and the fit was wrong. The diameter of the stem was bigger; the tenon was off center therefore the fit was out of line with the left side being too large and the right side too small. The length of the stem was also too long and did not match the dimensions that I had found online regarding the overall length of the pipe. The bowl was in pretty decent shape though there was some kind of bowl coating on it that had broken free of the walls. It is a tear drop shaped bowl with a downward angle on the front portion so reaming it would be tricky. The wood on this one was definitely not briar. The bottom of the bowl has a foot that makes it a sitter and there is a rusticated pattern on the bottom of the bowl.

I carefully reamed the bowl to remove the bowl coating and the slight cake that was there. I used two different cutting heads on the PipNet reamer. The first head was the same diameter as the main portion of the bowl. For the angle teardrop end I used the smallest cutting head. Between the two of them I was able to clean up the bowl and remove all of the coating.

Removing the tars from the rim was a bit of a challenge and combined with burn mark on the point I decided to sand off the rim with a medium grit sanding sponge. I would then have to restain the bowl. I sanded it with the medium grit sponge and then with a fine grit sanding block to work on the burn mark and the darkening of the rim.

I finished the sanding by wiping down the bowl with acetone on a cotton pad. I was able to even out the finish on the bowl and rim so matching stain would be much easier to do. I was also able to lighten the burn spot with the same process to the point that a good coat of oxblood stain would make it fade into the surface of the rim.

I then set the bowl aside and went to work on fitting a new stem to the bowl and shank. In the first photo below I have the new stem blank fit to the shank. It still needs work to make the diameters match. The stem is about an inch shorter and brings the pipe back to the original length as noted from my online work. I also think that proportionally it works better with the elongated bowl and shank than the one that came with it.

In order to get the fit good and tight I used a sanding block to make sure that the transition between the bowl and shank was smooth. This entailed sanding the shank slightly in the process. In the next series of four photos below the fit is finished. The transition is smooth and the fit is good and tight.

I wiped the pipe down with acetone once again to even out the finish on the shank. The grain in the original wood is quite visible in these photos and it is not briar.

The flow of the taper on the stem was still too chunky in my opinion to match the Streamline concept of the pipe. I used 220 grit sandpaper and files to change the slope of the stem. When I had it the way I envisioned I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper, a medium grit sanding sponge and also a fine grit sanding block. The angle was right and the profile looked much more “streamlined”.

I sanded the stem, bowl and shank with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded them with 1500-2400 grit sanding pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads.

I decided to try to match the original stain using a Danish Oil (linseed oil with a cherry stain). I applied the stain with a cotton pad and wiped it down. When it had dried I was not happy with the coverage and appearance so I removed the stain with acetone to try a different stain.

Once I had the finish removed I restained it with an oxblood aniline stain. I had to apply it and flame it several times to the top of the bowl and shank to get the stain to set deeply and match the rest of the bowl. This was a hard one to get a good stain on. I decided to not apply the stain in the grooves of the fins but just on the surface of the bowl. It worked quite well with the original stain in the fins matching the surface colour really well.

I did some further polishing on the stem with the higher grits of micromesh from 3600-12,000. Once I had finished the sanding I polished the stem with Maguiar’s Scratch X2.0 to deepen the shine. I coated the stem with Obsidian Oil and then buffed it with carnauba wax to seal it and protect it. The final buff on the stem was done with a soft flannel pad.

I reinserted the stem and gave the pipe a final buff with carnauba wax and a soft flannel buffing pad. The finished pipe clearly shows some of the grain pattern of the alternative wood on the shank and the top and bottom of the bowl. The stem came out fitting nicely and giving the overall pipe a new “streamlined” appearance more accurately approximating the original stem. The bowl feels great in the hand and is uniquely attractive as a piece of pipe history. Time will tell if I smoke this one or just keep it around for display purposes. Below are photos of the finished pipe.

Royal Falcon Full Bent – Comoy’s Shape 17

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I purchased the Royal Falcon along with a Merchant Service pipe from an Ebay lot for a good price. They both looked quite good in the photos provided by the seller below. I was not familiar with the brand so I did some research on it and found that it was a Comoy’s line. The numbering and stamping on the right side of the shank were identical to Comoy’s stamping.

The pipe is stamped on the left side of the shank, Royal over Falcon as pictured below. On the right side it is stamped Made in London in a Circle over England. Next to that is stamped shape number 17 which is a Comoy’s number. In checking on Pipephil’s site on logos and stampings it is clear that the pipe is definitely a Comoy’s brand. The stem has the same logo as Phil shows on his site (second photo below). The pipe I picked up is exactly the same pipe that Phil shows in his logo list (third photo below).

When the pipe arrived I took the following four photos to give an idea of the condition of the pipe. The finish on the bowl was in excellent shape. The rim was not as good. The bowl itself was gouged inside and the cake had been gouged away with what looked to be a nail. It would need to be reamed and sanded. The bowl was also out of round slightly. The outer edge of the rim toward the right front had a burn that damaged that part of the bowl. On the left back side the rim was dented and chipped from hitting the bowl against something. I would need to address the rim and the inner bowl damage when I worked on the pipe. The stem was in good shape but the white in the logo was gone. The underside of the stem had a gouge in it that at first glance looked like a breakthrough from a pipe cleaner (apparent as a white spot on the stem in the fourth photo below). Under a lens the gouge did not go all the way through the stem and would be easily repaired. The button and the exterior were in good shape with no bite marks or tooth dents. The tenon while dirty and tarry was nonetheless in good shape as well. It was a step down tenon like that used on Comoy’s pipes.

I reamed the pipe with a PipNet pipe reamer to try to smooth out the gouges that were on the inside of the bowl. I took back the cake to the bare wood to minimize the deep gouges. They still were evident after removing the cake but they were definitely less intrusive. I sanded the inside of the bowl to further smooth out the deep marks and to rework the out of round bowl and inner rim.

There was a burn mark on the outer rim right side toward the front of the bowl that damaged the outer roundness of the rim. It is visible in the poor photo below (first photo). There was also damage and chipping to the outer rim on the left side toward the back (second photo below). I could have ignored these in my restoration of the pipe and left them as marks of age but I decided against that given the relative good condition of the remainder of the bowl. It would need to be carefully topped and restained to match the rest of the bowl.

I set up my sanding board and topped the bowl. The next series of photos show the process of topping and after the first turn on the board the burn and roughening damage are more evident.

After topping the bowl I sanded it with a medium grit sanding sponge and then progressively sanded it with 1500-3600 grit micromesh sanding pads to smooth out the scratches from the topping process. After the surface was smooth I restained it with a dark brown aniline stain that I mixed with two parts isopropyl alcohol until it matched the colour of the bowl. I applied the stain, flamed it and repeated the process until the depth of the colour matched the remainder of the bowl. It took 5 or 6 applications of the stain until I was satisfied with the colour match.

I set the bowl aside and worked on the stem. The underside of the stem had a white spot that is visible midstem in the photo below. This spot was actually a gouge or divot. I was unsure whether it went into the airway on the stem. I have seen this kind of thing on pipes with this kind of bend in the stem. It can be caused by the pipe cleaner rubbing through the vulcanite at the bend on either the top or the bottom side of the stem. In this case it did not go all the way into the airway.

I cleaned it out with Everclear both internally and externally. I picked the white material from the divot and cleaned it a second time with alcohol. I used a small drop of superglue to fill the divot and then sanded it with a medium grit sanding sponge until it was smooth and even.

Once the stem was cleaned and only needing polishing, I used a correction/white out pen to refill the stamping on the logo. I have found that this works very well. I apply the white out with the pen tip and then let it dry before sanding with a micromesh sanding pad to remove the excess of the filler. I then sanded the entire stem with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 to polish the vulcanite. When I had finished sanding it I rubbed down the stem with Obsidian Oil and then buffed it with White Diamond.

The final four photos show the finished pipe. I buffed the pipe and stem lightly with White Diamond and then gave it several coats of carnauba wax to polish it. The restain of the top is visible in the third photo. The colour is a pretty good match to the bowl and I was able to redeem the out of round inner rim with the sanding and staining. It is ready to smoke.

Link

One of the pipes that I had been given years ago was stamped SmokeMaster Series 200 and was an acorn shaped rusticated bow with a smooth side on each side of the shank for stamping and a smooth rim. The left side bore the name and series number and the right side was stamped Imported Briar. The stem had been well chewed and the internal apparatus was missing. It was not useable on this pipe. I would have to restem it. I knew nothing of the brand name. My search on the internet gave me some information on the brand.

On the Dr. Grabow site ( http://drgrabows.myfreeforum.org/sutra13181.php ) I found some interesting information. I quote this post by Dave Whitney, the author of Old Briar, a book on refurbishing. “Smokemaster was a Briarcraft pipe. Richard Kliethermes Sr. was the founder of Briarcraft. First located on Pipetown Hill Rd, Spring Valley, NY, it moved later to 66 Central Ave., Spring Valley, NY. After the death of RK Sr., the business was run by Richard Kliethermes Jr. († 1943) and was quite prosperous between 1920 and 1940. The company closed in 1950. Briarcraft seconds are as follows: Airo, Arcadian, Briarmeer, Smokemaster, Cavalcade, Hallmark, Sterling Hall, and Wimbledon. The Orange off-center diamond was one of their logos.”

The link also had the following scan that shows the original design for the stems and the unique folded pipe cleaner filtration system of the original pipe. I decided to restem the pipe with a stem of my own choice rather than hunt down an original stem.

Please forgive the poor focus on the next three photos but they still give the idea of what the pipe looked like when it arrived to my work table. It was in rough shape. The bowl finish was spotty and the varnish was coming off. The rim was out of round and the back edge of the inner rim and top were beat up and rough. The stem was gnawed off and the short length would not work with this old pipe. The cake was thick and uneven with large flakes of tobacco stuck to the inner walls of the bowl.

I went through my stash of stems and found an old saddle stem with a built in brass band that would approximate the aluminum one on the original stem. I would need to do some work on the tenon length and the diameter of the saddle portion of the stem to get a correct fit but it was workable as the new stem.

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer (Photo 1 below) and a plumber’s wire brush (Photo 2 below) to clean out the debris. I used a sharp knife (Photo 3 below) to reshape the inner edge of the bowl and bring it back to round. Photo 4 shows the reshaped and cleaned bowl. I would have to top the bowl to repair the roughness to the top of the rim.

I used a sanding drum on a Dremel to shape the saddle diameter to meet that of the shank. The sanding drum worked well on the vulcanite and the brass. Due to the difference in hardness of the two materials I had to be careful to not cut the vulcanite deeper than the brass. The idea was to make a smooth transition between the two materials on the stem.

The next photo shows the condition of the top rim of the bowl. I decided to top the bowl and then rework the rounded edge to keep the acorn shape intact. I set up a piece of sandpaper on my flat board and turned the bowl into the sandpaper. I worked it and sanded it, repeatedly checking the flatness of the rim and also the amount of briar I was removing from the rim.

Once the roughness was smoothed out I sanded the rim with 220 grit sandpaper and a medium grit sanding block to smooth out the top and to round the outer edge of the rim to make it less abrupt and more like the original shape. The next two photos show the rim after the sanding and shaping with the sanding block.

At this point in the process I put the bowl into an alcohol bath and let it soak overnight to remove the varnish finish that was spotty and damaged. The next morning I took it out of the bath, dried it off and cleaned out the shank and the shank. The first photo below shows the bowl after I removed it from the bath. The second, third and fourth photos show the bowl after drying.

I restained the pipe with a Danish Oil Cherry stain applied with a cotton pad. I need to be able to work the stain into the deep rustication and also on to the smooth portions of the shank and rim. The rim took several applications to match the rest of the bowl.

I put the bowl aside to dry and worked on the stem. I sanded out the remaining scratches around the brass band on the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and then reworked it with the medium grit sanding block. Once the scratches were no longer evident I worked on the stem using the micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit to polish the stem and prepare it for waxing and buffing. Once I finished with the 12,000 grit pad I gave the stem a coat of Obsidian Oil to seal the surface and to soak deeply into vulcanite. I buffed the stem with White Diamond to finish the shine and then reinserted it into the shank.

I buffed the entire pipe with White Diamond and gave it a coat of Halcyon II wax for rusticated pipes. I then buffed it again with a clean flannel buff to raise the shine. The photos below show the finished pipe.

Restoring an Old Amphora X-tra 509 Pot

4 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

This is the last of the lot I found while on a recent trip in Northern Alberta, Canada. It is stamped Amphora X-tra 509 on the left side of the shank and on the right side it is stamped Genuine Briar over Made in Holland. The stem has an AA in a circle stamped on it (not a stamping for Amphora pipes I was familiar with). The pipe was in good shape. The rim was dirty and had a slight bit of build up on the surface. The bowl had a thin cake that was crumbly. The outside of the bowl was soiled and had some white paint on the surface. The stem was dirty and very slightly oxidized. There were no teeth marks on it so it was just dirty. The insides were also dirty. The inside of the shank and the stem were caked with a tarry buildup. There was an inner tube inserted in the tenon that extended into the shank almost as far as the airway at the bottom of the bowl.

I used a PipNet reamer and started with the smallest cutting head and took back the cake. I followed that with the next size of cutting head and took the cake back to the bare wood in the bowl. The bottom of the bowl had some gouges in it and looked like someone had done a reaming with a knife.

I removed the stem and dropped the bowl into an alcohol bath to soak overnight.

I mixed a batch of Oxyclean and put the stem together with others I was working on into the bath of Oxy clean to soak at the same time.

In the morning I took out the bowl and dried it off with a soft cloth. The finish was clean and the surface of the bowl free of the paint and grime that was present when I placed them in the bath. I took the stems out of the bath of Oxyclean and dried them off as well. The oxidation on the stem was softened and the stem was dark (it is the top stem in the second photo below).

I wiped down the bowl with acetone on a cotton pad to clean off the remaining finish. In the photo above of the bowl it appeared to have a fill on the bowl side. As I scrubbed it the surface cleaned up and the area was not a fill. The piece of briar has some great birdseye grain and a some cross grain on the front right side and the top of the bowl and shank. I also cleaned out the shank and the stem with pipe cleaners and Everclear. I scrubbed the rim to remove the tars and buildup.

I wanted to highlight the grain on this one so I decided to stain it using some Cherry Danish Oil which is Linseed oil and stain. I rubbed on the stain, rubbed it off and rubbed it on a second time. I set it aside to dry. Once it was dry I buffed it with White Diamond.

While it was drying I used micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit to work on the stem. I worked around the double AA on the stem logo. It is faint but still visible. Once I had finished sanding I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil and let it dry. When it was dry I rubbed it with a soft cloth to buff it by hand.

I polished the aluminum inner tube with 0000 steel wool to remove all grime that was remaining on the aluminum. I gave it a coat of wax and polished it off with a clean soft cloth.

I buffed the pipe and stem with White Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and then with a soft flannel buff to give it a shine. The final photos below show the finished pipe.

When I saw it I thought it was a Sasieni one dot billiard

2 Replies

I came across this little billiard in an antique shop last weekend and when I saw the blue dot on the stem and saw the classic English shape of the bowl I truly thought I had found an elusive Sasieni one dot pipe. Lots of things about it seemed to signal that is what I had. The stamping was hard to see under the grime but there were i’s and an e. I was hopeful and I guess also wishful in my thinking. The pipe was dirty as can be seen below. The stem had obviously been damaged and cut off by the previous owner and a new button filed into the stem. The bowl was badly caked and the rim was damaged with dents and chips. I took the picture below while I was relaxing in a pub near the shop and looking over the finds of the afternoon.

When I got home I took it to the basement and wiped down the bowl with acetone on a cotton pad to remove some of the grime. Once the outside was wiped down I tried to read the stamping with a magnifying lens. I could not make out the stamping – it was too faint. There was no stamping on the right side of the shank. On the underside it appeared that there had been stamping but it was no longer visible. The next three photos give a good idea of what the pipe looked like before I did a cleanup on the bowl and stem.

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and took it back to bare wood. I picked at the inside of the bowl to check out the solidity of the walls and to check for potential burns. Everything looked and felt like it was solid so I dropped the bowl in an alcohol bath to soak over night.

The next day I took it out of the bath and dried it off. The bath had removed the old finish for the most part. I finished by once again wiping it down with acetone on a cotton pad. After soaking part of the stamping had become visible. I was disappointed that it appeared that the pipe was not a Sasieni. The stamping that showed up after it was dry read Genuine Briar, which seemed to point to an American made pipe post WW2. I believe it is post war as that is when it became necessary to identify genuine imported briar in contrast to the Manzanita and other alternatives used by American manufacturers during the war years due to a shortage in briar. The briar was a nice piece – birdseye on one side, nice grain on other parts of the pipe and a clean shape to the bowl. I knew it would clean up nicely.

I topped the bowl using my normal method of anchoring a piece of sandpaper on a flat board and twisting the top of the bowl into the sandpaper until the top is smooth. I started with 220 grit sandpaper and then used a medium and fine grit sanding block to smooth out the rim.

When I had finished topping the bowl I wiped it down with acetone and a soft cotton pad to remove the sanding dust and the grime from the topping process.

The stem had a poorly cut button on the end and the button as well as the taper on the stem needed to be reworked. I used a rasp and file to shape the taper on the stem and to take out the pinched look of the angle to the 90 degree cut on the button. The button was also not straight and not squarely cut so I also straightened out the flat edge of the button while I worked with the rasp and files. The next three photos show only the initial work on the stem and not the finished work. I removed quite a bit of the material and smooth out the slope of the taper so that it flowed evenly into the button on both the top and the bottom of the stem.

I sanded the newly shaped stem with 220 grit sandpaper and a medium grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches left by the rasp and files. Once I had the basic shape in place I decided to restain the bowl. I warmed the briar and then gave it several coats of a dark brown aniline stain thinned 1:1 with isopropyl alcohol. I flamed it between each coats to set the stain. The rim took extra coats to match the colour of the rest of the bowl.

I buffed the newly stained bowl lightly with White Diamond and then gave it a coat of a light cherry coloured Danish Oil. Once dry I buffed it by hand and then also gave it a light buff with White Diamond to polish it.

I then removed the stem and worked on the slot in the button. When the end of the stem had been cut off some of the flair of the original airway remained leaving the end of the button with a small rectangular opening. I used needle files to open the flair and widen the slot into more of an oval that extended the width and height of the button end.

Once I had the slot opened the way I like it I sanded the inner edges with a folded piece of sandpaper to smooth it out. I also did some more shaping with files to the taper of the stems. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper until I had the slope well-defined from the tenon back to the button. I also shaped the externals of the button to clean up the angle at the point the button and stem taper met. I also sanded it with a medium grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches left behind and to also remove the oxidation at the stem shank junction.

When I had the scratches removed as far as possible with the sanding sponge I went on to sand the stem with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded the stem with 1500, 1800 and 2400 grit sanding pads and the dry sanded with the remaining grits.

I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and rubbed it into the surface of the vulcanite. I took it to the buffer and buffed the stem with White Diamond. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and polished the pipe with a clean flannel buff to bring up the shine. The finished pipe is pictured below. I still wish I knew what the stamping says in full. That blue dot certainly is a symbol of some unknown to me brand of pipe. The mystery remains but in the mean time I have a great little billiard to enjoy.

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rebornpipes

reclaiming old and worn estate pipes

Tag Archives: restaining a bowl and rim

Restemming and Refurbishing an Arlington Imported Briar Pot

A Dr. Grabow Special Rhodesian/Bulldog – A Makeover

Rejuvenating A Nicely Grained Merchants Service Apple

A Canadian Pipe Maker I had never heard of: Leonard Payne Pipes

A New Stem for a Barling’s Make Billiard

Restoring An Interesting Piece of Pipe History – An Art Deco C.B. Weber Streamliner

Royal Falcon Full Bent – Comoy’s Shape 17

Restoring an Old Amphora X-tra 509 Pot

When I saw it I thought it was a Sasieni one dot billiard

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