Tag Archives: restaining

Selected Straight Grain (Comoys) Restoration

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By Al Jones

Several months ago, a thread on the SmokersForum.uk about the Comoys “Selected Straight Grain” pipes piqued my interest. Member Dirigo (Tom) was kind enough to share with me how to identify these interesting pipes. I was able to grab this Shape 13 via Ebay last week, which corresponds with the Comoys shape chart. That shape looked to be in decent shape, with the exception of one putty fill. I assume this flaw made the pipe unworthy of the Comoys stamping. There were only the slightest tooth marks and no pesky stem logo to worry about.

From the Ebay picture, you can see the ugly fill.

There was only minimal cake inside the bowl so it was lightly reamed and soaked with Everclear and sea salt. The top of the bowl was scarred, so that was going to take some work.

While the bowl was soaking, I started on the stem, which had been soaking in a Oxyclean solution. I went thru my usual 1500/2000 grit wet paper that onto the final four micromesh grades. The stem was then buffed with white diamond and a final plastic polish. Removing the light chatter was pretty straight forward. The button was worn, so I used a needle file to slightly reform the edges.  Unfortunately, I was unable to remove the oxidation without making the edge of stem slightly rounded.  I need to learn how to avoid this issue.

Once the bowl was done soaking it was moved to an alcohol bath to remove the stain. I spoke to Steve prior to this step and he recommended the fill be corrected using the superglue & briar technique he recently posted on Reborn Pipes. That solution worked well and I used two steps to fill in the pit. After restaining, the fill is just slightly visible, a big improvement from the factories solution using the bubble-gum putty.
The Super-Glue and briar dust patch.

I used a two-step stain process to highlight the grain, also a recommendation from Steve. First I “painted” on some black stain, after the bowl was warmed to open the grain. Then, the bowl was sanded with micromesh and a very diluted application of Medium Brown stain was applied. The bowl was than buffed with Tripoli and white diamond, followed by a final buff with Carnuba wax. I was careful on all steps not to diminish the stamping, which is quite legible.

Thanks to Steven Laug for his help with this one and Tom for information on this interesting Comoys niche.

Keyser Hygienic Patent Pipe

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Blog by Steve Laug

Over the past year I have been picking up these Keyser Hygienic pipes on EBay. This one makes the third one I have picked up at a reasonable price. They are made in England and sold exclusively in South Africa. The word is that they were designed to be virtually indestructible for farmer pipe smokers in SA. All versions of the pipe have the same stem – one size fits all. They seem to be made of nylon and rubber or some combination. They are tough and take tooth wear very well. Two of the three I picked up are older and both had the original stems on them. They had tooth chatter and minor dents. Steaming would not raise the dents at all. I had to deal with them with sandpaper and micromesh sanding pads.

The photo below came from the web and pictures a cutaway picture of the pipe and the unique condensing chamber that makes up the patented portion of the pipe. The shank has an aluminum condensing chamber with a tube in the centre that lines up with the tube inside the stem. It is pointing downward so air swirls around in the chamber formed by the military bit stem and the shank. Moisture is trapped and the smoke is cool and dry without loss of flavour.

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The pipe I am working on this time is a pot shaped sand blasted pipe. The aluminum was oxidized and dull the blast was dirty and the crevices filled with dirt and grime. The stem was in pretty clean shape other than the tooth chatter near the button. The rim of the bowl was tarred and caked. The cake was uneven and tapering in the bowl – almost as if the bowl was only half filled and smoked that way the majority of the time. The upper portion of the bowl had a very thin layer of cake and the lower portion a thick uneven cake. The condenser in both the stem and the shank were filled with a dark brown tar and the airway was constricted in the shank and clogged in the stem. The photo below shows the condition of the bowl and the stem and highlight where the work would be needed to clean up the exterior of this pipe.

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I reamed the bowl back to bare briar and scrubbed the blast surface with a brass tire brush to clean out the crevices. I also used a soft bristle tooth brush to finish cleaning the surface off. Once that was done I put the bowl in the alcohol bath to soak while I worked on the stem. The next two photos below show the stem after I used 240 grit sandpaper to remove the tooth marks and slight dents. I then used micromesh pads from 1500-6000 grit to polish the stem and work out the scratches. I have learned the hard way that you cannot buff these stems on the buffer as a little bit of surface heat from the buffing pads melts and distorts the surface. So these stems are totally buffed and polished by hand.

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The next two photos show the stem after it has been sanded up to the 3200 grit micromesh pad. The stem is beginning to get a shine and the scratches are disappearing with the sanding. From this point I went on the sand the stem through the remaining micromesh grits and when finished I gave it a coating of Obsidian Oil to penetrate the surface and give it a deep polish. Once that dried I buffed it by hand with some carnauba wax in paste form that I purchased from Walker Briar Works.ImageImage

From the next series of photos you can see that I interrupted my work on the stem to remove the bowl from the alcohol bath. I did that because I was curious to see how it was cleaning up. You will notice in these photos the brownish grey sludge in the grooves of the blast. I used the tooth brush once again to scrub the surface with Isopropyl from the alcohol bath. Once the grime was removed I washed the bowl down with clean Isopropyl and dried it off.

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The next series of photos show the dried bowl. The grime is gone and the finish is now down to the stain. Even some of the top coat of stain has been removed and you can see the briar. I laid the bowl aside and finished up the stem as I described it above.

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The aluminum condensing chamber on the shank and the chamber in the stem needed much work. I used cotton swabs that I flattened to clean the area inside the shank around the airway extension and the same in the stem. Once that was clean I polished the oxidized aluminum with the micromesh pads to burnish the aluminum and get the shine back.

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I then restained the bowl with a dark brown stain, knowing that when I buffed it the reddish brown undercoat would shine through on the high spots and the dark would fill the crevices and give the pipe a contrast stain. The next series of three photos show the staining and the way the various grains took the stain. The right side of the bowl has a great ring blast that is fairly deep and craggy. The left side is more of a blast on birdseye. It is an interesting looking blast. The bowl rim came out clean as well and shows an interesting contrast in the light of the flash.

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The final series of four photos show the finished pipe. The entirety has been given a coat of wax. I used Halcyon II on the blast to polish it without leaving the white residue in the grain of the blast when it dried. I buffed it by hand. The stem received another hand applied coat of carnauba wax and a buff by hand. The pipe pictured is clean and ready to smoke.

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I have included pictures below of the other two Keyser pipes that I picked up and refurbished. The top one is an apple with really nice grain. I have been smoking this one and enjoying the dry and cool smoke that it gives. The second is a smaller prince shape that is no longer available. It had some burns on the rim that are still visible but it too smokes very well. One day will rework the rim a bit and minimize the burn marks. Till then I will smoke these Keyser’s and keep an eye for more of them.

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Refurb on a Dr. Plumb Tween Size Prince

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Blog by Steve Laug

Off the workbench today is a nice little Dr. Plumb Tween Size Prince (that is what the stamping on this one says). It was pretty rough looking as can be seen from the before shots. I had reamed it before I remembered to take the photos, so the bowl is very clean in the photo below.

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The bowl, in fact, was very dirty with tars and crumbling cake as well as a thick white “gunk”, for lack of a better word, in the bowl and all the way through the shank. I have no idea what it was other than the fact that it had a plastic feel to it. It was stringy and literally all over the inside of the bowl and shank. I had never seen anything like this in the years I have been refurbishing pipes. It came out with the reaming of the bowl and out of the shank with alcohol soaked pipe cleaners and a shank brush. It took some time to clear it out. Many pipe cleaners later it was clean. The state of the bowl when I got it told me that obviously this little guy (5 inches long, group one sized bowl) was a great smoker.

I stuffed the bowl with cotton bolls and filled it with alcohol using an ear syringe.

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I removed the stem and put a cork in the shank so that the alcohol would go all the way into the shank. I wanted to make sure that all of the remnants of white stuff and tars were removed from the bowl before I went further in cleaning it. I left it overnight and the next morning removed the cotton bolls and plug and cleaned out the bowl and stem with pipe cleaners. The bowl smelled fresh and almost new once that final cleaning was done and the alcohol evaporated. The bowl was then dropped in an alcohol bath for a soak. While it was soaking I went to work on the stem.

The stem took quite a bit of work to restore as it was badly oxidized. I had soaked it in Oxyclean while I worked on the bowl so now when I took it out the oxidation had softened. I buffed it with Tripoli, sanded with 240 grit sandpaper, buffed again with Tripoli, sanded with 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper until I was able to get the grit off and then polished with micromesh pads from1500-6000 grit. Each level of micromesh gives the stem a deeper polish and shine to the stem. In buffing a stem by itself, I always avoid the saddle area or the area next to where it joins the shank as it is very easy to over buff this area and make rounded shoulders on the stem and ruin the stem/shank junction. Once that was finished I laid it aside with a coat of Obsidian Oil and turned again to the bowl.

I removed the bowl from the alcohol bath and dried it off. The bath removed the remnant of finish and all of the oils and grime on the bowl. I used the 3200 and 4000 grit micromesh pads to sand down the bowl, being careful to not damage the stamping. Once it was smooth, I wiped it down with a soft cloth dampened with Isopropyl alcohol to remove the sanding dust and then stained the pipe with a light cherry coloured aniline stain. (I mixed the stain by adding Isopropyl to the oxblood stain until it was basically a light cherry coloured wash.) I flamed it and then put the stem on and buffed both the bowl and stem with White Diamond and finished it with several coats of carnauba wax. Here is the pipe ready to smoke!

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Renewed Brigham One Dot

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Blog by Steve Laug

This old Brigham One Dot was on the shelf at a Movie Studio Clearance Store – they sell old set items and materials from movies and television shows. Over the years I have found quite a few nice old pipes there for sale at a low price. I paid $12 for this one. From the photos below you can see its condition clearly. The stem was very oxidized and worse at the button end. I think that it probably had a rubber bit protector on it and it was cut off or fell of when they put it up for sale. The rustication was still crisp and sharp. The stain had faded from the top to about mid bowl and would need to be restained. The rim was tarred but not dented or damaged. The inside of the bowl was caked with an uneven cake that smelled of sweet aromatics.

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I reamed the bowl and cleaned the shank and inside of the stem with pipe cleaners and cotton swabs and alcohol. I scrubbed down the exterior of the bowl and rim with Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime and the tars on the rim. I have used oil soap for a long time now on the surface of pipes and found that it works best undiluted. I rub it on and rub it off. On the rim I use a soft bristle tooth brush to scrub the tars off. On this pipe since I was restaining it anyway I did not care about losing a bit of the stain or finish in the process. I finished cleaning the rim with an 1800 grit micromesh pad. I then restained it to match the colour of the smooth patch on the underside. I gave it a quick light buff with White Diamond to polish the stain.

I had put the stem in a bath of Oxyclean and hot water and let it soak while I was working on the bowl. I removed it and wiped it down and resoaked it. After the second soak I sanded it with 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper and then 1500-6000 grit micromesh pads to polish it. The Brighams have an aluminum shank that holds the hard rock maple filter tube. The filter tube was shot so I used a new one. The aluminum was tarry so it needed cleaning and a polish with 0000 steel wool. (The Brigham system is pictured in the graphic below.)

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When the aluminum was clean and polished I put the pipe back together took it to the buffer and gave the stem a buff with Tripoli to take off the remnant of oxidization. Then I used some White Diamond on it to give it a clean polish. I finished buffing the whole pipe lightly with carnauba wax. The finished pipe is pictured below.

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New Life for a Yello Bole Canadian

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On a recent trip to the US to visit my parents I also visited several antique malls in their city. I have three that I usually have on my list when I go there. The one I want to focus on in this post is in an old grain elevator and has three floors of many “antiques” which always surprise me because many are the same age as I am!  Anyway, on the second floor I found a booth with two pipe racks containing over a dozen older pipes. Most were junk in that they had cracked bowls and broken shanks etc. But also in the midst of it was this old Yello Bole Canadian. It had some beautiful briar in it. Yello Bole is the grade down the line for KayWoodie, or so I am told. Pipes that don’t make the grade for KW will often be stamped with the Yello Bole brand. This one was stamped KBB in a cloverleaf on the top of the shank and next to it Yello Bole over honey cured, over imported briar. The stem has the yellow circle inlaid in the vulcanite. If memory serves me correctly this is one of the older pipes in the line.

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The bowl was in pretty clean shape. The yellow coating was still visible in the bowl and the bottom half of the bowl was very clean with just a bit of darkening to the yellow coating. The rim was dirty and dented. There were tars on the rim and some deep scratches to go along with the dents. The bowl however, was still round, it had not been ruined by a reamer going a muck. The stem was oxidized and was slightly brown. There was light tooth chatter but no dents on the surface of the stem. The overall finish of the pipe had light spots and dark spots where the finish seems to have been exposed to light or was wiped down and finish removed. There was no over coat of varnish or of lacquer just solid clean briar with a spotty stain.

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I broke the pipe down as seen in the pictures below. The stinger apparatus can be seen in the pictures. It is an aluminum shovel like contraption with the hole near the tenon and a long shovel like extension that extends through most of the shank. I cleaned out the bowl with an alcohol scrub on cotton swabs and cleaned out the shank with a shank brush, bristle pipe cleaners and fluffy pipe cleaners and alcohol. When they came out clean I worked on the outside of the bowl. I used cotton balls and acetone to wipe down the outside of the bowl and shank. I wanted to remove the rest of the finish so that I could prepare it for restaining. I applied the acetone until the bowl was free of the stain and finish. The pictures below show the cleaned surface of the bowl. I also used the acetone and some 400 and 600 wet dry sandpaper to clean the top of the bowl and rim. A folded piece of sand paper was used on the inner edge of the rim to clean the beveled edge. Before I stained the pipe I decided to clean and polish the stem. I used the Bic lighter method mentioned in an earlier blog post to get rid of the oxidation. In the pictures below the stem has the majority of the oxidation removed using that method. I then used 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper with water and my usual list of micromesh pads from 1500-6000 grit to polish the stem.

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Once the stem was cleaned and polished by hand I inserted it into the bowl and used it to hold the pipe while I restained it. I used a medium brown aniline stain on this pipe to approximate the original stain and to highlight the grain. I applied it with the dauber that came with the stain and then flamed it to set the stain. I then took it to the buffer and buffed it with Tripoli to remove some of the opacity of the medium brown stain and bring the grain to life. Once that was done it was buffed with White Diamond. Both the stem and the bowl were buffed. Care should be exercised in the buffing process to not obliterate the stamping. I use a light touch when buffing around the stamping. The four pictures below show the finished pipe – ready to load with a favourite tobacco and enjoy!

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Refurb – A Pair of Custombilt Look A Likes

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I just finished up on these two Custom Bilt look a likes. The Rhodesian shaped pipe has no stamping other than Imported Briar. The bent pot is stamped Aged Imported Briar on one side and Ben Rogers on the other side. I am not familiar with the brand. So if anyone has information on it please post it here. I would appreciate learning about the twosome.

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Both pipes needed quite a bit of work to make them smokeable once more. The bowls had a thick cake and each one of them still stuffed with half a bowl of tobacco. The stems were rough and pitted from the oxidation and had a white lime like coat on them. They were very dirty inside and out. I cleaned them with a shank brush, bristle pipe cleaners and finished with fluffy ones all dipped in isopropyl alcohol until they came out clean. I buffed the stems with Tripoli after cleaning them to try and break down the coat of oxidation. It did not do much so I put them both in a bath of Oxyclean to soak. I find that though it does not remove the oxidation it does soften it considerably and makes sanding and buffing it off much easier.

Once they were soaking I turned to the bowls. First I reamed them both to remove the crumbling and uneven cake. I generally take them back to bare wood when they are in this state or at the most leave a thin bit of cake on the walls. I cleaned the rims with alcohol and a soft cloth and sanded it with 600 wet dry sandpaper to remove the tar deposits and carbon on them. Once that was done I dropped them in the alcohol bath to wet them and scrubbed them with a soft bristle toothbrush. I find that on the smooth and semi-rusticated finish of these pipes the tooth brush works very well to remove deep seated grime and loosen oils and dirt.  I then left them to soak while I went back to the stems.

After the soak the stems came clean pretty easily with 240 grit sandpaper, 400 and 600 wet dry sand paper and a finishing buff with Tripoli. I worked on them for a while with the sandpapers and Tripoli and then used White Diamond for the final polishing buff. I was careful to not buff the last bit around the stem edge that would meet the shank. I would finish it once the bowls were stained and ready. Then I would buff them together with carnauba wax.

By the time I was done with the stems the bowls were ready. I took them out of the bath and wiped them down. Once they were dry I restained them both with a medium brown aniline stain, flamed the stain and then buffed them with White Diamond to remove excess stain and give a contrast between the smooth portions and the rustication. I hand waxed them both with Halcyon wax and buffed with a soft cotton cloth.

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Custom-Bilt Saddle Billiard Comes Back to Life

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Blog by Steve Laug

It was a pleasure to refurbish this original Custom-Bilt (note the hyphenated title). I have always loved the rugged individualism of Tracy Mincer’s pipes. They are like none of their imitators in terms of character and sheer smoke-ability. They feel great in the hand; have and open draw and generally a comfortable stem. They are nothing pretty to look at yet there is something endearing about their “ugliness”. This old pipe was in very rough shape when I started to work on it. I apologize up front in that I forgot to grab the camera to take pictures of the pipe when I began the work. My words will have to suffice as I tell you about it. There was still a dry and almost petrified dottle of tobacco left in the bottom of the bowl. The cake that was on the walls was filled with cracks and major chunks of it were missing. The only way to remedy that was to ream it. The exterior of the bowl had a very tarred and sticky rim and the finish was gone and flecks of white paint were all over the crevices of the rustication. The stem was dull brownish green with a white crust around the button and up the stem a good half inch. This stuff was like concrete.

I always start my refurbishing process by addressing the issues of the bowl. That way as it soaks I can work on the stem. I scraped out the petrified dottle and reamed the broken cake back to bare wood. I cleaned the inside of the shank with a shank brush and bristle and fluffy pipe cleaners and isopropyl alcohol until they came out clean. I wiped down the exterior of both the shank and bowl with a rub of alcohol. When finished it was dropped in the alcohol bath for most of the morning while I worked on the stem.

I went to work on the stem. I decided to buff it with black Tripoli (coarse polishing compound) to address the hard crust on the front of the stem and the general oxidation on the blade of the stem before the saddle. I did not want to work on the saddle with it off the shank as it is too easy to round the edges and spoil the fit. After buffing it was sanded with 240 grit sandpaper to finish breaking through the white crust. Once it was gone the rest of the stem was cleaned up with my normal list of 400, 600 grit wet dry (with water), and then micromesh pads – 1500, 1800, 2400, 3200, and 4000 grit. I also used the wet dry sandpaper and the pads to careful work on the saddle portion of the stem. Upon completion the entirety was given a coat of Obsidian Oil and then waxed with carnauba.

I set the stem aside and retrieved the bowl from the alcohol bath. As I took it from the bath I scrubbed it with a brass bristle tire brush to get into the crevices on the pipe and the rustication. It was a mess with some paint in the rustication. The alcohol had removed the grime and the wire brush removed the paint flecks. Just a reminder – I use a soft bristled brass white wall tire brush in these instances as the bristles do not damage the surface of the briar. When the bowl was clean I wiped it down with isopropyl on a cotton boll. It was ready to restained with a medium brown aniline stain. I applied the stain with the dauber that comes with the Fiebings Shoe Dye (aniline stain), flamed it and set it aside to dry thoroughly. Once it was dry I buffed it with White Diamond on my buffer and then applied a coat of Halcyon Wax and buffed it by hand with a cotton cloth.

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The Alcohol Bath and New Life for a Brigham Acorn

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The work on this older Brigham 4 Dot Acorn gives a clear picture of how the alcohol bath can remove the grime and prepare the older worn pipe for a restain that brings it back to life. When I am dealing with this kind of wear and tear on the finish of an estate pipe, it is generally my opinion that it is easier to take the pipe back to an unfinished condition rather than try to work with the existing finish and have any hope of restoring it. It also is a shortcut method to remove the finish without the labour intensive sanding that would normally be required. I have a pint jar with a lid on it that I keep on my work bench that is full of isopropyl alcohol. It is now brown but I find that it works well in removing the finish but also it seems to add depth to the stains I use. I recycle the alcohol monthly by pouring it off slowly and rinsing and scrubbing away the sediment in the bottom of the bath. Thus it is always clear – just with a brown tint.

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The pipe I am using to illustrate the process is a Brigham Acorn. It has the standard Brigham style rustication on the bottom edges and on the side of the bowl. It was used to give the pipe character and hide flaws in the briar on an otherwise nicely grained pipe. This one was in rough shape. The bowl was incredibly grimy inside and out. I reamed it and cleaned the bowl and shank. Then it went into an alcohol bath overnight so the alcohol would do its work cut the grime and dirt as well as any remaining finish.

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While the bowl was in the bath I turned my attention to the stem. From the pictures above you can see that the stem was another story. The first ¾ of an inch around the button was heavily caked with a lime like build up. I generally find this under stems that have used the softy bit to protect them from bites. Most folks who use them never remove them to clean them and this is the result. It is hard stuff to remove. I mixed a solution of Oxyclean and hot water – 1 scoop of the powder to a pint of water. I shook it and stirred it to get it dissolved and dropped the stem in it for several hours. I had other pipes to work on during the wait so it was not a problem. I find that the Oxyclean softens the oxidation and particularly this kind of lime scale. Once it is softened it is easily removed with the buffer and sandpapers.

I took it from the wash and went to work on the inside of the stem. On a typical pipe this is an easy thing to do. But on a Brigham the tenon is the length of the shank and is made of aluminum. It is designed to hold the Brigham filter system which is a hard rock maple tube that fits in the tenon. 

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Where there was normally a Brigham filter in this pipe it was gone and the tars had built up to the point that the stem was closed off and did not fit all the way into the shank. It took a lot of pipe cleaners and alcohol to get it clean. The outside aluminum shank was sanded 0000 steel wool and with micromesh pads to remove the oxidation and darkening of the metal. The stem was sanded with my normal list of sandpapers – 240 grit to break up the oxidation on the surface, 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper with water to finish removing the problem and then the micromesh pads – 1500 to 6000 grit to polish and shine the stem. Upon completion the stem was set aside to be buffed when the bowl was finished. 

I removed the bowl from the alcohol bath the next morning. I dried it and looked it over for any remaining finish or grime. I wiped it down with a soft cotton cloth and some clean isopropyl then gave it a quick buff with Tripoli to smooth the surface. I took it back to my work table and restained it. For this one I used an oxblood or cherry stain, rubbed on and rubbed off several times until I got the colour I was looking for. I let it dry and then took it to the buffer to be polished with Tripoli and White Diamond. After that it was polished with a coat of carnauba wax. Here are some pictures of the finished pipe.

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The Everyman Pipe from the 1920’s Era

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Blog by Steve Laug

This featherweight cutty shaped pipe came from the 1920’s or earlier. I bought it in a lot of that era pipes on EBay and it arrived as pictured below. It is stamped The Everyman Pipe on the left side of the shank and Made in England in a Circle and shape number 195 on the right. When this arrived in the package of the other old timers it was pretty grimy. The bowl needed serious cleaning and the rim was dented and had rough spots. It needed to be topped as steaming it would not raise the broken spots that came from tapping it out. When the surface of the wood is actually broken and not just dented steaming will not raise the grain significantly and the only repair I know is to sand it off and make it smooth and crisp again. The challenge then is to match the stain so the bowl and rim blend.

I reamed and cleaned the bowl and the airway in the shank. The pipe cleaners came out very dark and tarry at the beginning. I decided to use a drill bit the same size as the airway to clean out the gunk before going back to the pipe cleaners. I use a T handle to turn the bit into the shank by hand to remove the tars and open the airway again. I finished cleaning the shank with fluffy pipe cleaners and isopropyl alcohol until they came out clean. I wiped down the bowl with acetone to remove the old wax and the grime from the bowl and then used my topping method – a hard, flat board and an anchored piece of 240 grit sandpaper – and topped the rim. (I have since learned from someone that a good way of doing it is to anchor the sandpaper on a Masonite clipboard and sand the rim that way. It works great.)

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The stem needed the most work as it was a round tube of vulcanite. I wonder if it was not made to be like a clay tavern pipe. The previous owner had notched the top of the stem to make it easier to hold with his teeth and keep it from rolling. The notch was a fairly deep V cut that was only on the top of the stem. I used needle files to cut a new button on it and then my Dremel with a sanding drum to taper the stem back to the button. The original had a slight bend in the stem so I left that. The button I shaped for the stem is rounded and crowned to fit the orific airhole like those found on pipes of a similar age. After cutting the button and shaping it, the stem needed a lot of sanding to remove the scratches and oxidation. I used 240 grit sandpaper on the entirety to clean up the deeper scratches and remove the oxidation. I then progressed through the wet dry sandpapers and the micromesh pads until I had a good smooth finish on the stem and a good clean button.

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I set the stem aside and restained the rim and bowl to match what appeared to be the original colour of the pipe. I used an oxblood undercoat and a dark brown top coat to get the richness of the original finish. I coated the stem with Obsidian Oil and then inserted it in the shank. Once it was dry I took the pipe to the buffer and used the White Diamond to give it a final buff before giving it several coats of carnauba wax.

The pictures below show the finished pipe with its newly shaped and polished stem:

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A Tiny Pair – Refurbishing and repairing an old couple

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Blog by Steve Laug

This morning I decided to work on these two old timers – a little mini bulldog and a mini bent billiard. Both are old as is clear from the orific button on the stems and the shape of button on both (the round hole in a crowned surface of the button – see the photo below).

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The first is a no name bulldog with a gold band on it. It has EP on the band which I believe means Electro Plated. The stem was in pretty fair shape though the previous owner had cut a small groove in the stem about a 1/8 inch ahead of the button on the top and the bottom. The bowl was in pretty good shape though it was darkened near the band and there was a deep cut on the shank about mid way along toward the bowl and on the bowl side – both on the right side and visible below. The photo with a penny (1 cent piece) gives a good picture of the size of this little dog. The bowl was pretty clean so all I needed to do was wipe it out with a cotton swab and isopropyl alcohol. I did the same with the shank and the stem as well. It was pretty black and tarry on the inside of the stem and shank. I had to use a paper clip to break through the clog that was in the shank about mid way to the bowl and also in the stem.

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I worked on the bowl and shank exterior with sand paper to remove the finish around the two cuts in that I was going to work on. I washed off the surface after sanding with acetone to clean off the briar dust and the remaining finish. Once it dried I decided to fill the cuts with clear super glue. The process is pretty straight forward – I drip a drop in both holes and lay it aside until it dries. Then I add another drop, lay it aside and repeat until the cut is filled. I find that the clear super glue is a great way to fill the cuts or pits as it allows the briar to show through clearly and once it is stained it virtually disappears. Once the super glue dried I sanded the spots with 240 grit sandpaper and then with 400 and 600 grit wet dry and water to smooth off the spots and remove any of the over flow around the spots. I want the super glue to fill only the spot and not carry over onto the clean briar so I sand it down level with the surface it is filling. I then sanded the entire bowl with micromesh pads from 1500-6000 grit and then wiped the bowl down with isopropyl alcohol on a soft cloth.

I then worked on the stem and sanded down the grooves to make the stem smooth once again. I used the same pattern of sanding – 240, 400, 600 grit sandpaper and micromesh – 1500, 1800, 2400, 3200, 4000 and 6000 grit. Once I had the grooves and the stem clean and pretty polished I took it to the buffer and used White Diamond on both the stem and bowl. I took it back to the work table and gave it a coat of Obsidian Oil and set the stem aside while I stained the bowl. I wanted to keep a lighter look to the bowl so I used some oxblood stain and wiped it on and off before it had time to dry. I gave it two coats and then flamed it. I buffed the bowl with White Diamond and then gave it a coat of carnauba wax. I also polished the band and gave it a coat of wax. Here is the finished pipe. The two cuts or pits have disappeared on the right side of the bowl (top picture).

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I finished it and put it aside to work on the bent billiard. It was in a bit rougher shape than the bulldog. It is also a no name old timer with a gold band – very tarnished. The bowl was very grimy on the outside and the finish was cloudy and dark. The stem was grooved in the same manner as the bulldog – probably same owner making his own comfort bit to enable him to clench these little guys.

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I scrubbed the bowl down with acetone on a cotton boll and removed the finish and the grime. The top was a bit dented so I gave it a very light topping and then sanded out the inside of the bowl and worked on the roundness of the inner rim as it was a bit out of round.  I used a small piece of sandpaper to bevel the edge enough to repair the roundness. I cleaned out the shank and the stem. This pipe was also clogged in both the stem and the shank so I use a paper clip in the shank and to open the end of the stem from each end. I then used small pipe cleaners soaked with alcohol until they came out clean. I set the bowl aside to work on the stem.

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The stem needed the same treatment as the one on the bulldog to remove the grooves from the previous owner. Fortunately on both pipes they were not very deep so it did not change the profile of the stem. I sanded the entirety of the stem down and used the same pattern of sandpaper and micromesh as above. I buffed this one with Tripoli before finishing with the micromesh. I gave it a coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to stain the bowl.

I cleaned the bowl exterior one last time and then stained it with oxblood stain – wipe on and wiped off pretty quickly several times to get good coverage. I polished the gold band with the highest grit micromesh pad (6000) and then gave the bowl and band a coat of wax by hand and once it dried buffed it by hand with a soft cloth. I put the stem back on and took it to the buffer and buffed the entirety with White Diamond followed by carnauba wax.

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Here is a picture of the pair together so their diminutive size is clearly seen. They are incredibly light with group one sized bowls. They are clean and ready to smoke.

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