Tag Archives: restaining

Saving a New Friend

Blog by Dave Weagle

When I saw Dave’s work on this old pipe I knew I wanted to read about the process he used in repairing this old friend. I wrote him a message on the Facebook Tobacco Pipe Restorers Group and asked him if he would be interested in putting together a blog for us here at rebornpipes. He gladly accepted the offer and today he sent along this blog. Welcome to rebornpipes Dave. It is a pleasure to have you show your work and skills here. The invitation is always open to you. With no further intro I will let Dave speak for himself. Enjoy.

Growing up I always knew that someday I would be a pipe smoker. I remember during an anti smoking discussion in grade 1 at the rip old age of 7, I told the teacher I had no interest in cigarettes but someday I would smoke a pipe. That was 1978.

Over the past 40 years I have had a few passions that have shaped my life. Recently pipe smoking and restoration has been one of them. During the 90’s while working backshifts I discovered old black and white suspense movies from the 1930’s & 1940’s. Of these the Sherlock Holmes movies starring Basil Rathbone became a favorite.

Once I decided I was ready to take up pipe smoking I knew there was one pipe brand I would have to acquire. Peterson. After some research I found that Basil Rathbone smoked a 4ab in the movies produced by Universal. Further research suggested the 4ab shape would become the 309. I found a Peterson Patent pipe a few years ago hiding in a lot on Ebay with a bunch of old burnt cobs. With a bit of work I had a close copy of a 4ab.

My Peterson Patent pipe with a stem I modified.Now for the back story.

Now for the back story. Since March of 2016 I have started chasing pre- republic pipes. This past Christmas (2017) with a little cash burning a hole in my pocket, I went surfing my usual online pipe haunts for older Petes. I found a seller on Etsy that had some interesting older pipes. One was a Pete. There was no shape number in the listing so I emailed the seller. It turned out to be a 313. I have three 313 already, so I thanked the seller but declined the pipe. To my surprise he emailed me back and asked if I’d be interested in some older unrestored Petersons. We emailed back and forth and came up with an arrangement that both were happy with. I bought 8 pipes. A Peterson calabash with a silver hallmark dated 1908 and a S17 sealed the deal (those will be future restorations). The other 6 pipes where all Republic era pipes. My favorite shape 309 was there so I was very pleased with my purchase.

This is where my restoration story begins. When the pipes arrived from England I was surprised to find how well loved the 309 was. The shank was actually worn crooked. The stem was worn and the nickel cap had a crack and 11 dents. I contacted Peterson about getting a new cap on the 309. When I found out how expensive it was I decided this was a lot of money to restore a well used 309. I started looking for a donor 309. It didn’t take long to find a cracked 309 (a cracked Chacom and Nording came with it) which would be a great parts pipe for about half the price of shipping my original 309 back to the factory to be fixed.

The donor 309 came from EBay. It took two weeks for the pipe to travel from California to Nova Scotia. During the two weeks, I kept going back to the original listing and night after night I keep thinking I can’t send this donor 309 to the scrap pile without at least attempting to save it. This is how the pipe arrived.Not sure how to approach this repair I decided to gently ream it to see the extent of the inner bowl damage. I didn’t want to just start filling the crack with CA glue and briar dust. This was the result of reaming. Some people might have been upset by the result but I knew it was a good thing. I now knew the extent of the damage. Also, I could clean up the cracked surfaces to remove any loose char or ash. Using cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol I cleaned all the damaged area before reattachment. I now had two pieces of the bowl which I glued together and let them set. Once they dried I fit them back in place and set to gluing and pinning.I started by drilling several vertical holes and then drilled the horizontal holes making sure that the two broken pieces were pinned to each other and into the remaining bowl. I used several types of CA glue in this process. I used a thinned glue designed to flow into cracks. The pins were cut to fit and glued with a thicker gap filling gel CA. When it came time to fill the cracks and the drilled holes I used a standard CA and briar dust. I used several coats of glue and dust to fill everything in, brushing the bowl between coats with a brass bristled bush to remove any loose dust and checked each coat with my jeweler’s lope for coverage. Once I was happy with the surface coverage, using my jewelers lope and a rotary tool I tried to copy the rustification as close to the original as possible. I always wear a dust mask when I attempt surface repairs using a jeweler’s lope and a rotary tool. The pipe is right about nose level and the tool blows the dust right in your face.This is the outer surface after about two hours of work. Now it was time to fix up the inner bowl. After the outer repair was complete it was evident that a burnt out was the cause of the crack. There was an indent which need to be filled. Usually I use fireplace cement (a paste I make out of hardwood ash that I collect from my woodstove) to patch small burns in a bowl but this was going to be a large patch ,so I wanted something stronger. JB Weld was what I used. After wiping out the bowl with cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol to remove any loose char and ash I mixed up some JB Weld and applied it to the inner bowl. After let it dry overnight I turned again to my rotary tool with a sanding drum to even out the walls. Again, wear a mask if using when this method because it throws a lot of dust in the air, and you’ll be sneezing for a few days (past experience). With the inner bowl smooth and round it was on to cleaning the draft hole and the shank. Using a 4mm drill bit I redrilled the draft hole. With cotton swabs, isopropyl alcohol and a dental tool I cleaned the shank and draft hole. After cleaning and drilling I didn’t like the depth of the bowl reverses the position of the draft hole so I added a bit more JB Weld to the bottom of the bowl. Using a small piece of 220 grit sand paper I sanded the inner bowl again so there were no rough seams. With the repairs to the bowl it was time to refinish. Using my brass bristle brush and a 3M autobody scuff pad I gently buffed the outer bowl. I carefully polished the stamping using micro mesh pads starting at 3200, finishing with 12000.

When it came to the staining I used Fiebing’s leather dye. USMC black was the base coat and Ox Blood was the finish coat. Both colours where flamed to set the dye into the grain. I then hand buffed the bowl before coating the bowl with Halcyon II wax. Once the wax had dried I hand buffed the bowl again. While staining the bowl I got some red stain on the cap which I removed with Autosol polish (I use it to polish the chrome bumpers on my Dodge Ram) which also cleans up the oxidation. With the outside finished it was time to finish the inside. For this I decided a coating of maple syrup and charcoal would be the best to help rebuild the new cake as the pipe is smoked. With a pipe cleaner placed in the draft hole the inner bowl was lined with maple syrup. Then the bowl was filled with charcoal. I gently tapped the top of the bowl with a spoon to remove any air gaps (not unlike how I may tap a bowl when I fill it with tobacco). I let the bowl dry before removing the excess charcoal. This was the finish of the work on the bowl. All that was left to finish was the stem. The stem was heavily oxidized so a soak in Oxiclean for a few hours. After removing the stem from its Oxi bath I cleaned the inner stem with bristle pipe cleaners and Isopropyl alcohol. There was a lot of chatter on the tip including some dents on the P lip. I heated the stem with a heat gun to raise the dents with some success. A quick sanding with 220 grit sand paper and a wipe with isopropyl alcohol I was ready to repair the dents that didn’t raise. Rubberized CA glue and charcoal powder were mixed and used to patch the dents. With a coarse file I reshaped the P lip. Starting with 220 grit sand paper I dry sanded the stem removing the excess glue. From there I dry sanded the stem with 600 grit. I then changed to wet sanding with 1000, 2000, and 3000 sand paper. I switch to dry sanding with 4000 – 12000 grit micro mesh pads. Once I was happy with the sanding, I polished the stem with blue diamond compound on a buffing wheel. To finish, I applied several coats of carnauba wax on a soft buffing wheel. A hand buff finished the stem work. All that was left was to assemble the stem and the bowl. Here is a shot of the two 309’s involved in this project. The donor being in the front. With guidance from certain pipe repair blogs, I have used their techniques and developed some of my own. A few years ago starting out buying estate pipes I never thought I’d be able to do repair work like this.

Just for the record, I have decided to just send the other 309 to Peterson to have a new cap installed. My attempt to save money ended up costing me more, but one can never have too many pipes. Right?

Farida’s Dad’s Pipes #2 – Restoring a 1990 LBS Classic Series Dunhill Shell Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next collection of pipes that I am working on comes from the estate of an elderly gentleman here in Vancouver. I met with his daughter Farida last summer and we looked at his pipes and talked about them then. Over the Christmas holiday she brought them by for me to work on, restore and then sell for her. There are 10 pipes in all – 7 Dunhills (one of them, a Shell Bulldog, has a burned out bowl), 2 Charatans, and a Savinelli Autograph. His pipes are worn and dirty and for some folks they have a lot of damage and wear that reduce their value. To me each one tells a story. I only wish they could speak and talk about the travels they have had with Farida’s Dad.

Dad in the Antarctic in 54/55.

In the midst of restoring this Classic Series Dunhill and thinking about its travels, Farida sent me an email with a short write up on her Dad. She remembered that I had asked her for it so that I could have a sense of the stories of her Dad’s pipes. Here is what she wrote: My dad, John Barber, loved his pipes. He was a huge fan of Dunhill and his favourite smoke was St. Bruno. No one ever complained of the smell of St. Bruno, we all loved it. I see the bowls and they’re large because he had big hands. When he was finished with his couple of puffs, he would grasp the bowl in the palm of his hand, holding the warmth as the embers faded. The rough bowled pipes were for daytime and especially if he was fixing something. The smooth bowled pipes were for an evening with a glass of brandy and a good movie. In his 20s, he was an adventurer travelling the world on ships as their radio operator. He spent a year in the Antarctic, a year in the Arctic and stopped in most ports in all the other continents. He immigrated to Canada in the mid-fifties, working on the BC Ferries earning money to pay for his education. He graduated from UBC as an engineer and spent the rest of his working life as a consultant, mostly to the mining companies. Whatever he was doing though, his pipe was always close by.

Thanks Farida that explains a lot about their condition. If your Dad was rarely without a pipe I can certainly tell which pipes were his favourites. As I looked over the pipes I noted that each of them had extensive rim damage and some had deeply burned gouges in the rim tops. The bowls seemed to have been reamed not too long ago because they did not show the amount of cake I would have expected. The stems were all covered with deep tooth marks and chatter and were oxidized and dirty. The internals of the mortise, the airway in the shank and stem were filled with tars and oils. I took pictures of the Dunhill pipes in the collection. These were some nice looking pipes when her Dad bought them and they would be nice looking one more when I finished.

The second pipe that I am working on is a large Group 5 S Shell Billiard. I have circled in the above three photos in blue to identify it for you. It has a gold band that reads Dunhill Classic Series. It is good looking billiard. The Classic Series was produced by Dunhill in 199O as part of homage to their heritage and would make a great pipe for when you are out and about in the evening. When it was released it was a classic black Shell Briar in an equally classic shape, complete with a distinctive gold colored band. The pipe is stamped on the underside of the shank with the shape number LBS F/T. The first digit of the number is missing because of the sandblast, but it is a shape LBS and F/T for Fish Tail stem. Next to that it read Dunhill Shell over Made in England ³⁰. There is a shape number after the Made in England stamping 997 (987?). Dating this pipe is a fairly easy proposition. You take the two digits following the D in England and add them to 1960. In this case it is 1960+30= 1980. (Pipephil’s site has a helpful dating tool for Dunhill pipes that I use regularly http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/shell-briar1.html).

It was in pretty rough shape. The bowl was so dirty and caked with grime that it was very hard to tell what condition it was in. The finish was dull and caked with oils in all of the grooves and valleys of the sandblast. The top of the rim was rough and the inner edge was badly damaged. There were spots on the front of the rim top and at the rear that had deep burns into the briar just like the first pipe from this estate. The briar was burned to a point where I could pick it out with my fingernail. The shank was so dirty that the stem would not properly seat in the mortise. The stem was also a little rough – tooth marks on both sides near and in the button itself. The top side the button is quite thin and worn down. There is a deep tooth mark on the underside near the button and lots of chatter on both sides. It was oxidized and there was some calcification on the first inch of the stem. I took some photos of the pipe before I started to clean it up. I took close up photos of the rim top, the gold band and the stem. You can see from the photo the thick cake I the bowl overflowing lava onto the rim top. You can also see damage to the front, inner edge of the rim and the back left inner edge. There appears to be some serious gouges in those areas and also along the entire inner edge. The amount and extent of the damage will only be clear once the bowl is reamed and cleaned. The gold band on the shank says Dunhill Classic Series and it is in excellent condition. The stem has some deep bite marks on the top edge of the button and on the underside of the stem just ahead of the button. There is a lot of calcification and wear on the rest of the stem as well. I reamed the bowl with PipNet pipe reamer starting with the smallest cutting head and working my way up the third sized head. I took the cake back to bare briar. I used a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to finish up the reaming and also to clean up the damaged areas. They turned out to be burn damage so I scraped out the damaged briar until I got to a solid base. The bowl exterior was so encrusted in grime and oils that it was hard to see the sandblast finish. All of the grooves, nooks and crannies of the Shell finish were not visible due to the coating filling them in. I scrubbed the exterior of the pipe with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap under warm running water to flush away the grime as the soap loosened it from the finish. I scrubbed until the finish was clean. The draw back in this case was that it removed the black Classic stain. The good news was that I could see some amazing grain in the sandblast. I knew that restaining it would not be an issue so it was good to see what was present. The damage to the rim top and inner edge is very visible in the third photo below. The heaviest damage is to the back edge of the rim top and it extends almost to the outer edge of the rim. I had several options to consider in repairing the damage. I could top the bowl and lose the rest of the nice blast on the rim top or I could repair and buildup the rim top with briar dust and super glue. To top it would require remove a lot of briar due to the depth of the damage on the back side. I decided to go with rebuilding the rim top and edges. I layered on clear super glue and briar dust with a dental spatula on both damaged areas until I had it built up even with the rest of the rim. I rebuilt the inner edge of the rim the same way keeping the super glue out of the bowl itself. You will notice in the three pictures that follow that I don’t worry too much about the dust in the bowl as I will sand it out once the repair is hardened. I scraped out the inside of the bowl with the edge of the spatula to knock off high spots along the inside edge. I sanded the bowl with a piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the inner edge and to sand down the walls of the bowl. I blew out the sanding dust through the shank. I also scraped the top of the rim with the edge of the spatula and knocked off high spots. The first three photos below show the repair rim top and edge. I put a dental burr in the Dremel and copied the sandblast pattern that was on the rest of the rim onto the repaired areas. I ran the Dremel at just below the 10 marker in terms of speed and carefully etched the surface of the briar. The fourth photo shows the rim top after I had used the Dremel on it. I used a brass bristle wire brush to clean up the surface of the rim and it was ready to stain. I put a cork in the bowl to hold on to and stained the entire pipe with a black aniline stain to bring it back to match the colour of the pipe in photos. I applied the stain with a dauber and flamed it. I repeated the process until the coverage was even all over the bowl. I set aside the bowl to let the stain dry overnight. In the morning I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the sandblast with my finger tips to deep clean the finish, enliven and protect the wood. I buffed the pipe with a horsehair shoe shine brush to get it into the grooves of the plateau. I let it sit for a few minutes and then buffed it with a cotton cloth. The pipe came alive and there was a rich shine to the briar. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. With the bowl finished (except for buffing) I set it aside and worked on the stem. The stem was dirty and had some significant damage to the top side on the button and a large deep tooth mark on the underside. I cleaned up the damaged areas with alcohol and cotton pads. Once the areas were clean I built up the damaged areas on both sides of near the button with black super glue. I rebuilt the button on both sides as well. I set the stem aside to let the glue cure. Once the super glue patch had dried I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the surface of the repairs. The topside of the button was far better than when I started. The tooth mark in the underside was filled in and smoothed out. More sanding and filling to do to cover the air bubbles but it was looking good.I decided to take a break from the sanding for a bit and cleaned out the stem and the shank. I cleaned out the airway and the slot in the stem and the mortise and airway in the shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. I worked them over until they were clean.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped them down after each pad with Obsidian Oil after each pad. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both fine and extra fine to take out some of the tiny scratches in the vulcanite. I finished by rubbing it down with a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. With the stem polished I put it back on the pipe and lightly buffed the bowl with Blue Diamond being careful to not fill the grooves in the blast with the polishing compound. I used a regular touch on the stem to polish out any remaining scratches. I gave the bowl several coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This is the second of six Dunhill pipes that I am restoring from Farida’s Dad’s collection. I am looking forward to hearing what Farida thinks once she sees the finished pipe on the blog. I will be posting it on the rebornpipes store as she wants to sell them for the estate. It should make a nice addition to a new pipeman’s rack that can carry on the trust from her father. The dimensions are; Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 inches. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me it was a challenging and worthwhile pipe to work on. Cheers.

Reworking and Restemming What Looked Like a Lost Cause

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Blog by Ryan Thibodeau

I have been following Ryan’s work on FaceBook’s Tobacco Pipe Restorers Group and have been impressed with his work. When he posted the work on this old Canadian stummel with a lot of issues I wrote and asked if he would be willing to post it on rebornpipes. He said sure and sent me the following write up. I am happy to welcome Ryan to the pages of the blog. It is a pleasure to have you here. Without further ado I will let Ryan introduce himself to you all. — Steve

My name is Ryan Thibodeau, I live in the Hamilton Ontario region I stumbled upon this hobby by accident. When my Father learned of my new hobby, he gave me his 1959 Dunhill shell briar pipes. They hadn’t been smoked in 38 years and needed some TLC. I had them restored and they were the first two pipes in my rack.

From there I joined various Facebook Groups and happened upon Steve’s blog “Reborn Pipes”, I was inspired immediately. Since that time I’ve been collecting tired worn out pipes and testing my ability to return them to a condition that I would be proud of. It is a wonderful hobby, that doesn’t require a lot of space to do.

Every pipe has a story! Usually the smoker who owned it, and their story, is more interesting than the pipe itself.

I purchased this pipe in a lot of 12. There were only one or two pipes in the lot that I really wanted and the price was right, so I wasn’t heartbroken if the rest came to rest in the bottom of my box of pipes. One of them came in a case that was meant for a meerschaum, and it looked decent when in the picture, but further investigation revealed a lot of issues that would need to be repaired. I started by removing the silver band, which came off without any effort and used Heirloom Stripper to remove all the dirt, grime, old finish and lift some of the stain. This allowed me to get a real good look at the damage to this pipe. Next I used my Castleford reamer to remove all the cake out of the bowl. There was very little cake lining the bowl, however; once I removed the cake I found that walls of the tobacco chamber were severely charred. I suspect this pipe was smoked very hot and the briar was charred to charcoal. I wanted to see how much of the chamber was damaged ( I prefer to ream my bowls right back to fresh briar. This way I can see if there are any heat fissures or major issues that would make a restoration go sour after the first smoke)

I removed the charred wood. The reamers will shave away the charred wood, once you feel the resistance of the blades rubbing the fresh briar you know you’ve removed the charring.I used a combination of Briar dust and CA Glue to create a patch for the gouge on the side of the bowl. Using a flat file, I filed the patch down to the profile of the pipe. Afterwards I topped the bowl to level out the rim and the patch. The bowl was also over reamed by its previous owner so I added a bevel to the inside of the bowl at the rim to blend everything in.

There was a lot of filing and sanding through this process to get it just right. Unfortunately I get hyper focused during this process and forgot to take step-by-step pictures.

The grey patches you see inside the bowl is a product called JB Weld. I mixed up a batch and filled the problem areas in the chamber, afterwards I sanded it down to blend with the rest of the chamber. In my experience the product is completely inert once cured. It is handy for a reconstruction of this kind, but I’d recommend adding a bowl coating as an added barrier.This pipe came to me without a stem. Fortunately I had a stem that would be the perfect length, I just needed to shape the tenon to fit the pipe. For this I used the Pimo Tenon cutter from Vermont Freehand.

I also used the opportunity while I was at this end of the pipe to drill a hole ahead of the crack in the shank and filled used briar dust and CA Glue. As sometimes happens with restorations, I thought I stopped the crack from spreading, well I was wrong and it continued from the patch further up the shank about ¼ of an inch. So I drilled another hole and patched it again. This time I seemed to have everything under control.

The stem was quite simple to shape to the profile of the pipe and was a welcome change from the frustrations of the other repairs that didn’t go according to plan.

Once I had all the parts and repairs completed. I sanded the entire pipe and stem with 320 grit sandpaper up to 8000 grit (1500-8000 with micro mesh pads) Rustication

At this point I had to consider how I was going to finish this pipe. Originally this was a smooth finish Canadian Billiard, but those days were long behind this tired old pipe. I originally thought of using a really dark stain to hide all the imperfections, polish it and call it a day, then I thought I’d take a risk and create something new, and breath new life into this pipe. For all the effort I put into this pipe up to this point I figured I’d let my creativity flow.

I decided that I would rusticate this pipe and leave a smooth patch somewhere, where I hadn’t determined yet. Using a Dremel and a 107 Carving bit I started to rusticate the shank and worked my way to the heel, then up the stummel. Halfway up the stummel the pipe revealed its final design-leave the top of the bowl smooth! I wasn’t sure at first because it would mean I had to blend in that CA patch, but I now avoided trying to rusticate it.

I was very pleased with the result.

Staining & Finishing

I used Fiebings Dark Brown alcohol based dye over the entire pipe as a base, then wiped on Fiebings Oxblood till I achieved the colour I wanted. To seal the stain in the pipe I applied a thin layer of shellac which gave it a glossy look I didn’t like. I left it, and just stayed the course with this experiment to see how it turned out.

In the morning the Shellac had cured. I began the polishing process at this point. I don’t have a buffing wheel yet, so I use cotton wheel buffing bits that fit to my dremel.

I started with Tripoli and thoroughly went over the entire pipe and stem. The tripoli did a good job of taking down the shellac, and making it less pronounced. I followed that up with white diamond and then finally carnauba wax. I used a fluffy felt bit to polish the whole pipe.

Bowl Coating

You will find a variety of recipes and opinions on bowl coatings. I use them when needed and I prefer the waterglass recipe that a pipe maker shared with me. It is a combination of Sodium Silicate, Activated Charcoal and White Pumice. Once cured it provides a refractory layer on the inside of the bowl, and it feels like 800 grit sandpaper which promotes new cake build up without putting a lot of heat stress on the worn out briar.

This pipe definitely tested the limits of my abilities and I learned some new techniques that I had only seen others use. Here’s the finished pipe!

Craig’s Pipes #3 – Restemming and Restoring a Wally Frank Natural Bulldog

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Blog by Steve Laug

In my previous 2 blogs on Craig’s pipes I spoke of the five pipes that I am working on for him. In this blog I am taking on the third of his pipes – a Wally Frank Natural Unvarnished Bulldog that came to me sans stem. It was by far the most used pipe he sent me with a cake in the bowl that was thick and hard. I am going to include what Craig wrote me about his pipes. I have included it in the previous two blogs but I think it adds context to the bunch.

I was recently given a bag of pipes…literally, a BAG of 20 or so pipes that are 50+yrs in age and VERY used. I was wondering if you would have time to either Skype or FaceTime with me, and go through what I have in order to determine which are worth sending to you to have them refurbished. If you would be so kind, I’d really appreciate it.

We met on FaceTime and walked through each of the pipes in his bag. He pulled out a grocery bag with no rhyme or reason to it. It was filled with a jumble of no name or low-end drug store pipes. The only pipes that stood out for me were an old WDC Campaign pipe and a Grabow Starfire. We excluded all but five of the pipes. The amount of work necessary to bring them back was not worth the price. These are the five that we chose to work on. As I finish them, I will include the link to the blog covering that pipe.

– A No Name Meerschaum that looked interesting – https://rebornpipes.com/2018/01/31/is-it-a-meerschaum-looks-like-one-feels-like-one-but/
– A leather clad billiard marked R20 and bearing a shield – https://rebornpipes.com/2018/02/01/rejuvenating-a-leather-clad-billiard/
– A Wally Frank Bulldog marked Natural Unvarnished lacking a stem
– A Dr. Grabow Starfire 39 that had great grain
– A WDC Campaign underslung pipe

After our conversation, he packed up the pipes and threw the rest of the pipes in a separate bag for me to scavenge parts. The box did not take too long to get to Vancouver and when it did I opened the box and had a look. Here are pics of what I saw – there were two bags inside. One bag held the discards for the scrap pile and the other held the five pipes he wanted restored. The third pipe was the stemless Bulldog on the lower right of the photo above. The briar was very dirty with lots of grime and some residue that had hardened on the surface of the bowl. The rim top was in good condition but I would not be sure until I was able to remove the lava overflow from the bowl over the bevel. The outer edges were undamaged all around the bowl and I was hoping the same was true of the inner edge. There was some darkening on the rim as well. The bowl had a thick cake in it and remnants of tobacco. On the front of the bowl on the cap there was some hardened sticky substance. The shank is stamped on the left side Natural over Unvarnished. On the right side it is stamped Wally Frank Ltd. On the underside of the left side it reads Imported Briar. There was no stem so I was going to need to fit one to the shank. I took the following photos of the pipe before I started cleaning it up. I went through my can of stems and found one that would work with the pipe. It was a diamond saddle stem. The saddle portion was slightly larger than the shank of the pipe but I could work that to make it fit well. The tenon would need to be turned with the PIMO tenon turning tool make it a snug fit in the shank.I drilled out the airway in the stem with a drill bit the same size as the post in the centre of the tenon turning tool. Once it was open I adjusted the cutting head on the tool to take the tenon down incrementally to the right dimension. I readjusted it and repeated the process until the fit was right. I sanded down the tenon lightly with 220 grit sandpaper to fine tune the fit and put it in the shank of the pipe. I took photos of the pipe at this point to show what needed to be done to adjust the fit. It needed some work. The bowl was also very caked and that needed to be reamed. I took the stem off and reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer. I started with the smallest cutting head and worked my way up to the one that was the same diameter as the bowl. I reamed it back to bare briar. I cleaned up the remnants with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. With bowl reamed I turned to the rest of the internals. I used a dental spatula to scrape out the heavy tar buildup in the shank. There was a lot of mess there and it took a lot of scraping before I had it cleaned out. I cleaned the shank and mortise with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. I scrubbed out the shank and mortise until the pipe cleaners and swabs came out clean.I sanded off the lava and darkening on the rim top with 220 grit sandpaper. I was able to remove all of the buildup and damage on the rim.I sanded the saddle portion of the stem with a Dremel and sanding drum to reduce the sides to match the shank. I sand it on a slower speed and carefully work to keep it from hitting the shank of the pipe. I finish the fitting with 180 and 220 grit sandpaper to sand it to match the shank. I sand the shank at the same time to make the transition smooth. The next set of four photos show the fit of the stem at this point in the process. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my finger tips to deep clean the finish, enliven and protect the wood. I worked the balm into the rim top and inner bevel of the rim to polish the cleaned up area. I let it sit for a few minutes and then buffed it with a cotton cloth. The grain in the wood came alive and there was a rich shine to the briar. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. I polished the bowl and rim with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down after each pad with acetone to clean off the sanding dust. The photos show the progress of the polishing. I used a dark brown stain pen to blend the sanded shank end with the rest of the bowl. I polished it with micromesh sanding pads to blend it in and hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth. I worked over the stem with micromesh sanding pads. I polished out the sanding scratches and marks from the reshaping work. I wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads and wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each one. I polished the stem with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish, using both Fine and Extra Fine polishes to polish out the remaining light scratches in the vulcanite. When I finished with the polish I gave it a final coat of oil and let it dry. With the stem replaced and polished I put it back on the pipe and buffed the entire pipe again with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I polished it with the polishing compound until it was shiny. I gave the entire pipe several coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The new stem and the bowl polished up pretty nicely. The finished pipe is shown with the original stem in the photos below. This is the third of Craig’s five pipes. Once I finish the other two pipes I will pack them up and get them out to him. I am looking forward to what he will think once he has them in hand. Thanks for walking through these restorations with me. I am thinking that the pipeman who gave Craig these pipes would be happy that they are back in service and that Craig is carrying on the pipeman’s trust with them. Cheers.

Reworking & Restemming Last of Mark’s Uncle’s Pipes – a Kaywoodie Custom Grain Dublin

Another Unusual Estate Find – A Kaywoodie Metal Filter Pipe with Case

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Blog by Steve Laug

At a recent Estate sale Jeff picked up a boxed Kaywoodie Filter Pipe set. It was a brown leatherette covered hard case with a yellow satin lining in the lid that was printed in red ink with the Kaywoodie Club logo and read Kaywoodie over World’s Finest Since 1851. The cotton lining in the bottom compartmental part of the case was in good condition. It came with three bowls, the pipe and four unopened tubes of Kaywoodie Ceramic Filters. Each tube had an instructional brochure folded into the top. The box still had the labeling inside. There was the label that went with the original pipe with a $9.50 price tag. There was a label that was originally attached to the top of the stem that read “Spring Action Bit – Non-Detachable”. There was also the set label that read $20.50 over Kaywoodie, New York & London. This was a gold label that sat on the front edge of the box when the lid opened. Probably one of the most interesting pieces with box was the original sales receipt. The set was sold at Goose AR Exchange – a US Military Base Exchange. I found a Goose Creek, South Carolina Naval Base so I am thinking this may have been the location. The set was sold on October 21, 1955 to a Captain Richard B. Blood for the price of $12.25 well below the retail price of $20.50 on the case label. The outside of the box was in good condition. There was a damaged spot on the top right corner where a price tag must have been stuck and removed. The set was well cared for and smoked. Each bowl had been used but none of them were oversmoked or heavily caked. The metal base on each bowl was in decent condition. The coin slot for removing the base and changing the ceramic filter was still very useable. The filters in the tubes on the right side of the box were all unopened. The metal spring loaded Kaywoodie base was clean but the stem was lightly oxidized. Jeff took quite a few photos of the content of the set. It really is an interesting piece with all of the parts intact in the box. Jeff took the pipe base and bowls out of the box and took photos of them from different angles. The three bowls are different. I would tend to call the one on the left and apple, the middle an urn and the one on the right a billiard. Jeff took all of the bowls apart. He removed the base from the bowl and took out the ceramic filter. The photos show all of the parts of the pipe.I have worked on one of these in the past but I have never seen a full set of the pipes in a case (https://rebornpipes.com/2016/01/30/it-was-a-kaywoodie-metal-pipe-that-i-had-never-seen-before/). In that blog I included the following advertisement and I thought it would be helpful here as well so I have included it again.

I think Jeff had a little more fun cleaning up this set. It came with some history and he always enjoys that part of the process. He did an amazing job on the cleanup on the bowl and stem. He worked on the dismantled bowls as this was the easiest way to clean this batch. He reamed each of the bowls back to bare briar. He started with a PipNet Pipe Reamer and followed up with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He cleaned the internals of the bowl and stem with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs – scrubbing out the metal shank and the base plate to remove the light buildup in those areas. He scrubbed the exterior of the pipe with Murphy’s Oil soap and a tooth brush and was able to remove all of the varnish coat and grime from the smooth and sandblast finish on the briar. The inner and outer edges of each of the rim tops looked very good. He soaked the stem in an Oxyclean bath to remove the light oxidation. When the set arrived I took some photos to show how it looked before I did the restoration. This set has both a story and some age attached to it. It will look really good once it is polished. I took a photo of the pamphlet that had been folded into each of the ceramic filter tubes. It is a nice addition in that it explains how the filters work and how to change them.I took some photos of the bowls. He had done a great job cleaning them up. Each bowl had been taken apart and cleaned and a new ceramic filter installed in the base. They had been reamed, cleaned and polished. Jeff put the sandblast cauldron like bowl on the pipe base so I left it on for the photos. It was in good condition. The base has no marks on the top of the shank but on the underside is a cast Kaywoodie Club. The stem is not removable and is spring loaded and it has the Kaywoodie inset club on top. All of the bowls needed to be waxed and polished. This close up photo of the rim top and bowl show how clean he was able to get them. The base and stem also needed to be polished but they were also clean and free of tooth marks.I took the bowl off the base and took a series of photos to show the pipe as a set. It is a unique and in its own way, beautiful set of bowls and base.The rim top on the two smooth bowls was in good condition. I polished it with 1500-4000 grit micromesh sanding pads to polish them. The rim top on the sandblast bowl had some spots where the finish had been rubbed free and there were some nicks. I used a brass bristle wire brush to clean off the surface of the rim and then restained it with a dark brown stain pen. I set it aside and let the stain dry. Once it had dried I buffed it to polish the restained rim and the bowl.I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of each of the briar bowls with my finger tips to deep clean, enliven and protect the briar of the smooth and the sandblast finishes. I let each bowl sit for a few minutes and then buffed them with a cotton cloth. The grain of the briar on each bowl really began to show through at this point and there was a rich shine to the briar. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. I worked over the stem with micromesh sanding pads. I polished out the scratches and marks in the vulcanite – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads and wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each one. When I finished with the 12000 grit pad I gave it a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry. I polished the metal base and shank with a jeweler’s polishing cloth to bring some shine to the aluminum and to take away the tarnish. I find that a jeweler’s cloth impregnated with some anti tarnish compounds works really well on the metal used in aluminum pipes and also nickel, silver and gold bands used on shanks.I put the bowl back on the metal base and took the pipe to the buffing wheel to work it over. I buffed the bowl and stem once again with Blue Diamond to polish it. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats carnauba wax. I buffed the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. I also buffed the other two bowls with Blue Diamond and gave them each multiple coats of carnauba wax to polish and protect them. I buffed them each with a clean buffing pad as well to raise the shine and hand buffed them with the microfiber cloth. The finished set of bowls and base along with the case, the paper work and the extra tubes of filters are all included in this beautiful set. The finished pipe (without the case) is shown in the photos below. The bowls have some nice grain on each of them and each is not only a unique shape and finish but also in grain patterns. The pipe looks great like it must have when it came out of the factory. It is light weight and feels comfortable in the hand. The medium brown stain on the smooth bowls and the darker stain on the sandblast bowl works well with the polished metal base and the black vulcanite stem. It has a very elegant look to it and it is eye catching. This older Kaywoodie Filter Pipe Set will make a great addition to your collection. It looks good and if it like the one I have smokes very well. The dimensions of the pipe are: Length: 6 inches, Height: varies from 1 ¾ inches with the sandblast bowl and 1 ¼ inches for the apple bowl, Outer Diameter of the Bowl: 1 3/8 inches, Diameter of the Chamber: 3/4 inches. I will be adding this set to the rebornpipes store shortly if you are interested in adding it to your collection. If you are interested email me at slaug@uniserve.com or send me a message on Facebook. Thanks for looking.

A Refurb and a Replacement Stem for a Lorenzetti Galatea Apple

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Blog by Steve Laug

Not long ago I received a phone call from an interesting woman who had been given my phone number by a local pipe and cigar shop. She had a couple of pipes that needed some stem repair. In our conversation it turned out that they belonged to her husband and he had a total of two pipes. Both of them needed work and she was determined to get them repaired for him. In our talking we spoke of the options – either repairing the stem or making a new stem. She spoke with him and they decided to repair them. A few days later her husband stopped by the house to show me the two pipes. We talked and he decided to work on one pipe at a time so that he would have one to smoke while I repaired the other one. I finished the repair on the stem of his Big Ben Nautic 252 bent apple kind of quasi brandy shaped pipe. Here is the link to the stem repair on that pipe. https://rebornpipes.com/2017/12/22/restoring-repairing-a-damaged-stem-on-a-big-ben-nautic-252/ I returned it to him and he dropped off his second pipe for a repair as well. Two days later he called and said he had already chomped through the repair on the one he took with him. Even with a rubber softee bit he had demolished the repair. So we decided on this one to replace the stem.

The second pipe is a Lorenzetti Galatea Bent apple shape. It is stamped on the left side of the shank Lorenzetti over Italy. On the right side it is stamped Galatea. There is no shape number on the bowl or shank. The end of the shank has a decorative ferrule that is silver with two silver rings and a Lucite ring. The original stem also had a silver band between the shank and the rest of the stem. Lots of bling on this Italian beauty. The stem was black acrylic. From the side view photos below the pipe looked pretty good. The finish was dirty but the pipe appeared to be in decent condition. The top view photos show what the bowl and stem looked like from the top and underside views. Like the other pipe the bowl on this one had never been reamed and there was a thick cake that was composed of aromatic tobacco. It was soft and sticky. The lava overflow on the rim top was also sticky to touch. The smell of the pipe was a sickly sweet and sour smell of a pipe that had never seen a pipe cleaner and never had been cleaned. Once again he had gnawed the stem and had broken the top edge and a bit of the stem in front of the button. It was a mess. The underside had deep tooth marks and was also damaged. The poor pipe was a mess but he obviously smoked it as much as he did the first one. Now I had a task – clean and replace the stem on this one so that I could put a new stem on the first one. I had a mission. I took photos of the pipe before I cleaned it up. I took a close up photo of the bowl and rim to show the thickness and composition of the cake and the thick overflow of lava on the rim top. It looked to me that there was some damage to the inner edge and bevel of the rim on the right side of the bowl toward the back. I would know more once I reamed the cake back and could see what was underneath. It was not in nearly the condition of the Big Ben that finished for him early. I also took some photos of the stem damage so that you could see what I was up against. The sad thing to me was that this second pipe had exactly the same damage to the stem and the bowl looked identical as well.I reamed the bowl back to bare briar with a PipNet pipe reamer. I started reaming it with the smallest cutting head and worked my way up to the second cutting head which matched the diameter of the bowl. I touched up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe knife.The rim was in rough condition. There was gouging around the inner edge of the bowl cause by a knife and there was some charring in that area as well. The rest of the rim was in rough condition and appeared to have been knocked about a bit. It would need to be topped and reworked.I topped the bowl on a hard board with a piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I was able to remove much of the surface damage to the rim top. The second photo below shows the top of the rim after the topping. You can see the charred area in that photo as well.I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to re-bevel the inner edge of the rim and smooth out the damaged areas on the right inner edge. I blended that area into the rest of the beveled rim. Once it was shaped correctly I wiped it down and polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-6000 grit pads. I restained the top and inner edge of the rim with a dark brown stain pen. The colour blended well with the rest of the bowl.I had enough of the smell of the pipe permeating the workspace so I decided to rid it of the smell filled my work area. I used pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to clean out the interior of mortise and the airway in the shank. I used a dental spatula to scrape the walls of the mortise area. It took a lot of pipe cleaners to remove all of the buildup but once it was clean the pipe smelled better and it would be more pleasant for me to work on.With internals clean I turned my attention to the outside of the briar. I rubbed the bowl and shank down with Before & After Restoration Balm to deep clean the smooth finish, enliven and protect the briar. I hand rubbed it with my fingers and wiped it off with a soft cloth. I buffed the bowl with a soft cotton cloth to polish it. It really began to have a rich shine in the briar. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. With the bowl finished I set it aside and went through my can of stems to find one that would work well with the pipe. I had two that could work – one was a vulcanite stem that had promise and looked good on the shank. It was the same length but slightly smaller in diameter than the original stem. The other stem was Lucite/acrylic. It was the same diameter as the previous stem and about 1/8 inch shorter. It also looked good with the pipe. Neither stem had the metal adornment on the end. I had nothing like that in my available stems. I chose the acrylic stem as it as harder than the vulcanite and I believe it will outlast the vulcanite stem with this particular pipe man. The tenon was slightly shorter but the shank was wide open with a deep mortise that was designed for a filter. I figured the length of the tenon did not matter in this case. I bent the stem over a heat gun to match the original stem. I sanded out the nicks and marks on the stem surface. The second and third photos below show the stem after the bend. I continued to sand out the nicks and scratches with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the stem surface. There were a lot of rough places on the stem and the tenon that needed to be smoothed out and blended into the surface.I polished out the sanding scratches and marks in the acrylic on both sides of the stem and the button surface itself with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped down the stem after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust. I used a series of needle files to open the stem and funnel the airflow. After that I buffed the stem on the buffing wheel with Blue Diamond to polish out the final scratches in the acrylic. I put the stem on the bowl and worked the pipe bowl over on the buffing wheel using Blue Diamond to polish the bowl and stem. I hand buffed the stem to raise the gloss on the stem and polished the metal stem adornment with a silver polishing cloth. I gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I buffed the entire pipe with a clean microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The medium brown stains on the smooth finish of the apple shaped bowl works well with the rich black of the Lucite stem. The new stem and the polishing revealed a beautiful piece of briar and a well-shaped pipe. Thanks for looking.

The Restoration of a Savinelli Alligator 207 Apple

A Few Firsts on a GBD Garland II Calabash 9552

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Blog by Aaron Henson

Before you get into this write up, I need to confess that despite my best efforts, I did a poor job of photo documenting this repair and restoration. I had good intentions, but the project was spread out over two months, working on it as I had time. Because of this, some of the pictures were taken out of sequence and others were chosen that best show a repair but also show repairs that have not yet been covered in the write up.

I realized a while back, that I had not restored a pipe recently that I was really excited about. There have been a number pipes that have crossed my work table and some have even posed some new challenges but the pipes themselves were hardly memorable. With the pickings at the second hand store in my area being slim – I turned to eBay to see if I could find a project pipe that would peak my interest. After a few hours of browsing I, found just what I was after: a stemless, GBD Garland II stummel – shape 9552. I submitted my bid and picked it up for a price that I thought was reasonable.

I don’t typically like to buy pipes on eBay. I prefer to be able to see them first hand so I know what I am getting myself into. But in this case the seller was forthcoming in the auction description, revealing that the pipe had a major crack in the bowl and another in the shank and of course, it lacked a stem. But what really fascinated me was the shape of the stummel and what promised to be some beautiful grain patterns.

The following pictures were from the seller auction page: Wanting an idea of what kind of stem was originally on the pipe, I headed on-line to see what I could find. My first stop was here at Reborn Pipes. In a 2016 article, our host, Steve, restored a GBD Colossus Fantasy 9552. I found additional examples of the 9552 shape in the GBD’s Prehistoric, Prestige and Virgin lines. In all cases the 9552 originally came with a bent saddle bit – some fancier than others.

These next two pictures are of a Garland II I found online. I was not going to try to duplicate the band in the stem, but knew I was going to need a band on the shank and that wouldn’t look too bad. Then I ended up at a Pipedia article for GBD Models where I learned that the Garland is a seconds line from GBD. I found this surprising because the Garland that I have and the ones I have seen online are excellent specimens of briar. Admittedly, my eye is not that experienced, but just from the quality of the briar and the lack of fills and pitting I would guess that the Garland line is GBD’s higher end seconds consisting more of fabrication errors rather than materials flaws. Can anyone confirm my guess?

Another interesting fact that I note is that the 9552 shape is often stamped with “Colossus”. The term Colossus was used by GBD as plus sized pipe designation. This size designation is used on all the GBD lines of pipes, but is lacking on this particular Garland II stummel. When the stummel arrived, I eagerly open the package and began to inspect the damage up close, fearing that some of the worst damage may not have been disclosed. But the seller’s pictures and description were accurate and I didn’t find hidden issues. The pipe was indeed big; the bowl height is 2.4 inches and the outside diameter is 1.75 inches. The chamber is 0.96 of an inch in diameter and 1.9 inches deep.

The left side of the shank is stamped GBD in an oval over Garland II. The left side has the COM (Country of Manufacture) stamp: MADE IN LONDON in a circle over ENGLAND and the shape number to the right: 9552. There was a heavy amount of the lava on the rim and the bevel at the edge of the chamber was a little distorted. The chamber too seemed to be drilled a little off center. Perhaps this was the why it was a second? The chamber had been reamed but not back to briar. The horizontal crack in the bowl was located on the left side and was a little over an inch long. I suspected that it went all the way through bowl wall but I could not be certain until I finished reaming the chamber. The crack in the stem was about half an inch long from the end of the shank right through the COM stamp but missing the shape number. Looking the pipe over closely, I noted quite a few dents in the heel of the stummel and handling scratches on the sides of bowl and the rim. I guessed that this piece of briar had been rattling around in a drawer for some time.Now that I had the stummel in hand I could measure the shank diameter (.610” at the end) and estimate the length that I wanted the new stem to be; about 3-1/4 inches. I took these measurements to the Vermont Freehand website and selected a stem that best fit. I chose the vulcanite stem blank number 722, a round saddle bit 21/32” diameter and 3-1/16” inches long. I always order two in case I ruin the first one. I also ordered four nickel plated shank rings, two 15.5 mm and two 16 mm not being sure which would be the better fit. With the parts on order, I started cleaning up the interior of the stummel. I reamed the chamber back to bare wood with my Castleford reamer and Decatur pipe knife. I also cleaned the shank alternating with bristled and soft pipe cleaners dipped in 91% isopropyl alcohol. The last person who tried reaming the chamber must have also ran a pipe cleaner or two through it because it only took five or six pipe cleaners before they started coming out as clean as they went in. The mortise I cleaned with cotton swabs. In all, the stummel was relatively clean. I wiped down the outside of the stummel with alcohol and acetone to remove the grime. Underneath the dirt and oils was some beautiful straight grain with a birds-eye heel. I looked closely and could not find any fills. Next, I addressed the thin crust of dried tars on the rim. I wetted down a green pad (mine was actually blue and did not work as well as the original green ones) with a mixture of tap water and granulated Oxy-clean. Placing the pad in a shallow dish, I pressed the rim of the pipe down on the pad and scrubbed in a circular motion. A little elbow grease and the moist Oxy-clean solution did its job. I dried the stummel with a paper towel and set it aside to dry for a bit.Next, I wanted to remove the ghosts of the previous tobacco that I could still smell in the chamber with an alcohol soak. I use the cotton ball method because it seems to do the job and is easier to clean up than the salt method. This chamber needed three cotton balls and I used 98% grain alcohol for the soak. I placed a cap over the top of the bowl for the first couple of hours to keep the alcohol from evaporating too fast then I removed the cap so the evaporative action can draw out the tars from the briar.When I got back to it the next day I was disappointed (though not surprised) that the crack in the bowl was wet where alcohol had been seeping through. At lease now I knew for sure that the crack went all the way through the bowl wall. The good news was I could easily see the ends of the hairline crack. I used a dental pick to mark the ends so I could find them later, then I removed the cotton balls and wiped out the chamber with a dry paper towel. I began the crack repair by using a small drill bit (0.5 mm) and hand drilled the stopper holes at the location I marked with the dental pick. Since the crack went completely trough the chamber wall I also drilled the hole all the way through the wall. I have not dealt with a crack that was this deep before so I was on unfamiliar ground. I packed the hole the half full with briar dust using a tooth pick then placed a drop of clear CA glue into the hole – coaxing it in with the tooth pick. I filled the holes up the rest of the way and dripped more glue. I used a magnifying glass to locate the end of the shank crack and gave it the same treatment.

I unsuccessfully tried working some CA glue into the bowl crack. The glue just seemed to set too fast and did not penetrate the crack. The shank crack on the other hand I could work open and get the glue to flow into it. I put a clamp on the shank while the glue set. Then when dry, I sanded the glued repairs smooth with 220 grit paper, careful not to over sand and change the shape of the pipe or damage the stamping on the shank. I resolved to repair the bowl crack by applying coat of heat resistant epoxy to the inside of the chamber. In this case I used the two part JB Weld – not the Quick Weld, which is useful for other pipe repairs. For pipe chamber repairs, I like the original JB Weld epoxy, it is easy to use and when cured it has a 550 degree (F) heat resistance. It is also easy to sand smooth. I apply it with my finger because it is much easier to get an even coat. I highly recommend wearing a pair of powder free Nitrile blue gloves for this operation! By this time the parts from Vermont Freehand arrived and wanted to band the shank. I have fixed a few banded pipes before but never put a band on an unbanded pipe. I tried dry fitting the two different sized bands I had bought. The smaller band would only just slip on the first fraction of an inch so I was glad I had ordered the next size up. The bands were a bit wider than I wanted because I did not want it to cover up too much of the stamping. Not sure what to do about the band width, I kept focusing on the seating of the band. I used a heat gun to heat up the band and get it to expand. Then with the band resting on a wood block, I pressed the shank down into the ring. The first attempt didn’t go well. The band was a bit cocked and only seated about a quarter of an inch. I realized that the shank’s taper was going to prevent the band from going on much farther and that was going to resolve the width issue; I was going to have to trim the band.

I removed the band and heated it up again. I smeared a little CA glue around the end of the shank and was able to seat the band squarely. This time about 3/8” onto the shank. Once cool, I used a skinny wheel on a rotary tool to trim of the excess band material and flush it up to the end of the shank. Although the band covered up the COM stamp and ‘AND II’ of ‘GARLAND II’ it was necessary and it gives the stummel a touch of class. I was pleased that the replacement stem I had chosen seemed to be a good fit although it was going to need some work. I started by using a fine tooth file to square up the face of the stem so it sits flush to the shank and removing the casting burrs.The tenon on the blank was way oversized as was the body of the stem. I don’t have a tenon turning tool, so I use my drill press to turn the stem. Wedging a bamboo skewer into the air hole at the tenon end, I leave about an inch of skewer exposed that I can secure into the chuck of the drill. Setting the drill to about 1300 RPM I use small pieces of 60 grit sand paper to slowly reduce the diameter of the tenon and the stem until it the correct size. The drill press method works well in theory. Once in a while the stem slips loose from its friction fit with the skewer and I have to reseat it. I work the vulcanite with 60, 120 and 220 grit sand paper, leaving the polishing to be done by hand with micromesh pads.

I kept a caliper nearby set at the correct tenon diameter to check my progress. As I got closer to the correct size, I switched to 120 and 220 grit paper. But I didn’t switch soon enough! By the time I got some of the deep scratches of the 60 grit out I had overturned the tenon and it was a hair too small. I finished turning the body of the stem before addressing the tenon issue.I thought at first that a little bee’s wax on the tenon would be enough to tighten the fit but in the end I had enlarge the tenon. To do this, I heated the tenon and inserted a drill bit into the air hole to enlarge the tenon. Letting the tenon cool with the bit in it I checked the fit: A little too big. I didn’t want to take anymore material off the tenon because if the tenon gets hot during a smoke it will return to its original size, vulcanite has a memory. I looked around my tool box and found a small punch that had a slightly smaller diameter than the drill bit and repeated the heating process. This time the fit was much better.

With the stem fitted it was time to bend the stem. I have jig for holding round stock and I used this to hold the assembled pipe steady with the bit resting on a 1-1/4” round dowel. Using my heat gun, I heated the bit until it draped over the dowel. I dipped the bent stem in water to cool the vulcanite and set the shape. Then I checked the angle of the bend and had to repeat the process a couple of times until I had what I thought was the original stem shape just right.Stem polishing started with 220 grit to remove the remainder of the casting burrs. Then I wet sand with micromesh pads 1500 – 4000.I removed the plastic guard after the 2400 pad. I used the 3200 and higher micromesh pads to also polish the band.After the 4000 pad I coated the stem with mineral oil and let it sit for a few hours. Then I finish polishing with pads 6000 to 12000. I started finishing the stummel by giving it a steam treatment to raise the dents and handling damage. Holding a wet terry cloth rag on the briar I press a hot iron on to it. This method works very well but I have two points of caution: 1) don’t burn your fingers in the steam; and 2) do not press the iron near the stamping, it will ruin stamping very quickly. I only apply the iron around the bowl body and the heel where the dents are the worst anyway.

I sanded the stummel with micromesh pads 1500 through 3200, with special attention paid to the rim to make sure it was smooth. I selected Fiebing’s dark brown aniline dye to better hide the repairs and applied the stain, without dilution, using a cotton swab straight from the bottle. I used a flame to heat and set the stain. I wiped down the stummel with isopropyl alcohol on a cotton pad to remove the excess stain. I kept wiping it down until the level of color was what I thought it should be. After staining the stummel I like to refresh the briar with a light coat of mineral oil and let the oil soak in overnight. All of the alcohol in the stain and the wiping down tends to dry out the stummel and I find the mineral oil helps to bring some of the life back to the briar. It also seems to give the finished pipe a healthy look.After the oil soaked in, I polished the briar with the 3200 – 6000 micromesh pads. Wiping it down with a clean cloth when finished.I took the assembled pipe back to my drill press/buffing station and ran over the entire pipe with red diamond polishing compound. Two or three passes of the pipe seems to prepare the pipe well for the final finish. I wiped the pipe down with a microfiber cloth to remove the buffing compound and then changed the buffing wheel for the waxing wheel. Three coats of carnauba wax put a nice shine on the pipe.

The last step in this restoration was the bowl coat. I had earlier sanded the epoxy chamber repair and wiped out the bowl with alcohol so the inside was relatively smooth. I mixed up a small batch of bowl coat using 2 teaspoons of sour cream and about three activated charcoal capsules. This made a thick, black, creamy paste that I spooned into the chamber with a wood spatula made from a popsicle stick. Donning the Nitrile gloves again, I used my finger to evenly spread the coating around the inside of the chamber. Wiping the excess coating off the rim with a cotton pad I set the pipe aside to dry for a few days.

Now am I looking forward to the weather warming up so I can break in this pipe. I think it might become one in my regular rotation. Thank you for sharing in my adventure. If you like the tamper in the picture above, it is one that I made and is for sale. Please see the Reborn Pipes Store page for it and other tampers. All proceeds go to charity.