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It turned out to be a beauty – a Long Shank Vottis Billiard

Blog by Steve Laug

When I saw this one online there was some residual memory about the brand. I could not put my finger on it but I knew it was an American made pipe. I did not where but I remembered a name – Pat Vottis. It was a pipe on eBay that received little notice. I am not sure anyone bid on it so it became mine. I looked forward to its arrival in Canada when I could see what was under the grime and oxidation. In some of the photos below that I took upon its arrival there is some nice grain peeking through the cloudy finish.The finish was quite worn and cloudy but the sides of the bowl and shank did not have any gouges or dents. There was a dark, vertical stain on the front of the pipe that went from just below the rim edge to the curve of the bowl bottom. There was also a dark mark on the right side of the bowl toward the back. The rim was a mess. The outer edges had been knocked about to the point that the rim edge was rough to touch. There was a thick lava flow over the flat surface of the rim so it was hard to tell what was going on there. The inner edge of the bowl also looked to be damaged on the back right side. There was a thick cake in the bowl that I removed when I picked it up while visiting my brother in Idaho. That cake still needed more attention as can be seen in the photo below. There was a loose, oxidized silver band on the shank of the pipe that had blackened to the point that I could not read the stamping on the top side. The stem had some tooth marks on both the top and bottom sides that were quite deep and extended almost ½ inch up the stem from the button. The edge of the button was flattened and also had some tooth marks. Oxidation covered the whole stem. I took a few close-up photos of the rim top and the stamping on the shank of the pipe. From the first photo you can see the rim and the inside of the bowl. The remaining cake was incredibly hard. The stamping on the left side of the shank read, “Vottis” in script. On the right side it read Algerian Briar over Imported Briar. The stamping was sharp and legible. I decided before going further on the restoration of the pipe to do some research on the Vottis brand and see if I could rattle the old memory. Sure enough my original thoughts were correct. The name was Pat Vottis. There was quite a bit of information on the web about him and his pipe making and pipe shop. (NOTE: The next section is quite long so if you do not want to read the history of the brand you can skip ahead to the next photos and the explanation of the refurb.)

The first place I looked was on Pipedia.com. I found there that Vottis ran his workshop in Schenectady, New York. According to Pipedia he worked there from about the end of the 1940’s to the middle of the 1970’s. The article went on to say that he was one of the very first American carvers who made freehands in a moderate Danish style. This information did not help me identify the classic shaped pipe that I have. Mine is anything but a freehand, it is rather a long shank billiard or a long stem Lovat. The one thing that was interesting in the article was that Vottis pipe are well thought of to this day. I also learned that he preferred to use Corsican briar in making his pipes.

Well, that was a good start, but I wanted to know more. So I did some more digging and came across a conversation on pipes.org. The link below takes you to the conversation. The part that I have copied below was posted by Guy Vottis, Pat’s grandson in 2007. If you should want to read the context of the conversation you can follow the link.

http://pipes.org/forums/messages/23/46034.html?1171913269

Guy writes in response to a previous post. Here is the entirety of his post.

This post references Harold Vance Post #4 username hbvance and Jose Manuel Lopes Post #91 in the Archive of 2005 Sept 20 with a Subject Title of Vottis Pipes http://pipes.org/forums/discus~discus/discus~discus/discus/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?tpc=23&post=45187#POST451 87

Jose, I am not quite sure where you obtained your information regarding Pat Vottis but it is incorrect and I would like to share a bit of good information for the audience.

Pasquale (Pat) Vottis is my grandfather. He did not die as you have posted on the web in 2005. He actually died this morning at 99 yrs 9 months of age on Feb 18, 2007. He had a passion for the customers and the business.

My grandfather opened his first pipe shop in Albany, NY on South Pearl St. It was in the Bank Building (which took up a whole city block) at the corner of State Street and South Pearl. We also opened a second shop in Albany which was in the Empire State Plaza on the Concourse level. This was to serve all of the State Workers so they could do business at lunch time and not be strapped for time while trying to get down to the South Pearl shop. We still have the Vottis Pipe Shop Sign and the Vottis Pipe Shop Clock that was a landmark for the customers.

Harold Vance’s pipes may very well come from a pipeshop in Santa Monica. We mailed pipes all over the world. My grandfather’s sister actually lived in Santa Monica for many years. We also had a very large tobacco mail order business in which I mixed 1000s of pounds of tobacco and mailed them all around the world as well. We closed the pipe shops in the early 90s due to the numerous break-ins late at night. The locals would throw rocks through the store front windows to steal the hand carved pipes and the meerschaums.

My grandfather hand carved many, many pipes himself. He usually carved the big blocks. My grandfather, my uncle, and my father repaired pipes for everyone even if they had not bought a pipe at our shops. We had a metal lathe in the basement as well as a stove. The machined the tenon portion of the stem with a carbide cutter to match the stem of the bowl for a perfect fit every time. To match the stem or the fit of the customer, we custom bent the stems of the pipes to their satisfaction.

I recall boxes of briar blocks that were rough turned and my uncle, my father, and my grandfather would also hand finish these too. We had a lot of fun in the stores too. Mixing different formulas of tobaccos to see how the public would respond. We had numerous successful formulas. Our approach was to make all natural formulas with no sugars added, no sugar sprays, or flavorings added.

The most popular formula was created by grandfather and was called Black Watch. Some of the other blends were North Woods, Vottis’s Own, Vottis Club, Boulevard 76, No#9. These blends were comprised of burley, yellow cavendish, black cavendish, turkish, latakia, and others of which I do not recall. Ironically, for the namesake, my grandfather has died at a Nursing Home named North Woods just like one of his tobacco blends called North Woods…

That post gave me much more information including the link to Albany, New York. I went on to dig some more and found a newspaper article written by Paul Grondahl a staff writer for the local paper. The article is called “Pipe Shop’s Flame Flicker Out”. The link to the article is: http://alb.merlinone.net/mweb/wmsql.wm.request?oneimage&imageid=5580379. In that article I learned that the shop closed in 1991. I have included the article as it is very well written and gives a flavor of the shop and the proprietor.

PIPE SHOP’S FLAME FLICKERING OUT
Paul Grondahl Staff writer
Section: LIVING, Page: G1
Date: Sunday, October 27, 1991
ALBANY – The soft rattle and hum on the countertop of a battered, black wooden mixing bowl in which dozens of tons of blended pipe tobacco have been hand-kneaded for 50 years is being silenced.

The final clouds of aromatic smoke will waft past the humidor, beyond the wooden Indian perched on a box of cigars in the window and out the door of the Vottis Pipe Shop. After serving three generations of pipe smokers and shipping its custom tobacco blends across the country and to soldiers at war around the world, this South Pearl Street landmark is letting the fire burn out at the end of the month.

A handful of pipe shops still will remain in the Capital District after the Vottis Pipe Shop ceases to exist, but none who would make the bold claim, as Vottis did in 1948, of being “the world’s best-stocked pipe shop.”

No other local shop can boast of the long legacy in the trade, or having a patent on the air-cooled Vottis Rey pipe the way Pat Vottis did. And in no other shop has time essentially stood still for five decades.

It is the final chapter for a tobacconist family and its fiercely loyal customers.

“It was a fun business, and I’ve always said we didn’t have customers, we had only friends,” says Pasquale “Pat” Vottis, 84, of Guilderland. He opened the first Vottis Pipe Shop in 1941 on Erie Boulevard in Schenectady with his brother, Salvatore, before branching off with his own shop in downtown Albany in 1946. The Schenectady location was closed many years ago.

It felt a bit like a wake the other day as pipe aficionados streamed through the shop and placed a final order at the “tobacco bar.” Proprietor Vince Bonafede rang up the sales for Vottis custom blends Black Watch and Boulevard Deluxe on an antique manual National cash register. Customers paid their respects through clenched teeth, between drags on their pipes.

“An old friend is like a good smoke, Vince,” John O. McKenna was saying to Bonafede, with whom everyone is on a first-name basis. “I’m going to miss you, old buddy.”

McKenna, who works on behalf of the homeless in Albany and lobbies for war veterans, has been coming to the shop for a couple of decades, ever since he was a high school student and served as a legislative page who made cigar runs from the Senate floor for his late uncle, Sen. William F. Condon, a Westchester County Republican.

“I have delightful memories of this store, which helped me survive a place called Vietnam,” says McKenna, a non-smoker who frequently buys gifts at the shop. “The aroma of the store is something I’ll never forget. It’s extremely odiferous.”

Memories of his customers are equally pungent for Bonafede, 65, who took over the six- day-a-week business singlehandedly 15 years ago when his father-in-law, Pat Vottis, retired. Bonafede says he hasn’t had a week’s vacation since, and is eager for retirement, even though nostalgia tinges his anticipation of freedom.

“I’m happy that I’m finally going to get to rest and do what I want to do, but I’ll miss all my customers terribly,” Bonafede allows.

On this afternoon, Bonafede was leafing through letters from distraught mail-order customers who had been told the shop was closing.
There was a note from the Rev. Donald Webster, who has been ordering a pound of Vottis’ Boulevard Deluxe… religiously… each month from his home on Peaks Island, Maine, for more than 40 years.

“I wandered into the shop in the little arcade by the Schenectady railroad station in 1948,”
Webster writes. “I really felt bereft at hearing you were closing, and hate to think of going back to drugstore brands.”

There is a deep connection and intense loyalty between the serious pipe smoker and the choice of custom-blend tobacco that would be difficult to fathom for even, say, the Chivas Regal drinker or Cadillac driver who sticks with the same brand time after time.

The style of pipe and type of tobacco blend one smokes are a sort of talisman, rife with ritual and emotion.

The Vottis Pipe Shop has customers who had the pipe passion passed down from grandfathers. Others developed an allegiance to Black Watch while they were tweedy college-aged poseurs and have smoked nothing else straight through middle age and retirement.

But pipe smoking’s glory days are long past.

Pipe Lovers, “The Magazine for Men Who Love a Pipe,” published in Long Beach, Calif., had its heyday in the late-1940s. It was in that era that Pat Vottis was secretary of the Rip Van Winkle Pipe Club in Albany and club meetings, which regularly drew more than 100 pipe fanatics, were covered in the pages of Pipe Lovers.

Many cities had a pipe club. There was the Mohawk Pipe Club in Schenectady, with whom the Rip Van Winkle members held annual grudge matches. The contest was to see which club member could keep a bowl’s worth of tobacco burning the longest.

In 1949, Mohawk Pipe Club took the title with a 69-minute flame. Vottis tried to hold the honor for his Rip Van Winkle co-horts, but consumed all his tobacco and burned clean through his pipe’s briar bowl.

Gone a long time ago, too, are the Thursday evening pipe-smoking classes led by Vottis at the South Pearl shop, which were all the rage in the 1950s among women dangling dainty, jewel- encrusted pipes.

It was an innocent era, in which pipe smoking was touted as a healthy alternative to cigarettes and Vottis advertised that his Black Watch blend offered “an aroma that is accepted in every home, office or place of gathering.”

But these days, as pipe-lovers and smokers of all stripes are being made to slink with their habit past an anti-smoking phalanx and forced to steal puffs on sidewalks outside their places of work, the customers of the Vottis Pipe Shop reminisce about their golden age.

Garry Lavigne, an Albany attorney, was a Siena College student 30 years ago when he bought his first pound of Black Watch in an effort to give up cigarette smoking and he has been buying a pound of the same blend each week ever since.

“It’s disastrous that this shop is closing,” Lavigne says. “There’s no place else on Earth where I can get this tobacco.”

The Vottis Pipe Shop has always been proud of its most popular and trademark blend, the Scottish-styled Black Watch, of which they’ve sold tons at $9.75 per 12 ounces.

Vottis and Bonafede plan to go to their graves with the recipe. “Everyone tries to copy the Black Watch blend, but we’ll never let the secret out,” Bonafede vows. He says the key is its cool, mellow flavor and lack of an undesirable aftertaste.

The Vottis stamp has always been an all- natural smoke, without the vanilla, chocolate, strawberry or fruity flavorings of commercial blends. The Vottis philosophy is to let nothing get in the way of the flavor of wood and tobacco and smoke.

Vottis blends are homemade and so named, such as Connolly, a loyal customer, or Vin’s Special or Vottis’ Own. The English-styled Page No. 112 was inspired by book-lovers at Union College. North Wood is an outdoorsy, Adirondack blend and Grand Concourse was concocted by Bonafede’s wife, Marge, who ran a shop in the Empire State Plaza concourse for a decade before closing it five years ago.

The longtime Vottis customers are not happy about the prospect of change in their smoking life. They wonder will another tobacconist, besides Bonafede, will come up with novelty items such as the “crazy pipe,” a trombone- looking affair that carries the bowl behind the ear to keep smoke out of the eyes of the smoker? And will a new generation of tobacco merchants rush home after work to a basement workshop the way Bonafede did to make overnight repairs on pipe stems rendered useless by nervous teeth? And will there be other artists in Algerian briar who fashion one-of-a-kind pipes out of gnarled wood the way Bonafede does?

The Vottis Pipe Shop regulars think not, and they’re creating something of a Black Watch buying panic during the final week of business.

George Williams, chairman of Allied Capital Corp. in Washington D.C. and a 40-year customer, wrote to wish Bonafede well in his retirement and to score a five-pound order of Black Watch.

John Mason of Plattsburgh wrote to reminisce about his discovery of the Vottis Pipe Shop in 1941, while he was a student at Union College. He also ordered two pounds of Black Watch.

“I came into this shop with two friends from high school 26 years ago, and I’m the only one still smoking a pipe, and Black Watch, at that,” John Kelley, a CDTA bus driver, says during his final visit to the shop for a pound of Black Watch. “I hate the thought of going to a grocery store or CVS for a packaged blend now.”

Mike DeGulio, who works for the state division of housing, discovered the Vottis Pipe Shop six years ago after moving to Albany from New York City.

“Coming into the shop is a personal thing for me,” DeGulio says. “I shoot the breeze with Vince, I watch him blend my tobacco with his own two hands and he always takes good care of me.”

After one-half century, twilight has descended upon the Vottis Pipe Shop. The floor-to-ceiling lemon wood cabinets Vottis bought from a haberdashery have been sold. The pipe display cases have been mostly picked clean during a going-out-of-business sale, save for a few oddities, including a Calabash “Sherlock Holmes” model, marked down to $31 from $45.

Bonafede, who alternates between pipes and cigars, takes a cutter and neatly slices off the end of a thick Hoja, a hand-rolled Honduran stogey, and steps out onto South Pearl to exhale a cloud of smoky musings.

“It feels strange to be closing after all these years,” he says. “It’s been a good family business, but our children weren’t interested in carrying on and we didn’t want to sell it. The new generation just doesn’t care about the art of smoking a pipe.”

All of that information gave me what I needed to get a feel for Pat Vottis and his pipe shop including his philosophy of tobacco blending. I still did not know much about the pipe I had in my hand other than what I could deduce from the stamping. I knew that the briar was not Corsican but in this case Algerian. I also knew from the IMPORTED BRIAR stamping that the pipe was most probably made after the close of WWII when briar was once again imported into the US. I knew that the pipe was made in Albany, New York in the basement workshop of the Vottis Pipe Shop. I also knew that Pat Vottis in all likelihood carved the pipe sometime between 1946 and 1976 when his son in law Bonafede took over the shop at Pat’s retirement. So I found that while nothing was certain I could extrapolate quite a bit of information about the pipe I had found. Now it was time to get to work on it.

I had “field dressed” the pipe when I was in Idaho so when I got home at my work table I gave it another quick ream with the PipNet reamer and then followed up with the Savinelli Pipe Knife. I wanted to take the cake completely out of the bowl so I could look for burned areas or checking. The top of bowl was a mess. The inner edges were in decent shape but the outer edge was beat down against something so the edges were rounded over and the distinct shape was compromised. I topped the bowl to clean up the edges and remove that damaged surface of the bowl. Once I removed the lava there was some burn damage to the front edge.I scrubbed the silver band with cigar ash to clean off the oxidation. Once I had it cleaned I also rotated it to centre the hallmarks on the top of the shank. There were some hallmarks on the band – a lion, an anchor and the letter T in a cartouche. To me the date on the band put it as early as the late 1890s and early 1900s. Since I knew that Vottis was not around at that time it was obvious to me that the band was added at a later date. There did not appear to be any cracks in the shank so that meant that the band was cosmetic.I removed the finish and the grime on the pipe with acetone on cotton pads. I was able to get most of the dark line of stain off the front of the bowl and also some of the dark spot on the right side of the bowl. Underneath the grime was some really nice grain on the briar.I did a light scrape of the bowl with a pen knife to take out some of the remaining carbon that stubbornly clung to the walls toward the bottom of the bowl.I cleaned out the mortise and airway in the shank and also the airway in the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners.The button edges were no longer well defined and had been worn into the surface of the stem. I recut the edges with a needle file. I also used the file to scrape the surface of the stem and remove most of the tooth marks.I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the file marks and further remove the tooth marks.There was one small, deep mark on the underside of the stem that I filled with black super glue.While the stem repair dried I stained the bowl. I applied a dark brown aniline stain and flamed it with a lighter. I gave the bowl a second coat of stain and flamed it again.I wiped down the bowl with isopropyl alcohol to even out the stain coat and make it more translucent. The grain began to stand out.I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the wheel to bring out the shine. The rim came out really well and the grain stood out on this old pipe. With the bowl finished I worked again on the stem. I sanded the repair with 220 grit sandpaper to blend it into the surface.I scrubbed the stem with Meguiar’s Scratch X2.0 and removed much of the oxidation.I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and gave the stem its first coat of Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit micromesh and gave it another coat of oil. I finished sanding with 6000-12000 grit pads and gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil. I buffed the pipe on the wheel with Blue Diamond and then gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine and buffed it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It is a beauty. The dark spot on the right side is kind of a beauty mark in my mind. It is not a burn or damage in that way but rather a spot where the bowl sat against something that permanently darkened that spot. I chose to not hide it because I love the grain on the rest of the bowl. It came out very well to my eye. Thanks for looking.

Spotlight: Ladies Pipes, Part 2/7, a Clinton Straight Oval

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Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, International Society of Codgers
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.naspc.org
http://www.roadrunnerpipesnm.biz
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

INTRODUCTION
I came across a more subtle but still rather sexist yet humorous comment concerning the perceived relationship of women to pipe enjoyment, this time in the older ad above for Flying Dutchman tobacco. No longer in production, it was an aromatic blend of Kentucky Burley, Cavendish, Virginia, Oriental Turkish and “Other/Misc.” Sounds pretty good to me. But it makes me flash on an email I received from a friend on Smokers Forums UK. Her name is Liz. She wrote:

“I always wanted to smoke a pipe even when I was a child. I had seen photos of my dad smoking a pipe but he had quit smoking by the time I was born. I started smoking cigarettes in my early teens and the desire to smoke a pipe became stronger once I became an adult and started to do a lot of camping. I thought it would be very nice to sit by the campfire and smoke a pipe.”

Here comes the sad crux of Liz’ response. “But as a woman, I never felt comfortable or confident enough to go in a store and buy one. Finally in 2004 I got the nerve to go in the tobacco shop and buy a pipe. I used the excuse that I was buying it for my brother. [Emphasis added.] …I had no one to teach me anything about smoking the pipe so what I learned I found on the internet.”

I was struck by the eloquent and poignant plight of a woman I have come to think of as supremely confident and self-assured in all matters, albeit that our friendship is based in the ether world. This is a woman I should very much like to meet some day in person. Liz’ reluctance to purchase a tobacco pipe, at a tobacconist, for herself as a woman who had always wanted to partake of the pleasures she rightly imagined she would discover (around a campfire, no less, and as an alternative to the pernicious and addictive additives in cigarettes), plucked a mournful acoustic chord in my heart like listening to Albinoni’s Adagio for guitar alone on a torrential night.

This in turn sparked a connection to the woman in my previous blog of this series, the person who inspired me to tackle the subject in the first place with her soft-spoken, somewhat tentative inquiry to Chuck, at my local tobacconist, asking if he had any ladies pipes. After I read with delight and growing admiration for the fine woman Liz’ responses revealed her to be from the several questions I posed to her as a preliminary breaking of the ice in an ongoing interview process, I played back my mental tape of Chuck’s encounter with the good lady in search of a suitable pipe, and doing so recalled the trepidation in her voice and body language. With some amazement, I realized that she had probably worked herself up for untold years to that moment when at last she was determined to ask for that which she had always wanted!

As a man, I am compelled to declare that this clear and present state of social antipathy toward women who wish only to savor a pipe – and indeed the attitude must be widespread, or else I could not have come in contact with two ladies in hardly a month with the same reluctance to buy something so basic that they fancied obtaining – is intolerable. I mean good Lord, have we come so short a distance from the days when women on their own volition and in the strength of groups protested the double standard of cigarette smoking as chic by men while the practice was viewed as vulgar by females? Alas that science was not what it is today, and many beautiful pioneering civil rights women perished early from the intrinsic impurities and carcinogens of cigarettes. And let’s not forget the infamous bra burning demonstration so popular when I was a youngster (and to my natural titillation, no pun intended). With hope, therefore, these blogs will help to alleviate the barriers.

VARIOUS BRAND LADIES PIPES
I noticed Peterson’s had at least one ladies pipe, and reader/blogger Mark Irwin, who read my previous blog on this subject, urged me to include some of them during the course of the series. Here are several samples of fine ladies pipes, starting with a Peterson I found offered in Italy, per Mark’s suggestion.Paddy of SF let me know that his wife has a sweet collection of Savinelli 606 pipes, at least one for each day of the week, like the following example. BTW, Paddy writes, the missus also has “one Castello of a similar shape which she received as a gift.” Good company, indeed. And now, here is the Clinton Real Briar Oval as it came to me. RESTORATION
The Clinton, as well as the FRASA I restored for my first of these seven blogs, has an unusual stinger tenon, heightening my surprise that neither of them seems to have any discernible history, not even as seconds. In addition to the tenon, the Clinton also has a distinctive upside-down C on the bit.By way of synopsizing the pipe’s chief and obvious problems, the bit was badly discolored, there was a crack on the upper left side of the bowl extending from the rim downward (but not penetrating into the chamber), and the stain was far too dark for my taste, given the apparent decency of the obscured grain. And so I began by soaking the bit in an OxiClean bath and the stummel in some used Everclear I keep on hand for such occasions.The bit was ready first, about a half-hour later, and I removed it from the soak and rinsed it, then took out the stinger and ran a soft cleaner through the airway. I wiped the stinger clean with a soft cotton gun cleaner square and sanded both sides of the bit’s lip end with 200-grit paper. Then I wet micro-meshed the entire bit from 1500-12000 and had a nice bowl of D&R Two-Timer Gold in my Peterson Killarney Straight Bulldog Dress Pipe. I ordered the beautiful black “ebony” pipe online during a brief overwhelming fixation on these pipes that also landed me a sleek Nat Sherman. Both remain favorites.

That Everclear strip lasted just long enough for my consummate Burley mix to work its way down to a fine ash – or maybe I made it last the proper time, as was my prerogative! Whichever the case may have been, I had a couple more handy cotton cloth squares ready, one to stuff into the chamber with a pinkie and twist so I could clean out any residue there and hold the body in place while I scrubbed the still wet outside of the wood with the other. Look at the scum that would have ended up trapped below the stain I later applied. Some would ask what it would matter. I like to think the devil is in the details.With considerable difficulty given the tiny chamber diameter (1” in length and 1” deep but a mere 0.5” across), I coaxed a small, limp piece of 150-grit paper inside and somehow worked it up and down enough to make a difference, then switched to 200- and finally 500-grit., finishing with a cotton cloth square with a squirt of purified water to remove the extra char. On the outside, I used 200-grit paper to clear away the stubborn remaining stain and residue from the Everclear soak. I micro-meshed from 1500-12000. I was ready at last to consider the crack.It looks pretty nasty, doesn’t it? Again, the consensus was to shave down the rim. Having Executive Power of veto, I opted for a fix I never tried before with a little concerted sanding of the rim with 150-grit paper, it comes down appreciably.Then I got a wild hair to do the unthinkable. I retrieved my file, an old, wrecked briar stummel I’ve kept for several years knowing I would never dare to try restoring it and some Super Glue, and scrape off enough of the wood to make a nice pile of super fine particles. I’ll tell you right now, the first two attempts at mixing Super Glue with the briar particles and then moving the ultra-fast-drying gloop to the top hole in the Clinton didn’t turn out well. Eventually I conclude the trick is sprinkling some of the fine wood into the gap and then sealing it with a kiss of glue.I did hasten to scrape some of the excess glue into the hole and remove the rest using the edge of a business card. When it was dry, which was in almost no time at all, I retorted the pipe Before the finishing touches, I sanded it down to smoothness with 200-grit paper and re-micro-meshed.

Afterward, taking the matter under full advisement and consideration, I mulled over Lincoln Marine Cordovan (burgundy) to stain it, which might have been overkill, and a mix with that and two or three times more Feibing’s Brown. I chose the latter, of course. I mixed the two stains in my small Tupperware. Staining the surface of the Clinton stummel for the most part had a nice effect, not counting the serious accentuation it gave to the small remaining hairline crack beneath the one I sealed on the rim. Therefore, following the same process I so painstakingly learned before, only going straight to the effective method, I prepared more briar shavings and, Super Glue at the ready, set the stummel down left side up and sprinkled the dust over the area where the crack was forming. After using another business card (what else are they good for?) to get the most of the particles, I squeezed a nice precise dot of glue over the spot and spread it out to let it dry in a thin coat.Of course I was forced to sand down the resulting obnoxious big round shiny bump, and in the process some of the surrounding stained surface, but it was worth it knowing the integrity of the pipe would be sound and none of my pipe aficionado friends with their eagle eyes would spot the former crack. Here is after sanding and before touch staining.And now for the finished product, after buffing with white Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba. Red and white Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba gave this bit a higher than usual shine. CONCLUSION
However lighthearted the ad with which I opened this installment of the series was intended to be, women are not here to be led around by the nose in the pursuit of so-called manly pleasures. Granted, no doubt, for the most part the pleasure of partaking of tobacco pipes has always been more the purview of men, but to think that women are incapable of such finer sensibilities of life is sheer sophistry, and shamefully self-deceptive and fallacious reasoning at that.

Furthermore, women need not have masculine qualities to favor the subtle qualities of pipe appreciation. And although most humans are capable of normal synaptic reflexes, the electrical impulses generated do not produce identical stimuli tickling the pleasure centers of the brain and kicking out uniform reactions. On the contrary, the magnificence of the human brain is that everyone’s reaction to a given stimulus is unique.

Why, then, should anyone be deprived of the deeply personal reflections facilitated by the mere puffing of a favorite tobacco in a like pipe? These are propositions that we hold to be self-evident, that all people are created equal. I would no more give up my pipes than my gun. Call me a radical or a revolutionary, but don’t call me a redneck or late for dinner.

SOURCES
https://www.smokingpipes.com/smokingpipesblog/single.cfm/post/top-pipe-picks-for-ladies Ladies pipes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo7IJY4ZjCU The Ladies of the Youtube Pipe Smoking Community

A Challenging Yello-Bole Chesterfield

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Blog by Aaron Henson

Although this is a standalone write up, it is also part 2 of an adventure I started with the rustication of a bent billiard about a month ago.

I found this Yello-Bole Chesterfield at a local flea market in town. It was part of a large estate collection, most of which were unsmoked uniquely carved pipes. My eye, however, was immediately attracted to the Peterson-like shape with military bit and P-lip stem and I was surprised to see that it was a Yello-Bole. The pipe was a bit grimy and oxidized with burn marks but after some talking we agreed on a price and I took it home.The stampings on the bowl were very clear and deep, some of the nicest I have seen on an estate pipe that is as well used as this one. The left side shank read YELLO-BOLE over HONEY CURED BRIAR over CHESTERFIELD with the KBB inside the clover leaf on the left. The band was stamped with KB&B inside the clover leaf over NICKEL PLATED. The right side shank was stamped with shape number 2816C. The stem had the Yello-Bole yellow circle inset in the top and SOLID RUBBER stamped deep into the underside of the stem.

A quick search online and I was able to use the markings to date the pipe to the 1933-1936 time manufacturing period.

The briar was in great shape with beautiful bird’s eye pattern. The pipe was dusty and grimy and after wiping down with an alcohol soaked cotton pad I continued with my assessment. The rim was coated with a heavy crust of tar and there was a deep burn mark on the outside of the rim (major issue number 1). The bowl did not have a large amount of cake so I had to assume that the previous owner had reamed out at some point. And perhaps it had been over reamed, because the air hole entered the bowl about 2/3 the way down the chamber wall. This would lead to a mouth full of hot ash when you were half way through the bowl (major issue number 2). There were some minor bumps and scratches in the surface of the bowl but nothing that could not be buffed out. The stem was in great shape. It was heavily oxidized with some minor tooth chatter but the airway was clear and the stinger was intact and in great condition.I set the stem to soak in a Oxiclean solution and turned to the stummel. First I reamed the chamber back to bare wood. Next, I tried to clean the rim with Oxiclean on a wet green pad but the tar was just too stubborn so I resorted to a topping board and lightly sand away the tar build up. This is where I made my first mistake: I scuffed off a bit of the nickel plating when topping the bowl (I still don’t have a fix for this!). I have thought about taking the ring off and having it re-plated but several attempts to remove the ring with heat have not been successful.

To address the burn mark on the rim I used a worn piece of 220 grit sand paper I removed the burned wood trying not to remove any of the sound briar under the burn. I was surprised to see how deep the burn went and was at a bit of a loss on how to address it. As you can see below, a significant amount of wood as damaged.I figured I had two options: 1) replace the burned material with glue/briar dust or 2) sand the rest of the rim to match and change the shape of the pipe. In either case I was going to need to refinish the briar so I wiped it down with acetone to remove as much of the finish as I could while I decided what I was going to do.

Looking into the chamber again, I listed out my options for addressing the air way issue. Again I came up with two options; 1) fill in the bottom 1/3 of the bowl with pipe mud, or 2) drill a new airway that comes out at the bottom of the chamber. I didn’t like either option. The first would have been a very large fill and volume change for the pipe and the second was fraught with potential problems – chiefly aligning the drill bit to come out at just the right point in the bottom of the bowl

So I figured it was time for some consultation. I outlined the issue in an email and included some picture and sent them off to Steve – our worthy “Professor of Pipe-ology” and blog host.

While I waited for Steve’s response I cleaned the inside of the shank and with alcohol soaked cotton swabs and pipe cleaners until then came out as clean as they went in. I also took the stem from the Oxiclean bath and removed the loose oxidation with a magic eraser. I cleaned the internals of the stem then polished it with micromesh pads 1500 – 12000. I used mineral oil every three pads to freshen the vulcanite and give the pads some traction. There was only one minor tooth mark that didn’t raise with heat and I filled it with a dab of black super glue and sanded it smooth with the 1500 mirco-mesh pad. Steve responded with the recommendation of building up the burn spot with super glue and briar dust confirmed that I had the right idea. I was hoping that he had another trick up his sleeve because I knew that the repair would have to be covered up with either a very dark stain or rusticated. I applied three separate layers of clear super glue and briar dust to build up the rim then carefully sanded the repair to blend it into the shape of the rim. I came across and older post where Kirk Fitzgerald rusticated a Peterson that looked very similar to my Chesterfield. Taking some note, I decided to try a similar type rustication. I lightly mark a ½” band around the top of the bowl with a pencil and corresponding area on the bottom of the bowl to balance the appearance. Using the 1/8” carving tool on a Dremel I added a dimpled texture in offset rows. I was glad I had tried using this tool on the previous project because the carving tool did have a tendency to skip on the harder grain. The final texture hid the repair and was not so extensive as to hide the grain. I sanded the outside of the bowl with micro mesh pads 1500 – 3600 to smooth out the scratches.

Instead of drilling a new airway, which posed the risk of additional misalignment, Steve recommended using a needle file to elongate the opening so it extended to the bottom of the bowl. The excess space could then be filled with plaster creating a new airway. This proved to be tedious work. Below are two rough cross-section of the pipe. On the left is the airway as it was and on the right is the revised airway (in theory).Filing was a slow process and it took some effort to keep the elongated hole from drifting off course. I went slow and checked the progress often. Once the hole was about where I thought it should be I used the stick of a cotton swab as the place holder for the new airway. It was the rolled paper type stick that could be bent to match the curve of the bowl. Holding stick in place with a rubber band around the rim I mixed a batch of thick plaster and pushed it into the elongated hole with my finger. When plaster came out the top of the hole I removed the excess from inside the bowl and set it aside to dry for 24 hours. In my first attempt at this repair, I did not have plaster so I used pipe mud (a slurry of cigar ash and water). This did not work at all. It is great for filling in the bottom of a bowl but it was too loose to stand on its own as a fill/patch. I removed the pipe mud and started over with the plaster.

The next evening, I used 100 grit sand paper wrapped around a ¼” dowel to remove the excess plaster and smooth out the repair. I carefully twisted the swab stick and it came free without damage to the patch. The next time I do this I will coat the stick with wax before securing it in place. The wax should help the stick pull free without bonding to the plaster.

It was time to finish the bowl. I chose to use straight Fiebing’s dark brown stain on the rusticated areas and then wiped it down with alcohol pad. Next I applied straight light brown to the rest of the bowl. After setting the color with heat I wiped the entire bowl with an alcohol pad to blend the colors. Happy with the results I took the pipe to the buffing station. I buffed the stem and stummel separately so I could get to all the area a little more easily. I started with white buffing compound then finished with multiple coats of carnauba wax.

With the outside of the pipe complete I wanted to cover up the plaster patch inside the bowl so I applied a bowl coating. Using my finger I spread a thin coat of maple syrup evenly over the inside of the bowl then poured in the contents of a dietary charcoal capsule. I put my palm over the top of the pipe and shook the pipe so the charcoal powder covered the inside of the bowl. I set the pipe aside to dry for 5 days before emptying out the loose powder.

I want to say “Thank you” to Steve for his advice on this one… and thank you for reading.

Restemming a GBD International London Made – 508 Bent Billiard

3 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

Quite a while ago now my brother Jeff picked up a handful of pipes from an antique shop in Montana. There were quite a few GBD pipes in the lot. One of them was this GBD International bent billiard. It came with a gnawed off stem that was irreparable. The bowl was caked and dirty and the rusticated/plateau top was filled with grime to the point that it was almost smooth. The bowl looked good under the grime and the finish looked salvageable. The pipe was stamped GBD in an oval over International over London Made on the left side of the shank. On the right side it was stamped with London England over the shape number 508. I failed to take photos of the bowl before I cleaned it up as I was on a roll with about four bowls going at the same time. Here is what it looked like after I had wiped it down with alcohol. I scrubbed the plateau top with a brass bristle brush and some Murphy’s Oil Soap. I rinsed it down with cool water and dried it off. It is in very good shape. I had reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and cleaned out the shank and the bowl. I went through my stem can and had several potential stems there. I chose one that was slightly larger in diameter than the shank. I had to shorten the tenon as it was too long to sit correctly in the shank. With the tenon shortened the stem fit nicely in the mortise. The diameter was close and I would adjust it to fit.The stem was a used one that I recycled and it had one deep bit mark on the top side near the button. I sanded it smooth and cleaned it before I filled it in with black super glue. Once the glue cured I sanded the repair with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth it out. I used the Dremel and sanding drum to reduce the diameter of the stem. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper until the transition was smooth. I wiped down the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to clean off the remaining grime before restaining the rim with a Black Sharpie. I heated the stem over a heat gun until it was pliable and bent it to the proper angle. I set the bend with cold water. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the scratches left behind by the Dremel and smooth out the flow of the stem. I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and then dry sanded it with 3200-4000 grit pads. I gave it another coat of oil and then finished sanding it with 6000-12000 grit pads. I gave it a final coat of oil and let it dry. I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel and then gave the pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad and then hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The grain on this pipe is spectacular – great birdseye on the sides and cross grain on the front, back and bottom. The plateau or rustication on the rim that I stained black gives it a unique look. I think it is a beauty! Thanks for looking.

A Ruined Stanwell Handmade 80R Bent Billiard – another ugly duckling

14 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

Out of the three pipes from the “hackster” – the cut off Rhodesian, the coffee grounds Dublin and this Stanwell 80R Bent Billiard I have to say that the work he did on this one was by far the worst abomination. This pipe is stamped Stanwell Hand Made 80R Made in Denmark on the underside of the shank. It was a sandblast brown contrast bent billiard that would have been beautiful when it was made. The “hackster” decided to improve upon the finish and believe it or not he desecrated the pipe. He used a Dremel or sander to remove the majority of the sandblast finish leaving a dab of it on the back of the bowl at the joint of the shank and the bowl and a dab on the front side about 1 inch long from the rim. In removing the blast he completely ruined the shank leaving a thick band near the stem and the two thick sandblasted dabs. He sanded off the blast on the shank leaving it looking anemic and awful. He ruined the shape of the bowl and left it totally out of round on the outside. He also over reamed the bowl with what looked like a Dremel and sanding drum and took the bottom of the bowl almost ¼ inch below the entrance of the airway.

He did not leave the stem safe either he reshaped the button by removing the majority of the sharp edge. Then to add insult to injury he left the stamping intact on the bottom of the shank giving credit to Stanwell for the ruination of this fine briar pipe. It went from handmade to hand ruined. Over the entire bowl and slopping onto the stem was a thick coat of shellac. Runs and drips had hardened. The file and Dremel marks were held in perpetuity under a thick coat of shellac. That is where I started with this abomination. The question was could I do anything to redeem this mess. I took some photos of the stem and the left over sandblast sections. There is also a photo of the rim shows the out of round condition of the outer edge of the rim. I sanded off the remaining sandblast sections on the bowl and shank and rounded the bowl with a Dremel and sanding drum. I used the Dremel to reshape the shank and the bowl and shank. The damage done to the shank made it necessary to shape the stem into an oval instead of a round. With the rough shaping work done there was a lot of fine tuning to be done to the shape of the bowl. I topped the bowl with a topping board and 220 grit sandpaper to remove the deep saw and file marks and to flatten the surface. I sanded the areas on the bowl where I left the shellac and existing finish until they were smooth as well. I left the band on the bottom of the shank where the faint stampings that the “hackster” had left behind remained. I had still not decided whether to remove them as the pipe was certainly not a Stanwell any longer and when I was finished reclaiming it the pipe would be two times removed from the pipe that came out of the Stanwell factory. I hand sanded the bowl and shank with 220 grit sandpaper to further shape it. I sanded the stem as well to remove the damage that had been done to it and also to reshape it to the oval shank. I worked on the outer edge of the rim and shaped the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper. Fortunately, the inner beveled rim was undamaged. The bottom of the bowl was a mess that I would need to fill with pipe mud to restore the depth of the bowl to the bottom of entry of the airway into the bowl.I sanded the bowl and shank with a coarse grit sanding block to smooth out more of the curves. The larger surface of the block ensures and evenness to the contours of the bowl and shank. I used the heat gun to bend the end of the stem to the angle that would have originally been present when the pipe left Denmark. I sanded the stem and bowl further with sandpaper and gradually the pipe was taking shape. The swan was beginning to appear. During the sanding process I found that there were several flaws in the briar and at least one fill. During the course of the sanding these may well disappear. Overall this is a nice piece of briar with enough meat on it that I can still end up with a nice pipe.I cleaned out the shank and the airway to the bowl and in the stem with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs. It was amazingly dirty for a pipe that had been “refurbished”. The “hackster” had left the inside absolutely filthy while destroying the outside of the bowl and stem. I continued to sand the bowl and stem with a coarse grit sanding block to remove the remaining scratches left behind by the Dremel and sanding drum. Gradually the swan was beginning to emerge. I was getting excited about what this one was going to look like when it was finished. There was some nice grain emerging as I sanded. I sanded the bowl with micromesh sanding pads to further remove the scratches. I wet sanded the bowl with 1500-2400 grit pads and sanded until the grain began to shine. I dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads and then rubbed on a coat of Danish Oil Cherry stain. I gave the bowl several coats of the finish and then set it on a cork stand to dry over night. I cleaned up the sharp edge of the button with needle files to redefine it as the shape was blurred into the body of the stem. I shaped the button with 220 grit sandpaper at the same time to give it definition. I sanded the file marks out with 220 grit sandpaper to blend the edge of the cut into the surface of the stem. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and then gave the stem a coat of Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads and gave it another coat of oil. I finished by sanding with 6000-12000 grit pads and giving it a final coat of oil. I set the stem and pipe aside for the night. In the morning I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the wheel to bring out the shine and then gave the pipe several coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad and then by hand with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. To me it looks far better than the mess I started with but what is your verdict? Did a swan emerge? The pipe certainly has some nice grain and the flaws are small in comparison to the overall look of the pipe. Thanks for looking.

Bringing New Life to a Yello-Bole Metal

5 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

My brother found this older Yello-Bole metal pipe. It is a lot like the older Grabow Vikings but the bottom of the bowl is different from the Grabow. Between the bowl and the metal base there is a flat perforated screen or disk that the tobacco sits on. It acts as the bottom of the bowl. The wooden bowl itself is a threaded tube that screws into the base. There are two pin holes on the sides of the base (one on each side about mid base below the bowl). These serve as openings to draw air into the bowl. This one was in decent shape and would take a little work to clean up. The photos below were provided by the eBay seller and show the state of the pipe. From the first two photos below you can see the wear on the stem and the white calcification that generally builds up under a rubber softee bit. The finish on the bowl is shot. There is nothing but bare briar showing. The outer edge of the rim looks good. The next two photos give a top and underside view of the pipe. You can see the ring of cake in the bowl around the middle and lighter on the top and bottom edges. You can see the metal disk in the bottom of the bowl. I have purchased a few of these over the years and almost all of them were missing the metal disk that sat in the base between the bowl and base. The stem shows some tooth marks on the top and underside. The final photo included by the seller showed the stamping on the underside of the base. It read Yello-Bole horizontally along the bottom of the shank. It also gave the patent number on the bottom of the base. It read PAT. over 2467002 over PAT. PEND. That was enough data to do a patent search on the US Patent Information site. http://www.uspto.gov/patents-application-process/search-patents. From there I copied the patent drawing and included it below.The diagram and the accompanying documents show the conceptual and descriptive narrative of what the pipe was about and what its maker hoped to achieve with his design. The inventor was a Samuel Laurence Atkins of New York. He filed his patent application on July 14, 1945. The patent was granted April 12, 1949. The pipe that I have is stamped Patent Pending thus it is easy to extrapolate that it was made between the dates July 14, 1945 and April 11, 1949 which are the dates before the patent was granted. That makes this pipe between 67-71 years old. It is in pretty decent shape for a pipe of that age. I took the following photos when the pipe arrived. The seller’s photos were pretty good at showing the issues with the pipe. All the things noted above were correct. The pipe was quite easy to take apart. I unscrewed the bowl and tapped out the disk in the base. The stem came out of the shank with little effort. I took the photo below to show the parts. The second photo shows the cake in the bowl. I started the clean up with reaming the bowl. I used the PipNet reamer and the largest cutting head to ream from the top of the bowl. I used the second head to ream the bowl from the bottom. I reamed it back to bare briar. There was still some of the signature Yello-Bole bowl coating showing near the top just below the rim. I scrubbed the bowl base with a brass bristle brush to loosen up the dried tars and oils in the base. I used a dental pick to clean out the threads. I also scrubbed the disk with the brush. I used pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to clean the surface of the disk and the inside of the base and airway.

I scrubbed the interior and exterior of the stem with alcohol and pipe cleaners to remove the build up on the outside and the oils on the inside.With the cleanup finished I set the parts on the table and took a few photos of the cleaned up pipe. Now it was time to restore it. I wiped down the bowl with cotton pads and acetone to remove the grime and the remaining finish on the bowl.

I stained the bowl with a dark brown stain pen. I buffed the bowl with red Tripoli to spread and polish the stain. I buffed it with Blue Diamond and rubbed the bowl down with a light coat of olive oil. At this point in the process the bowl and the metal base was complete. I took the following photos to show the state of the progress thus far. I cleaned the stem and used a clear super glue to repair the deep tooth marks in the top and underside of the stem near the button. I sanded the repairs with 220 grit sandpaper to blend it into the surface of the stem. I worked on the stem with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit sanding pads and then rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I wet sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads and gave it another coat of oil. I finished by dry sanding with 6000-12000 grit pads. I gave it a final coat of oil and let it dry. I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the wheel and then gave both multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad and then by hand with a microfiber cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. Thanks for looking.

Replacing a Tenon and Doing a Restoration on a Sorrentino Manager 0704

6 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

I received this one from a fellow who wanted the tenon replaced but being the way I am I could not just replace the tenon and leave the pipe looking tired and worn so I wrote and offered to clean it up for him. It took more work than I had originally thought it would but the added effort made for a beautiful looking pipe. It is stamped on the left side of the shank MANAGER over SORRENTINO. On the right side it says 0704 which is the shape number and Italy. The briar was really in need of some work. The left side was stained with a dark patch that ran from the top to the bottom of the bowl. The finish was also rough to the touch over that section. On the bottom, front and right side of the bowl there was a lot of dents and dings like the pipe had been dropped. The rim had a coat of lava and the bowl had a very uneven cake with more on the left side of the bowl than the right. The finish was basically shot. The stem came with lots of tooth chatter and a broken tenon. The tenon snapped right at the shank and was stuck in the shank. The brass band on the shank was loose. The pipe was tired and needed some TLC. Here is what it looked like when I started. In the photos above I had already turned the wood screw into the broken tenon. I use that to pull a broken tenon and it never disappoints in effectiveness. Note the state of the bowl in the photos.I used a Dremel and sanding drum to flatten out the remnant of the broken tenon on the stem. Once it was flat it was time to drill the stem to take the new tenon. I started with a bit slightly larger than the airway to center the drilling and turned the stem onto the bit by hand. I find that though it is harder to do it by hand, turning it by hand and not drilling it gives me more control of the stem. I worked my way up to a ¼ inch bit and then cleaned it out with a needle file. I had a Delrin tenon I purchased from Tim at JH Lowe and I roughed up the surface of the portion that would go into the stem and gave it a coat of two part slow drying epoxy to hold it in place. I lined up the stem in the shank and then set it aside to let the epoxy cure over night. While it dried I worked on the bowl. I stripped off the remaining finish with acetone and cotton pads. I sanded the dark stain mark on the left side of the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the damaged briar and smooth things out. I scrubbed that side with acetone to finish. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer to even out the cake that had been there. I decided to strip it back to bare wood. I wanted to check out the inside of the bowl walls. The interior was sound and there was no damage on the bowl walls. I sanded the bowl with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads to clean up the scratches left behind on the briar by the sand paper and by the wear and tear of age. The stripped and sanded bowl was looking pretty good. I sanded the inner bevel of the rim to clean it up and prepare the bowl for staining. I wiped it down a final time with isopropyl alcohol. I stained the bowl with a dark brown aniline stain. I flamed it and restained it with a second coat of the stain. I flamed it again. Before setting the bowl aside to dry I wiped it down with alcohol on a cotton pad to smooth out the stain and lighten it slightly. I wanted the grain to show through.I buffed the bowl with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel and gave it several coats of carnauba wax to seal and preserve the finish. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. (Forgive the poor focus on the first photo below. It is blurry but still gives you an idea of how the dark area had been reduced.) With the bowl finished I set it aside and worked on the stem. I sanded the tooth marks and chatter on the stem with 220 grit sandpaper until they were smoothed out. I was able to easily remove most of the tooth damage to the stem. There was one small tooth dent on the top of the stem that I left as it is minimal and I did not want to thin the stem. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads. I dry sanded it with 3200-4000 grit pads. I finished with 6000-12000 grit pads. I buffed the stem with Blue Diamond on the wheel. I put the pipe together and lightly buffed it with some more carnauba wax to finish it. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth for the final buffing. The photos below show the finished pipe. Hopefully when it is returned to the pipeman who owns it he will be pleased with the finished pipe. Thanks for looking.

A Restoration Project – A Small Bent Billiard from a Past Era

16 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

When I saw this pipe on Ebay I decided I wanted to have it in the collection. The seller said the stem was amber and it may be though I am thinking it is more of an Amberoid. The bowl had a fill on the back left side at the shank bowl junction. The band on the shank was rotated to the right and a little loose. The finish was worn and dirty. The rim was covered in tars and lava and the bowl was caked and half filled with the last unfinished bowl of tobacco. There was no information from the seller as to stampings or markings on the bowl or shank. It appeared to be a no name pipe. The seller thought the stem was horn or amber but it did not look like that to me. The stem looked to be in decent shape though it had tooth marks on the top and the underside near the button. The stem was very dull in appearance and the airway was black. The case was in decent shape with a lot of ash and detritus from the years. All in all the pipe was tired but it looked to be easily restorable. The photos below came from the seller. The next two photos show the stem damage. It does not appear to be extensive more chatter than any deep bite marks. The way the marks look on the stem it looks to me that the stem is amberoid or Bakelite not amber or horn. The pipe is diminutive – a small one all the way around. It is well proportioned but is 4 inches long with a bowl height of 1 ½ inches. The inside diameter of the bowl is 5/8 inches.The seller also included several close up photos – one of a large fill on the back left side of the bowl. It appeared to be tight and smooth but I would know more once I cleaned up the bowl. The other photo was of the metal band. It was stamped with faux hallmarks and an EP in a diamond that signified that the band was electroplated. The case was in decent shape for a pipe this age.When the pipe arrived I unpacked it and took it out of the case and took a few photos of my own to confirm my assessment from the seller’s photos. The pipe was solid and clean. The finish was worn and tired – dirty but would clean up nicely. The lava on the rim and the damage to the rim edges would need some work. The stem was not amber or horn but amberoid or Bakelite. It had some interesting swirls and would clean up nicely. The material on the inside of the case had a lot of ash and was dirty but intact. I removed the stem from the shank and was surprised that I was able to unscrew the bone tenon from the stem. It was a little sticky but with a bit of wiggling it came free.With the stem out I worked on the inside of the stem. The airway was almost black with tars and oils. I wanted to clean out the stem as much as possible and bring it back to a clean airway that blended with the stem material. I used alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs. The photo below shows the first stage of the cleaning. Following the scrubbing I also used Barkeepers Companion with pipe cleaners dipped in it and using that to scrub out the airways. I was able to clean out the majority of the stains. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and took the cake back to bare briar. To clean up the rim I topped it with 220 grit sandpaper. I was able to take off all of the lava and cleaned up the edges of the rim. I sanded the inside edge of the rim with a folded piece of sandpaper. I cleaned up the rough edges and the inside of the bowl. I scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with acetone on cotton pads. It removed the finish and the grime from the bowl. I removed the loose band and cleaned the outside of the shank. I reglued the band with Wellbond white all purpose glue.I cleaned out the inside of the mortise and airway with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and alcohol.I used a black Sharpie to hide the fill on the back of the bowl and then stained the pipe with Dark Brown aniline stain. I flamed it and restained and reflamed it. I sanded the tooth chatter with 220 grit sandpaper to remove it. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads to begin the process of polishing the stem. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil and then dry sanded it with 3200-4000 grit pads. I gave it another coat of oil and then sanded it with 6000-12000 grit pads. I gave it a final coat of oil and let it dry. I lightly buffed the stem and bowl with Blue Diamond and then gave the pipe several coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buffing pad and then with a microfibre cloth. I brushed out the inside of the case with the shoe brush to remove the dust and ash. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This is a great old pipe and one that will hold a spot in my collection. I will keep it in trust, using it and caring for it until I pass it into the hands of the next pipe man. Thanks for looking.

This one was a labour of love – A Custombilt Bullmoose

3 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

My brother sent me a pipe that is a shape I have had two previous times and always sold or gifted. It is a Bullmoose or a Scoop shape. Tracy Mincer did a great job with this shape and it is one I have never seen repeated as chunky as he did them. This one was stamped on the right side of the shank with the words Custombilt over Imported Briar. The pipe was solid but dirty. The stem would not push into the shank and the grooves and trails in the briar were dusty. The bowl had a thin, uneven cake in it and the lava overflowed slightly onto the rim leaving a thin coat of tars and oils. There were some dings and dents in the smooth parts of the pipe and the finish was worn. There were some fills in the grooves that showed through the worn finish. Overall it was in good shape. The stem had tooth chatter on the top and bottom sides with a few deeper tooth marks near the button. The photos below show what the pipe looked like when I started working on it. I took a few close-up photos of the bowl rim, front and back views and the stem to show what I had to deal with in the restoration of this one. The stamping gave me a bit of information on the date of the pipe. The one word Custombilt stamping rather than the Custom-Bilt stamping would help to pin down the date a bit. I decided to pause a few moments and do a bit of reading to help narrow down the date. I looked on one of my go to resources – Pipedia.org. I also have Bill Unger’s book but it is packed away at the moment and this article on pipedia quotes extensively from the book. Here is the link to the article: https://pipedia.org/wiki/Custom-Bilt

Under the heading, Custom-Bilt History is the following information.

“The book (Bill Unger’s Book, my comment) opens up with an intriguing statement that unfortunately is never fully followed up: Before beginning this history, I need to emphasize an important fact and to ask the reader to keep it firmly. Spelling-Custom-Bilt, Custombilt, and other variations-is extremely important to the various aspects of the following discussions. It was not, however, important to many people in the company’s early days. [Emphasis mine] {Page 9}.”

“Tracy Mincer started the original Custom-Bilt pipes it appears in 1934. Bill meticulously details the start of the Company, how it was financed, the changes in the original ownership, how the company distributed its product, the manufacturing process, certain patented items, and other interesting stuff… In 1946, the name was changed to Custombilt after Mincer began an association with Eugene J. Rich, Inc. (my emphasis). There were some big changes in advertising and distribution. The slogan “AS INDIVIDUAL AS A THUMBPRINT” began at this time as well.”

“In the early 1950’s, Tracy Mincer developed severe financial problems that caused him to stop making the Custombilt, and he lost the name. In 1953, Leonard Rodgers bought the company and emphasized tobacco pouches and butane lighters. (However, it appears Mincer was working on his new pipe, the Doodler.) In 1968, Rodgers sold the Company to Consolidated Cigars. In the early 1970s, Wally Frank Co. bought the Custombilt trademark and began to produce their version of the pipe in 1974 or 1975. Hollco Rohr owned the Weber pipe factory, located in New Jersey, and produced the Custombilt pipes there. In 1987, the pipes were made out of the Butz-Choquin factory (France) and then Mexico until the late 1990s. Currently, the Custombilt name is owned by Tobacalera of Spain.”

From this information I am pretty sure my pipe is made after the change in 1946 and before Tracy Mincer lost the name in the early 1950s. It has the characteristic Mincer like rustication patterns and shape. It could very well be from the Rich era of the brand.

I went to work cleaning up this old timer. I scrubbed the bowl with a toothbrush and Murphy’s Oil Soap. I was able to clean out the rustication and the grooves with this method. I rinsed the bowl under warm water to remove the soap and the grime. The first picture shows the soap on the bowl and the second through the fifth picture that follows show the cleaned and dried bowl. You can see the putty fills in the grooves. Fortunately all of them were in the grooves and not in the smooth portion of the bowl. I scrubbed out the airway in the shank, mortise and stem with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs until they came out clean. I thought about using the retort but chose not to on this pipe as it smells sweet and clean. To clean up the scratches and lava on the rim of the bowl I used a medium grit sanding sponge and “topped” the bowl on it. I find that this sponge removes the grime and leaves the rim intact with no briar removed. I worked it on the sponge until it was clean and then used a cotton swab and alcohol to clean up what remained. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the tooth chatter and deeper tooth marks as well as the small gouges and oxidation on the vulcanite. With the internals of the shank and mortise cleaned I was able to put the stem back in place. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and took the cake back to briar. I used a Black Sharpie Permanent Marker to stain the rustication patterns on the bowl and shank. Once I finished with that I wiped the bowl down with alcohol to soften the black and prepare the surface for the contrast stain. I warmed the briar with a blow dryer and then stained it with Feibings Dark Brown that I had thinned with alcohol 1:1. I applied the stain and then flamed it with a lighter to set it. I repeated the process until I got good coverage. I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the wheel to give it a shine and even out the stain coat. The next photos show the bowl at this point in the process. The contrast of the dark in the grooves with the brown really gives the briar a bit of pop. I was careful with buffing around the stamping as I did not want to damage the pristine stamping on this pipe.With the bowl done I turned my attention to the stem. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads until the majority of the scratches left behind by the sandpaper were gone. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded it with 3200-4000 grit micromesh pads and gave it another coat of oil. I finished by sanding it with the 6000-12000 grit micromesh pads and giving it a final coat of oil. I set it aside to dry while I worked on another pipe. I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond to raise the shine and then gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I gave the bowl several coats of Conservator’s Wax and then buffed both the bowl and stem with a clean flannel buff. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I love the finished look of this old timer and the feel of the hefty bowl in the hand. In my opinion it turned out to be a beautiful pipe. Thanks for looking.

Easy Restoration of a 3-Star Pipes by Lee Rhodesian

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Blog by Aaron Henson – 2/20/16

I have found that writing up my pipe restorations is handicapped by my in-ability to remember to take pictures as I am working. On this Pipes by Lee Rhodesian I did a little better job at taking pictures. Although this was a simple restoration I thought I would take the opportunity to share my experience.

I found this 3-star Lee with two other pipes (a Mastercraft and a Grabow) in a lot at a local antique shop. I wanted to know more about the Lee brand but I found there is not much out there. But here is what I found:

The Pipes by Lee brand was distributed by Stewart-Allen Co, Inc., NY. The pipes were graded by stars: 1 to 5 stars (5 being the high end). Early pipes have seven pointed stars; the middle run have five pointed stars and later pipes are stamped with colored gold stars. (the preceding content from the “Pipes: Logos & Markings” website and the 1947 Ad, courtesy Doug Valitchka).

This pipe has three 7-point gold/brass stars set in a line in the top of the stem. I could not find the dates of the different runs/eras mention above but based on the ad I would have to guess my pipe dates to the late 1940’s to 1950’s.

The Pipe
The outside of the pipe was in very good condition. The briar was clean and the stem was moderately oxidized. The stamps on the shank were very clear: left side read ‘Pipe by Lee’ over ‘Limited Edition’. The right side of the shank is stamped ‘An Authentic’ over ‘Imported Briar’. The stem was slightly over-clocked and the previous owner had placed a couple of sheets of paper between the stem and shank to act as a spacer. There was one divot in the bottom stem near the button but otherwise was free from tooth chatter.

The internals were a different story; the chamber had a healthy cake buildup and good amount of tar on the rim. The shank was full of tar and the stinger was coated in dried tar. The internals of the stem itself were not as bad as the shank and I will attribute this to the removable filter/stinger. I began the restoration by cleaning the rim. I moistened a little powdered Oxyclean and placed it on a damp green-pad. I laid the pad on a flat surface and worked the bowl much like I was topping it. I don’t have a picture of the result but this worked very well.

The cake was very hard and resisted my attempts with the reamer so set the bowl to soak in alcohol overnight. I also set the stem to soak in an Oxyclean bath using a pipe cleaner to hold the stinger out of the solution.With the cake nice and soft, I reamed the bowl back to bare wood with little difficulty. An inspection of the inside of the chamber showed that the briar to be sound and without burnouts or cracks. The airway was clear and located precisely at the bottom center of the chamber. The alcohol soak also removed much of the stain and revealed three small pink fills that would have to be addressed.I finished up the internals by cleaning the shank with cotton swabs and pipe cleaners until they came out as clean as they went in.

I neglected the pictures during this next part but in summary I used a dental pick to remove fills and packed the voids with briar dust. A dab of clear CA (cyanoacrylate) glue set the dust in place. After drying, the fills were sanded smooth. I also sanded the entire bowl (except around the stamps) with 1500-3200 micromesh pads.

Returning to the stem, I removed the aluminum ‘filter’ and cleaned it and the threads with 0000 steel wool and alcohol. Then I tried to raise the divot out of the stem with flame from a lighter. I didn’t expect to completely eliminate the divot but wanted to reduce it as much as possible before filling it. The fill was made with black CA glue and charcoal powder then sanded smooth when cured.

I polished the stem by wet sanding with 1500-4000 micromesh pads, rubbing down with mineral oil after each group of the three pads. A plastic washer was placed between the stem and the stummel at this stage to prevent damaging the wood and to keep from rounding the shoulder of the stem. At this point I set up the alcohol retort. It took three test tubes until the alcohol was clean; note that I left the filter off during the retort. I won’t describe the retort process because that can be found in other posts but I do want to comment on one point. I have found that heating the alcohol often time lead to an explosive boiling – not a very controlled process. The smooth surface of the test tube and purity of the alcohol does not provide a surface for bubble to form on. However, if I add a small foreign object to the bottom of the tube the boil is much more controlled. I small piece of cake or charred candle wick gives the bubbles a place to form and eliminate the possibility of super-heating the alcohol.Now that the pipe was cleaned and sanitized I finished the stummel by applying two coats of Feibing’s light brown aniline stain. I flamed the stain to set it and then wiped off the excess with a cotton pad and alcohol. While reassembling the pipe I heated the threaded tenon and re-align the stem. Then I coated the entire pipe with mineral oil and set it aside to soak in before applying three coats of carnauba wax.