Tag Archives: restaining

I Believe I Found an Undercover Lorenzo of Some Sort

Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, International Society of Codgers
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.naspc.org
http://www.roadrunnerpipes.net/ (Opening soon)
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

INTRODUCTION
In late October of 2014, I wrote a blog here about a Lorenzo second with the name Spitfire Mille (Italian for thousand, just as Starbuck’s large drinks are designated by Venti, meaning 20 – for the number of ounces, including the ice in my With Room Raspberry Iced Americano right now). Lorenzo, an Italian brand that has been around since 1946, makes an assortment of traditional shapes and styles but is, among my local pipe friends at least, best known for its lines of, well, enormous proportions. Take this Spitfire, not all versions of which are so large. You can’t tell by these pictures, but although the length was near the limit of the norm at about 6”, the chamber diameter was something like 1” x 2” when I checked before adding the Spitfire to my old business website. That’s about 6/8 (¾”) x 1” larger than usual. Then I measured less common specifications, including the diameter of the entire rim across, bowl height and the top half of the shank leading into the bit. Here is where the numbers became astounding: from one side of the rim to the other was a little under 2”; the height of the bowl was close to 3”, and the shank was 1” across.

If those numbers don’t sound impressive, consider three of my largest pipes, the Peterson 150^th Anniversary smooth bent billiard, the Digby Six-Panel and the Soborg Danish Panel. The Pete’s length is 7”; chamber diameter is ⅞” x 1¾”; the full rim is 1⅜”; the bowl height is 2¼”, and the shank is 1½”. The Digby’s length is 5¾”; chamber 1” x 1¾”; rim 1½”; bowl height 2½” and square shank 1” at the halfway point. The Soborg’s length is 7”; the chamber is ¾” x 1½”; total rim is 1¼”; bowl height is 2”, and the shank is 1”.

And so, it seems, not counting the length, the Spitfire is the overall “winner,” if size really counts. All of this is to introduce the no-name Italian Dublin XM (by way of indicating extra monster, for lack of a better description). This pipe without a name, perhaps the more so for that most unfortunate social status, has all the earmarks of a Lorenzo reject. It looks like a Lorenzo; comports itself like the portlier brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and so on and on of its fertile familia, and as it was stamped with the single word “Italy” to boot, so it must be a Lorenzo by birth if not legitimacy.

RESTORATION Once again the troubles the marvelous pipe faced before it could be presented to a new owner who would cherish it were greater than met the casual eye. The rim was just a tad crusty and therefore offered itself as the place to begin. I chose super fine 0000 steel wool to commence the task. Most times now I have at last embraced more popular techniques such as the wet micro mesh method, but on this occasion I did it with steel wool before I performed a little sanding with 320-grit paper with the goal of ridding the fair and rounded rim of scratches attendant to burning. There are still other means to this end. Yet with gentle ministration, I have found the finest steel wool an excellent first step in the process in some situations. This was one of them.At that juncture of the growing adventure, I considered the dull state of the bit and the small but numerous scratches and dings through the original stain to the excellent Mediterranean briar beneath. Perceiving an unusual thickness to the lovely red coating, I arrived at the clear and positive efficacy of an OxiClean bath for the bit and a concurrent but somewhat longer soak of the stummel in Everclear. I slipped the bit and stummel into their respective Tupperware containers and the sequel to the prequel of the not only continuing but never-ending adventures of the Starship Enterprise (“Into Darkness”) in the desktop PC’s DVD player to watch – once again for me – with my new roommate. He had somehow managed never before to see the movie, and we had some time to relax and smoke our pipes. The roommate, Darren, became convinced by someone that he could give up the doubly negative costs of cigarettes with the far lesser expenses and greater merits of a good tobacco pipe. Of course, he will gladly pay me tomorrow, figuratively speaking, for the pipe he savors today.

Furthermore, no less, his eyes became misty and enamored at the sight of the Albertson Belgian black rustic small bent billiard that is scheduled to be the culmination of my seven part series on ladies pipes and, despite his professions to the opposite, I knew he had to have it – oh, how I know that dewy look! Picture this: a guy who looks and dresses and has tats like a gang banger, getting misty for a tiny little pipe that, although not specifically made for ladies, certainly fits the bill! The fantastic sci-fi epic aside, I could only imagine what Darren must have thought of the no-doubt perplexing acts I surely appeared to be perpetrating against the once whole but weathered Dublin XM.

Here is the bit following its bath and then after sanding with 220-grit paper and wet micro meshing all the way from 1500-12000. The stummel had the thickest stain I have ever encountered other than with some Chinese pipes on which I’ve labored. It took longer than the 2 hr. 12 min. movie, with Darren or me (he’s decided he wants to learn about this esoteric occupation) flipping the big piece of briar over in the alcohol now and then to keep it soaking evenly, for the Everclear to eat through the barrier enough to sand the stummel lightly, also with 220. I only found one small spot where a hole was filled. In an email later, Steve, who had expressed some doubt that the pipe was a Lorenzo reject but suggested it might be a second, wrote that Lorenzo seconds are known for fills. To me, given the similarity of style, stain and huge proportions of the ostensible Italian no-name (the single word ITALY was stamped almost flush with the steel band, on the underside), my theory of a Lorenzo connection was cinched in my mind at least. By a stroke of good luck, as I always see it, the band came off at the end of the sanding, and I was able to make the area under it match the rest. I got on with the next step, micro meshing from 1500-12000. This is where the real challenge came. Forced to strip the stummel of its original stain to get at the scratches without creating more damage using sandpaper, I wanted to re-stain the wood as close as possible to the bright reddish tone it had, knowing that was impossible with the stains I had on hand. I opted to mix Lincoln Marine Cordovan about three-to-one with Fiebing’s Brown alcohol-based boot dyes. When flamed with a lighter or matches, the stain is fixed to the stummel without running as the light char is micro meshed off and again later with waxes and compounds buffed on.I also knew this combination, or even using only the burgundy color, would be so dark that none of the grain would show through. Applying the mix liberally, I used a couple of good strong wooden kitchen matches from a box of 250 I bought at Walmart for about a dollar to flame the pipe, but the result was not the usual impressive blue flash I expected. Still, it did the trick. I think the alcohol in my liquid stains is evaporating with age. I told Victor Rimkus, a successful pipe crafter/engineer here, how I needed to buy a new supply as well as other colors. He said I could mix what was left with alcohol, which sadly only struck me as obvious when I heard the idea, or, as he does, buy the powder and mix it as needed with alcohol. I had never heard of this powder stain before but found it online at a very affordable price. There are even some great discounts for buying the complete kit with every color made – and the variety of colors and shades is staggering. You know I can’t pass up a good discount.The light coat of residual char came off with 2400 and 3200 micro mesh. Super fine 0000 steel wool gradually lessened the dark combination of stains until I concluded the color mix was still a bit off. I deliberately took the stain down a notch lighter to add another quick layer of the brown, and when it cooled after flaming again I wiped off the char as before. The result was much better. I used a couple of dabs of Super Glue spread thin around the inside of the band to reattach it. In one of the emails I exchanged with Steve regarding the chance of this pipe being a Lorenzo relative, he pointed out that in the photo of the band I attached with a plea for help in identifying the hallmarks, the band had been placed unevenly. Trying first to determine the meaning of the marks on my own, I had found a site that was clearly not the best. The closest I came was a reference to a pair of brothers named Edwin and John Power, known naturally as Power Brothers, who ran a tobacconist shop and seem to have made pipes in 1900. They marked their bands with an EP in an oval which, given the site’s other shortcomings, I considered might be – but given the year, likely was not – a misnomer for the diamond on this band. Steve identified it as an Electro-Plate band that he thought could be an after-addition. Studying the band and the one item of nomenclature on the bottom side of the shank – the block lettered word ITALY near the opening but above the band – I was doubtful it was indeed an afterthought.

But by that time, the restoration had progressed to the point where I had already corrected the problem.

The time to retort the odd Dublin had come, but looking at the wider than wide mouthpiece of the bit, I knew that of the three rubber tubes I have, none would work. And so, as I have done in past situations like this, I rummaged around my spare bits until I found one from a Ropp natural cherry wood that matched the tenon size – at least halfway in. As always, I was happy I retorted the pipe thoroughly, as this one had more than usual use on it. I had to run six alcohol soaked regular cleaners through the shank before the last came out clean. After buffing the bit with red and white Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba, and the nice smooth reddish-brown wood with the same progression (I laid on a heavy coat of the red Tripoli to approximate the original color somewhat closer), here is the result.
CONCLUSION
I have to say, this was nowhere near the most difficult restore I’ve ever done, but the research into Lorenzo, in my attempt to establish whether or not it is one of their rejects or a second of some sort, made the process one of the most exciting of my projects. In my mind now, there is no doubt this conundrum of a pipe, is in fact a Lorenzo reject. This conclusion is not based on an overwhelming desire to make the pipe more than it may be. It is based on the evidence: the undeniable similarity of design between the Spitfire by Lorenzo Mille second; the identical color of each that has the appearance of being created specially by the maker, and the presence of somewhat erratic grain and even the single fill I found after stripping the original stain, given that Steve wrote of Lorenzo seconds tending to be known to present these defects. Although, with due respect to Steve, I doubt this is a second because of the lack of any such nomenclature, the same standards would apply to outright rejects. I did my best to make it once more the beautiful pipe it was when first created, but the grain certainly is less than perfect, and there is one place where briar shavings were mixed with some clear bonding element to fix a ding. But now, neither of these facts detracts from the pipe’s allure and good fit in a large hand, which its new owner certainly has.

The Spitfire awaited a new home for months after I finished the restoration, and in the end was purchased by a New World gentleman, from Raymore, Missouri to be specific, who read my blog of another pipe and found the massive Lorenzo (second) on my site. The lovely example of Italian flair and craftsmanship in this blog, on the other hand, was reserved prior to its restoration by a visitor to my pipe club’s monthly meeting. His name is Evan, and here he is at the tobacco shop with his “new” pipe. See how snug it is in Evan’s big mitt. When Evan, who resides in the much smaller town of Placitas about a half-hour’s drive from the relative metropolis of Albuquerque (close enough to commute to and from where he works here), talked to me alone in the big back room of the Moose Lodge where our official monthly pipe meeting is held, I asked if he had seen any of my pipes he found interesting. I assumed he had not located one he wished to buy but also wanted to get an idea of what he looks for in a pipe, other than the Dunhill with its distinctive dot on the bit he enjoyed for the meeting. I admit to thinking I might have something I put off restoring that I could perhaps expedite.

Evan was courteous enough to tell me the truth: none of the pipes I had displayed was big enough for his general taste. That remark turned out to be the exact sort of intelligence I hoped to receive from my question, for I knew I had just what he was looking for, at my humble home and small business, waiting to be cleaned up. I inquired if he had heard of Lorenzo pipes and added that I had restored and sold one but had another pipe like it that I believed was a reject by that company, although there was nothing wrong with its looks or quality. Evan had not heard of Lorenzo but was intrigued by my description of the large pipe.

After getting a look at the photos I emailed to him showing the restored Spitfire and the no-name as it was before cleaning up, the good man replied with considerable enthusiasm. In fact, considering the low price I offered him, he asked me to name the time and place he could pick it up! I had the pleasure of presenting Evan with the finished Lorenzo or second or whatever it is Monday morning at the tobacconist shortly after the comfortable little shop opened at 10. With any sale, online or in person, and in particular when the buyer has requested a pipe that was not yet restored, I always wonder if it – or, rather, I – will match the new owner’s expectations. I observed at once that Evan had pondered his reverse version of the same scenario from his reaction of unconcealed surprise. In short, the pipe was just the kind he loves most – big enough to fit in his large hand, solid, possessed of an unusual shape and beautiful to behold. I add the last part not to pat myself on the shoulder but due to Evan’s appraisal. To my way of thinking, pipe restoration is very much the same as newspaper editing, with which I have had more experience than working on pipes: the flaws in the pipe or article are unimportant so long as all of the necessary information is there to put in order. The best word to describe Evan’s reaction to his latest acquisition – which went on for close to a half-hour – is effusive.

SOURCES
https://www.smspipes.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/catalog.listProducts/catId/4/Lorenzo_Pipes.htm
http://vermontfreehand.com/product/powdered-dye/
http://www.pipes.ws/Lorenzo
http://www.silvercollection.it/DICTIONARYTOBACCONISTE.html Power Bros. hallmark

A Mystery Bent Apple Pipe Turned out to be an Oldenkott

Rough Texture of a Jobey Shellmoor combined with Yellow Lucite

4 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

As I said before I never paid much attention to Jobey pipes. My brother has given me a new appreciation for them. The pipe he sent me that I chose to work on next is stamped Jobey Shellmoor on the underside of the shank. There is no shape number or other stamping on the pipe. There is a Jobey logo stamped on the yellow acrylic/Lucite stem. When I first saw the pipe I was pretty certain that the stem was a replacement. Now that I have it in hand I have to admit I was wrong it is the original. When I first picked it up I thought it would be a pretty straightforward repair. I could not have been more wrong but that would come out in the process of the restoration. The rustication was very dirty on the sides of the bowl but it had that rough rustication that I have come to expect on Shellmoor pipes. The rim was in rough shape with lava in all of the grooves. That would have been easily remedied but there was also a burned area on the top of the rim at the front that had left a deep groove. The bowl was thickly caked (I removed much of it in Idaho when I was there). When I brought it to the work table and tried to finish reaming the bowl I was reminded of the rock hard cake. It took two different reamers to take out the cake. The stem had some tooth marks and the airway was black with tars. When I removed the stem the Jobey Link was stuck in the stem. Not a big deal but it would make getting the black out of the airway. When I examined the rim more closely I saw that it was actually quite damaged. I took two close-up photos of it to show the thick lava and the burned area on the front of the bowl. It is a little hard to see in the second photo (forgive the slightly out of focus photo) but it extends down the front of the bowl about ¼ inch. I worked on the Jobey Link and was able to dribble alcohol down the stem to soften the tars that held it in the stem. I wiggled it free. The photo below shows the pipe taken apart.I started working on the bowl by reaming it completely. The cake was exceptionally. I hard I used the PipNet reamer with the first three cutting heads to take the cake back to bare briar. I used a Savinelli Pipe Knife to complete the job at the bottom of the bowl. When I had finished reaming the bowl I noticed that the airway into the bowl was absolutely invisible. I could not see it on the back wall of the bowl. I used the drill bit from the KleenReem pipe reamer to hand drill out the airway from the shank into the bowl. The tars in the shank were almost as hard as the cake in the bowl. It took a lot of elbow grease and pressing the bit into the airway. I was finally rewarded with it popping through into the bowl. With the rough cleaning done on the bowl and shank I decided to work on the rim surface. I topped it with 220 grit sandpaper on the topping board. (If you look closely at the shank end in the photo it appears that there is a crack in the shank. It is merely a scratch in the top surface of the briar at that point.)After topping it for a while I took a photo to show the extent of the damage to the rim. This photo clarifies what I saw in the original scan of the bowl.I continued topping the bowl until I got to solid wood under the burned area. The rim surface was darkened but the briar was hard. I picked the burned area on the front of the bowl clean of soft burned wood with a dental pick.I was not too worried about the rim darkening as I intended to rusticate it again to match the rough finish of the bowl. I filled in the burned area with clear super glue to build it up. I also intended to rusticate the burned area on the front of the bowl at the same time. The next series of photos show the process of rustication and the different burrs I used on the Dremel to get the pattern on the rim I wanted. I also worked on the front of the bowl to remove the damage of the burned area with the same burrs. I tried to match the pattern on the rest of the bowl. The success of that will be seen in later photos. Once I had the work down with the Dremel and burrs I took it back to the worktable and used a brass bristle brush to knock of the sharp edges and the loose pieces of briar from the rim and the bowl front. The second and third photos show the bowl front and the work that I did to match the pattern in that area. I scrubbed the briar with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime so that I could restain the bowl. I rinsed it with warm running water to remove the soap from the grooves and crevices along with the loosened grime.I used a black Sharpie to colour in the depths of the rustication on the rim and the repaired area at the front of the bowl. I wanted to approximate the contrast in the rest of the finish.I restained the bowl with a dark brown aniline stain and flamed it to set it in the grain. I repeated the process until the coverage was what I wanted.I wiped down the bowl with alcohol on cotton pads to remove some of the dark brown stain from the high spots on the bowl and add some contrast and depth to the finish. I took another close-up photo of the rustication on the rim to show what it looked like with the stain coat.I cleaned out the mortise threads and the airway with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol.Once it was clean I greased the threads on the Jobey Link with Vaseline and turned it in place in the shank with a small screwdriver.The stem turned out to be another issue that I had not taken into real consideration. The dark stain of tars and oils in the airway turned out to be a real pain. I used cotton swabs and alcohol to clean out the portion of the stem that slid over the Link. That was the easy part. I then scrubbed out the airway with alcohol and pipe cleaners. I used a dental pick to clean out the slot in the button. The tars in the airway were stubborn. I mixed a batch of Oxyclean, inserted pipe cleaners in the airway to wick the mixture up the stem and then dropped the pipe in the mixture to soak overnight. I took it out in the morning and scrubbed it with several different brushes and pipe cleaners. I removed about 50% of the black in the stem but not all of it. I put it back in the Oxy soak for another night.I buffed the bowl by hand with a shoe brush to see what the finish would look like. The following photos give a good picture of where things stand with the bowl at this point. I took the stem out of the Oxy bath and cleaned out a bit more of the darkened area. I used pipe cleaners dipped in Bar Keepers Friend scouring powder and was able to get out more of the tars and darkening. I stopped for a little while and worked on the externals. There were several deep tooth marks in the stem near the button on the top and bottom sides. I sanded and cleaned the stem then filled the tooth marks with clear super glue. When the glue set I sanded the repairs smooth to match the surface of the stem. I went back to scrubbing the airway. I remembered reading about someone using soft scrub successfully so I ran upstairs and asked my wife if she had any I could use. I push it through the airway in the stem with thick, fluffy pipe cleaners and rotated them to scrub. It took out some more of the darkening but still not enough to my liking. Finally I set up a retort on the stem alone. I boiled alcohol through the stem to remove more. Finally I used an ear syringe to shoot boiling water through the stem. I gave up after using all of those methods. I think I had removed as much of the darkening as I was going to get out of the stem. The stem definitely looks better than it did when I started. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and wiped it down. I dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads and wiped it down. I lightly buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the wheel and then gave the stem several coats of carnauba. I polished the stem and bowl with a clean buffing pad and then by hand with a microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown below. The first photos show the areas of the rim and the front of the bowl that I cleaned up and re-rusticated with the burrs and Dremel. The remaining photos are of the pipe in its entirety. I have never seen a Jobey Shellmoor pipe with a Lucite stem but this golden stem goes really well with the dark brown stain. The finished pipe is 6 ½ inches long and looks rather dapper and stylish. It has come a long way from when I started on it. I picked this pipe to work on while I was restoring the La Strata because I thought it would be easy. I could not have been more wrong. But I am glad it is finished. Thanks for looking.

What grain under the Candy Apple Red Paint –- A Television Churchwarden

3 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

This Churchwarden is stamped Television on the left side of the shank and Imported Briar over Italy on the right side. From two earlier Television pipes I had restored and restemmed I remembered that Jose Manuel Lopes – Pipes Artisans and Trademarks had helped me identify the original manufacturer. Here is what Lopes says: The brand was sold by A. Grunfield Co. and was produced by Gasparini. They were known to be an English brand with long stems. I have written more about the brand at the following links: https://rebornpipes.com/2014/08/04/restoring-and-restemming-the-first-of-two-television-pipes-a-pot/
https://rebornpipes.com/2014/08/05/restoring-and-restemming-a-second-television-pipe-a-prince/

I took some photos of the pipe before I started working on it. The pipe was in decent shape – no dings or burn marks on the bowl. I just have never really liked candy apple red pipes. This was no exception, as it was almost a painted surface. The combination of a very opaque stain and a urethane topcoat left the bowl looking almost plastic. The rim was dirty and had some lava on it so I knew that in removing that I would not be able to keep the thick red coat on the rim so it would look different from the rest of the bowl. The bowl had a light cake inside. The stem was oxidized and had light tooth chatter near the button on the top and the bottom sides. Through the opaque stain and the urethane coat I could see some interesting grain on the pipe. I also was well aware that this kind of heavy stain and topcoat often hid a multitude of fills.I reamed the bowl with the Savinelli Pipe Knife to scrape out the light cake.I weighed my next move with fear and trepidation wiped down the bowl with acetone to see if I could dent the urethane coat. No such luck with that. I sanded the bowl with a medium grit sanding block and in some spots with 220 grit sandpaper. The finish was hard as rock and it took quite a while to remove the finish. The urethane and the stain coat came off together. It was almost as if it was not in the grain but rather sat on top. I wiped it down with acetone on cotton pads. The results of stripping the bowl can be seen in the next photos. To my amazement the number of fills was not as bad as I expected. There were actually two – yes just two. Now the bad news was that they were both larger than the average ones I deal with. The first was on the front of the bowl and was centered over the two rings around the bowl. The second was on the back side of the cap. The front one was visible but I could live with it. The putty was brown and was tight and smooth. The one on the back was well blended into the grain on the bowl. It too was tight. I would not need to pick them out and repair them. I cleaned out the shank and airways in the bowl and stem with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. It was actually quite clean.I buffed the bowl with red Tripoli on the wheel and was able to remove some of the stubborn paint/stain spots on the bowl cap and the shank. I then gave the bowl a light rub down with olive oil to get a feel for the grain on the pipe. You can see from the photos below that the mix of grain is quite stunning. The right side of the bowl has some tight birdseye. The rest of the bowl is a mix of grains. I gave the bowl several coats of medium cherry Danish Oil to raise the level of red from the briar. I let it dry and buffed it between coats. I gave it a final coat and let it dry while I worked on the stem. When the stain coat was dry I buffed the pipe with a coat of carnauba wax. I worked on the stem. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the light oxidation and tooth chatter and then with a medium grit sanding sponge to smooth out the scratches. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads. I gave it a coat of Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded it with 3200-4000 grit pads and gave it another coat of oil. I finished sanding it with 6000-12000 grit pads and gave it a final coat of oil. I set it aside to dry. I buffed the stem with Blue Diamond to finish the polishing. I gave the bowl and the stem several coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad and then hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to add depth to the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I like the transparent stain on this one far better than the heavy urethane coated pipe I started with. The pipe is going with me to Bulgaria on an upcoming trip I am making there. The pipe man in Sofia is looking forward to adding this to his collection. Thanks for looking.

Gotta Love this Sandblast on the Ehrlich Diamond Shank Bent Billiard

10 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

When I saw this Ehrlich Sandblast Diamond Shank bent Billiard I was immediately drawn to the cragginess of the blast on the bowl. The deep lines and grooves of the blast that go all around the bowl are really nicely done. The ridges and grooves flow with the cut of the pipe and give it a distinctive flare that I was taken by. The finish was worn but in decent shape in the EBay photos but it still looked good. When I picked up the pipe from my brother on an April visit I could not wait to work on it. I took these photos to show the state of the pipe when I received it. The finish was worn and dirty – lots of grime in the deep grooves. The rim was pretty clean. I field reamed it when I was at my brothers and took back the cake that was there to bare briar. The shank had a smooth portion on the left underside where the EHRLICH stamp resides. I have no idea how to tell the age of their pipes as all the ones I have had over the years have had the same stamping. Some added a second line – Supreme, etc. – but this one only had Ehrlich. The band on the shank end is stamped Sterling. It was obviously put on the shank after the blast and was a shop cosmetic addition. It does not hide any cracks in the shank. The stem was oxidized and had some serious bite marks on the underside that would need to be addressed. I liked the shortness of the stem as it gave the pipe a compact look that worked with this pipe. I took some close-up photos of the rim and the stem to show their condition. The rim had no buildup or tars on it. The thin edges were lightly grooved – almost looked like the pipe maker had rusticated the rim to match the look of the bowl rather than risk sandblasting it. The stem was another story. The top side had lots of small dents that looked like they had been buffed out and the result was a wavy top surface. The underside had deep bite marks and tooth indentations that amazingly did not break through the surface and leave holes. I think that the thickness of the stem prevented the bite marks from going through to the airway. The sharp edge of the button and the top and bottom surfaces were pretty much obliterated by the “chomper” who had previously owned this pipe. I cleaned out the deep tooth marks on the stem with alcohol and cotton swabs. I removed the debris in the pits and grooves with a dental pick. I dried off the stem and then filled the bite marks with black super glue. I built up the button and filled in the sharp groove. I would need to recut that once the glue had cured. I laid the stem aside to let the glue harden.I scrubbed the grooves and ridges of the bowl and shank with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap. I rinsed the bowl under running water and dried it off. The scrubbing had done a great job removing all of the grit and grime in the ridges and grooves of the sandblast. While the stem repair cured I worked on the bowl. I wiped it down to remove any remaining dust and then put a large cork in the bowl so that I could hold on to it while staining the bowl. I used a dark brown aniline stain that had been thinned to 50% with isopropyl alcohol to restain the bowl. I flamed it to set the stain in the blast. I wiped down the bowl with alcohol on cotton pads to make it a bit more transparent and allow the dark black in the grooves to show through. I hand buffed the bowl with a shoe brush to get a bit of a shine on the briar.With the externals pretty well cleaned up and restored I addressed the internals of the bowl and shank. I cleaned out the mortise and shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. To my surprise there was not much tobacco debris or oil in the shank. What came out with the cleaning was the original brown stain. Evidently the bowl had been dipped in stain. The amount of stain that came out on the pipe cleaners and cotton swabs was amazing. You can see it in the photo below. I scrubbed it until it was clean and I could see bare briar on the sides of the mortise.I sprayed the stem repair with some accelerator to harden the super glue more quickly. I decided to use it this time. I usually let the repair cure over night, but this time I was a bit impatient. When the glue was hard to the touch I used a series of flat needle files to begin flattening the repair and shaping the sharp edge of the button on both sides of the stem. With the button edges cleaned up and the slot opened slightly with the files I sanded the stem surface with 180 and 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the repairs and minimize the file marks in the vulcanite. I wet sanded both sides of the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads to blend in the repair on the underside. I rubbed it down with a coat of Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded both sides with 3200-4000 grit sanding pads to further blend in the patch on the underside. By this point it was beginning to disappear into the shine of the stem. I gave it another coat of oil. I finished sanding it with 6000-12000 grit pads and gave it a final coat of oil and let it sit until the oil was dry. I buffed the stem with Blue Diamond and lightly touched the blast with the polish. Too heavy a touch and the grooves fill in with the polishing compound so it is critical to have a very light touch. I gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad. I sparingly applied some Conservator’s Wax to the bowl and hand buffed it with a shoe brush and with a clean buffing pad. I finished by hand buffing the pipe with a microfibre cloth to give depth to the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I really like the way the stain turned out and I am pleased with the repair to the stem. Thanks for looking.

Spotlight: Ladies Pipes, Part 3/7, a Tiny Medico Acorn

1 Reply

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

Two old buddies are heading off on their Annual Fishing Trip. For argument’s sake we’ll call them Kevin and Bob.
Bob notices that Kevin is being more grumpy than usual and tries to lighten things up by way of conversation.
Bob: “So Kev, last week was your birthday, happy belated.”
Kevin: (grudgingly) “Thanks.”
Bob: “Say, did, Laura, buy you that Estate Dunhill that you were constantly hinting at?”
Kevin: “Na”
Bob: “Well what did she get you instead?”
Kevin: “SUV.”
Bob: “New or used?”
Kevin: “New of course.”
Bob is extremely puzzled as Kevin is still driving the same beat-up pickup that was already old when Saddam was considered an ally.
Bob: “You know, Kev, you and I have been friends for a long time, and I’m entitled to say that you are an ungrateful sour puss. Laura buys you a New SUV instead of a second hand pipe, and that has you in a bad mood.”
Kevin: “Humph!”
Bob: “Well what kind of an SUV was it anyway?”
Kevin: “Socks, Underwear, Viagra”
— Thanks to mate on smokingpipes.com/forums. (I don’t know, but for some reason this struck me as a good gift idea for the next man who gives a lady grief for enjoying a pipe.)

INTRODUCTION
Steve comments now and then on the pleasure he gets from researching a pipe’s history. I know his motivation is not to tuck away, in his mind and for his own use, the information he gathers. I can’t say for sure what drives Steve, but I suspect he, also, is a natural born reporter – which is to say collector and sharer of information – with an insatiable longing to spread his news to readers as well as to supplement or in some cases create new pipe lore available online. Steve laughed at this when I suggested the notion, but I would say his crowning achievement so far is the definitive and exhaustive research that got to the bottom (which was deep) of the complex origins and Byzantine life of Brewster pipes – a close second to his exposé on the history of the Colossus Pipe Factory (CPF).

As a former freelance news reporter/photographer and still a spot news enthusiast, not to mention aspiring literary writer and pursuer of other investigative endeavors, I have a knack of my own for probing. When I can’t find any mention whatsoever of a pipe brand, I therefore become somewhat vexed. This was the case in particular with the first two pipes I restored for this series. One was a Frasa (or maybe FRASA as an acronym) French natural bent billiard;. The other was a Clinton natural straight oval that was neither the Israeli Alpha brand type nor the U.S. variety. Forever a dogged reporter at heart and also having a serious case of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, however, I intend to stay on these stories and others until I uncover the facts. The truth is out there.

As for Medico, there is much to be found online and in actual bound and printed books on pipes and the long, glorious history of their peaceful enjoyment. Indeed, the latter tools still exist, however tenuous their future. I hope and pray they survive for as long as Mankind occupies this planet, if not beyond. The history of Medico began with S.M Frank & Co.in New York in 1851, giving S.M. Frank the claim to the oldest pipe manufacturer in the U.S. By the time Frank formed Medico Pipes in 1957, it had already consumed eight other pipe makers, some still celebrated and others less remembered: the Manhattan Briar Pipe Co. in 1922; William DeMuth & Co. (WDC) in 1937; The Kaywoodie Co. (later Kaywoodie Pipes Inc.), Yello-Bole, Kaufman Brothers & Bondy (KB&B), the Reisss-Premier Corp. and the New England Briar Pipe Co. in 1955, and the New Jersey Briar Pipes Co. in 1956.

Discussions today about Medico pipes, in person or online forums, can become downright nasty, pitting vehement supporters against rabid critics. Nevertheless, older Medicos certainly possess a certain heightened quality and charm, and the brand’s lines are still made to be inexpensive and durable. As cigarsinternational.com put it, Medicos are “no-nonsense pipes made for the everyman.” That, they no doubt definitely are, at prices ranging from $15.99-$39.99. Medico has made pipes with materials including traditional briar, Brylon (an S.M. Frank synthetic invention of high temperature resin and wood flour) and even a unique bent tall billiard covered with a mysterious material described by Pipephil as either felt, synthetic fur “or a piece of wall-to-wall carpet.” Well, that settles that. To tell the truth, I would love to own one of those, if only for show-and-tell and to be able to call myself a carpet piper, despite the risk of static-electric charges and burns.SOME FEMALE SMOKERS AND PIPE MAKERS
I have put out various general calls for help in my local and online pipe communities searching for women who smoke pipes and would be willing to share some of their experiences and preferences, and my friend Liz invited me to become a Friend of her Facebook Ladies of the Briar Group. I still need to pursue that line, but at least have four blogs left to do so.

Since my second ladies pipe blog, I have re-focused my research on areas of interest I had not even considered until some other friends mentioned them. The one was revealed to me by Jennifer, the owner of Stag Tobacconist in Albuquerque where I am a very frequent fixture. The other, suggested to me by another Smoking Forums UK friend, Ed, was a fact that struck me as so obvious I was embarrassed to have overlooked the idea. Both, I believe, will prove of great interest.

Unknown to me until Jennifer’s revelation, was that Samuel Gawith Fire Dance Flake – a Virginia mix with blackberry, vanilla and brandy flavorings that was a favorite of mine back in my aromatic-heavy days but remains a blend I still enjoy on occasion – was formulated by one of the few female tobacco blenders in the U.S. The light flavorings and Best Brown Virginia used give Fire Dance a nice little bite.Of more significance is the presence of females – ye gads, what’s the world coming to? – in the business of making pipes. Ed mentioned the following names and provided a few links, worried these were not enough, and I looked up the rest to get samples of their work: Vilma Armellini, one of three daughters of the great Italian pipe maker Mauro Armellini and who regularly assisted her father in making many of his pipes and took over the business upon his death; Anne Julie; Nanna Ivarssen, and two newcomers who have been crafting fine pipes for the past several years, Sabina Santos and Scottie Piersal. Alas, I have been unable to locate a pipe made entirely by Vilma Armellini, but the first photo below shows her father’s work that likely included her help. I will, you can bet, continue looking. In light of my severe case of P.A.D., I expect to add samples of these brilliant women’s pipe crafting art to my collection as soon as possible.

RESTORATION
Now, for the drab little Medico Real Briar acorn as I first saw it. The bit looked like this close up.I put it in an OxiClean bath and the stummel in used Everclear (not to drink, but to strip prior pipes).I took the bit out after a half-hour or so and wet micro meshed it. Then I went ahead and buffed it with red and white Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba.I apologize for the gunk in the last photo. I just noticed it, but I assure you it came off with a wipe, or I wouldn’t have sold it the next day. About an hour after putting the stummel into the Everclear, I removed it and swabbed the chamber with one small soft cotton square and the outside with another. As usual, there was still old stain to remove, but other than uncommon situations such as removing that awful red varnish used on almost all pipes made in China , for example, I prefer not to let the wood soak too long. A little sanding with 220-grit paper in easy, even strokes, for the most part in the same direction, worked off the rest of the drab and dreary cloaking stain on the briar that had left darkness there and nothing more, as Edgar Allen Poe wrote. Call me anything other than Ismael, but I always get a distinct rush when the stummel is ready for micro meshing. In an average restoration of this type, with no serious, time-consuming obstacles, micro meshing most of the time is the halfway + 1 point, or the hump of the project. However, with five steps to go before completion of the pleasant task – it was better than the movie, which I had seen 10 times already – I was exactly halfway finished. The point, however obtuse, is that in my mind I was almost to the finish line. Oh, never mind! Alright, then, I proceeded to micro mesh from 1500-12000. Next up was re-staining the stummel, using Lincoln brown alcohol-based shoe and boot leather dressing.I also enjoy the brief puff of blue fire after holding my Bic or a good kitchen match close to the stain-wet wood, like flaming baked apples served with ice cream. Sort of. But that doesn’t make me a pyro. I prefer to think that life is like a bowl of ice cream, even if it’s served up on fire at times. Consequently, a few minutes after torching the stummel, I started with 2400 and 3200 micro mesh to remove the charred neon green coating. That broke through to dark brown, at which time I switched to super fine four-ought steel wool to take the darkness down a few notches. Ready for the second to last step in this somewhat off-the-norm order of events, I retorted the pipe at last. After running a fluffy cleaner through the shank and clearing more last-minute soot from the chamber with a cotton cloth square, I buffed the stummel with white Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba, using the wheel I keep clean after each to work the compounds further into the briar and keep them from smudging. CONCLUSION
So far, by an eerie coincidence if there is such a thing, all three of the pipes I have restored for this ladies pipes series have sold. The Frasa (or FRASA) went to my good friend and fellow pipe club member, Ashley. The Medico Acorn of this installment was snatched up by another woman, Rita, whom I met last night when she saw me smoking a pipe and mentioned that her husband “used to enjoy his pipes all the time” (I took this rather ominous wording as either a sign that the good man is no longer with us or just not with Rita), as well as the fact that she gave up cigarettes by puffing on a pipe of her own with tobacco until she weaned herself off both, and she added that she missed the feeling of the pipe in her mouth. No comment. The third pipe, a Citation Real Briar oval, sold to an 18-year-young man who also approached me because of the fine pipe in my mouth at the time. Ashley reserved hers before it was even restored while the others fell victims to my persuasive sales technique and the fortuitous circumstance that I had my available pipes with me. Still, I didn’t push any of the ladies pipes on anyone. They were all picked out of the box by the happy buyers.
SOURCES
http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/smoke-jokes
https://rebornpipes.com/tag/brewster-pipes/
https://rebornpipes.com/2013/04/14/some-reflection-on-the-historical-background-on-cpf-pipes/
http://www.smfrankcoinc.com/home/?page_id=2
https://pipedia.org/wiki/S.M._Frank
http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-medico.html
http://www.smfrankcoinc.com/home/?page_id=143 Medico pipes
http://www.cigarsinternational.com/brands/1552/medico/
http://www.tobaccoreviews.com/blend/1965/samuel-gawith-firedance-flake
http://www.theitalianpipe.com/artisans/armellini.htm
http://www.annejulie.com/pipes.html
https://pipedia.org/wiki/Ivarsson,_Nanna
http://www.sabinapipes.com/
http://mypipeclub.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=18ed18b6fd1b7cfa581ca18da56449f7&topic=805.0 Scottie Piersal

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

5 Replies

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

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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.