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The Decline of Restoring Old Pipes, Part 4/4: Fixing a Meerschaum Shank Everyone Thought Was Beyond Repair

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Blog by Robert M. Boughton
https://www.roadrunnerpipes2k.com/
https://www.facebook.com/roadrunnerpipes/
Copyright © Reborn Pipes and the author except as noted

 To him that will, ways are not wanting.
— George Herbert, in Jacula Prudentusm or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. (posthumous, 1651). 

RECAP
Part 1 hypothesized that the discontinuation, illegality and dwindling or total unavailability of vital materials, used in antique and other very old pipes, will lead to a serious crisis in restoring these heirlooms and otherwise prized implements of contemplation to their original conditions.  My main theme was the need for those of us in the business – having considerable, moderate or little experience under our belts – to learn how to overcome these difficulties that will become more acute all too soon.  In hindsight, I should have emphasized better the need for those who now have the know-how to use their own perhaps self-discovered and unique (read proprietary) heroic measures to cooperate in sharing them with the rest of us.

Part 2 described the first of three such repairs I have completed, its example being a Colossus Pipe Factory (CPF) Best Make turned lion’s head meerschaum with a gold band and genuine cherry red amber stem that needed reconnecting with a new bone screw tenon.  Five years after I began searching for the one part, I was compelled to send the otherwise restored CPF to a specialized repair service that may have been the only place capable at the time to affect the rehabilitation – for lack of a proper bone tenon or anyone to whom I could turn for instruction on how to repair damage to the inner shank.  Now I know the necessary work was relatively minor.

Part 3, taking the form of a fable, told of the misadventures of the Restorer during his two-year quest to cleanse of all evils a Kaufman Brothers & Bondy Blueline Bakelite dated by its owner to 1911 and entrusted to the Restorer’s care for a simple cleaning and restoring.  The ensuing calamities must be read to be believed.

INTRODUCTION
I became involved with this small old meerschaum smooth bent billiard by the most unusual circumstances of any restoration I’ve made so far.  My pipe club meetings take place the third Thursday of every month in a back room of the local Moose Club Lodge, where the Ladies of the Moose are gracious enough to cook a special dinner for us at a low price that just covers their expenses, not counting the tips we’re more than happy to contribute.

Before dinner was served at the December meeting, one of the ladies, Sherry, happened to buy two of my pipes.  One was the best I had, a beautiful Ben Wade by Preben Holm Danish freehand, and the other a vintage Dr. Grabow easy bent natural billiard.  Sherry didn’t know much about pipes but liked those two, which I let her have at the 15% club discount minus the usual $8.00 shipping fee.  She mentioned finding at a yard sale a little pipe, in a leather case, she described as very dirty but white underneath with a broken stem.  She thought it might be antique.  I told her it was probably meerschaum, explained what that meant, and  encouraged her to bring it with her the night of the next meeting so we could all have a look and see what might be done.

Before dinner was served at the January meeting, Sherry handed me the little brown case.  There’s something mysterious about such objects, teasing the beholder to approach and open them and reveal the secrets hidden within.  Nothing we’ve been taught by fables, folklore and outright superstition entreating us not to meddle with common-looking doodads, unless we’re prepared to face the unknown but likely negative consequences, is powerful enough to stay our hands.  “Aladdin and the Magic Lamp,” which was not added until 1704 to the original Arabic tales from the 8th-14th centuries, comes to mind.  The tale of the powers of the Magic Lamp, during more than three hundred years of oral and other popular re-telling, has been altered from its actual story in which all ends well to a warning to be careful what we wish lest we get what we ask for.  But in this event, the contents pf the brown case appeared benign. The top felt lining of the open box identified the meerschaum billiard as a First Quality, but whether that was an old brand name or the importer I have not been able to determine.  Sherry’s main concern, of course, was if her $8 yard sale find could be fixed so she could smoke it.  Seeing the severe damage to the inner shank, my hopes were not high.  I observed the stem that was with the meerschaum was too short and also smaller in diameter than the shank and suspected its use as a replacement of the original may have caused or worsened the harm. Still, with wishful thinking, I thought the gutted, ragged shank of the little pipe (only 5” long) might be mended with Plaster of Paris or some sort of putty.  I was sitting next to Don Gillmore, the artisan pipe maker whose business is called DW Pipes, and he nixed those ideas.  Any new stem and tenon, Don said, would not support the billiard’s weight with the sort of shank repair I proposed.  We passed it around the table, and that was the general opinion.  For such a small pipe, it was rather heavy, and at least part of me had to go along with everyone else’s verdict.

Sherry also wondered how old the First Quality pipe was.  The group conclusion was that it dated to between the turn of the 20th century and the 1930s.  Everyone agreed the stem was Bakelite, but in a later experiment that ended with shocking results I proved that was erroneous.  More about that later.

And so I had to tell Sherry, choosing my words with special care, that her pipe was very old but there was nothing we could do to attach a new stem.  Still I thought there might be some way to accomplish the feat.  I kept that to myself, however, instead offering to clean up the pipe and make it look nice, at least, at no charge.  I could see the well-masked disappointment on her face and had to bite my tongue to hold back my seemingly irrational hope so as not to risk another let-down.  For the meantime, Sherry let me take the pipe for cleaning.

George Herbert’s proverb, later reiterated as “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” is the prefect prelude to this blog.  Everyone else present at the January meeting of my local pipe club reached the same conclusion, that the restoration was impossible given the severe damage and known methods of repair I proposed that were intended for small jobs of meerschaum patchwork,  I even consulted our host, Steve, in a short exchange of emails in which I suggested more and more creative (meaning desperate) approaches   I should have accepted the wholly sensible belief that the smooth little billiard was past fixing when I received Steve’s emphatic consensus that any such approach would not support the inherent torque between the stem and shank.  In fact, for a moment I did give up hope   

I’m afraid my mind was already ensnared by what my dad always called a steel trap, however, and I had to find a means of escape even if it required sending the pipe to miracle workers such as the folks at Norwoods Pipe Repair, who had bailed me out several times already.  I was growing tired of such surrender, but with that end in mind, I sent Norwood the younger photos clarifying the damage and text adding every possible material of the main parts to be used, in the preferred order.  As always with that fine business, I had a positive response the same night.  Assured the job could be done, I prepared a realistic estimate of the amount Sherry would pay, with parts, labor, shipping there and back and the 11% tax included, and forwarded the good news to Sherry.

But you see, another aspect of Herbert’s collection I like is the comparison of the modern sense of the word outlandish in the book’s subtitle being “freakishly or grotesquely strange or odd” compared to the now archaic meaning, from the Old English utlendisc, as foreign or not native.  I also appreciate the translation of the main title, from Latin, referring to careful darts.

Remembering the antique CPF turned lion’s head meerschaum pipe I sent to Norwoods to have the original amber stem reattached with a new bone screw tenon, I took a closer look at the shank as it appeared before and after the wonderful work that was accomplished.  An outlandish notion in both senses of the word began to form in my mind.Notwithstanding my good faith communication with Norwoods, I knew I could accomplish the task myself.  Because of the way the CPF’s previous shank threading was filled with some permanent solution, sinking the new bone tenon within it, all I needed was a practicable guess as to the solidifying substances used.

Thinking it might present somewhat of a difficulty to Don, I drove to his house and showed him the CPF.  After examining the shank for a few seconds, Don suggested epoxy mixed with powdered wood.  He half-filled a plastic 35mm film tube with the latter – more than I’d need for far more meerschaum repairs than I could make in quite a while – and said the epoxy was up to me.  Of more importance to me was his change of opinion regarding my ability to accomplish the task.

I cut in half my previous estimate of Sherry’s cost to fix her meerschaum pipe and sent her a new email asking if I could proceed with the work, guaranteeing the price.  It was the only time I’ve bid on a job, and my goal being less to make money than to demonstrate how this kind of meerschaum repair could be performed by almost any restorer (not to downplay my experience more than is appropriate), I decided to undercut the competition with assertive style.  Her reply was that if I was confident I could do the work, get on with it.

With the pipe already cleaned by then, I had reluctantly concluded an amber bit was not viable at the time because of general unavailability of any color without sending the pipe to someone else to do the work.  I only had to acquire a Bakelite stem of an appropriate length and color (as close as possible to the orange of the poor replacement shown above, based on Sherry’s wish) and a selection of bone tenons and Teflon push-pull sets from which to choose when I decided the type I would use.

JH Lowe turned out to be the single supply store I found with all of the above but sold the push-pull sets in 12-packs.  I would only need one, and thinking I’d save on my expenses, I ordered a three-pack from Royal Meerschaum.Also, the JH Lowe bit page did not mention available colors, and the closest length was 3”, the standard.  For the pipe to fit its case as it had when first made, the bit needed to be 2½”.  On a tip from a friend, I called Tim West of JH Lowe and asked if he had any orange or even yellow Bakelite bits of the right length that were pre-bent.  Every source I had found, online and friends, stressed that Bakelite could not be bent.

CORRECTION TO PART 1: In the first blog of this series, I noted that hand-crafted old pipes, including the stems, were made to the exact and often eccentric specifications of the maker, and therefore one of the problems “for purposes of restoring old stems made of Bakelite…[is that] any necessary replacement can be reworked in only one way: fitting an over-sized stem of an otherwise suitable candidate to a shank by serious sanding or other such methods.  Any other alteration, such as bending or threading, is strictly impossible.”  When Tim repeated that Bakelite bits were pre-fashioned for individual pipes, I told him I was aware of that obstacle and it was, indeed, the cause of my greatest difficulty – finding one already bent.  Without a bent Bakelite stem, I added, I could not complete the project at hand.  With a little reluctance, Tim then insisted that although it is “tricky at low temperatures, Bakelite can be bent.”  He assured me he has succeeded in bending Bakelite “a little but not much.”    

Just to be on the safe side, I ordered a 3” straight bit that was dark reddish brown, a 2½” “orange or yellow” bit Tim was sure he had in a back room, whether or not it was bent, and a 12-pack of assorted bone tenons.  Both bits were pre-drilled for the “push” side of the set.  Given Tim’s qualification of the bending process being chancy at low temperatures, I reasoned, if need be I would crank the oven up a little at a time and see if the world’s first synthetic plastic became more malleable.  But Tim came through with all of it, including a 2½” easy bent yellow bit, leaving my experiment for a later date – but not too far in the future, perhaps even as a follow-up to these four blogs. By the way, Tim is experiencing technical difficulties with his website navigation menu.  As a workaround solution, he has made sure that browser searches for JH Lowe pull up direct links to each of his pages.  He apologized for the temporary inconvenience.

RESTORATION
The basic cleaning of Sherry’s pipe was finished the morning of January 18, the day after she left it with me for that reason.  I started with a simple wipe down using a small part of a paper towel and purified water and was amazed by the difference. Meerschaum rims tend to be easier to rid of char than wooden ones, and this was no exception, despite the awful looking burns, using super fine “0000” steel wool.  Exercising great care, I used a reamer to begin clearing the crusty chamber of built up cake, followed by 150-, 320-, 600- and 1000-grit papers.  I also applied the three finest-grit papers to the shank opening to make it smooth.I finished cleaning the outer stummel with a soft tooth brush dipped in purified water.Now, here’s where I had to start making the big decisions, the first of which was to use a modern push-pull set instead of a bone screw tenon for which the pipe was made.  I wanted to use the bone tenon, but that was my ego trying to get the better of me.  The most important factors were the integrity of the bit to shank connection and the pipe’s ultimate lasting use to its owner.  The next two photos show how the push-pull set is designed to be installed and the perfect fit of the push half in the bit.The reality of the situation, however, was that the correct insertion, or receiving, side of the Teflon set was the same diameter as the shank.  In other words, there was no way whatsoever that the right way would work.  Again, I wanted to go with a bone tenon that would have been good for my own use, but that would have meant more work and less strength for the pipe in terms of the higher risk of the actual owner breaking the fragile bone.

Since the latter was all that mattered, I used the easiest and safest improvisation of reversing the order of the push-pull set.  Even this required widening the mortise, and the only tools available to me for the procedure – one each slotted and Phillips head screw driver and a small but sharp pen knife – could best be described as inadvisable.  I proceeded with a mix of confidence and willingness to pay the price of a similar, name brand and definitely antique replacement complete with its own case that I took the precaution of making sure was available to Buy Now on eBay.

Starting with the pen knife, I whittled away the roughest area of the mortise, then inserted the slotted screwdriver with minimal force and very slowly turned the head until there was no resistance.  That left the mortise round and the thickness of the meerschaum even but a tad too small for the short end of the push side to fit snugly.  The Phillips head was wide enough to slide into the mortise with the same minimal force as before, and a couple of slow turns made the hole perfect.  The one good aspect of using the Phillips head was that it roughened the inner wall as the instructions for the upcoming epoxy and powdered wood application suggested.I had to pay Don one more visit to have the bit opening widened to accommodate the push-pull part usually inserted in the shank.  With his big power drill press that could be set to stop at the exact depth required, the task took Don only a few minutes.  I also picked up a band I wanted to put on the pipe, not for repairing a crack but for cosmetic and further support purposes.  Although I wanted to use a sterling band, the only type Don had on hand that fit was a 12½mm nickel one.Back at my own modest home workshop that night, using a file, I scuffed the parts of each push-pull half to be inserted in the bit and shank, as shown below with the shank side.  Then I ran a pipe cleaner through the mortise and draught hole of the stummel and another through the bit’s airway to prevent excess epoxy and shaved wood mix from seeping and setting inside either.  Sliding the Teflon parts over each cleaner so they were just above the connection points, I mixed a small amount of epoxy and powdered wood and applied the mix to the upper halves of the scuffed areas one at a time and pushed each into place when it was ready, knowing the adhesive concoction would spread out over the whole connectors.  The initial bonding took 60 seconds, during which time I moved both cleaners back and forth a fraction to assure they didn’t stick. Nine minutes later, the epoxy mix fully set, I removed the two cleaners that came out with no resistance.  The hardened, even fill of the adhesive solution is clear in the last photo.  I gave the push tenon inside the shank a good tug to test the bonding, and it didn’t budge.  Poking the re-cleaned thin metal shank clearer of my three-piece tool into the opening of the stem’s push-pull half, I angled it to grip the inner side and tugged, again without any movement of the part.

The longest, most difficult labor of the entire restoration still awaited me: matching the 15½mm bit opening to the 12½mm shank.  Most people think of 3mm as a small measurement, but any pipe restorer knows it’s a massive discrepancy. All of this adjustment required 150-grit paper and hours – over a period of days – of patience not to eliminate a fraction of a millimeter too much of the Bakelite after so much effort.  Here it is close to the end of the first stage, before sanding down the left shank to get rid of the chip and make the two halves of the pipe flush. Also still remaining was much of the tapered bulge, especially on the top, but I slowly worked it down before adding the band with a few tiny dabs of Super Glue.  Adding the band showed the sides of the shank that still needed to be evened out, which I did with 220-grit paper and super fine steel wool. After that, there was still one problem I had to address.  The mouthpiece was so wide that the leather case would not snap shut.  That meant an assault on both sides of the mouthpiece with 150-grit paper.  Fortunately, Bakelite, like acrylic, is more forgiving than Vulcanite/Ebonite as far as scratches go, and it was nice and smooth after a full course of micro mesh.  I also buffed the bit with carnauba on my electric wheel. Case closed, so to say.CONCLUSION
Not forgetting the mishap with the short, undersized bit that was used by a previous restorer, I determined it was not Bakelite.  After speaking with Tim at JH Lowe and before I received the needed parts that included a stem of the correct length and already bent, I decided to prepare for the possibility of needing to bend it.  And so I pre-heated the oven to 250° F and placed the old bit inside on a piece of aluminum foil.  Not even 10 minutes later, in the living room, my eyes were watering, and I noticed smoke and a noxious odor.  Rushing to the oven and opening the door, I beheld what can only be described as vampire remains after exposure to sunlight.  Really, nothing was left but a small outline of black soot.  Even the tenon that we all believed to be bone had vanished.  Recovering from the shocking sight, I realized the bit had been the cheapest variety of plastic.

To be sure, Norwoods, with its two generations of experience, would have returned a pipe finished with a perfectly shaped bit, not to mention one made of orange amber and connected with a bone screw tenon in keeping with the ideal of completing such restorations with all of the original materials.  As far as my substitution of a Teflon push-pull tenon set goes, I stand by my decision that was based on the owner’s need for enduring enjoyment of her First Quality meerschaum pipe.  Concerning the slight bulge that remains in the bit, I’ll just say I did the best I could in the time allowed, by hand using paper without even the benefit of an electric sanding wheel.

Still, I will follow up with Sherry and offer to give the bit the finishing touches it could use.  But this restoration was a success in that I learned how to repair a mangled meerschaum shank on my own and now share the experience so that other restorers will have the same ability.  That, after all, was the highest goal of this series.

SOURCES
https://academic.oup.com/res/article-abstract/os-XI/42/139/1538585?redirectedFrom=PDF
https://academic.oup.com/res/article/os-XI/42/139/1538585
https://rebornpipes.com/2018/12/16/the-decline-of-restoring-old-pipes-part-1-4/
https://rebornpipes.com/2019/02/05/the-decline-of-restoring-old-pipes-part-2-4-an-antique-cpf-meerschaum-five-years-finishing/
https://rebornpipes.com/2019/02/21/the-decline-of-restoring-old-pipes-part-3-4-sir-daryl-and-the-golden-blueline-bakelite/
https://www.royalmeerschaumpipes.com/Regular-Stem-Push-Pull-Fittings-p/sft-3.htm
http://www.jhlowe.com/misc-items.htm
http://www.jhlowe.com/bits-bakelite.htm

The Decline of Restoring Old Pipes, Part 3/4: Sir Daryl and the Golden Blueline Bakelite

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Blog by Robert M. Boughton
https://www.roadrunnerpipes2k.com/
https://www.facebook.com/roadrunnerpipes/
Copyright © Reborn Pipes and the author except as noted

Once upon a time there was a man who was about to go on a long journey, and right before his departure he asked his three daughters what he should bring back to them. The oldest wanted pearls, the second, diamonds, but the third said, ‛Dear Father, I’d like to have a singing, springing lark.’ — The Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, from “The Singing, Springing Lark,” in Children’s and Household Tales (1815)

RECAP
Part 1 hypothesized that the discontinuation, illegality and dwindling or total unavailability of vital materials, used in antique and other very old pipes, will lead to a serious crisis in restoring these heirlooms and otherwise prized implements of contemplation to their original conditions.  My main theme was the need for those of us in the business – having considerable, moderate or little experience under our belts – to learn how to overcome these difficulties that will become more acute all too soon.  In hindsight, I should have emphasized better the need for those who now have the know-how to use their own perhaps self-discovered and unique (read proprietary) heroic measures  to cooperate in sharing them with the rest of us, as Part 4 will demonstrate without the help I would have preferred but with other expert assistance that is very much appreciated.

Part 2 described the first of three such repairs I have completed, its example being a Colossus Pipe Factory (CPF) Best Make turned lion’s head meerschaum with a gold band and genuine cherry red amber stem that needed reconnecting with a new bone screw tenon.  Five years after I began searching for the one part, I was compelled to send the otherwise restored CPF to a specialized repair service that may have been the only place capable at the time to affect the rehabilitation, for lack of a proper bone screw tenon or anyone to whom I could turn for instruction on how to repair the damage to the inner shank.  Now I know the necessary work was relatively minor.  Having determined the approximate technique used to repair my CPF, I will share the knowledge with anyone who cares to read the next and final installment, in which I mend a more damaged meerschaum shank and re-stem the pipe.

SIR DARYL AND THE GOLDEN BLUELINE BAKELITE
Once upon a time, in the sixteenth year of the third millennium, there lived a young man who dwelt in the center of a place of medium size.  When it was founded by Spaniards three centuries earlier the sage brush- and tumbleweed-blown burg was a dukedom known as Alburquerque, with two r’s, named in honor of a now long-forgotten duke of the proud nation that settled it.  But long before our tale began, the name was shortened, probably because of common misspelling, to Albuquerque, with only one r.

At the time the events of this account began to unfold, more than half of the almost one million souls who called the Land of Enchantment home tried to get along in its fast-growing and biggest metropolis, but perhaps lacked faith in the higher powers.  Gun-related deaths and evils in general were far above average compared to the other 49 quasi-independent lands of the constitutional federal republic they composed.  This was before Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands and Panama were granted the same status, although they did not ask for it, and despite the attempts of Texas, Hawaii and California to rule themselves   Most of the people still believed they were part of a true democracy, which of course does not exist.

The young man, whom we will call Sir Daryl, had a high-tech job that his life in general and education and training in particular had prepared him to perform with the greatest skill.  He also enjoyed his work, as much as any man likes the chronic rising from bed day in and day out and spending long hours away from home and friends, so that was a good thing.

But Sir Daryl’s real love in life was going on quests for beautiful and rare tobacco pipes that were bestowed with magical powers.  Sir Daryl’s keen eyes and a preternatural knack for recognizing the magic when he saw it aided him in his never-ending search.  Even when he traveled for business purposes, without fail he seemed able to sniff out the rare and hidden examples of the craft that awaited him   All of the precious shapes and styles he discovered in this fashion were his for the taking at prices so low he could not bring himself to turn them down.  Sometimes Sir Daryl wondered at his aura of luck in locating the treasures but did not spend much time fretting over his ostensible good fortune.  As his tastes grew more refined, which such appetites always arouse, Sir Daryl turned to antiques.

Unaware that his friends were beginning to notice the signs of a peculiar spell that was known to afflict many pipe collectors of his period, before counter-spells were found to eliminate the problem, Sir Daryl became obsessed with the thrill of the chase and ultimate liberation of these fine prizes from their previous, unworthy guardians.  And they were much admired by all who beheld them

One of Sir Daryl’s most splendid finds was crafted by the renowned house of Kaufman Brothers & Bondy and given the enticing name Blueline Bakelite, the creation of which he was able, with his considerable fact finding skills, to pinpoint to the second year of the second decade of the twentieth century.

Alas!  Sir Daryl so wanted to savor the gold-banded billiard beauty that he took it with him to his weekly informal pipe get-together early one Friday evening, still in the box in which it arrived with the day’s mail.  He settled back in the cushioned chair that had his name on it and prepared a bowl with an excellent Virginia Perique concocted with miraculous properties that made his body seem weightless and his mind travel to far-off places, not all of which he had ever seen outside of these visions.

With the slowest possible deliberation, Sir Daryl struck a wooden match and kindled the top layer of the divine amalgam in expectation of an ethereal treat, Almost immediately, his typical serene and content composure twisted into a spasm of intense revulsion apparent to his friends all about the low, round table where everyone had set out tins and other glorious, colorful containers with concoctions from around the globe that group custom made free for the trying.  Sir Daryl began to retch and reached for a tissue paper to spat out the evil spell that began its sorcery in his mouth and thence to wind an insidious path into his throat.  With the greatest of luck that was his hallmark, Sir Daryl cast out the vile spirit.

Being a naturally kind, trusting soul, the only mistake Sir Daryl made was in believing the minion who sold him the pipe with the false claim that it had been cleansed of all evil.  As Sir Daryl’s breath returned with the color in his face, one of his peers, who sat closest to him in another deep cushioned chair to his right, happened to be gifted with the power of perception.  Suspecting the foul truth of the matter, the wise aficionado asked if dottle was the problem.

Still unable to speak in a clear voice, Sir Daryl handed his newest prize to the other man, one of several Restorers present round the small table, and sipped from a bottle of mineral water, the better to wash away the diminishing remnants of old leaf and other substances too frightful to mention in this story conceived for young, impressionable children.

The Restorer scrutinized the various parts of the instrument and offered his services to Sir Daryl, for a modest fee, of course, and a deal was struck.  The trustworthy Restorer said with his natural sense of fidelity that he would return the treasured and still un-tested Blueline Bakelite the next day.  Little did he then know of the otherworldly obstacles that would befall him, beginning later that very night.

Enchantment, as a point of interest and special significance, concerns the subjection to or bewitchment by magical influences.  Some enchantments are made for good – and others not.

 THE RESTORER TELLS OF HIS ODYSSEY, IN HIS OWN UNCOUTH VOICE
Thank you, Omniscient Narrator, for that lovely, florid introduction, and for providing the most charming and flattering title you could come up with for my chapter in some other hero’s tale.  I don’t mean to be rude, but I must set a couple of facts straight, if only for the sake of dispelling that whole fidelity thing you pinned on me.

For one thing, I didn’t “offer” my services, it was more like begging Sir Daryl to grant me the honor of taking his beautiful but badly marred and filthy 1911 billiard – yes, that’s the year our Narrator meant to say in his own rather prosaic, ho-hum way –home with me.  I asked whether he wanted the final stain to adhere to the original dark brown or be lighter and was not surprised when he opted for the former. Anyone with eyes will see the KB&B was messed up outside from the shots of it I snapped as soon as I was home, which I’ll dig up some place and show in a minute.  As far as its innards go, I know more than I really needed to about that because I just had to see what Sir Daryl’s little fit was all about and later tried it in private with some of the cherriest aromatic there is.  The consequence indeed was every bit as nasty as my friend Sir Daryl let on!

Daryl in the chair with his name on it

And enough with your Sir Daryl nonsense.  He’s just a man like I am, and his name is Daryl Loomis.  Even if I didn’t know him for going on five years now, I should know his real name because he’s bought about nine pipes from me, and that’s by far the record for one person.  I suppose, based on what you said about his taste in pipes and all, this must mean I sell some pretty good ones, although I admit I never let an antique go to Daryl or anyone else.

One last thing: if I had known what was going to happen in the middle of the night, I never would have accepted the $25 Daryl paid me in advance.  Come to think of it, I would not have taken the unique pipe at all.  Then again, maybe if I had the power to see back and forth and all over Time like a certain Narrator, I suppose I would have just avoided the whole mess in the first place.  I’ve always hated trippy thoughts like that.  At any rate, at least then you wouldn’t have this grand fable to tell, would you, big guy?  And forget about any singing, springing larks popping up!  Quite the opposite is in store, in fact.  I’ll bet the old codger of a Narrator ends up claiming he knew that all along and only meant it as foreshadowing.

Anyway, I found the shots I snapped, and here are the first of them. When held to the light, as I did and will prove in good time, the Bakelite stem is remarkable in its similarity to genuine cherry red amber.  That is a seeming contradiction in terms, I’m aware, as the word amber, from the Latin and Greek origins, means orange. However, the actual stem material is a synthesis of phenol and formaldehyde resins made in a process of intense heat and pressure known as thermosetting.  The first synthetic plastic, Bakelite provided a cheaper alternative, when amber was the rage, that was difficult to differentiate from the real thing with the naked eye and was therefore popular in the manufacture of pipes during the early 20th century.

Other than the need for a serious cleaning and retorting of the inner pipe, Daryl’s Blueline Bakelite had inexplicable dark black blotches on the left middle and right rear sides of the bowl.  I never determined the cause of the stains, as I ended up having no better option to choose as the source of the marks, but there were two I ruled out: scorching with long-inflicted match or lighter flames and burnouts.  Scorches would have come out much easier than these deep flaws, and burnouts never would have cleared up.  There was also the telltale damage to the chamber that was not present.  By the way, the restoration process will be shown in a time lapse style rather than my usual frame by frame style.

The following photos were taken after a preliminary Everclear soak, during which the band came off.  I followed that with a light sanding using 600-grit paper. I reattached the band with Super Glue.  A whole lot of sanding later, starting with 150-grit paper and working back up to 800, succeeded in eliminating the blotch on the left shank, but a specter remained on the right.  A terrible slope, lacking a better word, on the right side of the rim is also apparent now for the first time in the photos I took after the scar on the left was eliminated with considerable work.  But that would have to wait to be righted. I know this was cockeyed thinking, but I wanted to see if staining would cover the spot on the right of the bowl rather than continuing to abrade the wood.  I used Lincoln Brown aniline stain, flamed it with a Bic and micro meshed to the correct shade.  Obviously, the attempt failed.I had worked on the pipe from roughly 8 p.m. the previous night, after returning from my pipe get together, and it was sometime around 4 a.m. Saturday.  True enough, I could have used a break for sleep, but I don’t blame the unthinkable calamity that happened next on my own fatigue.  Although I accept full responsibility for what followed by the simple fact that the rare and precious pipe was in my custody, and would even be happy to blame myself for some error, that was not the cause of the awful event that occurred without warning.

As I had done many times, with the same great care and patience, I unscrewed the stem from the bone tenon.  There was no resistance, no mis-threading, nothing whatsoever wrong – until the sickening sound and feel of bone that was, one second, solid, and the next, several disjointed pieces that didn’t even fit together and more or less pulp left in the shank and stem.  And the infernal softness of the sound it made when it shattered, not a snap, crackle or even a pop, but as closely as I can describe it, like the effortless breaking between a pinkie and a ring finger of the softest piece of chalk.  There I was, exhausted as I readily admit, with the bone tenon broken and crushed in my hands, the remnants scattered on the floor in bits and fine powder. Almost three years after the pipe restoration went all the way south (and I’m sure everyone knows the figurative distance and final destination I’m suggesting), I still remember most how the unimaginable tragedy lacked any definitive sound.  I know now that the bone material had passed its life expectancy long before and might have failed at any moment.  In hindsight, I am grateful it happened to me rather than Daryl.

Here is the ghastly reality my numb mind had not even processed yet as I saved the horror for the record, by pure dazed habit, after frantically trying to graft the three tangible splinters of the tenon together with Super Glue.  Note the Frankensteinian product of my mad attempt at surgery on the tenon and the perfect evenness of the fault line leading to a total impaction of the stem hole.I tried my best to sleep and, late in the morning when I got up, considered the remains, my hope to find I had dreamed the whole fiasco obliterated with less noise than the plan-changing event a few hours before.  I decided to put the stem aside for the time being.  Why tempt further catastrophe when such things have a way of finding us, like the only two certainties in life of which Christopher Bullock seems to be the first person to warn us, in his 1716 farce, The Cobler of Preston.

Instead, I turned to the mangled rim and working with a double-sided 150/180-grit sanding pad painstakingly returned it to full health. When I was finished with the rim, it was looking good.  I even managed to give it a slight inward slant before reaming and sanding the chamber smooth.Other than the missing tenon, everything was beginning to look up again.  Outside was warm and sunny, bare wisps of clouds here and there in the blue sky.  When the other incomprehensible disaster struck, I felt like a lightning rod on an old barn swaying and creaking in the storm of the century.

This time, no ifs ands or buts, it was my fault despite the inherent danger of meddling with Bakelite or any other synthetic plastic.  I had no trouble with some dental tools I somehow got my hands on, wheedling out a chunk of packed bone here and another there from the shank, and the mother lode popped out nice and easy   Then it was the stem’s turn, and it was ornery.  I just started to make a decent dent on the harder bone inside the tiny stem hole when I just plain blew it.  I heard it that time, the crack amplified by my ears the way a bolt from Zeus struck the railroad tracks a few yards from me as I walked home from work in Granby, Colorado just before my 21st birthday.  I was watching the storm coming closer and saw nature’s electricity hit the rails.  That flash up in the Rockies made me jump a foot in the air, but the explosive soundwave a heartbeat later sent me flying across U.S. Hwy. 40, forget about the non-stop two-way traffic between the Berthoud and Rabbit Ears Passes..

Once again, in the frenzy of emotions over my double-destruction debacle starting with the bone tenon and then the stem, I hastened to glue the two pieces of the stem together before taking pictures.  The first was while the glue was still setting, the second after I micro meshed off the excess glue and to show the great color as well as how closely the small piece fit into the big, and the third just for the sake of showing the end view.Regardless of my initial frazzled audacity to think I might be able to right this wrong, my sense of morality is intact enough that I know I would have rejected the notion of passing off the fatally flawed stem as undamaged no matter how seamless the result may have been, but I was still relieved to have any temptation removed.

The star-crossed shadow that came to lurk around every corner began to seem a curse.  Since the day I restored my first pipe, until then the thought of giving up the whole endeavor for good never occurred to me.  At that lowest point of all my work reclaiming old and worn estate pipes, to crib from Steve’s site motto, I came a breath away from scattering all of it with my arms and hands to the walls about me or wherever else they might crash and shatter – the remains of the KB&B, dozens of other pipes awaiting my attention and every tool I had acquired, all of which I didn’t yet know was soon to be stolen from me anyway.  But that’s a different story I’ll tell when I’m ready.  This was in the spring of 2016, when my life in general was, to me, dangerously pointless.  I considered selling what I could and scraping together everything I had to find Daryl a suitable replacement.  That was really all I cared about, but it was enough.

I am well aware that some readers of my blogs view my style of writing as feigned or, a little worse, contrived.  My unorthodox approach to blogging pipe restorations doesn’t help, and my habit of falling into literary mimicry now and then may annoy many of the more experienced contributors to this forum.  That’s just not how I approach any writing project, which happens to be with the same imagination and enthusiasm I try to put into the actual pipe work.  I needed a year from the completion of this particular trial merely to face the unpleasant truths of the experience and find the words to describe it, however fanciful they may strike some folks.

But I did finish the job, although it took two years and the unwavering patience of my friend Daryl to be done with it.  In that respect, the Narrator’s appellation of Sir Daryl is well warranted.   Now I can finally let everyone know something that’s been on my mind for too long: anyone who doesn’t buy the bald self-analysis of my strengths and weaknesses I just finished sharing once and for all can believes what he will and sod off.  I’m not going away, and this is for the rest of you, who hopefully know who you are and that I appreciate the encouragement.

With more time to work on the pipe afforded to me by the unhappy but, for Daryl, fortunate destruction of the tenon if not the stem while both were my responsibility to replace, I was able to eradicate the mark on the right side of the bowl.  The next shots show the re-staining and micro meshing to the correct original dark shade of brown.  Thanks to the intrinsic problems with Windows 10, the key shot of the right side was lost, and I only have one showing the final result after eliminating the remaining scratches from the excessive but necessary sanding used to make the black marks disappear, which I accomplished with every sanding and smoothing resource at my disposal. Desperate to get Daryl’s pipe back to him, I was willing to offer as a temporary solution my real cherry red amber stem from the CPF Best Make turned lion’s head meerschaum I restored in Part 2.  Preparing for that possibility, I straightened the amber by heating it in the oven.  The second pic shows the original Bakelite stem above the straightened amber stem, in which I had placed a bone tenon I happened to have on hand but that didn’t fit.  The length of the amber stem is a little longer, but I expected it would at least mollify Daryl.All of the events and work occurred during a relatively short period of time in 2016.  Not until two more years passed did I find Norwoods Pipe Repair, and Kenneth Norwood assured me he could replace the bone tenon and even the same color of Bakelite stem.  At last I can show the parts he returned with the pipe I sent him.  The replacement, as it turned out, was also a little longer than the original, but I was confident Daryl would be more than pleased.Only two years after taking on the task of cleaning and restoring the KB&B that had such wonderful potential, all I had to do was retort the pipe.  I did so immediately, and as the replacement parts arrived, believe it or not, the same day as our monthly pipe meeting, I was able to return the gorgeous completed pipe to its owner that night. THE END OF THE LONG JOURNEY
Thus ends our tale of the long and arduous task of the unlucky but persistent Restorer…who almost never faltered in his pursuit of Right versus Wrong.

And everyone lived, happily ever after.

THE NARRATOR’S PREVIEW OF THE FINAL ADVENTURE
The fourth and final Book in this series will tell the tale of the first venture by the heroic Restorer, since thus he clearly needs to be described, into the small and secretive world of meerschaum repairers in his quest to be of service to a Good Lady.  Anyone who has ever had dealings with this lonely coven will understand how they covet and guard above all else the alchemies they devise as theirs and theirs alone.  But our hero will reveal, for the whole world to know at long last, the wondrous knowledge he has uncovered with the aid of unanticipated paladins – in particular an Artisan of high renown who dwells in the same town as the Restorer.SOURCES
https://norwoodspiperepair.com/index.html
http://freakonomics.com/2011/02/17/quotes-uncovered-death-and-taxes/
https://rebornpipes.com/tag/kbb-kbb-pipe-history/

Fashioning a Churchwarden from a Dimpled Bent Billiard Bowl

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Blog by Dal Stanton

The great thing about the Churchwarden shape is that it is the only pipe that is identified not strictly by the shape of the bowl but by the length of the stem.  Bill Burney’s Pipedia Pipe Chart explanation describes this unique characteristic of the Churchwarden shape.  When I received an email from Coleman, he was looking to add a Churchwarden to his collection.  He wrote:

Hey Dal, I was browsing your website love the pipes, wanted to see if you had any more churchwardens available for commission or sale. I’ve always wanted one, and I can’t think of a better place to buy one than from Daughters of Bulgaria. The longer the stem the better. I really liked the billiard churchwarden, and the French imperial one in the shop that’s already sold. Do you think you’ll get anymore?

Last time I was with Coleman was he was an intern serving with us here in Bulgaria about 5 or so years ago.  He was single then, but as life happens, he is now happily married to Rebecca for 4 years!  He had spoken to Rebecca about adding a Churchwarden to his collection from The Pipe Steward and was agreeable to Coleman’s acquisition because the sales benefit the Daughters of Bulgaria – women and girls who have been trafficked and sexually exploited.  Thank you, Rebecca!

Coleman described wanting a Billiard stummel with a bent shank.  I rummaged through potential stummels that could be repurposed to fashion an acceptable Churchwarden for Coleman.  I found three good candidates and sent pictures to him.  In the end, he settled on the Dimpled Bent Billiard in the center which has great promise for a beautiful display of natural briar grain with interesting rusticated accents.  We discussed the terms and came to an accord and I placed Coleman’s Churchwarden project in the queue.

Taking the stummel out and placing it on the work table, when I first acquired the Dimpled Bent Billiard, it came in the Lot of 66 I got off the eBay auction block.  When I initially looked at it, I did not see anything that looked like markings.  With a closer look now, I can just make out on the lower side of the shank the COM being France – I can barely make out ‘ANCE’.  The markings are now so thin that they have nearly passed out of remembrance and undoubtedly will with this fabrication.  I take a closeup of the ghosted marking on the lower shank.What I was not looking for but what is obviously revealed in the closer look at the lower shank is a small stress fracture in the briar.  I take a few more pictures with different angles of light highlighting it.  The good news is that the crack is isolated – not going through to the shank end. I’m assured of this after inspecting closely looking at the shank end and mortise.  My guess is that the small, barely visible crack was formed from a fall where the stem was the first to hit and it pressed up and in opposite reaction, the tenon pressured downwardly on the lower mortise wall and the stress crack resulted on the lower shank. A guess.  I’ll think about what needs to be done about the crack and address it later.The accenting rusticated dimple effect is interesting giving the smooth briar contoured, rustic relief – I like it, and so did Coleman.  The grain shows nice potential in the pictures below. The chamber has some carbon cake build up – I’ll be removing it to give the briar a fresh start.Finally, I take a picture showing the stummel and the Warden stem together – what we’re aiming for!  The bend of the shank sets the stage for a nice, long sweeping Warden stem.I start the Warden fabrication by cleaning the stummel.  Starting with reaming the chamber, I use only the smallest blade head from the Pipnet Reaming kit and follow by scraping the chamber wall with the Savinelli Fitsall tool.  Finally, after wrapping 240 grit paper around a Sharpie Pen, I sand the chamber removing more of the carbon and getting down to the briar.  To remove the carbon dust, I wipe the chamber with a cotton pad wetted with alcohol.  After an inspection of the chamber, it shows no signs of heat damage with cracks or fissures.To clean the external briar, I use undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a cotton pad to scrub.  I also get into the dimples to clean them.  On the rim, the internal lip of the rim is darkened from scorching.  I use a brass wire brush to clean the rim, but even after scrubbing the darkened briar is still evident. The internals of this stummel was no picnic!  Using pipe cleaners and cotton buds dipped in isopropyl 95%, I clean the mortise and airway.  I also do a lot of excavating of tars and oils by scraping the mortise walls with a dental spatula which you can see wiped in plenty on the cotton pad in the picture below.  Using a long shank brush, I’m able to scrub the airway.  It took a good bit of time, but the buds started lightening until enough progress had been made.  Later, I will continue the cleaning by giving the bowl a kosher salt and alcohol soak.I decide to move forward with the stummel repair before beginning the shaping of the Churchwarden stem.  I have two issues to address before moving on.  The rim is scorched and even after cleaning a dark ring persists around the inner lip of the rim.  With the rim already rounded, I will simply go with that flow and bevel out the internal rim damage.  The other challenge is to address the small stress crack on the lower shank.

First, I address the rim.  After taking a close-up of the rim to mark the starting point.  In succession, I pinch rolled pieces of sanding papers between my thumb and the inner rim from coarser to less coarse grades: first 120, then, 240, 470 and 600 grade papers.  This removes the damaged briar and freshens the rim and it looks much better.  The rounded rim will look good as a Churchwarden.  Before and after pictures follow: Now, I decide to address the pressure crack on the lower shank.  I will drill two counter-holes at the ends of the crack to guard against the crack growing.  This stops the possibility of the crack creeping in the future.  Drilling these holes is not easy using a hand held Dremel extension with a 1mm drill bit.  Not only do I have the ‘shakes’ as an obstacle of accomplishing a good, true hole drilling, but the depth of the drilling is also of concern.  The shank is not a thick piece of briar!  I do not want to see sunlight coming into the mortise! The first picture is simply of the crack – difficult to see with a magnifying glass.  In order to help guide the drilling, I use a sharp dental probe, again with the aid of a magnifying glass, to mark the ends of the crack with an imprint where the counter-holes will be drilled.Next, I change out the Dremel clamping and mount a 1mm drill bit into the handheld extender.  This is where the jitters really start jittering.  Perhaps, one day I’ll secure a more stable drilling platform but today is not that day!  Thankfully, and I do mean thankfully, the drilling goes well.  Not too much shaking nor too deep. Next, I use thin CA glue because the crack is very subtle, and I want the CA glue to fill and penetrate what it can.  I apply CA glue to the two holes and crack and apply briar dust to the patch.  Hopefully, this aids the holes to later blend.  I put the stummel aside to allow the patch to cure.Several hours later I make it back to the work table and the shank patch has cured and I begin filing the mound with a flat needle file until the patch mound is almost flush with the briar surface.  I then switch to sanding with 240 grade paper to bring the patch flush with the surface and finish at this point with 600 grade paper to smooth it out and blend it.  The patch looks good and I believe the repair was necessary.  It should blend well with the surrounding bird’s eye grain. Time to focus on fashioning the Warden stem with the use of the Pimo Tenon Turning tool which has been a very useful addition to my instruments in my restoration toolbox.  I keep the directions on the wall in front of me!  The visuals give an idea of how this tool works to quickly and accurately resize a tenon.The precast stem is 8 5/8 inches long.  I begin by measuring the inside diameter of the mortise using an electronic caliper.  The measurement is 8.50 mm.  This represents the critical target width of the tenon to fit the mortise.  The precast tenon is obviously fat and I use the Pimo Tool to take off a layer of the fat tenon simply to serve as a starting point.I first pre-drill the airway with the drill bit provided by the Pimo kit to allow the guide pin of the Turning Tool to fit into the airway.After the first ‘fat’ cut of the tenon, the tenon is 9.60mm.  My goal is not to cut the tenon exactly at 8.50mm for a ‘perfect’ fit, but to give myself about .40mm of extra width to then conservatively sand my way to a good tenon/mortise fit. Every mortise is different, and I have found it better to go at it slowly.  So, adding .40 to 8.50 gives me a tenon target width of about 8.90 to aim for using the Pimo tool. With the hex wrench provided I turn the set screw to the left to reduce or tighten the Carbide Cutter Arm of the Pimo tool.  Again for an initial measurement, I only cut small portion of the tenon and measure (picture below).  There’s always the chance of taking too much off!  The test measurement is 8.79mm.  This cut results in the tenon being underneath the 8.90 conservative target but still above the 8.50mm critical measurement.  I take the tenon down to that measurement and begin sanding. To smooth off and form the end of the rough tenon, I make quick work of it with a sanding drum mounted on the Dremel.Gradually sanding with 240 grit paper as well as using a flat needle file, eventually I achieve a good fit.  The tenon is snug but not too snug.You can see in the next picture the overhang of the shank which needs to be sanded down flush with the stem butting against the shank face.  What I also notice is that the face of the stem is shouldered – or down-turned.  This is from not taking off enough vulcanite to have a flat face surface for the stem face to seat against the shank face.  Not shown is remounting the Pimo tool onto the drill and shaving off a bit more of the stem face to improve the junction.  With the flattening of the stem face the tenon seats well.  I go to work sanding the shank to bring it flush with the stem.  I also taper the sanding up the shank to achieve more flow – not having the stuffed pants look.  After sanding the shank/stem junction looks great. Even though the Warden stem is a new precast stem, it must be shaped, filed and sanded to remove vulcanite ripples and manufacturing seams.  I work on the button area with the flat needle file and then 240 grade paper.  I also fully sand the entire stem with 240 grade paper.  You can see manufacturing ripples in the new stem which the sanding smooths out. After completing the sanding with the 240 grade paper, I wet sand the entire stem with 600 grade paper followed by applying 0000 steel wool.  The Warden stem is looking great.  It’s difficult to take good pictures of the Warden stem because the view is always from orbit to get the full length!  So, I provide a few close-ups as well.To hydrate the vulcanite, I then wipe it down with paraffin oil, a mineral oil.I refit the stem with the Dimpled Billiard stem to get a look at the progress.  I’m liking what I’m seeing.Now I need to bend the stem.  I use a hot air gun to heat the vulcanite to make it supple and bendable.  I first put a pipe cleaner in the airway just to make sure the airway does not collapse during the bending.  The general aim is to give the Warden stem a gentle and flowing bend so that the end of the stem is generally in a parallel orientation with plane of the rim.In the end, I re-heat, re-bend, re-heat and re-bend a few times until I was satisfied. I think it looks good.  I go for the flowing look which is more ‘Gandalf-like’ – the subjective bar for all Churchwardens!  I think this will be agreeable to Coleman.With the Warden stem bent, I start the micromesh process by wet sanding the stem with pads 1500 to 2400, then dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000.  After each set of 3 pads I apply Obsidian Oil to continue to hydrate the vulcanite.  There is a pop to the freshly sanding/polished vulcanite!Turning now to the stummel, I use sanding sponges to clean the surface of the Dimpled Billiard removing minor cuts and nicks.  I first take some starting pictures then sand the stummel with a coarse sponge followed by medium and then, finish with a light grade sponge.  The sanding goes over the top of the rusticated dimples.  To get into and clean, sand and polish the dimples, later I will use the compounds and the Dremel to do this. I then go directly to sanding with micromesh pads starting with wet sanding pads 1500 to 2400, then dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000.  I enjoy watching the grain emerge during the micromesh process. Before going any further with the stummel polishing, I continue the internal cleaning using kosher salt and isopropyl 95% as I indicated earlier. I begin by forming a wick by stretching and twisting a cotton ball to insert into the mortise.  I then fill the bowl with kosher salt, which unlike iodized salt, does not leave an after taste.  I then place the stummel in an egg crate for stability and add isopropyl 95% to the bowl until it surfaces over the salt.  I wait a few minutes while the alcohol is absorbed and top it off once again.  I then set the stummel aside to soak for several hours. The soak did the job.  The discoloration of the salt and wick show the absorbing action of the salt and alcohol.  I toss the expended salt in the trash can, wipe the bowl out with a paper towel and blow through the mortise as well to dislodge remnant salt crystals.  I finish off by expending a few more alcohol wetted pipe cleaners and cotton buds to make sure all is clean, and it is.  Moving on. With Coleman’s agreement, I’m staying with the natural grain color and because of this I utilize Before & After Restoration Balm to condition the briar surface.  The Balm deepens and enriches what is already present in the grain and I like the subtle improved results of using it.  I put some Balm on my finger and rub it into the surface.  The Balm’s texture begins as a thinner oil-like thickness and then gradually thickens into a wax-like texture.  I work the Balm into the rusticated dimples as well. After fully covering the surface, I wait about 30 minutes and then wipe/buff the excess Balm. I use a toothpick also to make sure the dimples are not holding collected Balm.  A few ‘After’ pictures to compare.  It looks great! With the Balm applied, I mount a cotton cloth buffing wheel to the Dremel at 40% speed.  I then apply Blue Diamond compound to the stummel surface taking special care to work the compound into the rusticated dimples. The sanding processes do not get into the crevasses but pass over.  Using the smaller buffing wheel, I’m able to direct the compound into the crevasses.  I also apply Blue Diamond to the Churchwarden stem.  Its easier to keep the stem and stummel separate because of the size of stem and the rotating motion I use with the Dremel.  After completing application of the Blue Diamond, I apply carnauba wax to the stem and stummel using another cotton cloth buffing wheel and leaving the speed the same.  After completing application of the wax, I unite stem and stummel and give the newly born Churchwarden a rigorous hand buffing to raise the shine.

The fabrication of this Dimpled Billiard Churchwarden came out great.  I’m pleased.  The rusticated Dimpled Billiard has beautiful grain with a splay of grain spreading to the rim and much bird’s eye populating the heel of the stummel.  Often, rustication is used to hide blemishes in a lesser quality bowl, but this is not the case with this stummel.  The rusticated dimples are interesting shapes on a beautiful canvas of briar grain.  I believe Coleman will be pleased.  He commissioned this Dimpled Billiard Churchwarden and has the first opportunity to acquire it from The Pipe Steward Store.  This pipe benefits the Daughters of Bulgaria – women and girls who have been trafficked and sexually exploited.  Thanks for joining me!

Restemming and Restoring a Malaga Scoop

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Blog by Steve Laug

Since I am already working on restemming pipes I figure I might as well fit a stem to a MALAGA bowl that Alex dropped by a while ago. It is an interestingly shaped piece and I really like the looks of it. MALAGA called this shape a scoop. The grain swirls around the bowl sides and shows some great cross grain on the rim top. It is a pretty clean bowl with a bit of darkening on the rim top and cake build up at the bottom of the bowl. The pipe is stamped on the underside of the shank horizontally with the stem shank junction and reads MALAGA. The finish on the pipe is very in great condition with a few dings and pits in the briar on the right front near the rim. It has the classic Malaga oil cured look and is a rich, natural brown colour. The stem was missing so I would need to fit and shape a new one for it. I went through my can of stems to find an oval stem that would work with this shape pipe. I picked a new stem blank that I thought showed some promise. I took photos of the pipe and the potential stem before working on it. The photos give a pretty clear picture of the shape of the pipe and its general condition when I received it.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the brand, I am also including the link to a blog that I wrote that gives some of the history of the Malaga brand and the Malaga Pipe Shop in Royal Oak, Michigan in the USA. Here is the link – https://rebornpipes.com/tag/malaga-pipes/. That blog also includes links to a catalogue and the history of the pipemaker George Khoubesser. If you are interested to learn more, then I invite you to follow the link to get a feel for the brand and the pipemaker. I changed my habitual pattern of working on pipes with this one as the bowl was pretty clean. I would do the reaming later. I set up my cordless drill and drilled the airway in the tenon so that the guide on the tenon turner would fit. I put the PIMO tenon turner in the chuck and turned the tenon until it was the right diameter for the shank. I know many use a micrometer to set the tenon turner correctly but the way the tool is configured that has never worked for me. I always eyeball it and turn it in degrees. After each turning I check it in the shank. When I get close I stop and finish with sandpaper and files. Probably a bit of a troglodyte but hey, it works for me.Once I had the diameter so that the tenon was snug I put the stem in the shank and took photos of the pipe at this point. It is way for me to see if I like the proportion of the length of the shank and bowl with the length of the stem. I have gotten to this point on other pipes and pitched the stem in the can and turned a different stem. In this case I thought it would work very well. I would need to reduce the diameter of the saddle, remove the casting marks on the stem and give it a slight bend when I was finished. What do you think? I took some close up photos of the rim top and the fit of the stem to the shank to give you a clearer picture of where things stood at this point in the process. Incidentally, in the last photo below you can see the MALAGA stamping on the underside of the shank.I used the Dremel and sanding drum to take off the casting marks on the sides and button end of the stem. I also used the sanding drum to remove the majority of the excess stem material on the saddle. I hand sanded it with a file and 220 grit sandpaper to get the fit close to a smooth transition. I little a tea light candle and heated the stem to bend it to the angle I wanted to work with the bowl. I took photos of the stem after the bending to show what the pipe looked like at this point in the process. There was still a lot of fine tuning and shaping to do but the pipe was beginning to look complete. I liked the look of the new stem. Some of you may wonder why I sand the shank the bit that I do. My experience is that I can smooth out the transition this way. I know that others do it differently but this is my process. I continued to sand and shape the stem and fit it to the shank end. I beveled the mortise end a bit more than it was originally using a small half circle needle file. Once that was done I sanded the stem to smooth out the transition with the shank. The photos below show that it is getting closer to a fit. I took some close up photos of the fit of the stem to the shank at this point. It is getting better and better. I still need to do a few adjustments to the tenon to get a snug fit to the shank.I sanded the stem with 400 grit wet dry sand paper to polish out the scratches left behind by the files and 220 grit sandpaper.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each of the pads using Obsidian Oil. I polished it further with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine grits. I gave it another coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside. With the stem fit and finished I set it aside to work on the bowl. The bowl was in decent condition other than some darkening on the top and two small pits on the right front of the bowl. There was also a little bit of cake in the bottom one third of the bowl. Whoever had reamed it did not take the conical bowl into their thoughts. The rest of the bowl was well reamed but the bottom portion was not. I reamed the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife to clean up the bottom part of the bowl. I filled in the two small pits with clear super glue and when the patches cured sanded them smooth with 400 grit sandpaper. Unfortunately I did not take a photo of that part. Ah well. It is easy to get caught up in the process and forget the photos… I apologize for that.I polished the briar with 2400-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down with a damp cloth after each pad. I found that with each successive grit of micromesh the grain stood out more and gave a shine to the pipe. I liked what I saw when I looked at it. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The following photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. The bowl and the rim top look really good and the darkening is gone. The finish looks very good with the rich oil finish on the bowl and rim. I am very happy with the results. Now with both parts of the pipe finished, I polished stem with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The contrasting grain came alive with the buffing. The rich oil finish on the briar works well with the new, polished black vulcanite stem. The finished pipe is a beauty and feels great in the hand. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 1/2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¾ inches, Chamber diameter: 9/16 of an inch. This one will be going back to Alex with the rest of his pipes that I am working on. Thanks for walking through the restoration and restemming with me on this nicely shaped MALAGA Scoop.

New Life for a Sad, Old Kriswill Bent Egg

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe in the queue is from a group of pipes that Paresh purchased from a rag picker in Mumbai, India. The fellow had found a large number of pipes as he was going through rubbish bins and contacted Paresh. This is a tired and worn looking Kriswill. I knew looking at it even before the stamping was checked that this was a Kriswill because there is something distinctive about the shapes. The pipe is stamped (though it is faint now from wear) Kriswill Hand Made in Denmark. The pipe was filthy and unusable. I think it was from the generation who smoked a pipe to death and then pitched it. The finish on the pipe is very dirty and the sandblast is almost worn smooth. There is a thick cake in the bowl and a lava overflow on the rim top. I can see some damage to the inner edge of the rim but because of the cake and tars it is hard to know what the inner edge looks like. The stem was broken at the tenon and there was a very strange set up keeping the pieces together. I took photos of the pipe before cleaning it. The photos give a pretty clear picture of the shape of the pipe and its general condition when I received it. At first glance I thought that the tenon was broken off in the shank but as I examined it I came to believe it was even worse. It looked like someone had glued something in the shank and Gerry-rigged a connection to the stem. The photo below shows what I saw. What is not clear in the photo was a piece of metal in the centre of the mortise area. It looked like a tube but when I tried to push air through the shank it was absolutely plugged.I was going to have to try to drill out the shank but before I did that I examined the shank and stem more closely. The stem had been hacked pretty seriously so that the diameter was not even close to the diameter of the shank. In the centre of the mortise the metal tube turned out to be a 2 inch long finishing nail. It appears that the nail was used to keep the stem in place in the shank. For what? I don’t have an answer for that as it was utterly unsmokable. Once I removed the nail with a pair of needle nose pliers I was able to blow air through the shank. It was at least clear. I used a drill bit slightly larger than the mess in the shank and carefully drilled the shank. It did not work to clear out the shank! However, it was clear what was there – it was a tube made of masking or painters tape! I took a pen knife and twisted it into the mortise and was able to pull the tube free of the shank. The last photo shows everything that had been in the shank to hold the stem in place on the shank. I could surmise from the length of the stem what I would need for a replacement stem. I went through my can of stems and found one that had the right sized tenon and was the same length and width as the broken stem. It was a saddle stem instead of a taper but I liked the look of it on the pipe. I pushed it in place and took the following photos. I would need to reduce the diameter of the saddle, bend the stem and do a general cleanup, but it was a keeper. I took a photo of the stamping on the shank to show that it reads Kriswill. Underneath it says Hand Made in Denmark but that stamping is faint and only readable in a bright light or with a lens.With the stem chosen I set it aside to work on the bowl. I really hate working on dirty pipes! I can’t say enough how much I appreciate my brother Jeff doing the lion’s share of the reaming and cleaning before I even work on pipes… It is these few that I have to clean up that make me thankful and realize how much work he does before I get them here to restore. Thanks Jeff. The bowl had a thick cake and a heavy overflow of lava. It was obviously someone’s favourite pipe.I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer using the smallest cutting head. The bowl on these old Kriswill pipes is conical so the PipNet only goes so far down the inside. I reamed out the bowl as far as the reamer would reach and then used Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife to finish the project. I scraped the rim top with the pipe knife to remove the majority of the lava and could see that the rim edges and top were damaged with burn marks.To remove the damage to the top of the rim I topped it on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper. I worked on it to remove the burned areas and the damage to the inner edge of the rim as much as possible. I am happy with how it turned out.I lightly beveled the inner edge of the rim with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to give it a cleaner look. The look of the bowl at this point is far better than when I started the rim clean up. I will still need to polish the rim and match the stain to the shank end smooth portion. Fortunately for me this old Kriswill originally had a smooth rim top so it will look like new.I polished the topped bowl rim with 3200-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads. With each successive grit of micromesh the grain stood out more and gave a good finished look to the pipe. I liked what I saw when I looked at it. There was a little variation in stain colour between the rim top and the shank end so I decided to stain both to get a good blend. I used an Oak stain pen to match the colour of the shank and smooth spot where the stamping was. Once the stain had cured for that time I moved on to the next step in the process.It dawned on me at this point that I had been so intent on getting the plug out of the shank and topping the bowl that I forgot to clean out the shank! I normally do that right after reaming the bowl but forgot. It goes to show you that if you vary an habitual pattern even a bit you will leave steps out. I stopped the process and went back and cleaned out the shank and airway to the bowl with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol until the pipe was clean and smelled fresh.With the rim top and bowl polished and the shank and airway CLEAN, I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The following photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. The bowl and the rim top look really good and the darkening and lava are gone. The finish looks very good with the contrast between the rich, dark brown and the Oak stain on the rim and shank end. I am very happy with the results. With the bowl finished I set it aside and turned my attention to the stem. I used a file and a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to shape the diameter of the saddle portion of the stem to fit the diameter of the shank. It took a lot of filing and sanding to get it to this point but there is a lot of fine tuning work to do. The shank is not round but it is more of a vertical oval in shape so the stem will need to match it to have a seamless fit. It is a lot of hand shaping work to get the two to match. I sanded the scratches and the tooth marks on the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to bring the shank and saddle portion into line. I further sanded and shape it with 400 grit sandpaper to remove the scratches. This is the beginning of the polishing process on the stem. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil and put it back in the shank to take progress photos. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each pad. I further polished it with Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. This pipe has had quite a journey to this point in time and space. It somehow traveled from Denmark where it was made to Mumbai, India. There is was found abandoned, binned and found by a rag picker who then sold it to Paresh in another region of India. From Paresh it traveled to me in Vancouver, Canada. In April it will travel to Nepal with me and back Paresh in India. I only wish that it could tell its story. All I know is that I have extended its life of usefulness and given its purpose back as it was intended.

I polished stem with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The contrasting grain came alive with the buffing. The rich contrasting browns and black colouring works well with the new, polished black vulcanite stem. The finished pipe is a beauty and feels great in the hand. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 inches, Chamber diameter: 5/8 of an inch. I will be taking this pipe with me to India soon and giving it back to Paresh. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me on this battered and weary Kriswill.

Repairing a Broken Tenon on a House of Robertson War Club

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Blog by Steve Laug

Back in February of 2018 (almost a year ago now) I posted my restoration of an interesting House of Robertson Pipe that was made by a carver in a pipe shop in Boise, Idaho. It was not only an interesting pipe but also one that had some history that was interesting to me as I was raised in Idaho for the better part of my childhood and adolescence. It was a huge piece of wood and had both smooth and rusticated portions on the shank and bowl. It was a flat bottom sitter with a square shank. The dimensions of the pipe are: Length: 7 3/8 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside Diameter: 1 5/8 inches, Diameter of the chamber: 7/8 inches. I sent it back to a fellow in Idaho who collected House of Robertson pipes and who used to frequent the Boise shop. He was excited to add it to his collection. (https://rebornpipes.com/2018/02/28/restoring-a-rusticated-house-of-robertson-war-club/). Here is what it looked like when I sent it to him. About the same time I picked up the Calich, I received an email from the collector in Idaho asking for help. This is what he wrote to me:

Steve, I purchased the rusticated House of Robertson War Club pipe earlier this year. I have thoroughly enjoyed it. The bad news is i was polishing it and dropped it. The stem broke at the tenon and is still lodged in the briar. Hopefully you can repair or replace it. If so, please let me know and then how to proceed with mailing and payment. Thanks…

I wrote him back pretty quickly and he put it in the mail. It arrived here yesterday and was waiting for me when I got home from work. I opened the envelope that it had been mailed in and took out the two plastic Ziploc bags and the bubble wrap that was around the bowl and stem. I took them out of the mailer and unwrapped the protective layers and took them out of the Ziploc bag. This is what I saw. The stem had snapped off almost perfectly against the stem end. There was a small ledge but really nothing stuck out from the original tenon.I took an end view photo to show the snapped off tenon in the shank of the pipe. You can see in that photo that it is also a clean break.This morning I was “chatting” with Charles Lemon on the Tobacco Pipe Restorers Group on Facebook about Jobey Links and how easy they were to work with when replacing a tenon. I went through my container of tenons and I did not have one that would work in this shank without a lot of work. I took out my box of Jobey Link replacement tenons and one of them was absolutely the perfect size for this shank. I would need to use it backwards and do some modifications but it was exactly what I wanted for this repair. I used a topping board to flatten out the remnants of the broken tenon on the stem. I used a knife to bevel the airway to make drilling it easier. I took the following photo to show the parts of the repair.I tried my usual method for removing a broken tenon from the shank – a drywall screw turned into the airway in the shank until it was tight and then wiggling the broken tenon out of the shank. It failed to produce any results. It was almost like the tenon was glued/bonded to the walls of the shank. I used a cotton swab to dribble alcohol down the shank around the broken tenon. I left the shank and tenon sitting while I went to work for the day. When I came home I tried the screw again and still absolutely no movement on the tenon… it was stuck.

I resorted to the next best method – drilling the tenon out of the shank with my cordless drill. I started with a bit a little larger than the airway and turned it into the airway with the drill and then reversed the drill to see if I could pull it out. Nope. It still did not move. I tried a larger drill bit and repeated the process still no movement at all. I tried a third bit – a little bit smaller than the diameter of the original tenon. I drilled it in and backed it out – no luck. I then decided to just drill out the tenon all together. It did not take too much to drill it with the ¼ inch drill bit and then take out the pieces of the old tenon. The fourth photo below shows the clean airway in the shank. The tenon is gone. Now with that half of the job done I set the bowl aside and picked up the stem. I used a drill bit slightly smaller than the threaded portion of the Jobey Link. I drilled out the airway in the stem with increasingly larger drill bit until it was the perfect size for the Link. I still needed to tap the newly drilled airway so that I could turn the tenon into the stem. I used a tap set that I have and tapped threads into the newly drilled airway in the stem. It did not take long to tap thread into the vulcanite. I tapped the airway until it was deep enough for to take the threaded tenon. I shortened the threaded end of the tenon to deal with the taper of the stem. I used a Dremel and sanding drum and then smoothed it out on the 220 grit sandpaper topping board. I used the Dremel and sanding drum to remove the hip on the Jobey Link. I flattened it out to match the smooth part of the tenon that would go into the shank. The added length of the tenon fit perfect in the depth of the mortise on the pipe. I turned the tenon into the airway with a pair of pliers.I sanded out the scratch marks from the Dremel removal of the hip on the tenon with 220 grit sandpaper and polished it with 1500-2400 grit micromesh and took a photo of the stem with the new tenon and the tools I used to work on it.When I looked over the stem I could see a few tooth marks on the surface on both the top and underside near the button. I figured that since I was working on it anyway I would remove those areas. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the damage and polished the sanding marks with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I polished the vulcanite stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with Obsidian Oil. When I finished the last pad I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I set the stem aside and turned my attention to the bowl. I examined it and found that there were a few small nicks and chips around the rim top and outer edge of the bowl. I touched these up with a walnut stain pen to blend them into the rest of the finish on the bowl. I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm to enliven the wood and protect the newly finished portions of the briar. I took these photos after to show the bowl and the repairs are unnoticeable. I put the stem back on the shank and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to bring a shine back to the bowl and stem. I gave it several coats of Conservator’s Wax and continue the buff. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. Tomorrow I will box it up and send it back to Idaho. Can’t wait to see what he thinks when he has it in his hands. Thanks for reading this. Cheers.

Restemming and Rebirthing a Landry 2013 Bent Ball

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Blog by Steve Laug

Last evening I had a fellow drop by the house with three pipes for repair. Two of them were not worth repairing – broken shanks and Chinese knockoff pipes. Neither was made of briar and one had the beginning of a large burn out on the back of the bowl. I discouraged the fellow from fixing either of those two as the cost of repair would be more than he paid when he purchased them. However the third one was interesting to me. It was a bent ball bowl without a stem. It was a real mess. He had broken the stem in half and lost it. The shank had also been broken but he was a bit of a wood worker and had clamped and glued it. He had done a decent job and the repair was solid. The bowl had a cake that was thick and soft – made from the heavily case aromatic that he smoked. The airway in the shank was clogged with tars and oils and I could not even blow through it. The rusticated finish was rugged and sharp with a smooth rim and shank band. The bowl and rim were very dirty and the briar looked lifeless. The shank flared at the stem/shank junction.

When I examined the pipe while he was there I found that it had a makers stamp on an oval smooth patch on the underside of the shank. It was clearly stamped LANDRY arched at the top of the oval. The year it was made, 2013 was in the middle of the oval and the letters U.I.O.G.D were arched at the bottom of the oval. When I asked the owner of the pipe what those letters were he said that I was some Latin phrase. When I examined it with a loupe I found that there were periods between the letters and that probably I was dealing with an acronym of some kind. I went with his notion of it being Latin, Googled the acronym and found that it stood for the five words making up the Benedictine motto: Ut In Omnibus Glorificetur Dei (translated from Latin it means: So that in all things God may be glorified). That made sense as he had been given the pipe by a Benedictine Priest a while ago when he had first started smoking a pipe and he had broken it after smoking it quite heavily.

I took photos of the bowl before I started to work on it. You can see the repair on the shank. The rustication is very dirty and the rim top is coated with an overflow of lava from the bowl. The entire pipe reeked of a sweet cherry aromatic. The shank was heavily gummed up and I could not blow air through the shank into the bowl. It was clogged. The bowl also appeared to be drilled at an angle and from a quick glance seemed to be drilled crooked. The pipe was a mess! I took a photo of the oval and the stamping on the shank. You can also see the glue repair on the shank. It was a solid repair but a bit sloppy.There were some gaps in the glue around the circumference of the shank so I used a wire brush to clean up excess glue from the repair. I wanted to remove all of the excess glue so that it would look cleaner once I finished. I then filled in the gaps in the repair with clear super glue and filled in those areas with briar dust to build up the area ahead of the smooth band at the shank end.Restemming this old bowl would be a bit tricky. The shank actually flared to a smooth hip at the end where the stem sat. It was wider in diameter than the rusticated shank just below it. It was obvious from the way the shank end and mortise were made that it required a flush fit stem and not a freehand style stem. I would need to find a stem that had a wide enough diameter for me to work with and give the pipe the kind of look that it must have had originally. I went through my can of old stems and found one that was going to work. The tenon was almost perfect. I sanded it lightly with the sanding drum on the Dremel and cleaned it up with a file and the fit was just right. I would need to reduce the diameter of the stem slightly to match the shank but I think it was going to work for me. I took photos of the fit of the “new” stem to show you what I saw. Bear with me for the moment. It was quite ugly and my brother said it looked like a muffin top of a tight belt (or something like that). But I thought it had potential… time will tell. I trimmed the excess diameter of the stem with a sanding drum on my Dremel. I worked on it until the diameter was very close to the right size. I brought it back to the work table and sanded it smooth with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to remove the scratches from the Dremel. I took photos of the stem and shank at this point. I wiped down the stem with Obsidian Oil to clean off the dust and get a sense of how it was looking. I sanded the band around the shank a bit too as it had some glue on it from the repair that had been done. I took photos of the pipe at this point in the process. I decided it was time to set the stem aside for a bit and work on the bowl. I took a photo of the bowl and rim to show what it looked like when I started. The bowl is thickly caked and there was damage to the inner edge of the rim. The lava overflow was quite thick on the rim top as well. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer. You can see the angle of the bowl from the way that the reamer is sitting in the second photo below. I cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife and then sanded the walls of the bowl with sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. With the bowl reamed I turned my attention to the dirty exterior of the bowl. I scrubbed it with a tooth brush and undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap. I worked over the rim top with the tooth brush and a piece of sandpaper to remove the tars and lava there. I rinsed it off with running water to remove the soap and debris in the finish. Now it was time to address the thick tars and oils in the shank and open the airway into the bowl. I worked on the mortise and the airway in the shank with a paper clip, pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. Once I had opened the airway I scrubbed it until it was clean. I also cleaned out the airway in the new stem with alcohol and pipe cleaners. It was not nearly as dirty as the shank.I polished the rim top and the smooth shank end with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the polished areas with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. The rim and shank end began to really look good. I decided to stain the bowl and shank with some Medium Walnut Danish Oil. It has the translucence I wanted to let the natural colour of the briar shine through while allowing me to hide the repairs to the shank. I applied the stain with a cotton pad and daubed it deep into the grooves of the rustication. I kept applying it until the coverage was good. I waxed the bowl with several coats of  Conservator’s Wax and buffed it out with a horsehair shoe brush. The bowl and rim looked really good. I really liked the look of the bowl at this point in the process. The shine and the finish looked very good. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the new stem. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the oxidation and the scratch marks from fitting the stem. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil to remove the sanding dust and get a feel for the scratching. I polished the stem with Denicare Mouthpiece Polish. I applied it with my finger and rubbed it in and then off with a cotton pad. I find that it is gritty enough to remove the residual oxidation after sanding (besides I have about three tins of the stuff to get through so I use it on each pipe).I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I finished polishing the stem with Before & After Pipe Polish – Fine and Extra Fine. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I bent the stem with a heat gun to get it to follow the lines of the top of the bowl so that it can hang in the mouth with the bowl top straight. I polished the stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel and gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I put it back on the shank and buffed the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine on the bowl. The heavy rustication works well with the stain I chose to use on it and the combination looks really good with the polished vulcanite stem. The flared shank end and the thick stem work well together to my mind to create an interesting pipe. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. Its dimensions are – Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outer diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. I will give it another coat of Conservator’s Wax and then call the fellow who dropped it off for repair. I am hoping he likes the look of his pipe. Thanks for reading this blog.

A Tiny 2 Star BBB 8881 Apple/Globe Provided An Interesting Challenge

3 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

When I spoke with a fellow here in Vancouver who had a pipe that he wanted me to fix it sounded like a simple repair. He said that it had a very loosely fitting stem. He asked if he could drop by to show it to me and see if I could fix it. From past experience I have learned to never jump to conclusions about what sounded like an easy repair. When he arrived he showed me his GBD Faux Spigot. It turned out to need far more work than just tightening a loose stem. I wrote about that restoration in a previous blog (https://rebornpipes.com/2018/11/03/redoing-a-poorly-restored-ebay-gbd-super-q-9436/). We talked about his GBD for a bit and he made the decision to have me do a restoration on it. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small plastic bag with a little BBB 2 Star apple of globe shaped pipe. It was stamped BBB in a diamond on the left side of the shank with two ** – one on either side of the diamond. ON the right side it was stamped Made in England over the shape number 8881. He said that he had found it at his parents’ house and really no one there knew where it came from.

Here is what I saw. Starting with externals. The pipe was small – kind of a pocket pipe. The grain on the bowl was quite stunning – a mix of flame and birdseye all around the bowl and shank. The rim top was coated with a thick lava coat and it went into the bowl. The inner edge of the bowl was in rough shape having been hacked clean with a knife. There was a crack on the right side of the shank curving to the underside. It looked to me it was made by the poorly made stem being shoved into the shank. The stem was larger in diameter than the shank and had been rounded over with a file. There were deep bite marks on the surface ahead of the button on both sides. Moving to the internals. The end of the tenon was carved with a knife to make it fit the mortise in the small shank. The inside of the shank was dirty but less so than I expected. The inside of the bowl had a light cake but most of that was gone from the knife job that had left a wounded inner edge on the rim. Looking at the pipe I explained what I would have to do to bring it back to life and restore it to use. It would need, cleaning, reshaping on the rim, a band on the cracked shank that would leave the stamping readable, and a reworking of the stem to make it a fitting addition to the lovely briar of the bowl. The pipe was going to be a fun challenge. I took these photos to give you an idea of what I saw. The previous pipeman who had fit a new stem to an old favourite pipe had done a functional job but it looked rough. It was pretty clean on the inside so it was cared for. It must have been a great smoking pipe for him to fit a new stem and not give up on it when the previous one broke or was lost. It was smokable. I took a close up photo of the rim top to show the condition. It is hard to see but the rim top was not smooth. The lava build up was pretty thick and there were some deep nicks and chips in the flat top. The close up photos of the stem reveal the scratches in the vulcanite, the tooth marks and the worn and ill-defined button.  The oversized diameter – prettified to look nice is clear in the photos. I took photos from the side of the pipe to show the stamping on the shank and the prettified stem. In the second photo you can see the crack in the shank curving downward to the underside.I decided to address the cracked shank first. With the crack as large as it was and movable I did not want to further damage it when I worked on the stem and fit of the tenon. I knew that it needed to be banded but that would cover the stamping on the shank so adjustments would have to be made. I used a Dremel and sanding drum to reduce the size of the shank to fit the band I had chosen. I did not take of too much briar and I only damaged the M in Made In England as part of it would end up being covered by the band.I repaired the crack in the shank with super glue and pressure fit the band onto the shank to the point of the end of the sanded portion. I used a Dremel and sanding drum to cut back the band to the width that I wanted. Compare the photos above with the one below to see how much I took off of the band. I topped the band on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper and smooth out the sharp edge with 1500 grit micromesh. I decided that since I was already working with the Dremel and sanding drum that I would take down the excess diameter on the stem as well. I reduced it to sit snugly against the band giving the pipe a classy look.I cleaned up around the inside edge of the band and edge on the shank with a folded piece of 2220 grit sandpaper to smooth things out and make the fit and transition smooth. I lightly sanded the blade portion of the stem and the area of the tooth marks next to the button with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the oxidation and clean it up. I fit the stem in the shank and took a photo of the pipe at this point in the process. It was beginning to look like a classic BBB to my eye. With the stem roughly fit to the shank it was time to address the bowl top. I topped it on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper. At that point I called it a night. I had to catch a train down to the southern part of Washington from Vancouver in the morning so I thought I would bag up a couple of pipes I was working on and take them with me.I caught the train south from Vancouver, BC at 6:30am. Once we had our seats we were in for an 8 hour train ride. I figure it would be a good opportunity to work on these two pipes. You can see my work table in the photo below. I used the fold down table. It had a lip around it so I spread out a couple of napkins for the dust and went to work on the pipes.I started working on the BBB by addressing the damage to the inner edge of the rim. It was significant with cuts and burns. My topping worked had helped with the top damage and smoothed that out but I need to work on the rim edge. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the sharp edges and bring the bowl back to round. Once I had the rim as round as I could get it and smoothed out the damaged edge I polished it with micromesh sanding pads. I polished the bowl and the rim at the same time. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down with a damp napkin after each pad. I touched up the stain around the front of the band and stained the rim top and inner edge with Maple and Cherry stain pens. Together the two stains matched the rest of the bowl.I rubbed down the briar with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the smooth surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little wall and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The following photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. The rim matches well but still needs to be polished and buffed to raise a shine on it. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to reshape the button and also to smooth out the marks left by the Dremel when reducing the diameter of the stem. I sanded the tooth marks near the button on each side of the stem to smooth them out.I polished the stem, tenon and metal work with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I was able to remove the damage on the tenon and polish out the dripping varnish on the metal adornment. The stem looked much better at this point in the process. I the polished stem and bowl with Blue Diamond to polish out the remaining small scratches and raise the shine. I gave the bowl and the stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. This turned out to be a beautiful little pocket pipe in terms of shape and finish. The new nickel band adds a touch of class in my opinion and gives the pipe a new elegance. I look forward to hearing what the fellow who dropped it off for repair thinks of it once he has it in hand and is smoking it. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 4 inches, Height: 1 3/8 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 inch, Chamber diameter: 3/4 of an inch. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me.

Finishing the Restoration and Restemming a Custom-Bilt Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

Not long ago I was speaking with Paresh and Abha on Facetime and they showed me a second pipe that they wanted me to finish for them. This one was a Custom-Bilt billiard that had come to him from the estate of his Grandfather. It had a threaded tenon stem and a shank that had no threads. I have never seen a Custom-Bilt with a threaded mortise and tenon so it was a fair assumption that the stem was not original. It had been wrapped with glue and tape to make it fit in the shank and the fit was awful. Paresh wanted me to fit a new stem on the pipe for him. Abha had done a magnificent job cleaning the pipe so it was really a simple restoration for me – just fit a stem and finish the bowl. The briar was clean and lifeless so it would need some attention to breathe life into it again. He wanted me to pick up where he had left off and finish the pipe for him. The pipe was stamped on the left side of the shank Custom-Bilt and on the underside it was stamped Imported Briar. It would be interesting to see what I could do with it. When the pipe arrived this is what it looked like. You can see the remnants of wrapping and glue on the metal threaded tenon. There were tooth marks in the surface of the vulcanite stem on both the top and underside near the button. The first photo below shows the rim top and the inside of the bowl. Both were very clean and the rustication was in great condition as were the inner and outer edges of the bowl. The second photo shows the end of the shank with the glue on the inside of the mortise and the lack of threads that would be present if the tenon that was on the stem would work with this pipe.I took some photos of the stamping on the left and underside of the shank. The left side reads Custom-Bilt and the underside reads Imported Briar.I took close up photos of the stem. You can see the metal tenon on the end of the stem. There is some oxidation and there are the tooth marks on the stem top and underside.I wanted to refresh my memory on the history of the brand. I knew that his one was one of Tracy Mincer’s pipes because of the hyphenated name stamp. I looked on Pipedia and read Richard Esserman’s write up on Bill Unger’s Book. He gives a great summary of the history there. I quote a section of it below. (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Custom-Bilt(Rich Esserman))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.

Mentioned briefly in this chapter was the fact that Custom-Bilt was producing big, carved pipes using Algerian briar for production up to WW II. One important employee, Hetzer Hartsock, stated: I can tell you something about that rough texture that Custom-Bilt had. One reason rough textured was used was not only for looks but it could hide flaws in the briar. [The process gave] A very uncontrolled cut. Then he [Tracy] would buff it out. [page 25]

Custom-Bilt pipes retailed between $5.00 and $15.00 in the 1940s. According to an ad, standard Dunhill pipes were selling for $12.00 and $13.50, Parker pipes $7.50, GBD for $6.00 and Comoy’s $7.50. Not mentioned was that special Dunhills could retail up to $100 and certain Comoy’s up to $25.

In 1946, the name was changed to Custombilt after Mincer began an association with Eugene J. Rich, Inc. 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.

I set the bowl aside and decided to work on the stem. The diameter of the stem was perfect for the pipe so I needed to remove the metal threaded tenon and replace it with a Delrin tenon. I heated and scraped away all of the glue and tape on the threads of the tenon and those that bound it to the stem. I held it tight with vise grip pliers and turned the stem. It would not come out no matter how I turned or pulled on it. I decided I would have to use more drastic measures. Using the vise grip pliers as a vise I set up my cordless drill to drill out the tenon. I started with a bit slightly larger than the airway in the tenon and drilled it. I was hoping it would catch and pull the tenon out. First bit was a failure. I worked my way up to a bit slightly smaller than the diameter of the tenon and worked on it. The extended portion of the tenon broke off and I was left with the piece in the stem. I drilled it out with a bit and the bit grabbed the piece and it all came out.Once the metal was removed from the stem I cleaned out the hole in the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners to remove the debris. I smoothed out the threads to leave grooves in the tenon insert. Once I had it smoothed out enough I tried it in the stem. The fit was perfect. I cut deeper grooves in the tenon with a file and coated it with black super glue. I pressed it into the stem and lined it up so the fit was straight.  I set it aside to let the glue cure. While the glue cured I worked on the bowl. I scraped the glue out of the inside of the mortise using a pen knife. The glue had hardened so it took repeated scraping to get rid of it and bring the mortise back to bare wood.When the glue cured I tried the fit of the stem in the mortise. The stem fit well on the shank. I put it in place on the shank and took photos of the pipe at this point in the process. I rubbed down the briar with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the smooth surface of the briar with my fingertips and into the rustication patterns with a horsehair shoe brush to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed the bowl with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The following photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. The grain is really starting to stand out. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with Obsidian Oil to remove the sanding dust on the vulcanite. I wiped it down with a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I polished stem and bowl with Blue Diamond to polish out the remaining small scratches. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The natural oil finish works well when polished to really highlight the variety of grains around the bowl and shank. The polished black vulcanite stem works together with the beautiful grain and worm trail rustication in the briar to give the pipe a rich look. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The shape, finish and flow of the pipe and stem are very well done. The dimensions are Length: 5 3/4 inches, Height: 1 3/4 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/2 inches, Chamber diameter: 3/4 inches. I will be sending the pipe back with the others that belong to Paresh. I have one pipe left to finish for him. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this well-made Tracy Mincer Custom-Bilt. 

Ben Wade’s in the House, Part 2

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Blog by Joe Gibson

Finished Pipes, ready for an afternoon smoke. The tobacco is last tin of out of production Viking Odin’s Wind.

Which Stem for Which Pipe?

When the Ben Wades arrived, the Martinique came with a beautiful, amber colored but transparent acrylic stem. There was a minor amount of tooth chatter near the bit, but nothing I felt the need to repair. The airway, on the other hand, was black from being smoked. The stem was tight in the mortise and didn’t readily pull out.

The Royal Grain, as I mentioned in the previous post, still had a vulcanite tenon stuck in the mortise. I decided to work on the Martinique stem first and deal with finding a stem for the Royal Grain later.

Cleaning the Perspex Stem

The Perspex stem before cleaning.

The first problem was separating the stem from bowl without breaking anything. Since I planned on soaking the bowl in alcohol, I dipped the pipe and stem in the jar and let it set for a minute or two. The stem then came off the pipe easily and I rinsed it off in clean water.

With oxidized vulcanite stems, I do an Oxyclean soak to bring the oxidation to the surface. I’ve never tried an Oxyclean bath on acrylic or Perspex stems. With those, I usually just wipe the outside down with alcohol and do the inside with pipe cleaners dipped in alcohol. The one thing you never want to do is soak the stems in alcohol. It could possibly cause “crazing” or cracks in the airway. Some

people even report stems breaking after soaking in alcohol.

Tip #1: The shank brush tool is great for cleaning tobacco residue from the bit. I find it does the job faster than just pipe cleaners.

I was hoping dipping regular, tapered pipe cleaners in alcohol would remove the discoloration from the airway and sterilize it. And it did, to an extent. After 10 pipe cleaners the airway was a little cleaner, but I could still see the old tobacco stain. I probably would have gone to my bristle pipe cleaners, but I didn’t The solution for this situation? I switched to a shank brush pipe tool. It’s ideal for cleaning the shank and  the tenon and airway of a pipe stem. I dip it in alcohol and run it through the stem until it comes out fairly clean. I follow that with pipe cleaners dipped in water.

The Royal Grain Stem Replacement. Maybe?

Initially I planned to have a stem made for the Royal Grain. Then I remembered the Preben Holm stem I had sitting in my desk. It’s a mismatched stem from a Søren freehand I bought in early August. I easily removed the broken tenon by inserted a drill bit into the airway by hand and twisting and pulling it out.

Tip #2: When buying pipes in “junktique” shops and malls, check the stems for stamps or logos. It will help you identify the pipes and may also tell you if the stem is the correct one for the pipe. I use mismatch stems as a point in talking the seller into lowering the price.

Black Vulcanite Preben Holm stem and a Perspex Ben Wade

Stems are usually made to fit the pipe it’s going with and I have never found one stem to perfectly fit a pipe other than the one it’s made for.

The Preben Holm stem fitted the Royal Grain. Maybe a tighter fit than I like, but it a fit and I can always work on the mortise or tenon to make it better. On top of that, a friend from one of the pipe forums, had a Ben Wade stem he is sending me. One way or the other I have a stem for the Royal Grain. Or, did I?

 

But Which Stem for Which Pipe?

So, there I was. Sitting with two clean and polished pipe bowls and two stems. I picked up the Perspex stem and inserted it back into the Martinique. And, the bowl almost slipped off the stem. The logo on the Perspex is the Ben Wade logo. This should fit.

I’m guessing that the fit was so tight at the start because both the mortise and the tenon was so dirty. Once the cleaning removed the residue, it became loose.

Just on a lark, I decided to try the Perspex stem on the Royal Grain and it slid into place easily and looked like it was made for it. I also liked the way the amber color matches to the darker finish of the Royal Grain.

I then inserted the vulcanite Preben Holm stem into the Martinique. It is a snug fit but not a tight fit. May not be the original stem, but it is close enough.

Part 1: Ben Wades in the House

© J. Gibson Creative Services. September 5, 2018