Tag Archives: sanding a stem

What is a Mountain Root Pipe with a Glasschaum Bowl?

Another of the gift bowls that I received was an apple-shaped bowl stamped Mountain Root on the left side of the shank and on the right side Glasschuam Bowl. The Glasschaum Bowl stamping had remnants of silver paint in the indentations. The finish was rough with many scratches in the briar. The shank internally was very black and tarry. The bowl inside was dirty with a thin build up of cake. The internal edge of the meerschaum lining was chipped in several places but there were no cracks in the bowl. The Mountain Root stamping and the Glasschaum Bowl stamp were both new to me. I looked in “Who Made That Pipe” for the Mountain Root brand and found nothing with that stamping. PipePhil did not have it on his site either, so I looked further on the web and found several posts on the brand on the Grabow forum. The link is: http://drgrabows.myfreeforum.org/about4008.html&highlight=

At that site a pipeman had posted about a pipe he purchased on Ebay: “I purchased this “Mountain Root” pipe on Ebay. Right shank is stamped “Glasschaum Bowl” and the inside of the bowl is lined with something similar to how Yello-Boles are lined with a yellow colored coating. The stinger is wooden and the stem inlay is a white or faintly yellow ring on top of the stem similar to Yello-Bole stem rings of the ’40’s except for the color.”

My pipe bowl looked just as he described though I would have said it had a meerschaum like bowl insert rather than the yellow coating on the Yello-Bole pipes. It was significantly thicker than the yellow painted coating. Mine also came without a stem so there was no wooden stinger apparatus or yellow ring on the stem.

He went on to inquire if anyone could help him with information on the brand. He received quite a few helpful replies to his query. One that summarized the lot is included below.

“Mountain Root probably refers to Mountain Laurel. That was one alternative wood used in WWII for pipes, when briar was not available or in very short supply. The wood stinger also suggests that era.”

This coincided with what I was thinking in terms of the link to Mountain Laurel and the WWII era pipes. I was not alone in thinking that I was dealing with a pipe from that era made from Laurel. The confirmation of that was not 100% certain and the next details make me wonder about that. I looked up Glasschaum Bowl pipes online and found that Ben Leibowitz, an American pipe maker marketed the Glasschaum pipe in 1941 and quickly disappeared off the scene. This reference was also confirmed in Who Made That Pipe. If it was indeed a Liebowitz pipe it would have been stamped Glasschaum Pipe with no other stamping. This one however had the Mountain Root stamping as well and it led me to believe I was dealing with something other than an American made Leibowitz pipe. Further digging was necessary.

I often turn to EBay to see if I can find a particular brand of pipe for information when it does not show up other places. In looking through the various pipes on EBay that bore the Glasschaum Bowl stamping I found several that had the identical stamping on the right side of the shank. Some of them had Mountain Root (1st photo below) on the left side the same as the bowl I have, while others were stamped Gordon Deluxe in a Diamond on the left (2nd photo below). I looked in “Who Made That Pipe?”and found that Gordon pipes were made by Villard & Strauss as well as Dan Jacobs/Comoy’s/R. Jack & Sons and Samuel Gordon (1918), all in made in England. There was also confirmation that The Samuel Gordon pipes had Gordon in a diamond logo. The fact that these were English made pipes made me question the Mountain Laurel wood comment above. The bowl also did not look like the wood on other Mountain Laurel pipes that I have in my collection so I am not at all certain of the assessment.

The information I had found made me lean toward the maker of this pipe being Samuel Gordon a London pipemaker. That meant that the pipe was English made. I don’t have a clear idea of the date of the pipe but looking at others on EBay that had the same stamping of the Gordon Deluxe stamping my thinking is that the pipes came from the 40s or 50s.

I went through my can of stems and found one that fit well in the shank with minimal sanding. When I chose the stem I had not done the research on the brand and found that the stem had a light yellow O on the top of the stem and the one I chose had a brass O on the top. Such is the one of the happy coincidences of the repair. I lightly sanded the tenon of the stem until it fit snugly in the shank. I cleaned out the stem with alcohol and pipe cleaners before beginning the shaping. The diameter of the stem was larger than the diameter of the shank. I used a Dremel with a sanding drum to remove the majority of the excess vulcanite on the stem. I carefully do this with the stem in place and try to get as close as possible to the same diameter as the shank. I try not to nick the shank while I am working on it. I used a sharp pen knife/letter opener to scrape the inside of the bowl. I wanted to remove the carbon build up around the middle of the bowl particularly and also on the upper sides of the bowl. The bottom half and the bottom of the bowl were quite clean. After scraping the bowl clean the chips around the edges of the rim were visible. They were deeper on the back side of the bowl at about 5 and 7 o’clock. I needed to top the bowl to remove the damaged areas on the rim and bring the top closer to the edge of the meerschaum insert. I set up a topping board and 220 grit sandpaper and sanded down the rim. With topping of the rim done the chipped areas were very clear. I sanded the inside edge of the rim with a folded piece of sandpaper to smooth out the areas that were not chipped and to bank the inner edge slightly. With this done the repairs to the insert edge would be quite simple to do. Once I had the stem diameter close I took it back to the table and hand sanded it with 150 grit sandpaper until the angles and flow of the stem was also correct. I worked so that there was not a bulge or hip at the junction. I also sanded the button on the stem as it was very thick. I sloped it toward the end of the stem. When the fit and flow were close to what I wanted I removed the stem from the shank and sanded in long strokes from the tenon end to the button to smooth out potential scratches.

I put the stem back on and sanded with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the remaining excess and some of the heavier scratches. At this point I also sanded the shank of the pipe at the same time to make sure that the transition between the briar and the vulcanite was smooth and seamless. This took quite a bit of sanding. I did not want to remove too much briar as I did not want to change the look of the shank or the diameter of the shank. I was more concerned with getting the flow and lines smooth. I sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge once I had the fit perfected. I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to remove the finish from the bowl and shank. I have found that this makes staining the rim and shank much easier to achieve and matching the stain is not a problem as it is all quite light. I wiped down the inside of the bowl edges with a wet cotton pad to remove loose particles of the liner and also any dust that was present from the sanding. I mixed a small batch of Plaster of Paris to work on the chipped edges of the insert. I mixed it into a thick mud consistency that was still wet but did not clump. I pressed into the chipped areas with the cuticle tool that I cleaned up. The curves on the spoon end are perfect for pressing the mud into the chipped areas of the bowl. The next two photos show the repaired area of the bowl insert. I purposely put the plaster on heavier than necessary and then shaped it with the spoon end of the tool. I set it aside to dry. When the plaster was dry to the touch I cleaned out the shank with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and isopropyl alcohol. There was some paper stuck to the inside of the shank from what appeared to be a washer that some previous owner had used to hold the stem tightly in place. I sanded the bowl and shank, carefully avoiding the stamping with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-3200 grit to smooth out some of the scratches that were on the surface of the briar. I wiped it down with alcohol on a cotton pad to remove the dust from the finish. Looking at the bowl in this unfinished state it is clear that this is a piece of briar and not a piece of Mountain Laurel. The birdseye and cross grain are quite nice. I cleaned up the top of the bowl and left the inside edge untouched at this point. I wanted the plaster to cure over night before I sanded it and cleaned it up on the inside. The next series of three photos show the work I did on the repair to the edge of the insert. The first shows the repair after it dried over night. It was hard and quite thick. The second photo shows the area after I sanded it with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth it out, bevel it slightly to match the rest of the rim edge and feather it into the surface of the bowl. The third photo shows it after the bowl has been wiped down with a damp cloth to clean up the dust from the sanding. The bright white areas are the repaired portions. After a few smokes this will blend in very well with the rest of the insert and will be unnoticeable. I wiped the bowl and stem down with olive oil on a paper towel. I wipe it on and wipe it off again to give me a clear picture of areas of the bowl that still need work. It shows the scratches very clearly and also gives some colour and life to the bowl highlighting the natural grain. I am still undecided as to whether or not I will give it a coat of a light brown stain. I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. In between each set of three grits I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil and when dry continued sanding the stem. I buffed it with White Diamond and gave it a final wipe down with Obsidian Oil before setting it aside to work on the bowl. I wiped down the bowl with alcohol on a cotton pad and then gave the bowl a light coat of Danish Oil and walnut stain. I wiped it on the bowl and then wiped it off and set it aside to dry over night. In the morning when it was dry I lightly buffed it with White Diamond on the wheel and then put the stem in place and repeated the buffing. I gave it several coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a soft flannel buff. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It is restored and ready to be smoked. It should last for many more years ahead and provide a typical meerschaum lined smoke for the pipeman who smokes it next.

Restoring a Dr. Grabow Meerschaum-Lined Stack

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Blog by Steve Laug

Another of the bowls I was gifted was a tall Meerschaum lined rusticated stack with a smooth spot on both sides of the bowl and the end of the shank. It is stamped on the underside of the shank, MEERSCHAUM-LINED over Dr. Grabow. The bowl exterior had some darkening on the back side of the bowl and the grooves of the bowl were caked. The rim had damage and the meerschaum lining was rough on the inside edge of the bowl. There were cracks in the meerschaum bowl insert on the rim. The bowl itself was cracked and missing from about mid bowl to the bottom of the bowl. The meerschaum pieces were lying in the bottom of the bowl and there was no stem for the pipe.

I did not know anything about the meerschaum lined Dr. Grabows and this one had a distinct look of an Italian made pipe. I went to my source on line for Grabow information the Dr. Grabow Forum (http://drgrabows.myfreeforum.org/sutra238.php). There I found a post on the meerlined pipes. It read in part as follows… “Meerschaum lined pipes were originally imported from M. Gasparini in Italy for Grabow. Sparta finally figured out how to do them and only imported the “plugs”. Early Grabow Meerschaum lined pipes were stamped Italy with no spade. After 1989 Dr. Grabow got rid of Italy and added the spade.” So, my sense of it being Italian was correct. It also dates this pipe as pre-1989. I had an old stem in my can of stems that would be a good fit for this pipe. I needed to sand the tenon slightly to get a snug fit against the shank. The diameter of the stem was slightly larger than the diameter of the shank and would need to be sanded down to make a matched fit. I used a pen knife to clean up the inside of the bowl. There was carbon build up on the lower part of the bowl about mid bowl that was holding together the broken pieces of the meer lining. I scraped away the carbon and removed the broken pieces of meerschaum that remained on the lower edge of the bowl insert. I topped the bowl with a topping board and 220 grit sandpaper to remove the damage to the rim and the lining top. I did not remove much of the bowl top but took off enough to make the bowl top and the rim top flush and smooth. In the photo below the cracks in the bowl insert are visible around the top edge of the bowl. I used clear superglue to fill the cracks on the top edge of the insert and sanded them down. I mixed a batch of plaster of Paris and used the dental pick, the cuticle tool that I was gifts and a pipe nail to build up the interior of the bowl and replace the bottom half of the insert that was missing. I inserted a pipe cleaner in the shank and then packed in the plaster around the airway and tamped it in place on the bottom with the pipe nail and on the sides with the cuticle tool. I used one of the stain pens that I have to stain the rim to match the bowl. I inserted my damp index finger into the bowl and rubbed down the sides of the bowl to smooth them out. I also pushed the plaster on the bottom of the bowl to more thoroughly pack it in place. I sanded the stem with 150 grit sandpaper to reduce the diameter of the stem and then 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the stem. I scrubbed the bowl down with acetone on a cotton pad to remove the finish and clean up the exterior of the bowl. I then rubbed it down with olive oil and let it soak into the finish. I also rubbed down the stem with the oil as I find that it makes sanding the stem easier to do. I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-3200 grit pads and dry sanding with 3600-12,000 grit pads. I wiped it down between each of the sets of three pads with Obsidian Oil. Once it was dry I buffed the stem with White Diamond and then with carnauba wax. I put the stem back on the pipe and buffed it with White Diamond. I lightly buffed the bowl with carnauba wax and the stem more heavily. I finished by buffing the pipe with a soft flannel buffing pad to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown below. The thin shank and the thin diameter of the stem give the pipe a delicate look. It is very light weight and fits well in the hand. I am going to let the plaster of Paris repair dry and cure for several days before I load a bowl and give it an inaugural smoke.

UPDATE: I just smoked this one after it had cured for two days. I loaded a bowl of The Malthouse Founder’s Reserve in the bowl and smoked it to the bottom of the bowl. It smoked cool and dry. The plaster of Paris is darkening nicely and will soon match the rest of the meer lining of the bowl.

Rejuvenating a Willard Straight Rhodesian

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Another of the bowls from the gift box was this Willard Rhodesian. It was in pretty good shape other than being dirty and stemless. The bowl had a broken cake at the top of the bowl and remnants of tobacco left in the bowl. The rim was dirty and lightly caked with some damage caused from tapping the rim on something. The outer and inner edges of the bowl were undamaged. The interior of the shank was dirty. The shank was fitted with a threaded mortise that would take a threaded stem. I had a stem in m can of stems that fit well in the shank, was overturned but workable. The diameter of the stem was larger than the shank. The photo below shows the stem on the pipe in the middle of the threesome. I set up a heat gun and held the stem about three inches above the heat. The first photo below shows the stem in place. To heat it I removed it from the bowl and heated the metal tenon. When it was warm I screwed it back in place and twisted it. I had to reheat it several times to get the alignment correct. The second photo shows the aligned stem. I sanded the stem with 150 grit sandpaper to reduce the diameter of the stem. I also sanded the slope to the button to highlight the tooth marks on the stem. I used a needle file to sharpen the inner edge of the button and make the angles more distinct. I wiped down the bowl with acetone to remove the grime and clean up the finish. I did not want to lighten the finish as much as to clean off the light coat of varnish on the briar. I lightly topped the bowl to clean up the rim damage. I used a sanding board and 220 grit sandpaper to remove the damaged briar and then followed that by sanding with a medium and a fine grit sanding block. I continued to sand the stem to match it to the diameter of the shank. I used 220 grit sandpaper to finish the sanding and shaping of the stem. I worked on the tooth marks on the top side and underside of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper until they were no longer visible. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer beginning with the smallest cutting head and working up to the one that was the same diameter as the bowl. I reamed the bowl back to bare wood. I sanded the stem with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to reduce the scratches left behind by the 220 grit sandpaper. There was one stubborn tooth mark that I could not get out on the underside of the stem next to the button. I cleaned the area with alcohol and then used clear super glue to repair it. I sprayed the path with an accelerator so that I could sand the patch sooner. I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-3200 grit pads and dry sanding with 3600-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed down the stem with Obsidian Oil between each group of three micromesh sanding pads and then when I finished sanding with the 12,000 grit pad I buffed it with White Diamond. I buffed the bowl and shank with White Diamond and then gave it a coat of Danish Oil and walnut stain to protect and preserve the finish. When it was dry I buffed the pipe with White Diamond and then gave it several coats of carnauba wax. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The new stem fits well. In fact it looks like it came with the pipe. The repairs to the stem are not visible. The bowl itself dried well and buffing the finish gave it a softer look. The finished pipe was given several more layer of carnauba wax and then buffed with a soft flannel buffing pad. It is now ready for many more years of service to another pipeman.

Worn and Tired No Name Pot Given a New Look

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The next pipe I decided to work on from the gift box was a no name pot shaped bowl without a stem. There was a stem in the box that fit well in the threaded metal shank. The problem with the stem was that it was worn out. There was a large dent on the top of the stem and a large hole in the underside of the stem that also had much damage around the hole. The stem was also over turned. The shape was unique in that the bowl had a slight cant to it. The finish was ruined and the grit and grime on the bowl was heavy. There were four fills using pink putty that stood out on the bowl left side, front and bottom. The rim was thickly tarred and oiled. The outer edge was damaged all the way around the bowl. The cake was quite thick and was crumbling at the bottom of the bowl. The shank was thick with tars as well. The aluminum was oxidized. I used a lighter and a heat gun to heat the metal tenon and was able to adjust the stem to a proper fit on the shank. It softened the glue and lined up nicely but when I heated the top side of the stem to try to raise the dent it bubbled even at a distance of three inches plus above the heat source. Yet another reason I don’t like nylon stems. Looking at it carefully after I had straightened it out I could see that the stem was really worn out and would be better used on a different pipe after it had been cut down. I heated the tenon once again and was able to remove the stem from the tenon. The tenon itself was threaded and screwed into the stem. I had a taper stem in my can of stems that had a broken tenon. I sanded the remainder of the broken tenon until it was smooth. The new stem was the slightly longer than the original stem and it was vulcanite. I drilled out the airway until the metal tenon end fit the in the stem. I held the drill firmly and turned the stem onto the drill bit by hand. I used a tap to cut threads in the freshly drilled hole. I beveled the drilled hole to accommodate the lip on the threaded tenon so that it would sit flush with the face of the stem. I mixed a batch of two part quick dry epoxy and coated the threaded end of the tenon before threading it into the hole in the stem. I set the stem aside to let the epoxy cure and turned to work on the bowl. The bowl needed to be reamed so I used a PipNet reamer to do the work. I started with the smallest cutting head and continued until I used one the same size as the bowl of the pipe. I scrubbed out the shank and bowl with alcohol and pipe cleaners and cotton swabs until the shank and bowl were clean. I set up my topping board and a piece of 220 grit sandpaper and topped the bowl to remove the out rim damage and sharpen the edges of the bowl. I folded a piece of sandpaper and sanded the outer edge once it had been topped. I smoothed out the rough edges until the damage was minimized. I used a dental pick to remove the pink putty fills. I cleaned the surface with acetone to remove the dust and the remaining putty in the holes after I had picked them out. I packed briar dust into the holes in the briar and then dripped super glue into the briar dust to mix with the dust and make a hard fill. I over filled the holes in the briar with the dust and glue so that when it shrunk as it dried it would not leave dips in the surface of the briar. I sanded the filled areas with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the excess and smooth out the fill until it was even with the surface of the briar. I sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge and a fine grit sanding block. The new fills were black instead of the bright pink that was previously used in the repairs. Once stained they would be less obvious in the surface of the bowl than the previous ones. I stained the bowl with Danish Oil and walnut stain and set the bowl aside to dry. The next morning I checked the fit of the stem as the epoxy had plenty of time to set and cure. I sanded the stem to reduce the diameter at the shank. I used 150 grit sandpaper to remove the excess while repeatedly screwing it into the shank to check that I had removed enough but not too much. I sanded the stem further with 220 grit sandpaper to remove more of the excess and to also reduce the scratches left behind by the 150 grit paper. I polished the aluminum with a fine grit sanding sponge and removed the oxidation and the scratches. When I had finished sanding the fit of the stem was exactly what I wanted and it only needed to be polished with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit sanding pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three grits. I buffed the stem with White Diamond to give it a final polish and then rubbed it down a final time with the Obsidian Oil. Once it was dry I hand buffed it and fit it on the pipe. I buffed whole pipe with White Diamond and gave it several coats of carnauba wax to raise a shine. I wanted to protect and shine the bowl and stem. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The new stem with the retrofitted metal tenon fit extremely well. I like the overall look of the pipe far better than the original look with the saddle stem. The pipe is ready to give many more years of service to the next pipeman whose rack it graces. The end of the stinger is removable so that the pipe can be smoked with or without the stinger.

Restoring an Old BBK Hunter Pipe

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In the box of pipe bowls that I received was a complete sitter with a silver shank band and windcap. Upon looking at the side of the bowl I could see that it was stamped Swiss Made and on the side of the shank it was stamped BBK. The finish was sandblasted and well done. The stain was either a dark brown or a black. The cap was in good shape. Under the cap the silver rim trim was also blackened and tarry. The end cap/band on the shank was also silver and quite nice. Inside the cap was blackened and the bowl was caked with a crumbly aromatic smelling cake. The inside of the shank was black with tars and oils and the stem was very tight in the shank. The stem was clean of tooth marks and dents but was badly oxidized. On the front of the bowl was a carved/pressed stag climbing the bowl. There were nails holding the top rim cap and the stag emblem on the briar. On the back of the rim cap was a small silver ring where a chain had obviously been sometime along the way. It was missing as was the place on the stem where it attached to the stem. I have seen these before on German-made pipes as a means of keeping the stem and bowl together.

I have cleaned up several BBK pipes over the years. The last one was a square shank panel billiard that I have written about previously on the blog https://rebornpipes.com/2012/09/21/refurb-on-a-bbk-panel-billiard-swiss-made/. I had never done much research on the maker or the meaning of the BBK initials. I knew that it was a Swiss made brand as the shanks of all the pipes I had cleaned up and restored were stamped with that moniker. I did not however have any idea of the history of the brand. This time I decided to do a bit of digging and see what I could find out about the pipemaker. I checked one of my usual sources of information, Pipedia and found that there was actually quite a bit of helpful information to be found there. http://pipedia.org/index.php?title=Bru-Bu. I have copied, edited and summarized that material below. I find the information quite fascinating to read and gives me more appreciation for the pipes themselves.

“Josef Brunner, oldest son of the farmer Konstantin Brunner from the hamlet Nieder-Huggerwald, belonging to the community of Kleinlützel (Canton Solothurn), was sent in 1871 to a pipe turner in Winkel/Alsace for his apprenticeship. As was usual at that time, Brunner wandered as a journeyman after ending the apprenticeship. Eventually, he went to Saint-Claude, France which was then the world’s stronghold of briar pipe manufacturing. There, Brunner was able to increase and deepen his knowledge in the field of industrial pipe making. When he returned home in 1878, he installed a small turner’s workshop in the house of his father. With the energetic support of his two younger brothers, he began to produce tobacco pipes of his own calculation, taking them to the markets in the surrounding area. In 1893, Bernhard Brunner’s wife inherited the mill in Kleinlützel. At this point, the pipe fabrication was transferred to an annex belonging to the mill. Now it was possible to drive the machines by water power – an important relief to the workers and a considerable innovation compared to the previous pedal-driven system.

On the Pipedia site they also had some photos of a catalogue from BBK that was interesting. They note that it was an early catalog and came to them courtesy of Guido Brunner, Josef Brunner’s grandson.”

Also on the Pipedia site was a photo of a pipe that was very similar to the one I have but obviously older. The stem on mine is not horn but is rather a hand cut vulcanite that makes it much newer in age than the one below. However the shank cap, the rim cap, the Double Deckel wind cap (pictured on the last page of the above catalogue are the same. The one I have is also missing the chain from the cap to the stem but the finish and everything else about the pipe below is parallel to the one I worked on. It was interesting to see how they attached the chain to the stem. That gave me an idea on how to attach a new chain to the one that I have. The stem on this one however made me question whether the one that I had was an original or some newer replacement stem. More digging would be required to know whether my stem was original or not. A bit more digging revealed one for sale on EBay that had the exact same stem as the one I have. It also was missing the chain and the shape and top cap was slightly different but the stem was identical. Now I knew that the one I had was at least original. Further information was found on the Pipedia site that spoke of the growth of the company. “The production was boosted, and business developed pleasantly. A new factory building was realized by 1896. Corresponding to another demand, a department producing walking sticks was added in 1900. The pipes from Kleinlützel were well appreciated and received many awards, e.g., a gold medal for outstanding craftsmanship at the National Swiss Fair in Bern in 1914.

The business developed so well after the turn of the century that even a lack of workers in Kleinlützel occurred. The problem was solved by founding a subsidiary company in the small nearby town Laufen an der Birs in the Canton of Bern. This plant didn’t exist too long. The disastrous economic crisis in the 1920’s and early 1930’s forced the Brunner family to restrict the fabrication of pipes dramatically. In addition the big French pipe factories in Saint-Claude – although suffering from the same circumstances – flooded the Swiss market with pipes at prices that couldn’t be matched by Swiss producers. By 1931 ca. 150 of 180 Brunner employees had been sacked – the rest remained in Kleinlützel, where the cheap electric energy ensured a meager survival.

In 1932, Mr. Buhofer joined the Brunner family. The company was named Brunner-Buhofer-Kompagnie, and, shortly thereafter, Bru-Bu. Buhofer had made his fortune in the United States but, homesick, returned to Switzerland to search for a new challenge.

Bru-Bu’s fabrication program was expanded with many handcrafted wooden art articles: carved family coats of arms, bread plates, fruit scarves, and – more and more – souvenir articles for the expanding Swiss tourism industry. Pipes remained in the program continuously, but the offerings changed from traditional Swiss pipes to the more standard European shaped pipes. Bru Bu is widely known as BBK.”

One further point of interest to me was found in the last paragraph of the Pipedia article linking BBK pipes to Former Nielsen. I have two of Former’s pipes so this stood out to me.

“At some point in the late 1970’s, Bru-Bu went out of business. Some of the Brunners, as far as known, continued as timber traders. But in 1986 new life filled the old Bru-Bu pipe workshop, when Dr. Horst Wiethüchter and “Former” Nielsen started to produce the high-grade Bentley pipes there.”

I am not sure why it works this way but once I have some background information on a pipe I move into cleaning and restoring it with more gusto. It seems to energize me knowing a little about the company or individual who carved the pipe I am working on at the moment. I took the next two photos show the inside of the lid and the front of the bowl before I started cleaning up the pipe. The tars and oils on the inside of the lid were rock hard did not come off with scrubbing with alcohol or oil soap. Instead it would take more work to remove it. I reamed the pipe with a PipNet reamer (also Swiss Made by the way) to remove the cake buildup around the inside of the rim. Once the bowl was clean and smooth I wiped it out with cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol. I scrubbed the briar with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and then wiped it off with a cotton pad. The finish was in great shape under the grime and once polished with a soft cloth and Halcyon II wax it had a rich glow to the sandblast. I wiped down the silver with a silver polishing cloth and the tarnish on the rim cap, the shank cap, wind cap and stag emblem came off very easily and the silver shone. I scrubbed the inside of the windcap and the rim with 0000 steel wool to remove the tars and oils that had hardened on the surface of the caps and the inside of the windcap. It came off easily and then I polished with the silver polishing cloth. I cleaned out the inside of the shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol. The tars that came out of the shank were black and thick. It took quite a few swabs before the shank and sump area were clean and the cotton was still white after I ran it through the shank.

The stem had been soaking in Oxy Clean while I worked on the bowl. I removed it from the bath and dried it off. The oxidation had softened significantly and I was able to see the black of the vulcanite show through the brown oxidation. I scrubbed the stem with Meguiar’s Scratch X2.0 and once dry wiped it off to see how much more of the oxidation had been removed. The second photo shows the stem after I had wiped off the polish. There was still a lot of work to do on this stem. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and then with medium and fine grit sanding sponges to remove more of the surface oxidation. It took some careful sanding but the oxidation was finally coming off and the stem was moving toward the place where I would sand it with micromesh sanding pads. I buffed the stem with red Tripoli and White Diamond before sanding with the micromesh pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three pads. I buffed the stem with White Diamond and then rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil one last time. I buffed it with carnauba wax and then a soft flannel buffing pad to raise the shine. I gave the silver caps a final polish with the silver polishing cloth, buffed the pipe by hand with a shoe brush and then took the final photos below. The finished pipe is ready to load a bowl and fire up its inaugural smoke. I still have to do a hunt for a piece of chain to connect the cap to the stem and make a strap or connector to hold it to the stem.

Yello-Bole Spartan – A Brylon Pipe Restemmed and Restored

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Blog by Steve Laug

I was gifted a box of pipe bowls and stems from Jim Wagner on Smoker’s Forums. It is a great to have this box of interesting old pipes. Jim, I sure appreciate the gift box and am enjoying looking at it and choosing what to do next. The first one that caught my eye was a Yello-Bole Spartan. From reading about them the Spartan was originally a briar pipe but this one was definitely not briar. It was synthetic for sure and brown like some of the older Bakelite pipes that I have picked up over the years. I knew though from the feel of it that I was dealing with a Brylon pipe. Many folks hate them because they say the burn hotter and are heavier than briar pipes. While that may well be true I still have an older Medico I picked up 32 years ago when my first daughter was born and have smoked it a lot since that time. Several years ago I put a long Church Warden stem on it and a brass ferrule and made it into a good-looking long pipe. I have smoked it long enough that it even has developed a cake and now smokes quite well. If I am mindful to not puff hard it stays relatively cool.

Knowing that it was a Brylon pipe made me want to do a bit of digging into the history of the material. I looked on the S.M. Frank website (http://www.smfrankcoinc.com/home/?page_id=2) and found the following information:

“In 1966, S. M. Frank developed a synthetic material called Brylon as a cheaper alternative to briar. The material, a high temperature resin mixed with wood flour, was cheaper than briar, more resistant to cracking, chipping, charring and burnouts. However to some there are some drawbacks, heavier in the mouth, hotter when smoked quickly, and also simply put, “wasn’t briar.” Millions of these pipes have been sold in the 3 decades since and continue to be part of the Yello-Bole and Medico lines. Two Brylon lines in Kaywoodie, Marmont and Impulse, were briefly tried and abandoned in the late 80′s.”

I know that Brylon has a bad name among pipemen and gets a lot of disparaging comments whenever it is brought up on the pipe forums. However, pipes are still being made and sold so there must be some enduing quality. Maybe it is the indestructibility of the pipe. Perhaps we will never know what attracts folks to them. But I have one in my hand that needs work and I am loath to pass up the opportunity to learn from the process of rejuvenating this old pipe.

As usual reading the history of the material helped to give me a clearer picture of the pipe that I was working on this time. It also gave me some background on another Brylon pipe that I have in my collection. I bought that Brylon new at a 7-Eleven convenience store along with a pouch of Borkum Riff the day my oldest daughter was born. It was a delicate billiard and attracted me that early morning in 1982. I have smoked it enough that it has developed a good cake and finally smokes very cool. A few years back I restemmed it with a long Church Warden Stem and banded it with a brass ferrule to liven it up a bit. The finish was worn to I polished it. I still smoke that old Brylon and enjoy it.

However, back to the Brylon pipe at hand. This bowl was an unusual shape and one that I had not seen before. It was smoked but clean. There was the beginning of a cake in the bowl so it would soon be a cool smoker as well. It was without a stem so I found one in my stem can with a slight bend that had the same diameter as the shank and sanded the tenon by hand with 220 grit sandpaper until it was a snug fit in the shank. It looked good on the pipe but there was still something missing when I sat back and looked at the pipe. I thought maybe a bit of bling would do the trick so I went through my nickel bands and found one that was the perfect size to press on the shank and not cover the stamping on the left side.

I heated the band with a lighter and then pressed it into place on the shank. Heating the band causes it to expand and slide on to the shank while it is still hot. Once the band cools it contracts and the fit is tight unmovable. I used a sharp knife to bevel the inside edge of the mortise to accommodate the new stem solidly against the end of the shank. The stem was one that I repurposed from another pipe and it looked like it belonged on the Spartan in my opinion. The slight bend looked good with the shape of this Brylon Spartan. The stem was oxidized and dirty but did not have any tooth marks of gouges. Once I had the pipe banded I pushed the stem into place and took the photos below. I removed the stem and sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper followed by a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. For me this step always cleans up the stem and allows me to deal with subtle reshaping of the stem. In this case the reshaping was minimal but I did some work on the underside to give it more of an arc than originally was present. I sanded until the scratches and oxidation was removed from the stem. It was clean and the flow and angles were what I was looking for. Then I sanded with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each set of three micromesh pads. Since Brylon is plastic like I decided to also sand the Brylon bowl to remove some of the scratches and smooth out one small nick in the surface of the bowl. Each successive grit of micromesh gave the finish a deeper shine and the contrasts in the Brylon surface began to stand out. When I had finished sanding the bowl and the stem I buffed them with White Diamond and then gave the pipe several coats of carnauba wax. I polished it with a soft flannel buff to give a shine. In retrospect, I think that Brylon must be pretty indestructible and I figure I could have just thrown the pipe in the dishwasher to sanitize it. I am sure it would not have caused the least bit of damage. The finished pipe is shown below. It is cleaned, has a light cake and is ready to be fired up with an inaugural smoke. Who knows I might even like it enough to keep it around as a yard pipe.

Giving New Life to a SINA Rhodesian

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When I first saw this old Rhodesian on Ebay I wanted it. It had the look of GBD 9242 but was chunkier than normal. I have had the 9242 on my wish list for a long time and have missed many over the years on Ebay. But this one seemed to be under the radar. It was stamped SINA on the shank and the stem and France on the underside of the shank near the stem. It looked to be in rough shape in terms of cake and finish. The stem looked oxidized and the rubber bite guard looked positively ancient. I watched the pipe for several days and there was no action so I bid a low-ball bid on it. No one else bid until the last two hours. Then there was some hot action between one other bidder and myself. I threw the top price I was willing to pay for the pipe in and sat out the auction to see what would happen. I won the pipe and only had to wait to receive it. The seller sent it out on a Friday from New Jersey in the US and it arrived in Vancouver, Canada on Tuesday. I was very surprised when I came home to find that it was already here. The photos below are from the seller. They give an accurate portrayal of the condition of the pipe. The photos showed that the condition of the pipe was rough. The cake build up on the rim was like rock. The finish was worn and had hardened pieces of tobacco stuck to the finish. The outer edge of the rim was actually still in good shape and the bowl was still round. The inner edge looked to be fine under the grime. The double ring around the bowl was in fair shape with some small chipping on the bottom edge of the ring. It was minor and would definitely clean up. The grooves of the rings were filled with grit so that they were almost the same height as the rest of the bowl surface in some places on the pipe. There were some fills on the side of the bowl and shank but they were hard to see under the grime. The shank was dirty and the stem did not fit flush against it due to the buildup. The stamping was crisp and showed white paint on both the shank and the stem. There was an ancient fossilized rubber bit guard on the end of the stem so I was hoping that it had protected the stem from damage.

I did a bit of research to find out about the maker of the SINA pipe. I looked on Pipephil’s site and was able to find out that there was indeed a connection to GBD. The connection was with the French branch of GBD. From the screen capture above you can see the two links under the photo on the left. The first connects the pipe to the Marechal Ruchon & Co. factory that made GBD pipes. They eventually sold out to the Oppenheimer group. The French brand was also connected to C.J. Verguet Freres and to Sina & Cie which were sold to Oppenheimer in 1903-1904. In 1905-1906 Oppenheimer merged the two companies. The accompanying chart gives an overview of the twisted trail of the GBD brand and its mergers and sales. The chart also comes from the Pipephil site and was the second link under the above photo. Armed with that information I knew that the pipe was made before the 1905-1906 mergers. This also fits well with the thick hard rubber stem and the shape of the button and orific opening. The thick shank also fits well with the period as the 9242 shape thinned down considerably in the later years of manufacture. I really like the shape and style of this era of pipe history so this one would be a pleasure to clean up.

I started by cutting off the fossilized rubber bit guard. Underneath the stem was in fairly decent shape. There was a tooth indentation on the top and bottom of the stem next to the button but it was very shallow. The rubber of the stem was clean underneath behind the calcified line on the stem. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer using the smallest cutting head first and then working up to one that fit the bowl. I find that if I use this procedure I am less likely to damage the shape of the bowl and inner rim. The tarry buildup on the rim was impervious to Murphy’s Oil Soap or even saliva and a hard scrub. It was hard as rock. I sanded it lightly to see if I could remove the tar. It looked like that was the only way this stuff would be removed. I carefully sanded the bevel of the rim to remove the tars and clean it up. I wiped it down with oil soap after each sanding to make sure I was only removing the surface. I sanded the inner edge with a folded piece of sandpaper and reached down into the bowl with the sandpaper as well. I was able to remove the tar but there was some charring and darkening at the back inner edge of the rim that remained. I sanded it smooth but it is still visible in the photo below. I scrubbed out the shank which was absolutely filthy and smelled of sweet aromatic tobacco. The bowl itself also needed to be cleaned and I found that the back inside wall of the bowl around the entrance of the airway was damaged. It was pitted and the opening was very flared so I would need to use some pipe mud to repair that and reshape the opening. I used isopropyl alcohol 99%, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners to clean out the shank. I mixed a batch of pipe mud – water and cigar ash to repair the inside of the bowl. I put a pipe cleaner in the shank with the tip showing in the bottom of the bowl and rebuilt the wall around the bottom of the bowl next to the airway. I used a dental spatula that Joyal sent to me and it worked perfect for pressing the pipe mud into place and packing it into the rough wall. I was able to reshape the airway so that the wall was smooth and clean. Once it was packed and cured for a short time I removed the pipe cleaner so that the air would move freely through the bowl and shank and allow the mud to cure. I wiped down the outside of the bowl with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime and tobacco bits from the finish of the bowl. I also scrubbed the hard rubber stem with the oil soap to remove the grime on it. The rubber was not too badly oxidized at all once the grime was gone. I find that this old rubber does not have the same trouble with oxidation as later vulcanite stems. The rim damage is visible in the photos below. I would need to do some more sanding on the surface to smooth it out and remove as much of the damage as possible without changing the shape of the rim bevel. With the bowl cleaned I set it aside to let the pipe mud cure and turned my attention to the stem. There was a unique stinger apparatus in the end of the tenon that looked like a mushroom cap on the end. It was black with tars and the draw on the stem was quite tight. I cleaned the stinger with alcohol on cotton pads and swabs and was able to remove the tarry buildup. It took quite a bit of scrubbing but I was also able to push a pipe cleaner through the stem and out the button. I had to guide it around the mushroom cap end but I cleaned it until the metal was shiny. Once it was clean I could see that it appeared to be pressure fit into the tenon and not threaded. I was not certain so I wrapped a cotton pad around the end and carefully turned it by hand until it popped free of the end. The photo below shows the insert clearly. It had to slits on the sides that could be spread open to make a tighter fit if necessary. The end of the tenon was quite open without the stinger. The insert end of the stinger gives some idea of the diameter of the airway. With the stinger out of the way I cleaned the stem with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and isopropyl alcohol until it was clean. I buffed the stem with red Tripoli and White Diamond and then sanded it with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I gave the stem a final buff with White Diamond and then gave it several coats of carnauba wax. I decided not to stain the pipe but rather to give a rubdown with olive oil and let it dry for several days. The photo below shows the pipe after it has been drying for several days. The rich dark reddish brown colour of the briar comes out nicely and the fill areas are well blended into the finish. I used a correction pen with white out to restore the white in the stamping on the left side of the shank and also on the stem. I applied the white out and then let it dry before rubbing it off with a cloth. I gave the bowl a coat of Danish Oil to protect the finish and give it a completed look. I applied the oil with a cotton pad and set it up to dry overnight. The pipe is shown in the photos below after the oil has dried.
My old camera is slowly dying so I am adjusting to a new camera. I had my daughter help me with the following photos. I like the overall look that the new camera delivers as it is truer in terms of colour and shine of the pipe. I am still learning the ropes with all the settings though. I took two series of photos for the finished pipe. The first series of five photos I used a flat white background to see how that would turn out. The last series of four photos I used the same green background I have used in the past. The photos against the green background actually give a truer picture of the colour of the pipe. Ah well still a lot to learn with this camera. The finished pipe is cleaned and ready to fire up with its inaugural bowl. The old soldier from the early 1900’s will once again feel the warmth of the fire and tobacco and the draw of a pipe man enjoying its feel in his hand. I think this weekend will be the time to enjoy a nice bowl of aged 5100 in this pipe.

Restoration of a Barclay Rex HGP Briar Root Labelled “THE DUKE”

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I read a post by dmcmtk on Pipe Smokers Unlimited Forum regarding a pipe he picked up that was a Barclay Rex with a white spot on the stem. He had written to the store and received a response that the pipe was made for them by Dunhill. I had no idea that Dunhill had made pipes for the NY shop so I began to hunt down some of these pipes looking for the tell-tale white dot on the stem. I found some on Ebay under the Barclay Rex shop store there and one stood out to me and seemed to call my name. The write-up on the ad read:

“This is a HGP Stubby Briar Root estate pipe that has been carefully restored on-site.The stem is in excellent condition and has very little visible wear; there are a few nicks on the bowl. This pipe was made by hand for Barclay Rex and likely dates to before 1960. The letters HGP actually stand for the craftsman’s initials.”

The story and the shape intrigued me and it had the white spot on the stem. I was hooked. It had a buy it now price so I went for it. I contacted the store and paid the bill and the pipe was mine. I was not too concerned about the condition as I would work on it anyway. The ad said that it had been carefully restored on-site so I would see what that meant when it arrived. The photos below were on Ebay and give a good idea of why the shape caught my attention. I wrote to Barclay-Rex to find out a little background information on this pipe and the stamping it showed in the pictures. I received this email response:

Dear Steve,
This was made by a pipe maker who worked for Barclay Rex for a time in the mid-20th century. His initials were HGP and he would stamp his pipes as such. We are unsure why the maker decided to place a white dot on his stem, but we have come across one or two more of his with the same combination. Unfortunately, his full name has been forgotten with time.
– barclayrex1910

When the pipe arrived it was in good shape. The stamping indeed was HGP over Briar Root on the left side of the shank and The Duke on the bottom of the shank. Part of the shank and bottom of the bowl was flattened so that it was a sitter. I took it apart to examine it more closely. It was anything but cleaned and restored. The stem was rough – there was oxidation next to the band that went quite deep. There was a gouge on the right side of the stem that was quite deep. The top and the bottom of the stem from the taper to the button had obviously been modified to make a more pronounced taper. The file marks were still evident in the vulcanite. The width of the button end of the stem had also been modified and was narrower than originally designed as the sides of the stem also showed file marks. The button itself had a orific opening but someone had modified it into a poorly shaped slot. The stem had deep tooth marks on the surface of top and bottom near the button. There was a bite through on the top side next to the button. The angle of the taper was very abrupt and sharp with distinct cut marks. The tenon was fit for a filter by the appearance of it and the inside was very tarry. A filter would not have fit with all of the buildup in the stem. The bowl was another story. It was out of round with burn marks on the inner edge that needed some work. It had been reamed so that was not an issue. Then inside of the shank was filthy. The tars and oils were thick against the end of the mortise.

I decided to work on the stem first. I wanted to address the taper of the stem and cleanup the file marks and gouge in the top portion. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the scratches and reshape the taper. This took quite a bit of sanding to reshape the angles and edges of the stem. There was a slight hip on both sides of the stem that needed to be sanded out to get a smooth flow to the lines of the sides. The next series of photos show the progress in reshaping and repairing the stem. I worked on the taper first to remove the sharp angles of the sides and top of the taper and work on a flow to the profile of the stem. I sanded the gouge on the top right side of the stem until it disappeared and also worked on the transition from the flattened top and bottom of the taper and the round end next to the shank. The wet spot on the first photo next to the button highlights the spot where the small hole in the top of the taper was. At this point the taper is smooth and the transition is beginning to look right. The profile shot below shows the work that has been done. I continued to sand and smooth out the taper to give it a look similar to a Peterson tapered stem. The first photo shows the taper after all of the shaping. I rubbed some Vaseline on a pipe cleaner and inserted it in the orific slot in the button so that I could patch the hole in the top side of the stem. The second photo below shows the size and placement of the hole. I used black super glue for the repair and sprayed it with the accelerator to harden it more quickly. I found that the accelerator allows me to sand more quickly but curing actually takes longer. I sanded it with sanding sticks to smooth it out and then build it up several more times to give more thickness to the stem at the button. I reshaped the sharp inner edge of the button with a needle file. After sanding with the sticks I sanded the patched area with 220 grit sandpaper and then with medium and fine grit sanding sponges to smooth out the scratches and blend in the superglue patch with the rest of the stem surface. I finished sanding the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-3200 grit pads and dry sanding with 3600-12,000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each three grit sequence of pads and let it sit until absorbed before continuing with the next set of three pads. When I finished sanding with the last three grits of micromesh I rubbed it down with a final coat of Obsidian Oil and when dry put the back on the pipe and gave it a buff with White Diamond. I set the stem aside and turned my attention to the bowl. I decided to top the bowl to even out the rim as most of the inner rim damage did not go too deeply into the bowl. Topping it would smooth out the rim and allow me to correct the damage that made it out of round. I set up the topping board with the 220 grit sandpaper and sanded the top until the rim was smooth and the burn damage was minimized. I sanded the inner edge with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to further mask the damage to the inner rim. I sanded the topped bowl with medium and fine grit sanding sponges and then with 1500-4000 grit micromesh sanding pads. I cleaned out the sanding dust from the bowl with a damp cloth and wiped down the top of the bowl with an alcohol wipe to prepare it for restaining. I decided against restaining the whole bowl and to just stain the rim. Thanks to Greg I have a set of staining pens that make this kind of thing quite easy. I started with the lightest stain pen and then used the medium stain pen to match the colour of the bowl. I buffed it with White Diamond and then gave the bowl and rim a quick buff with carnauba wax. After the buffing I sanded the band with the micromesh sanding pads and then polished it with a polishing cloth. The finished bowl is shown in the photos below. The next photo shows what I did next, though in retrospective I probably should have done this first, I did not. I cleaned out the inside of the shank with isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners to remove the tarry buildup in the mortise and airway of the pipe. Once I finished cleaning out the inside of the pipe I gave it a quick buff with White Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax, buffing with a soft flannel buff between coats. The finished pipe is shown below. The restoration and refurbishment are complete and now it can be honestly said that it has been “restored”. The amount of work it took to bring this pipe back to a finished look was far more than I expected when I bid on it. I honestly was surprised at how dirty and unfinished it was when it arrived. Now I have a pipe that I can be proud of and enjoy smoking. The look and feel in the hand is exactly what I like and I look forward to firing up the first bowl in it very soon.

Restemming and Rejuvenating a Pipe for my Son-in-Law

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Last evening my daughter and her husband had us over for a wonderful meal of pulled pork and salads. My daughter is a great cook but this time around her husband made the main course. My daughter called just before we went and asked that I bring my pipe and some tobacco to share. I could relax on the back porch and her husband, Lance and I could share a few bowls. It was a great evening and we shared a few bowls. I looked over his pipes and realized that most of them had come from me. In fact the first pipe he had ever smoked came from me – many years ago now. His brother had worked for me and I had introduced them both to the pipe. Anyway, as we spoke he said he had one with a broken stem. The pipe was an Italian basket pipe and had a hard Lucite stem. Somehow he had stepped on it and the stem had snapped in half. In the photo below you can see the break in the stem. It had been sitting with the stem out of the shank for a long time and the tenon no longer fit into the shank. The edges of the stem had been rounded to give it an interesting look, but it did nothing for me. The shank itself was also rounded so it would not take a stem the same diameter as the shank. To take out the rounded end would have shortened the shank by almost ½ inch so I decided to leave that detail alone and restem it with a stem similar to the original. I also decided to use vulcanite instead of Lucite. The new stem is shown below. It is the same diameter as the previous stem and would have a similar look to it. I would not round the end of the stem but rather leave it flat to sit flush against the top of the crowned shank. The stem was one from my stem can that had previously been on a different pipe. It was bent the proper angle already so I would not need to bend it or shape it. I just need to clean it up and remove the oxidation from the outside and clean out the interior as well. I also use some 220 grit sandpaper and worked on the tenon so that it had a good snug fit in the shank. I twisted it into place in the shank and took the photo below to get an idea of the new look. The next two photos give a picture of just a few of the pipe cleaners I used to clean out the stem. I also used a sharp knife to bevel the end of the tenon into a funnel. The previous stem had been drilled off centre and did not match the airway in the end of the mortise. It was well drilled and centered so the funnel on the tenon end would encourage good airflow through the pipe. A quick draw on the stem demonstrated that the draught was good and open now as opposed to the tight draw that it had before. I sanded the calcification on the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and then with medium and fine grit sanding sponges to remove the scratches and the oxidation at the end of the stem. I took the pipe to the buffer and gave it a quick buff with Tripoli and White Diamond to clean off the rim and also clean up the stem some more. I still need to sand the stem around the shank junction to remove stubborn oxidation and then polish it. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and medium and fine grit sanding sponges to remove the oxidation near the shank. Then I used my usual array of micromesh pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-15,000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil and when it dried I buffed it with red Tripoli and worked on the area near the tenon. I buffed it with White Diamond after than to polish it. Then I took it back to the work table and sanded it with the last three micromesh sanding pads. I polished the stem with Meguier’s Scratch X2.0 and then buffed a final time with White Diamond. I gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a soft flannel buff. I lightly buffed the bowl with wax and a soft buff as well. The finished pipe is shown below. On Wednesday evening I will deliver it to my son in law so he can fire it up after several years of not using it. I look forward to hearing what he thinks of the new stem.

Yet Another Frankenpipe – A pipe made from assorted pieces

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Frankenpipes are born out of having no more pipes in the refurb box to work on. I have many in transit at the moment but none with which to sit and unwind. That always is a recipe for me to dig in the boxes of parts and see what I can come up with to keep the hands busy. The pipe that follows was born of fiddling with parts in my parts box. The part I started with was an old bowl that I received in a gift box recently that did not have a pipe to go with it. It was a pressure fit bowl that obviously sat on a base of some kind of system pipe. I searched the Metal Pipes website to see if I could find out any information but did not find any likely candidates for this mystery bowl. It had some nice grain on it so it seemed like a shame to just let it sit in the box and wait for a potential pipe for it. I also I had a cut off shank piece that I had made for another purpose, a stem that fit the shank nicely and a block of briar that was too tiny for a pipe. The small block is one that I have been scavenging pieces off of to make plugs for burnout repairs. As I looked at the pieces I had an idea for putting them together into an interesting pipe that had kind of art deco feel to it. Now it was time to bring the pipe together and actualize my vision. I measured out the drilling areas for the block. I needed to drill the airway large enough to insert the briar shank. I would use the Missouri Meerschaum concept of inserting the shank into the briar block. I started by drilling the first hole in the end of the block. I drilled the mortise area first. I did this in stages as it needed to be big enough for the shank piece to be pressure fit into place. Afterward I drilled the rest of the airway in the block. I decided to drill it all the way through to the other side of the block so that I could put in a funky plug on the front end. I looked around for what I would use and had several ideas. Time would tell which I would choose in the end. I moved through several drill bits until the bit that was the size of the shank piece. I drilled it deep enough to inset the shank quite deep in the hole. I marked the airway exit on the top of the block with a permanent marker and drew a line to show the track of the airway. I marked my drill bit to the depth of the top of the airway and drilled the hole in the top of the block. I wanted the hole to be the size of the nipple on the bottom of the bowl so that it would pressure fit into the hole. I wanted the hole to go through to the top of the airway so that the nipple on the bowl would sit on top and create good airflow from bowl to stem. I pressure fit the bowl in the top of the block and the shank in the end of the block for the next two photos. I wanted to see if the parts all fit together well. I gave the shank a slight angle upward and would later bend the stem if the look was correct. Everything worked well at this point. For the plug on the end of the block I decided to do something simple. I wanted a plug that would be like a coloured dot on the end of the base. I cut off a piece of knitting needle and inserted it in the airway at the end of the block that is not showing at this point. I glued it in place and used the Dremel to take the overage back flush with the block. The height of the block was too much so I wanted to cut it in half. I do not have power tools to do that kind of thing so a bit of sweat equity and a small hack saw did the job. I sliced off the bottom half of the block to be used in making bowl plugs at a later date and now the height was more suitable to this little sitter. I glued the shank into place in the block with epoxy and angled it the way I wanted it to be when I finished the work on the base. I used the Dremel and a sanding drum to begin to shape the block into a base for the pipe. I wanted a slope upward to the bowl – the sides would also slope upward. My idea was to have the bowl sitting on top of a volcano like base. It took a lot of sanding to get the shape even close to what I had envisioned and in the process I ran into my first problem. The joint of the block and the shank could not be sanded smooth or the walls would be too thin and the shank would break too easily. I probably should have used a Delrin tenon to connect the two parts but as usual looking back is not overly helpful. So I had to improvise with this one. I had a small brass pressure fitting that would look kind of interesting on this little Frankenpipe so I worked the joint area to accommodate the brass fitting. The photos below show the pipe taking shape with the brass band high on the shank. (At the time of these photos I had not yet glued the band on the shank.) I filled in the openings around the edges of the fitting where the shank joined the block with briar dust and wood glue packed into place with a dental pick. I sanded the ridges on the fitting with 150 grit sandpaper to remove them. I would have to do more work on the look of the band as I worked out the details later. I took the following photos after I had done more shaping of the base and glued the band in place. While the band is not beautiful it certainly strengthens the joint on the shank of the pipe and makes up for my lack of planning! The photo below shows the base with the bowl removed. You can get a clear picture of the base without the bowl and how the bowl looks from the bottom. The hole in the base is the same size as the nipple on the bowl. I sanded it for another hour before calling it a night and then wiped it down with some light olive oil to get an idea where the scratches were that I needed to do more work on and also to see the grain. The next four photos show the pipe at this point in the process. There is still more sanding to do on the base and shank as well as some minor shaping. The idea though is clear – and the pipe is smokeable. The draw is very good and there are no leaks around the joint where the bowl presses into the base. So far so good. I set up a heat gun and bent the stem over the rounded handle of the heat gun to get a slight bend in it. I set the bend with cool water. With the bend the pipe is a sitter. The bend pulls the weight backward and the pip sits nicely on the button and the flat bottom of the base. I did quite a bit more sanding and shaping of the base with 150 and 220 grit sandpaper. Once I had the shape to where I wanted it I sanded it with medium and fine grit sanding sponges. I gave the bowl and shank a wipe down with a cloth that was dampened with olive oil. Other than that the bowl and shank are not stained. While the shaping was finished there was still a lot of sanding to do to remove the scratches that remain in the briar. I also want to do some sanding on the band to remove scratches and polish it as well. The vulcanite stem also needs sanding and polishing. I took the pipe apart and sanded all the pieces with micromesh sanding pads. I sanded all of them with 1500-2400 grit pads and then finished sanding them with a 6000 grit pad. I buffed the parts with red Tripoli and then White Diamond and gave each part of the bowl and base multiple coats of carnauba wax. I sanded the stem with a fine grit sanding sponge and then with the various grits of micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I buffed the stem with White Diamond, rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil and finished by giving it a buff with carnauba wax. I sanded the brass band with the micromesh pads to polish it as well. When I had finished I gave the pipe a final buff with White Diamond and then applied carnauba wax to each part. I buffed them with a soft flannel buff to finish the shine. The final photo is of the front of the pipe. The knitting needle plug that I used is a bright reddish orange circle that sits at the base of the pipe on the front. The colour of the pipe is the red of the previous four finished photos. The last photo was taken with my cell phone and is a bit washed out.