Tag Archives: sanding and polishing a stem

Pulling a Broken Tenon

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Over the years I have had my share of broken tenons to remove. Some of them came from carelessness on my part but others I purchased that way. I took pictures of the process I use on two different pipes recently. The first was a little Barling with a broken tenon and a chewed stem. I ended up restemming this one. The second one was a Peterson 999 with a broken tenon that I hope to reuse the stem by drilling/tapping and inserting a new tenon to refit it.

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Insert a screw part way into the airway on the broken tenon in the shank of the pipe. I use a dry wall or gyprock screw. I turn the screw in by hand. I do not want to expand the tenon at all I just want the screw to have a little bite to it so that I can use it to pull the tenon out by hand or with a pair of needle nose pliers. In this case in both pipes I was not able to pull out the tenon easily. Many times I am able to pull it out in a matter of seconds using this method. But both of these were exceptionally tight and immovable. I put them both in the freezer for an hour as I know that vulcanite and briar contract at different rates with a change in temperature. After an hour I removed the Barling from the freezer and was able to pull the broken tenon out very easily. I then unscrew the broken piece and lay it aside to use for a match on the new tenon I will cut as a replacement. It helps me to eyeball the fit. I also measure the mortise and set the tenon turner as closely as possible to the measurements. I then take the broken piece and slide it on the tenon turner to check the fit.

The tenon on the Peterson however, still did not budge after an hour in the freezer. I left it in for another half hour. Still it did not budge. I then dripped Isopropyl alcohol into the exposed mortise and hoped that it would work as a solvent to break the tenon free. I repeated this several times and left the pipe sitting with alcohol in it over night. The next morning the tenon still did not move.

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I decided to not fiddle around with trying to pull the tenon. I used my small drill bit and began to drill out the tenon. I never start with the exact size of the tenon but rather work with the size of the airway and work my way up. I have found that in the process of working through the bits the tenon inevitably breaks loose or crumbles to pieces. In this case, by the time I got to the third drill bit, when I reversed it the tenon came out with the bit. You will notice that I also flattened the broken portion of the tenon on the stem so that the surface was flat and smooth. I wanted it to be ready for when I would drill it out or tap to receive the new tenon that I have ordered.

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As I close this essay I want to just mention a couple of reminders:

  1. Do not turn the screw into the airway to deeply as it does expand the airway and can actually crack the shank on the pipe. BE CAREFUL and go slowly.
  2. Do not use a tool to turn the screw into the airway – do it by hand so you can feel the progress and the bite before damage is done.
  3. If the tenon is stuck and immoveable in the first try put the pipe in the freezer for an hour or more to expand and contract the tenon and mortise. This usually works to break it free.
  4. Should you have to drill it out – use a bit a little larger than the airway to begin the process and work your way up to larger bits. Do not use a drill bit that is the size of the mortise lest you damage the mortise.
  5. Use a T handle hand drill not a power drill to do this as you can easily drill right through the bowl and ruin the pipe.

Correcting an overturn on a stem with a bone tenon

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Blog by Steve Laug

I started this process of correction with tried and true information and experience gained from working on older stems with metal tenons. I had developed a process and perfected it for my use in correcting an overturned stem by heating the tenon in the stem to loosen the glue. Once the glue is softened with the heat then the stem can be screwed on to the shank and turned to the proper position and left to cool. Care should be taken in aligning the stem and shank to the correct position. If it cools before it is straight, it can be reheated to align it correctly. I have used this procedure for a long time and it works perfectly each time I have used it. I am sure I will refine it but it works!

With that background and a couple of older stems on meerschaum and briar pipes with bone screw tenons that were overturned I put the following question out on the various online pipe forums that I am a part of.

“Does anyone know how to correct over turned bone tenons? I have a couple old timers that are over turned I am looking for a corrective…Help!”

I did not receive any response to my query so I decided to try the method I had used with metal tenons and see what happened. I chose a pipe to experiment with that would no be a loss if it did not work. The stem was made of Bakelite and the tenon was a bone screw. I put a cup of water in the microwave and stood the stem in it tenon down and set the timer for two minutes (time to boil a cup of water in my microwave). I took it out at a minute and gave it a try and it was better. I put it back in the water and let the two minutes finish. I then dried it off with a towel and turned it into the shank and was able to turn it until it was aligned. There was no damage done to the tenon or the stem in the process. The alignment on the stem was perfect and once the pipe cooled it remained aligned.

My two concerns with the use of the boiling water were first, would there be any integral damage to the bone tenon from the heat moving from the inside out and second, would the heat cause any damage to the Bakelite. I did not want it to become brittle from the boiling water process. I have learned on the metal screw tenons that I could put the entirety (stem and tenon) into the microwave with the water and leave it there through the heating cycle on the microwave. I had done the same with a Bakelite stem and metal tenon and it worked well to insert the stem and tenon while the water heated in the microwave. I decided to do that as well with the screw bone tenon and Bakelite stem. There does not seem to be any increased brittleness or crackling of the stem or bone – all is well.

Old Croydon-Reborn

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I have spent a bit of time on this old Croydon Bent (Peterson Line of seconds I believe). In fact I probably spent more time than I should have done, judging by other refurbishers throw away buckets. Sometimes I just have to see what I can make of an old tired ugly looking pipe. It is a challenge more than it is a labour of restoration. In fact it could probably be argued that when I am done with this one it really no longer should be considered a Croydon at all. I suppose it is a matter of how far one goes in the process of restoration before it becomes a totally new work of briar. In my mind this one would probably qualify for the removal of the name – or at least a hyphenated name CROYDON-REBORN.

When I received this one it was in pretty rough shape. In the pictures below you can see the state of the finish on the bowl. There were places where pieces of the lacquer finish were peeling away and falling off. The stain on the bowl was spotted and variegated. Even the many fills all over the bowl had shrunken significantly and what remained were dips and divots in the surface. The rim was one part of the pipe that was in pretty good shape. It had some tar build up and a bit of blackening but no nicks and dents. That is actually remarkable given the condition of the rest of the pipe. The silver shank cap was split in half and torn from the stem being jammed in and out of the bowl. The P-lip stem was also marked with tooth chatter, was oxidized and dented.

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I did not have any end caps in my collection of pipe odds and ends so I decided to put a regular nickel band on the shank as it was thin and weakened from the broken shank cap. I cleaned the shank end with alcohol and dried it out. I heated a band and pressure fit it on the shank. There was a small gap at the edge that I filled with wood glue to give stability to the shank. I probably should have waited to apply the band but the shank seemed fragile and I wanted to stabilize it before further work on the bowl.

I have never liked the thin Peterson type stems so I decided to restem it with a saddle fish tail stem. I used my PIMO tenon turner and turned the tenon close and sanded it to a good tight fit. I used my Dremel to take down the excess diameter of the stem and worked on the ridges and seams with the Dremel. I sanded the roughness of the new stem until it was smooth with 240 grit sandpaper followed by 400 and 600 grit wet dry sandpaper and a bit of water. It was finished with the regular regimen of micromesh pads – 1500, 1800, 2400, 3200, 4000 and 6000 grit. The final polish was done on the buffer with White Diamond and carnauba wax.

The bowl was a major problem. I tried to strip the bowl using acetone and 99% Isopropyl alcohol and could not break through the finish – don’t what they coated it with but it would not let go. I resorted to sanding the bowl to try and remove the finish and sanded, sanded and re-treated it with acetone and alcohol. The finish was finally gone and I had a raw briar bowl with so many fills in it that it looked like it had freckles. I decided to try staining it with a dark brown stain to hide the fills and give it a good deep colour that was a bit opaque. Once it was dry I buffed it and polished it with wax. It looked really awful and I hated it!!! Soooo… I decided to rusticate it. I used my fist full of nails (pipe with nails inserted in it) to do the rustication that appears in the photos below. The previous coat of stain that I had applied helped with the process of rustication and I could clearly see where I needed to do a bit more work. This is when I wished that the band was not present as it would have been a bit easier to avoid contact with the band and the rusticator.

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Once the rustication was acceptable to me, and the pipe felt good in the hand I prepared it for staining. On this one that involved using the floral frog to knock off any loose chips of briar and to smooth out the surface before I wiped it down with a damp alcohol cloth. I also sanded the rim smooth and used the micromesh to get rid of any scratches. A smooth rim and a smooth spot around the Croydon stamping would look good on the finished pipe. I decided to go for an aged leather like finish on this pipe as it seemed to fit the shape and the look. I gave the pipe a coat of black stain as an undercoat and then buffed it off the high spots. I gave the entirety a coating of Fiebing’s Medium Brown for the top coat. I flamed it and after drying took it to the buffer for a light buff. I waxed it with Halcyon II and buffed it with a soft cloth to give it the final look. Below are pictures of the finished pipe. In my book it is a significant improvement over the original!

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