Tag Archives: Savinelli Italy Pipes

Fresh Life for a Savinelli Oscar Lucite 111KS Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the work table came to us 2018 from a fellow in Pocatello, Idaho, USA. It is a nice looking Billiard with cross grain and birdseye grain and has a Fancy Lucite half saddle stem. The Lucite stem fits the name on the left side Oscar Lucite. The bowl has a rich reddish brown colour combination that highlights grain. The pipe has some grime ground into the surface of the briar. The finish had a few small fills around the sides but they blended in fairly well. This pipe is stamped on the sides of the shank. On the left it reads Oscar [over] Lucite. On the right it has a Savinelli “S” Shield and next to that was the shape number 111KS [over] Italy. There is a thick cake in the bowl and an overflow of lava on the top beveled inner edge of the bowl. The rim top looks good but it is hard to be certain with the lava coat. There were some light tooth marks and chatter on both sides of the Lucite stem near the button. The pipe looks to be in good condition under the grime. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his cleanup. He took photos of the rim top to show the thick cake and the thick lava coat. It is hard to know what the condition of the rim top and edges is like under that thick lava. It is an incredibly dirty pipe but obviously one that was a great smoker. The acrylic half saddle stem had light tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button.   He took a photo of the sides and heel of the bowl to show the beautiful grain around the bowl and the condition of the pipe. You can see the grime ground into the surface of the briar. He took a photo of the stamping on the left side of the shank. It is clear and readable as noted above. On the underside of the shank it is stamped Savinelli Product. I turned first to Pipephil’s site to look at the Savinelli write up there and see if I could learn anything about the Oscar Lucite line (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-savinelli3.html). There was a listing for the Oscar Lucite and I did a screen capture of the pertinent section.I looked up the Savinelli brand on Pipedia to see if I could find the Oscar Lucite line and the 111KS Shape (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Savinelli). There was nothing that tied directly to the line I am working on. There is a detailed history of the brand there that is a good read. I also captured the shape chart and boxed in the 111KS shape in red. The shape is identical to the one that I am working on. The stem on this one is the original shape that was on the Lucite Line but there was no shooting star logo on the left side.It was time to work on the pipe. As usual Jeff had done a thorough cleanup on the pipe. He reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and followed up with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife to remove the cake. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl, rim, shank and stem with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the oils and tars on the rim and the grime on the finish of the bowl. He rinsed it under running water. One of the benefits of this scrub is that it also tends to lift some of the scratches and nicks in the surface of the briar. He dried it off with a soft cloth. He cleaned the internals and externals of the stem with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs. He scrubbed the stem with Soft Scrub all-purpose cleanser and rinsed it off with warm water and cleaned out the airway in the stem with alcohol. Other than the damaged rim top the pipe looked good.   I took a photo of the rim top and stem to show the condition. The rim top was in very rough condition. The rim top and the edges of the bowl had darkening, burn marks and some nicking. The Lucite half saddle stem had light tooth chatter and marks on both sides ahead of the button and on the button edges.  The stamping on the sides of the shank is clear and readable as noted above.     I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the pipe to give a sense of the whole. It is a nice looking billiard that should clean up very well. I started working on the pipe by dealing with the damaged rim top and edges. I topped the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper on a topping board. I worked over the rim top and inner bevel of the rim with 220 grit sandpaper. I smooth out the damage and gave the  rim top and edge a clean look that would polish out nicely. I wiped the rim top down with a damp cloth to remove the dust and debris.   I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiped down the bowl after each sanding pad.     I stained the rim top with an Oak stain pen to match the rest of the bowl. Once I buffed and polished the bowl it would be a perfect match. I rubbed the bowl and shank down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the bowl sides and shank with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The Balm did its magic and the grain stood out.  I polished the Lucite stem with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. The photo below shows the polished stem. This nicely grained Savinelli Made Oscar Lucite 11KS Billiard with Lucite half saddle stem is a great looking pipe now that it has been restored. The briar is clean and really came alive. The rich reddish, brown stains gave the grain a sense of depth with the polishing and waxing. The grain really popped. I put the vulcanite stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Oscar Lucite Billiard is a beauty and feels great in the hand and looks very good. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ¾ inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 46grams/1.62oz.Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. There are many more to come!

Refitting the stem  and restoring a Savinelli Made Rectangular Shank Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is a different looking Savinelli made Billiard. It had a flat shank and stem that are rectangular. It was functionally a sitter. It was a different looking piece of briar in that it is a mix of grains hidden beneath the dirt. There was one fill on the shank bowl junction on the right side of the bowl. The briar was very dirty. The bowl had a thick cake overflowing like lava onto the bevel of the rim top. It is hard to know what the inner edge of the rim looks like because it is buried under the cake and lava coat. The fit of the stem in the shank appeared to be a bit off but cleaning would make that clear. The variegated brown and gold acrylic stem was dirty, scratched and had some light tooth marks and chatter at the button. Jeff took photos of the pipe before his cleanup work. The next photos capture the condition of the bowl and rim top. You can see the work that is ahead of us in terms of cake and lava buildup.The grain around the bowl is a mix of cross grain and birdseye. The pipe follows the grain well. Jeff took photos to show how the grain is laid out. The stamping on the underside of the shank read as noted above. You can also see that the stem is poorly fit to the shank in this photo.The photos of the stem show the stem surface. The first photo shows the fit of the stem against the shank. It was a poorly fit stem. The stem has light tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. Now it was time to work on my part of the restoration of the pipe. Jeff had cleaned the pipe with his usual penchant for thoroughness that I really appreciate. This one was in decent condition with a bit of buildup on the rim top but virtually no cake in the bowl. He reamed the bowl with a Pipnet Reamer and then cleaned up the bowl walls with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed out the internals with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs until the pipe was clean. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime and grit on the briar and the lava on the beveled rim top. The finish looks very good with good looking grain around the bowl and shank. There is one fill on the right side at the shank bowl junction. Jeff scrubbed the stem with Soft Scrub to remove the grime. When the pipe arrived here in Vancouver for the second stop of its restoration tour it looked very good. I took photos before I started my part of the work. I took some photos of the rim top and stem. Once Jeff removed the lava on the inside edge of the rim top it was in pretty rough condition. There were cuts, nicks and burned areas all around the inner edge and the bowl was out of round from the damage. The outer edge of the bowl looked very good. The close up photos of the stem shows that it was very clean and there was some tooth marks and chatter on the stem just ahead of the button. The acrylic was very scratched.The fit of the stem in the shank is off. It looked like the shank end had been rounded slightly and the stem was definitely larger than even the straight portion of the shank. It was poorly fit and that makes me think it is a replacement stem. The question I needed to answer was how far to go with the refitting of the stem. I knew that I wanted to bring it down as close as possible so that transition between the shank and stem was smooth. I decided to work on this as the first item of my part of the restoration. I took some photos to try and capture the variation between the stem and shank. Hopefully you can see what I mean even with my poor photos. I have used red arrows to identify trouble areas.I probably spend an hour or more hand sanding the stem to fit the shank. Often I do that with the stem off and flatten it, constantly checking for progress. I left the stem in place on this pipe for much of the sanding process as I was seeking to make a smooth transition on an already rounded shank end. The photos below tell the story. The next two photos show the stem after much sanding my way through movies on Netflix. It is far better than when I began. The transitions on the sides are perfect while the top and underside I tried to accommodate the rounded shank end as much as possible.With the shank/stem transition improved I was ready to move on to dealing with the issues of the inner edge and rim top. I removed the stem and set it aside and took the bowl in my hands. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the edge and clean up the slight bevel to mask the damaged areas. I lightly topped the bowl as well to remove the damage on the rim top and smooth out briar. Once the bowl is polished the bevel is hardly visible and the bowl looks better.With that done I decided to call it a night. The pipe still smelled strongly of old tobacco even after all the cleaning so I stuffed the bowl with cotton bolls and used a syringe to fill it with isopropyl alcohol. I set the bowl in an old ice tray and left it while the cotton and alcohol did its work. The second photo shows what I found this morning when I came to the work table. I removed the cotton bolls and pipe cleaner and cleaned out the shank with pipe cleaners and alcohol. It was very clean and it smelled far better!I was happy with the way the rim top and edges looked so I moved on to polish the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down after each pad with a damp cloth. The grain really began to stand out and the finish took on a shine by the last sanding pad. The photos tell the story! I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my fingertips. The product works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let the balm sit for about ten minutes and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. I laid the bowl aside and turned to deal with the refit stem. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I was able to remove the scratching and tooth marks with the micromesh. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with a cloth containing some Obsidian Oil. I finished polishing it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine and buffed it off with a cotton cloth. This Savinelli Made Billiard Sitter was a bit of a pain to work on. The amount of sanding to fit the stem even the way I have it now was a lot. But I am happier with the pipe now that I have finished it. The pipe looks a lot better. The finish on the pipe is in excellent condition and the contrasting stains work well to highlight the different grain patterns on the pipe. The variegated brown and gold acrylic stem just adds to the mix. With the grime and debris gone from the finish and the bowl back in round it was a beauty and the grain just pops at this point.

I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I carefully avoided the stamping on the shank and stem during the process. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad on the buffer. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Savinelli Billiard with a flat rectangular stem is a nice take on a classic billiard. The finish on the bowl combines various stains to give it depth. It is very well done. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. I can only tell you that it is much prettier in person than the photos capture. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. It a great looking pipe in great condition. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another interesting pipe. This pipe will be added to the rebornpipes store soon. If you want to add it to your collection send me an email or a message! Thanks for your time.

New Life for a Savinelli 320KS stamped Knudsen’s Pipe Dream

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Blog by Steve Laug

Recently I was traveling in Alberta with my brother Jeff and his wife, Sherry. In between work appointments and presentations we took some time to visit local antique shops and malls. We found quite a few pipes. In a small Antique Shop in Nanton we found a few interesting pipes. The fourth of the pipes that I have chosen to work on from that find is a beautifully grained Savinelli Shaped Author. The taper stem has a K.P.D. stamped logo on the left side. The pipe was dirty and caked when we picked it up. The rim top had a little lava and some small scratches in the edges of the bowl. The bowl had a thick cake in it that was hard and dense. The exterior of the bowl and shank are very dirty with grime and oils from prolonged use. It was also dull and lifeless. The stamping on the left side of the shank was readable and read Knudsen’s over Pipe Dream. On the right side of the shank it is stamped 320 KS over Italy. The vulcanite stem was had tooth chatter and tooth marks on the top and the underside near the button. I took photos of the pipe before I started the cleanup. I took close up photos of the bowl and rim to capture the condition of the pipe before I started my cleanup work. The rim top had some lava build up on the edge and there were some small nicks on the inner edge. There was a thick cake in the bowl. Other than being so dirty it appeared to be in great condition. The stem was dirty and there was tooth chatter and marks on the top and underside near the button and on the button surface itself. The stem was lightly oxidized.I took a photo to capture the stamping on the left side of the shank. The photo shows the stamping Knudsen’s Pipe Dream. The stamping on the right side says 320KS Italy. The first photo also shows the K.P.D. stamp on the left side of the stem. The shape number tells me this is a Savinelli made pipe and the shape is the 320KS.While we were traveling I decided to do a bit of work on some of the pipes that we had found. This was the fourth one that I worked on. I scraped the inside of the bowl with a sharp knife. I scraped the tars and lava off the top of the rim with the same knife.I scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with warm water and Dawn Dish Soap to remove the buildup of tars and grime around the bowl and on the rim top. I rinsed it well and wiped the bowl down with a clean paper towel to polish the finish on the bowl. The pictures that follow show the condition of the pipe after it had been scrubbed. When I got it home I would scrub the exterior and the interior some more. I did some digging to see if I could find anything out about the brand stamped on the left side of the shank. I found that there was a Knudsen’s Pipe Dream Pipe Shop in Regina, Saskatchewan. It was originally located at 4621 Rae St, Regina SK S4S 6K6. The company was originally incorporated on 7 February 1974 in Canada and was dissolved as a company on 2 May 2002. I worked on a previous Knudsen’s pipe that had been made by Charatan and was stamped London, England as opposed to having been made by Savinelli and stamped Italy. Here is the link to the previous blog on the English made pipe: https://rebornpipes.com/2016/09/09/charatan-made-knudsens-pipe-dream-oval-shank-banker-brought-back-to-life/

When I returned from my trip I turned my attention to cleaning up the pipes that we had found. I did a deeper and more thorough cleaning of the bowl and shank. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet Reamer using the largest cutting head to take the cake back to bare walls. I followed up with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife to remove the remnants of the cake in the bowl. I sanded the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel to smooth out the inside walls of the bowl. I scraped the inside of the mortise with a dental spatula to remove the buildup of tars and oils on the walls. I scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank, the metal mortise and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. I cleaned up the scratching and darkening on the rim top with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. I steamed out the deeper scratches with a damp cloth and an iron. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding the bowl walls and rim top with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth to wipe of the dust. I scrubbed the bowl down with Mark Hoover’s Before & After Briar Cleaner. I rubbed it into the surface of the briar, and as Mark wrote me it lifted the grime and dirt out of the briar. I rinsed the cleaner off the bowl with warm running water and dried it with a soft cloth. The photos below show the cleaned briar… Look at the grain on that pipe! 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 photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I painted the vulcanite stem with lighter to lift the tooth dents in the stem surface. I was able to lift them almost to the surface which allowed me to sand out the remnants of the tooth marks and chatter.I sanded out the remnants of the tooth marks with 220 grit sand paper and started to polish it with a folded piece of 400 wet dry sandpaper. I carefully worked my way around the KPD stamp on the left side of the stem. Once it was finished it began to shine.I polished the stem with some Denicare Mouthpiece Polish. It is a coarse red paste that works to remove oxidation. I rubbed it into the surface of the stem and buffed it off with the same cotton pad. It did a good job of further removing the oxidation.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine and buffed it off with a cotton cloth. This is a chubby shanked and nicely grained Savinelli made pipe with a black tapered vulcanite stem. It has a great look and feel. The shape is a handful and feels comfortable and substantial in my hand. I polished stem and the bowl with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. 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 grain on the bowl came alive with the buffing. The rich contrasting browns works well with the polished vulcanite stem. The finished pipe has a rich look that is quite catching. Have a look at it with the photos below. The shape, finish and flow of the pipe and stem are very well done. The dimensions are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¾ inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over the next of the finds of Jeff and my Alberta pipe hunt. It is a beautiful straight grain Savinelli 320KS that bears the stamping of a now defunct Regina, Saskatchewan based pipe and tobacco shop. I will be adding it to the rebornpipes store soon so if you are interested in adding it to your collection let me know.