Tag Archives: staining

Breathing Life Into a W.O. Larsen Handmade Select Canadian/Brandy


Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe in the queue is from a fellow in Florida who picks up some pipes for Jeff and me. It was one of several that he found and sent to us. It is a well-made W.O. Larsen Select, Brandy shaped Canadian. The entire pipe had some beautiful cross grain on the front and rear of the bowl and the top and underside of the shank. It had some great birdseye grain on both sides of the bowl and shank. The bowl has a Brandy snifter shaped bowl and a long, oval shank that defines the Canadian shape. The pipe has a rich medium brown finish that really makes the grain on the pipe stand out. The carver at Larsen did a great job utilizing the block of briar to maximize the grain. The pipe is stamped on the underside of the shank. It reads W.O. Larsen over Handmade over Made in Denmark. On the topside of the shank it is stamped SELECT. The stamping is horizontal on the end of the shank on both sides next to the stem/shank junction. The stem is short, tapered vulcanite and has no marking or stamping on it. This is a beautiful example of the work coming from W.O. Larsen.

Jeff took some photos of the pipe when he received them to show the general condition of the pipe before he started his cleanup work. The pipe was very dirty and well used. There was a thick cake in the bowl and a thick coat of lava overflowing onto the rim top. It was hard to know if the edges of the bowl were damaged or not because of the cake and lava. The exterior of the briar was dirty with grease and oils from being held. The vulcanite stem is dirty and had deep tooth marks on both sides of the stem at the button edge and some wear on the button edge itself. The photos below tell the story and give a glimpse of this beauty. Jeff took photos of the bowl and rim to capture the condition of the pipe before he started his cleanup work. There was a thick coat of lava on the rim and the cake in the bowl. It shows the mess this pipe was in when we received it. The thick lava overflow on the rim top made it hard to know what the inner edges of the bowl looked like. The outer edge appeared to have deep gouge on the right side of the rim top. I have circled it in red to identify the issue. There is also a general accumulation of grease and grime ground into the finish on the rest of the bowl and shank. He also took a photo of the right and underside of the bowl and shank to show the interesting grain around the bowl and shank. The finish is very dirty but the grain is visible in the photos.Jeff took photos of the stamping on the top and underside of the shank. It reads as noted above and is clear and legible. The next two photos show the stem surface. They show the tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. There are also some marks on the sharp edge of the button. The stem is dirty and is covered in scratches.I wanted to refresh my memory about the pipes coming out of Ole Larsen’s Copenhagen tobacco shop. I knew that many famous Danish Carvers started their careers carving for the shop. I turned first to the pipephil wesite to get and over view of the brand. Here is the link (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-l2.html). I did a screen capture of the section on the site showing a summary of the brand and the typical stamping. I then turned to Pipedia to do a bit more reading about the brand and the various lines making it up. Here is the link (https://pipedia.org/wiki/W.%C3%98._Larsen). The link took me to some pages on the finepipes.com website. Here is the link to the summary of the history of the brand. I quote it in full. I have marked the pertinent section with bold font to mark out the section on the SELECT series (https://www.finepipes.com/pipes/danish/w-o-larsen?sort=20a&page=2&zenid=562ff4b9d62f4f612d0f6ee60cab1224).

W.O. Larsen was one of the most famous tobacco shops in Copenhagen, with a beautiful store located on Copenhagen’s famous “Walking Street.” During the flowering of the Danish pipe in the ’60’s, they first began retailing pipes by such carvers as Sixten Ivarsson, Sven Knudsen, Poul Rasmussen, and Brakner. Urged on by his store manager Sven Bang, the owner, Ole Larsen, decided to begin making pipes in the basement of the shop. He first hired Sven Knudsen as the pipe maker, who soon passed the job to his protégé Hans “Former” Nielsen. Larsen’s fortunes rose along with the rest of the Danish pipe business, and Former was soon managing a group of carvers in the old Larsen cigar factory. Among these were Teddy Knudsen, Tonni Nielsen, Jess Chonowitch, Peter Hedegaard and others, who were responsible for the Select and Straight Grain series before they branched out on their own. After Former left to start Bentley pipes in Switzerland, his duties were taken over by Soren Refbjerg Rasmussen, while the straight grains were made by Teddy’s student Benni Jorgenson. As Ole’s health began to fail, the reins were taken over by his son Nils. Nils became convinced that the way for Larsen to prosper was by entering the low-end market, and acquired the Georg Jensen pipe factory to make an array of less expensive pipes. This turned out to be a fatal error, and Larsen was recently sold to Stanwell, who continue to produce so-called “Larsen” pipes in their huge factory. Thus ended an important part of Danish pipe history.

Also included on the finepipes site was a pipe that was very similar to the one on my worktable. It was similarly shaped and was called a Canadian/Brandy. The most important difference is the Cumberland stem on the one in the photo below. Here is the link to the pipe (https://www.finepipes.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=5_61&products_id=10289&zenid=562ff4b9d62f4f612d0f6ee60cab1224).From the above information I knew that the pipe came from the 1960s and was carved by some of the Danish greats who were responsible for the SELECT and STRAIGHT GRAIN series. Names like Teddy Knudsen, Tonni Nielsen, Jess Chonowitch, Peter Hedegaard and others are some of those associated with the series pipe that I am working on. In many ways it is a high grade pipe made by a great maker but a pipe that I may never know the actual carver who crafted it in WO Larsen’s studio.

Armed with that information I turned to the pipe on my table. Jeff had 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. He dried it off with a soft cloth. He was able to remove the lava build up on the rim top and you could see the overall condition of the bowl top and edges of the rim. He scrubbed the stem with soap to remove the grime on the surface. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started work on it. I took a close up photo of the rim top to show the darkening on the top and the deep gouge on the right side of the outer edge of the rim top. Jeff had done an amazing job cleaning off the lava buildup. The outer edge of the rim has some deep nicks on the front of the bowl. The inner edge of the bowl had some darkening and some wear on the left side. The vulcanite stem photos show the tooth marks and the wear on the button surface on both sides. I also decided to take photos of the stamping on both the top and underside of the shank to show its condition. I decided to start my work on the pipe by addressing the darkening and damage to the rim top and edges. I topped the bowl on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the damage and minimize the outer and inner edge damage. I was able to remove much of the damage. To address the gouge in the rim top on the right side I filled it in with clear super glue and continued the topping until it was smooth. I cleaned up the inner edge with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to minimize the damage to the edge.I polished the bowl sides and rim top with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl and rim down with a damp cloth after each pad. As I polished it the sanded rim top began to shine and blend in with the rest of the briar. When I finished polishing the rim top I stained it with a Cherry stain pen to match the colour of the rest of the bowl. Once the stain had dried. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The following photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. The bowl and the rim top look really good. The pipe looks very good with the rich finish on the bowl and rim. I am very happy with the results. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the damage to the stem and reshape the button. Once the surface was smooth I sanded out the scratch marks and started the polishing of the stem with a folded piece of 400 grit sandpaper. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil and took the following photos.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with a damp cloth after each pad. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – Fine and Extra Fine. I wiped it down with a coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I put the stem back on the bowl and polished them both with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The grain on the natural brown briar that had darkened over time came alive with the buffing. The finish worked well with the polished black vulcanite stem. Have a look at it in the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 7 inches, Height: 2 1/4 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 3/8 inches, Chamber diameter: 3/4 of an inch. This beauty will soon be on the rebornpipes store. It would make a beautiful addition to somebody’s pipe rack. Thanks for walking through the restoration of this Danish take on the Canadian/Brandy shape from the 60s with me as it was a fun pipe to work on.

New Life for a Charatan Lonsdale 87X Cutty


Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe in the queue is yet another interesting pipe from the Michigan lot – a well-made Charatan Cutty with plateau on the rim top and shank end. The entire pipe had some beautiful cross grain on the front and rear of the bowl and the top and underside of the shank. It had some great birdseye grain on both sides of the bowl and shank. The bowl has a forward cant to it that defines the cutty shape. The pipe has a natural briar finish that really makes the grain on the pipe pop. The carver did a great job utilizing the block of briar to maximize the grain. The pipe is stamped on the left side of the shank. It reads Charatan’s Make (over) London, England (over) SPECIAL. There is the circle cursive L identifying the pipe as a Lane era made Charatan. To the right of the stamping is the shape number 87X. The stem is an obvious replacement and is Lucite rather than the original vulcanite and has no marking or stamping on it. It is given a unique saddle shape that looks good with the Cutty pipe. This is another nice looking piece much like the rest of those in this 21 pipe Michigan pipe lot. The Charatan’s Make I am working on is shown on the top shelf of the rack pictured below. It is the third pipe from the right and I put a red box around it to make it easy to identify.Jeff took some photos of the pipe when he received them to show the general condition of the pipe before he started his cleanup work. Like the rest of the pipes from the Michigan collection this pipe was very dirty and well used. There was a thick cake in the bowl and lava overflowing onto the plateau rim top. It was hard to know if the edges of the bowl were damaged or not because of the cake and lava. The exterior of the briar was dirty with grease and oils from being held. The Lucite stem is dirty and had bite marks but still had a gloss to it. There were deep tooth marks on both sides of the stem at the button edge and some wear on the button edge itself. The photos below tell the story and give a glimpse of the beautiful canted Cutty shape. Jeff took a photo of the bowl and rim to capture the condition of the pipe before he started his cleanup work. There was a thick coat of lava on the rim and the cake in the bowl. It shows the mess this pipe was in when we received it. The thick lava overflow on the rim top made it hard to know what the inner edges of the bowl looked like. The outer edges had some damage from knocking the bowl out against a hard surface. There is also a general accumulation of grease and grime ground into the finish on the rest of the bowl and shank.He also took a photo of the right and underside of the bowl and shank to show the interesting grain around the bowl and shank. The finish is very dirty but the grain is visible in the photos.Jeff took a photo of the stamping on the left side of the shank. It reads as noted above and is clear and legible.The next two photos show the stem surface. They show the tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. There are also some marks on the sharp edge of the button. The stem is dirty and is covered in scratches. I wanted to know where the Special fit in the Charatan Hierarchy so I turned to Pipedia to get a grasp of the order of the various pipes that were made. Here is the link(https://pipedia.org/wiki/Charatan). I did a screen capture of the poster to the left showing that the SPECIAL is just below the strain grain and was noted for perfection in grain and had a natural finish.

I thus knew I was dealing with a higher grade Charatan’s Make pipe. It also has the circled L which was the Lane Trademark. Pipedia said that:

The Lane Trademark serif and circled L indicates the pipe is from the “Lane Era” (approx. 1955 to 1979 -1984?), however it appears that both the English factory or Lane themselves sometimes, or perhaps even often forget to stamp the L on a pipe. The Charatan factory was known for inconsistencies, especially in stampings. Therefore, although an L on the pipe definitely defines it as a Lane Era pipe, the lack of it could simply mean the pipe missed receiving the stamp from the factory. The lack of the trademark could also mean the pipe was destined for the European market.

From there I turned to do some reading in a link on Pipedia to a 1951 Charatan Catalogue. I wanted to be able to do some more reading on the “Natural Finish” noted above and also to see if I could identify the shape 87X that was stamped on the left side of the shank at the stem/shank junction. Here is the link (https://pipedia.org/images/3/37/CHARATAN_1951.pdf). I did a screen capture of pertinent parts of the catalogue. The first is the concept of their Natural Bruyere. The second gives a listing of the hierarchy of pipes. Note in that clipping that the SPECIAL pipes were Premier quality pipes, cut in “cross grain” or “bird’s eye” graining. In paging through the catalogue, I found what I was looking for in terms of shape designations. I had looked on various shape charts and had not found the shape 87 number. In this catalogue not only did I find the shape number but a drawing of the shape with the original’s stem. The pipe is what Charatan called the Lonsdale with the 87 being the larger Lonsdale shape.Jeff 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. He dried it off with a soft cloth. He was able to remove the lava build up on the rim top and you could see the overall condition of the bowl top and edges of the rim. He scrubbed the stem with soap to remove the grime on the surface. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started work on it. I took a close up photo of the rim top to show the darkening on the top and the burn damage on the front and right inner edge. Jeff had done an amazing job cleaning off the lava buildup. The outer edge of the rim has some deep nicks on the front of the bowl. The bowl is slightly out of round on the right rear inner edge. The Lucite saddle stem photos show the tooth marks and the wear on the button surface on both sides.I decided to start my work on the pipe by addressing the darkening and damage to the rim top and edges. I topped the bowl on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the damage and minimize the outer and inner edge damage. I was able to remove much of the damage. To address the burn on the front edge and the area on the right rear edge making the bowl out of round I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to give the rim edge a slight bevel. The bevel worked to hide the damage and bring the bowl back into round. I polished the bowl sides and rim top with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl and rim down with a damp cloth after each pad. As I polished it the sanded rim top began to shine and blend in with the rest of the briar. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The following photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. The bowl and the rim top look really good. The finish looks very good with the rich finish on the bowl and rim. I am very happy with the results. I used a folded piece of 240 grit sandpaper to blend the repairs into the surface of the stem. Once the surface was smooth I sanded out the scratch marks and started the polishing of the stem with a folded piece of 400 grit sandpaper. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil and took the following photos.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with a damp cloth after each pad. I wiped it down with a coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I put the stem back on the bowl and polished them both with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The natural brown briar that had darkened over time came alive with the buffing. The replacement Lucite stem had an interesting asymmetrical saddle that looked very good with the stem. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/4 inches, Chamber diameter: 3/4 of an inch. This beauty will soon be on the rebornpipes store. It would make a a beautiful addition to somebody’s pipe rack. Thanks for walking through the restoration of this uniquely carved Charatan from the Lane Era with me it was a pleasure to work on.

 

This is a new brand to me – LUNAR Spain Canadian


Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe in the queue is yet another interesting pipe from the Michigan lot – a really nice Canadian with rustication pattern like nothing I have ever seen before. The entire pipe – bowl, rim and shank is covered in small circles or dots with the area between the dots lightly rusticated and stained darker than the dots. The rim top, band around the rim and a band on the shank end are the only non-carved portions of the Canadian.  It is another totally unique pipe and different from any of the other pipes in the collection. It is not a large pipe – probably a Group 4 sized bowl. The rim top is flat and smooth with some darkening and damage to the finish. The pipe has a contrasting black and medium brown stain coat that highlights and accentuates the unusual finish. The underside of the shank is smooth for the majority of the shank. It is stamped LUNAR arched over a crescent moon shape under the arched moon is stamped SPAIN. Obviously the pipe is made in Spain and I will need to do a bit of work to find out about the brand. The stem is vulcanite and has no marking or stamping on it. This is another nice looking piece much like the rest of those in this 21 pipe Michigan pipe lot. The LUNAR Canadian I am working on is shown on the first shelf of the rack pictured below. It is the second pipe on the right and I put a red box around it to make it easy to identify.Jeff took some photos of the pipe when he received them to show the general condition of the pipe before he started his cleanup work. Like the rest of the pipes from the Michigan collection this pipe was dirty and well used. There was a thick cake in the bowl and lava overflowing onto the rim top. It was hard to know if the edges of the bowl were damaged or not because of the cake and lava. The carved dots or circles on the entire pipe made it very interesting. The vulcanite stem is lightly oxidized and has some calcification at the button. There are deep tooth marks on both sides of the stem at the button edge and some wear on the button edge itself. There are also scratches in the vulcanite where it looks like someone scraped off some of the calcification. The photos below tell the story and give a glimpse of another beautiful Canadian. Jeff took a close up photo of the bowl and rim to capture the condition of the pipe before he started his cleanup work. There was a thick hard cake in the bowl which made me think it was a favourite pipe. The rim top had some thick lava overflow and some darkening. The thick lava on the rim top made it hard to know what the inner and outer edges of the bowl looked like. There is also a general accumulation of dust in the finish on the rest of the bowl and shank.He also took photo of the right side of the bowl and shank to show the interesting circular carving on the finish. The finish is very dirty but the grain is visible in each of the circles. The rustication pattern between the circles give it a fascinating look. This is another beautiful pipe.Jeff took a photo to capture the stamping on the underside of the shank. The photo shows stamping as noted above. The stamping on this pipe is clear and readable.The next two photos show the stem surface. They show the tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. There are also some marks on the sharp edge of the button. The stem is dirty, oxidized and has a yellow cast to it. I looked in all of my usual sources for information on the brand. There was nothing on Pipedia or on Pipephil. The brand was unknown and this point all I knew was the stamping on the pipe – it was made in Spain. It was also not listed in Who Made That Pipe. It was also not listed in Lopes book on pipes. I then did a general Google search for Lunar Smoking Pipes Spain. The search turned up lots of useless information but it came up with one helpful discussion on the brand on the Pipesmagazine forum (http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/luna-spain-very-unique-pipe). The fellow posting there put up the following photo and asked for information about the brand and company that made it. There was not a lot of helpful information there but several posters gave suggestions about how they thought the finish was achieved. One fellow also said that LUNAR could be translated as Mole or Polka Dot. That led to look at some other sites for information.I did a search on Google Translator Spanish-English and put in the English word Lunar. It gave me the following information (https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=translate+from+spanish+to+english).

That was all the information that I could find online or in my reference books that usually give me information. I knew nothing about the brand but found that the name could mean mole, spot, or even polka dot. Kind of a fitting translation given the pattern on the bowl and shank.

Jeff 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. He dried it off with a soft cloth. He was able to remove the lava build up on the rim top and you could see the great condition of the bowl top and edges of the rim. He soaked the stem in Before & After Deoxidizer to remove the oxidation. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started my work on it. I took a close up photo of the rim top to show the darkening on the surface of the rim toward the back of the bowl that was normal with use. The front part of the rim top looked a little lighter in colour but there were also deep sandpits and nicks on the entire top. The inner edge showed some burn damage and also some cuts and nicks from a knife that was used to ream the bowl sometime in its life time. The outer edge of the rim looks really good. The stem photos show the tooth marks and the wear on the button surface on both sides. The final close up photos shows the LUNAR stamping on the underside of the shank (as noted above).I decided to start with the rim top and see what I could do with the damage to the top surface and the burn marks on the inner edge of the bowl. I topped the bowl on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the damage to the rim surface and minimize the burn damage to the inner edge of the bowl. I also wanted to work toward bringing the bowl back into round. After topping I used a folded piece of sandpaper to give the inner edge a slight bevel to hide the damage. I polished the smooth portion of the bowl and the rim top with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl and rim down with a damp cloth after each pad. When I had finished polishing the rim with the 4000 grit pad the small flaws on the top needed to be addressed. It was almost as if during the sanding process some of the fill material was dislodged leaving pits. I stopped and filled in the pits with clear super glue and then worked my way back through the micromesh until I finished with 6000-12000 grit pads. I used a Maple stain pen to match the rim top to the colour of the rest of the pipe. I applied the stain and let it sit for a little while to cure before buffing the bowl with a soft cotton cloth.I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I used a horsehair shoe brush to work it into the nooks and crannies around each circular spot. It was hard to get it into the grooves and the shoe brush did the trick. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The following photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. The bowl and the rim top look really good and the darkening is gone. The finish looks very good with the rich oil finish on the bowl and rim. I am very happy with the results. With the bowl finished I set it aside and turned my attention to the stem. I cleaned out the tooth marks on both sides of the stem with a cotton swab and alcohol. I filled in the tooth marks with clear super glue. Once the repairs had cured I used a needle file to flatten out the repaired areas. I filed it until the patches were smooth with the surface of the stem. I used a folded piece of 240 grit sandpaper to blend the repairs into the surface of the stem. Once the surface was smooth I sanded out the scratch marks and started the polishing of the stem with a folded piece of 400 grit sandpaper. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil and took the following photos.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with a damp cloth after each pad. I further polished it with Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I wiped it down with a coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I put the stem back on the bowl so I could polish it without rounding the edges as the shank union. I polished stem with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The contrasting circular carved Polka Dots and the grooves between them gave an interesting texture to the bowl and shank. It truly came alive with the buffing. The rich brown stain on the high surfaces and the black stain in the crevices worked very well with the polished black vulcanite stem. The finished pipe is a beauty and feels great in the hand. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 6 inches, Height: 1 7/8 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/4 inches, Chamber diameter: 3/4 of an inch. This beauty has already been claimed; just the details have to be worked out with the buyers. Thanks for walking through the restoration of this beautiful Canadian with me it was a pleasure to work on.

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daryl in the chair with his name on it

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And everyone lived, happily ever after.

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

Restoring another Malaga – A Billiard with a Twist from Bowl to Button


Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe in the queue is another interesting pipe from the Michigan lot – a Twisted Billiard with a twist going from the rim to the button. It is a totally unique pipe and different from any of the other Malaga pipes that I have worked on. It is not a large pipe – probably a Group 4 sized bowl. The twist is carved in around what appears to have been originally a panel bowl but I am not even sure of that as it has a round rim top. The finish is smooth and well finished in the oil cured style of other pipes from the brand. On the underside is a small flat panel running parallel to the shank that is stamped “MALAGA” with the quotation marks. The stem is vulcanite and carries on the twist of the shank and bowl. This is another nice looking piece much like the rest of those in this 21 pipe Michigan pipe lot. This Malaga joins the rusticated billiard that I worked on earlier and a freehand that also has a very interesting Malaga shape. The Malaga I am working on now is on the mat in front of the rack. It is the third pipe on the left and I have circled it in red to make it easy to identify. Jeff took some photos of the pipe when he received them to show the general condition of the pipe before he started his cleanup work. Like the rest of the pipes from the Michigan collection this pipe was dirty and well used. There was a thick cake in the bowl and lava overflowing onto the rim top. The inner edge of the bowl was damaged with nicks and cuts from a previous reaming job with a knife. The twisted carving in the bowl sides and shanks fit comfortably in the hand as it was wrapped around the bowl sides. The carving on the bowl, shank and stem make the pipe very interesting. It is another pipe that is unlike any of the Malaga pipes that I have worked on. It is grooves/twists are quite deep and are parallel on the right and left side and the front and the back. The vulcanite stem is carved in the same manner as the bowl and carries on the twist. There are deep tooth marks on both sides of the stem at the button edge and some wear on the button edge itself. The photos below tell the story and give a glimpse of the carved twisted billiard. Jeff took a close up photo of the bowl and rim to capture the condition of the pipe before he started his cleanup work. The rim top had a thick lava overflow and some darkening. There were some nicks and cuts around the rim. There also appeared to be a burn mark on the right inner edge of the rim at mid bowl and possibly on the left inner edge toward the read of the bowl . There is also a general accumulation of dust and grime in the carving of the bowl and shank.He also took photo of the right side and the bottom of the bowl and shank to show the interesting twisted carving that covers the pipe. The carving is unique and gives the pipe a rugged and tactile look and feel in the hand. It should be interesting as the pipe warms up when smoked. The finish is very dirty but this is another beautiful pipe. Jeff took a photo to capture the stamping on the underside of the shank. The photo shows stamping “MALAGA”. The stamping has the quotation marks that I have seen on some of the pipes. I have yet to figure out what the quotation marks mean as they are not on all of the pipes. Perhaps some of you might know. How about a note about this?The next three photos show the stem surface. The first shows the twist in the stem flowing out of the shank. There is some light oxidation on the stem surface. The next two show the tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. There are also some marks on the sharp edge of the button. The surface of the blade in front of the button also has some scratches from whoever attempted to clean it up. Once again I am including the link to a blog that I wrote that gives some of the history of the Malaga brand and the Malaga Pipe Shop in Royal Oak, Michigan in the USA. Here is the link – https://rebornpipes.com/tag/malaga-pipes/. That blog also includes links to a catalogue and the history of the pipemaker George Khoubesser. Follow the link to get a feel for the brand and the pipemaker.

Jeff 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. He dried it off with a soft cloth. He was able to remove the lava build up on the rim top and you could see the damage to the flat surface of the rim and the inner edge on the right side and toward the front of the bowl. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started my work on it. I took a close up photo of the rim top to show the darkening on the surface of the rim toward the back of the bowl. There were also some burn marks on the right side toward the middle and the ledge side toward the rear of the rim top. The inner edge of the bowl had some damage from burns and reaming but the outside edge looks really good. The stem photos show the tooth marks and the wear on the button surface on both sides. The final close up photos shows the “MALAGA” stamping on the underside of the shank.To remove the damage to the top of the rim I topped it on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper. I worked on it to remove the burned areas and the damage to the inner edge of the rim as much as possible. I am happy with how it turned out.I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the inner edge of the round rim top. I was able to remove the majority of the damage, leaving behind a dark spot on the right side of the rim top at the inner edge. I wiped the rim top down with a damp cotton pad to remove the dust. I polished the bowl and the rim top with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the rim down after each pad with a damp cloth. I touched up the stain on the rim with a Maple stain pen and blended it into the grain. Once it dried I buffed it with Blue Diamond to spread it out. With the rim top and bowl polished, I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The following photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. The bowl and the rim top look really good and the darkening and lava are gone. The finish looks very good with the swirling carving on the sides of the bowl and shank. The Maple stain on the rim matched the rest of the bowl perfectly. I am very happy with the results. With the bowl finished I set it aside and turned my attention to the stem. I cleaned out the tooth marks on both sides of the stem with a cotton swab and alcohol. Once the repairs had cured I used a needle file to flatten out the repaired areas. I filed it until the patches were smooth with the surface of the stem. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each pad. I further polished it with Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I polished stem 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 contrasting grain came alive with the buffing. The rich browns work well with the polished black vulcanite stem. The finished pipe is a beauty and feels great in the hand. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 1/4 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/2 inches, Chamber diameter: 7/16 of an inch. This pipe will be going on the rebornpipes store. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me on this twisted Malaga billiard.

New Life for a Sad, Old Kriswill Bent Egg


Blog by Steve Laug

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

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

A Cutty Tavern Pipe – Recommissioning a Historical Classic as a Gift for a Steward of History


Blog by Dal Stanton

Tavern Pipe
By Suzie Baker

Summary and excerpts of the artist’s description:
Here the subject poses as an American Colonial man from 1776; he actually posed on Washington’s Birthday.  He has a ruddy complexion and piercing blue eyes. From my perspective, he is more interesting to paint than a golden-haired beauty.

He poses with a tavern pipe. This type of pipe was a communal pipe used in pubs in the 18th century. After each use, the pipe stem was cut away then replaced on the mantel for the next user. I chose a color scheme appropriate to the time period and drew inspiration from Rembrandt’s work in the direct gaze, dark background and loose handling of paint, especially in the clothing….

Let me first tell you the story about the commissioning of the Cutty Tavern Pipe now on my worktable and then I will tell you about the gifted artist I discovered in my research about tavern pipes, Suzie Baker, and her amazing offer to benefit the Daughters of Bulgaria with her ‘Tavern Pipe’.Living in Bulgaria, the opportunities to talk with our grown children (and growing grandchildren!) residing in the US, is a special treat.  My son, Jonathon, reached out to me on FaceTime with a special, ‘historical’ request.  Jonathon desired to commission a special ‘historical’ pipe as a gift for Andrew, a friend who was leaving his job as the assistant curator of the Dearborn Historical Museum – an American city in the state of Michigan that takes its history seriously.   Jonathon, while serving on the mayoral appointed Dearborn Historical Commission, befriended Andrew as Andrew fulfilled his duties as a curator for the museum tasked with safeguarding Dearborn’s history.

Today, Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit, is proud to be one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world.  Yet, Dearborn’s history is predominantly shaped by the controversial industrialist and auto manufacturer, who called Dearborn his home, Henry Ford (1863-1947).

When Jonathan shared his desire to commission a pipe with some historicity as a gift for a CURATOR of a museum, and that museum was the Dearborn Historical Museum, I was anxious to rise to the challenge that that request presented.  I did a fast dictionary search on Google to see a working definition of ‘Curator’.  This is what I found:

Automobile manufacturer Henry Ford, left, and his son, Edsel, in one of their car showrooms in January 1928. (AP) from Washington Post article (link)

Curator:
a keeper or custodian of a museum or other collection.
“the curator of drawings at the National Gallery”
synonyms: custodian, keeper, conservator, guardian, caretaker, steward

I took special interest in the last word listed as a synonym of curator – ‘steward’, which speaks to my ‘Pipe Steward’ sentiments.  Understanding that we are not the owners ultimately but protecting and caring for that which belongs to others to pass it on.  I understand this as I handle pipes which are laden with their own histories revealed in the nomenclature, but often the history and legacies of that pipe’s steward(s) joins the pipe’s legacy moving together to the future.  As a curator, Andy participated in guarding history.  History by its very nature comes with a blend of beauty and goodness coalescing with ugliness and pain – each side of the pendulum is history which we guard so that we do not forget it and continue to learn from past triumphs and failures – even when it’s not comfortable.

So, the gauntlet was thrown: A Steward of History (Andrew the Curator) is celebrated for his service by the current president of the Dearborn Historical Commission (my son), who reaches out to The Pipe Steward (that’s Dal in Bulgaria) to commission a special pipe, with historical gravitas to adequately serve as an appropriate gift.  Jonathon asked for my recommendations, but relying on the Harry Potter principle in wand selection approach, I turn Jonathon loose

Keens Steakhouse reported to be the oldest pub/restaurant in NYC and that celebrates their history of clay cutty taven pipes and have a serious collection of clay pipes on display (Link from PipesMagazine.com).

looking through my virtual ‘Help Me!’ baskets in the For “Pipe Dreamers” Only! collection to discover which pipe would choose Andrew and let Jonathon know 😊.  After whittling the list down, one pipe did the choosing – the Cutty Tavern Pipe which I acquired from the Lot of 66 off the eBay auction block.  After Jonathon confirmed the commissioning, the first question that came to my mind, since I don’t know Andrew personally, was whether he is the kind of curator that enjoys a trip to the pub after a long day curating at the museum?  This was an important question for my historical research – how do you talk about Tavern Pipes without an appreciation for the natural and historical habitats from which Tavern Pipes have their genesis?  Thankfully, with a confident confirmation, Jonathan assured me that yes, Andrew would enjoy a pub.  With that settled, I began my research.

I found a short description of the Cutty shape on ThePipeGuys site to be a good summary and historical description of the Cutty Tavern Pipe.

Cutty

Tavern scene with a man smoking a pipe next to a barrel with a jug on top of it, his left foot resting on a bench. 1694 From the British Museum (Link)

There is no denying the resemblance that the Cutty bears to the clay tavern pipes of a bygone age. Delicately shaped, Cuttys typically have not an ounce of excess briar left in place. This delicacy of shaping necessitates the use of a special drill bit for the tobacco chamber, which tapers even more drastically than a Danish conical bit, and comes to a sharp point at its tip. A special honor is paid to this pipe, in that this type of conical bit is now called the “cutty bit”.

Notice, the ladies are not left out!
From Pinterist Pipe Smoker Group (link)

Many Cuttys still include the “spur” at the foot of the bowl, once again hearkening back to their clay ancestors, but while the spur of a clay pipe was the remnant of the manufacturing process, the briar versions are purely nostalgic. The bowl of the Cutty is heavily canted forward, which helps differentiate it from other long-shanked pipes like the Canadian. The Cutty may sometimes display a very unique stem, which is slim, slender, and round (almost like a straw). However, the majority of modern Cuttys now sport a tapered stem and come in many finishes.

Try simply googling ‘Cutty Tavern Pipe’ and 100s of images begin sharing different shards of the story and one feels like he’s in a time machine.  Of course, the briar descendants of the classic clay workhorse Cuttys of the 1800s and the early 1900s, claim this heritage as their own.

Elizabethans called a pipe a “little Ladell.”

TobaccoPipes.com adds this information in their ‘Complete Guide to Tobacco Pipe Shapes’:

As far as we can tell, the Cutty is the oldest pipe shape that is still available today.  

As early as the 16th century, pipe smokers would settle in at their favorite tavern and–if they had a high enough social status–would pull out a long clay pipe, almost always a Cutty shape.  This shape was common because it was easy to craft in the molds used for clay pipes (William Goldring, The Pipe Book: A History and How to:1973).  

In my digging into the Cutty clay pipe history, I discovered one very interesting and surprising article (at least to me) that a curator would appreciate.  The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s (Virginia, USA) website, History.org, published an article by Ivor Noël Hume entitled, “Hunting for a Little Ladle – Tobacco Pipes” (link).  The author describes how archeologist can learn much about different periods of Colonial America in Williamsburg, Virginia’s, history through the recovery of thousands of clay pipe fragments!  As we’ve already mentioned, hygienic concern is the predominant theory.  An excerpt from the author is enlightening:

There are thousands of pipe fragments found in Williamsburg. An early explanation for their ubiquity had it that in colonial-era taverns’ pipes passed from mouth to mouth, but that in the interests of hygiene the previously lip-gripped section was broken off and thrown away. There is no documentary support for that notion, but it is known that used pipes were placed in iron cradles and heat cleansed in bake ovens before being issued to the next round of smokers.

And then I came across this picture that was among 100s of others on the google ‘Tavern Pipe’ image search page results – and I paused.  I see a pipe man in an age gone by and I immediately know what he’s doing as a fellow-pipe man.  Yes, he’s smoking his beautifully shaped long Cutty Tavern Pipe, but he’s doing something else much more important – that his Cutty clay is helping him to do – reflection.  He’s looking out the window, or at the hearth with his eyes, but his heart and soul are elsewhere, seeking understanding or perhaps a much-needed answer.  It is not lost to me as well, that his waiting quill – while ready to move and inscribe on the parchment the sought-out knowledge or answer that his reflection is cultivating, is at rest.  For that moment, the quill waits for the hand’s movement from the heart’s command.

Every pipe man and woman know that smoking a pipe is more than smoking.  It’s a ritual that brings us into calm or fellowship and a slowed time for reflection as we seek to negotiate life and care for loved ones and friends.  The name of the painting I was lost in was simply ‘Tavern Pipe’.  I knew at that moment I wanted to include this painting in the writeup of this special Cutty Tavern Pipe for a special friend of my son – a museum curator would appreciate what I see.

In the next moment I was composing my email to the artist, Suzie Baker, after I clicked on the link taking me to her website where I found her contact information.  This is what I wrote:

Dear Ms. Baker,

I’m writing to you asking for permission to use the picture of your beautiful painting, Tavern Pipe, in a write up I am doing on the restoration of a briar wood Cutty Tavern Pipe.  I came across your www.suziebaker.com site while doing research on tavern pipes.  I will give full credit to your work and website when I cite the information. 

I am an artist of another kind.  You can see my website at www.ThePipeSteward.com.  I collect old, used and often discarded vintage pipes and restore them.  I then sell them world-wide and give the proceeds to the Daughters of Bulgaria – a work in Bulgaria helping women and girls who have been trafficked and sexually exploited.  My wife and I live and work in Bulgaria with the Daughters of Bulgaria.  The pipe restoration hobby is a personal way I try to make a difference by talking about this issue to primarily a men’s world – pipe smokers.  Each restoration has its own write-up which you can see at the website.  I will not use the picture of your painting without permission and if given, will, as I said, give you and your site full recognition.  As a pipe lover and one who enjoys a bowl now and then, your painting captures something of the spirit of those who enjoy, and yes, love not only the smoking of pipes, but the beauty of pipes as they showcase both beauty and design.  I call my work, The Pipe Steward, is because unlike cigarettes and cigars (which I do not like!) pipes are often heirlooms and are passed down from generation to generation.  They often carry with them the memories of those who had them before. 

Thank you for your consideration of this request. 

Best regards, 

Dal Stanton
The Pipe Steward

In the past I’ve written notes like this to individuals and pipe houses asking for information about pipes to aid research and I press the ‘send’ button with a very low expectation that this burst of electrons ever finding their way back to my inbox.  I was surprised when her reply arrived so quickly.  Here is what she said:

Hi Dal,

Thanks for the request and your service to those caught in trafficking, a daunting and worthy cause. 

Yes, I would be pleased for you to use my image in your write-up. In fact, this painting is still available so if the posting results in a sale, I will donate 25-30% of the sale back to your worthy cause. The price and details are listed on my sight in the info under the painting (as seen on a computer screen) or info tag on a Mobile device. 

I am on an airplane currently and about to take off. I can send you the image tomorrow. Please let me know what resolution you require. 

Blessings,

Suzie Baker OPA
Vice President, Oil Painters of America 

 

 

Well, as the president of the Daughters of Bulgaria Foundation, her generous offer was something I could not refuse as we work for the benefit of the Daughters.  I appreciated her response and offer.  After looking at her website, I was drawn to the “About Suzie Baker” tab – who is this person?  Not only is she an accomplished artist, wife and mother, but she recognizes that her talent is a gift and she uses this gift to give back to others – especially artists.  There’s much more on this page that describes the accomplishments of this artist who also desires to be a benefactress of women who have been trafficked and sexually exploited. Her ‘calling’ is similar to my own, as I seek to ‘give back’ specially to pipe men and women, the gift of restoring pipes that I am stewarding for a time, and at the same time, seeking to benefit the Daughters.  About Suzie Baker:

Giving Back

This artist also believes in giving back to the community of artists, and she is proud to serve as a Board Member with the Oil Painters of America. “Serving on the board with OPA is and will be a highlight of my career, primarily because of the opportunity it gives me to serve my fellow artists,” she says. “Being on the path of a working artist is a calling. I find helping others on their path a very satisfying pursuit.” She has also earned Signature Member status in numerous other prestigious art organizations: the American Impressionist Society, the

Click the picture for the Daughters!

National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society, the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association, the Outdoor Painters Society, the California Art Club, and American Women Artists.” – from Suzie Baker, Fine Artist at https://www.suziebaker.com/info/suzie

Pipe men and women, if you would like to add the ‘Tavern Pipe’ to your collection of pipes and artwork and help a good and needful cause at the same time, the Daughters of Bulgaria, click the image on the right which takes you to Suzie Baker’s site with a full description of the Tavern Pipe painting, and a higher resolution picture to view. Contact information for Suzie Baker is also included.  When you contact her, simply tell her that it’s for the Daughters.

This story has told you about the son, the curator and the artist.  Now, the story turns to the Cutty Tavern Pipe on my work table – the main character!  I was fascinated by the research I did that shed light on this unmarked Cutty.  All the before-mentioned descriptions are true of this 9-inch Cutty Tavern Pipe.  Here are pictures that show you what I’m seeing.     This pipe is the perfect gift for the curator!  One more bit of research that showcases the historical uniqueness of clay Cutty Tavern Pipes and its relations to its briar descendants.  The severely canted and uniquely shaped bowl comes to a point as it ties into the long, pencil thin shank and stem.  A very interesting diagram I discovered at CanadianArchaeology.com (link) of the National Historic Parks Branch of Canada, depicts the historical development of the clay pipe bowl and provides the corresponding dating for that particular style.  As I look at the diagram’s images and comparing them to our Cutty, it was fashioned after the clay Cuttys belonging to the period from 1820 to 1860.  The canting and the bowl width, along with the spur, now ornamental for the briar, all seem to align.  I have no way of dating the Cutty Tavern Pipe heading to Andrew, but its history and heritage wrap around it even in the absence of a verifiable nomenclature.

Armed now with a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the Cutty Tavern Pipe on my table, I take a closer look at his condition.  The briar, somewhat subdued underneath the dirt and grime, is beautiful.  The surface itself shows that it has been well loved and used by a previous steward.  There are nicks and dents over the bowl surface as well as the shank. The pipe shows signs of wear but has been well-cared for.  I say that because, with a shank of only 7/16 inches wide at the stem joint, the fact that the shank hasn’t cracked at this very thin juncture is amazing!  A caution to the future steward, be careful with the stem mounting and removal!  The shank IS pencil thin.  Looking at the rim, there are some dents on the external lip and some significant lava flow over the backside of the rim.  The conical chamber has moderate cake build up which I will remove to provide the briar a fresh start.  The long pencil stem shows some oxidation and tooth chatter on the bit.  The button and slot look to be in good shape.To begin the restoration, using pipe cleaners dipped in isopropyl 95% and long shank brushes, I clean the internal airway of the pencil stem.  It was dirty.After soaking for several hours, I remove the stem and take a closeup shot to reveal the raised oxidation – the olive green layer is now to be removed.To remove the oxidation, I wet sand the stem using 600 grade paper.  Following the sanding, I apply a 0000-grade steel wool on the entire stem as well cleaning the surface further.  To begin the process of rejuvenating the vulcanite, I apply a mineral oil – paraffin oil, to the stem and put it aside to absorb.  It’s looking good!I begin the cleaning process of the stummel by reaming the chamber.  Because of the small, tapering chamber, I do not use my regular Pipnet Ream kit but instead go directly to using the Savinelli Fitsall tool and it does a stellar job.  It reaches very easily to the difficult areas at the floor of the chamber and negotiates well the angle of the conical bowl.  Using 240 grit paper around a Sharpie Pen, I sand the chamber to clean further the carbon cake.  Finally, I clean the carbon dust using a cotton pad wetted with isopropyl 95%.  After inspecting the chamber, I see no heating problems with cracks or fissures.  I move on. Next, to clean the external surface of the stummel I use undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap with a cotton pad to scrub.  This does a great job.  I also utilize the straight edge of a pocket knife to gently scrape the lava crust from the rim and then use a brass wire brush to work on the burned area of the rim.  The cleaning well removes the finish on the stummel, but there remains a darkened area on the rim where there was scorching.  To complete the basic cleaning regimen, I use pipe cleaners and cotton buds to work on the internals of the mortise.  With the stem internal airway as dirty as it was, I am not surprised to find the mortise equally mucked up with tars and gunk.  After I put on surgical gloves, my first hurdle was to clear the entire airway.  The first pipe cleaners I plunged into the abyss would not push through the draft hole – something was blocking. After a few attempts, the pipe cleaner pushed old tobacco through, and it was finally cleared.  In addition to pipe cleaners and cotton buds dipped in alcohol, I use a long-wired shank brush wetted with alcohol to clean the airway.  A dental probe was also helpful reaching in and excavating the collected tars off the mortise walls.  To increase my cleaning leverage more, I use a drill bit almost the size of the airway, hand turning it as it moves up the airway, scraping the tars of the briar as it goes.  Finally, some headway is realized, and cotton buds begin to lighten.  I’m satisfied with the cleaning for now.With the workday ending, I continue the cleaning of the internals using a kosher salt and alcohol bath.  I first stretch and twist a cotton ball to form a ‘mortise wick’ that I insert into the long, narrow shank of the Cutty.  I use a slender painter’s brush to help force the cotton down the airway.  I then situate the stummel in an egg carton and fill the bowl with kosher salt.  Kosher salt doesn’t leave an aftertaste like iodized salt.  I then fill the bowl with isopropyl 95% until is surfaces over the salt.  I wait a few minutes as the alcohol recedes and then top it off.  I turn out the light to let the salt and alcohol do it job through the night. The next morning the soak has done the expected job.  The kosher salt and cotton wick are soiled after drawing out oils and tars from the internal cavity.  I empty the bowl of salt, wipe the chamber with a paper towel, use a shank brush and blow through the mortise to remove any left-over salt crystals.  To make sure the cleaning is complete, I expend a few more cotton buds and pipe cleaners and find great results. A refreshed pipe for the curator! Moving on!I look now at the rim.  With the dents I see on the outer lip and the scorched darkened briar on the inside of the rim lip, I decide to top the stummel lightly to remove most of the damage to the rim and to freshen the rim lines.  After placing 240 grade paper on a chopping board, with the stummel inverted, I rotate the stummel over the paper several times to top the stummel.  I check to make sure I’m remaining true and finish with a few more rotations. I change the paper on the board to 600 grade and rotate the inverted stummel a few more times to smooth the rim surface further following the coarser 240 grit.  Not all the darkened briar is removed, but I’m not willing to give up more of the rim’s briar.  I focus now on the internal lip of the rim and introduce a bevel to remove more of the darkened briar.  I first cut the bevel using a coarse 120 grade paper followed by 240, then 600.  With each grade of paper, I fold it into a tight roll and then pinch it against the inner rim with my thumb.  I work the rolls around the rim so at the end it is an even, consistent bevel.  I like the subtle softening of the internal bevel and it accomplishes sufficient removal of damaged briar.I move on to the stummel preparation.  As I identified above, I find some significant cuts and dents in the stummel, and especially in the narrow shank.  My guess is that the pipe was stored in a can with the stem inserted first.  The cuts in the shank look like injuries sustained as the shank rubbed against the can edge – my theory.   I take a few pictures to show this.  I decide to fully clean the briar surface and I use 240 grade sanding paper over the entire stummel followed by 470 grade paper.  I then wet sand the stummel using 600 grade paper.  The pictures show the progress. Next, I use sanding sponges to sand and smooth the surface more.  I start with a coarse sponge, then medium then finally, a light grade sponge.  The grain starts emerging during the sponge sanding process.  It looks good. While inspecting the shank afterwards, I notice the crevasse that remains in the shank.  I use a magnifying glass to take a closer look.  It doesn’t appear to be a trauma resulting in a crack but a gouge or cut.  To be on the safe side and for cosmetic reasons, after wiping the area with alcohol to clean it, I apply CA glue to it to seal it. After applying a drop of CA glue on the crevasse, I put the stummel aside giving time for the CA glue patch to cure.With the stummel on the side, I turn back to the stem and look at it again.  The tooth chatter that was evident before was fully removed during the earlier wet sanding with 600 grade paper and 0000 steel wool.  I decide to move now to the micromesh phase by first wet sanding with pads 1500 to 2400 and follow this by dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000.  Between each set of 3 I apply Obsidian Oil to revitalize the vulcanite.  The pencil stem looks great! The CA glue patch applied to the crevasse on the shank has cured and is ready to be sanded down and blended.  Using 240 grit paper, I sand down the initial patch mound until it is flush with the briar surface.  Following this, I again use 600 grit paper to erase the 240 scratches and to smooth it out.  As before, I then apply each sanding sponge, starting with the coarse sponge, medium then light. I can still see the scar, but it is now sealed and smooth to the touch and blends in nicely.  A needed detour. With the repair finished, now I apply micromesh pads to the Cutty stummel.  First, I wet sand using pads 1500 to 2400.  Following I dry sand with pads 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000.  The spur even gets its time in the sanding process! During the micromesh phase, I watch the grain emerge and it is beautiful, and see the Cutty bowl design more clearly.  The horizontal grain flanking both sides of the bowl run parallel with the shank.  The cant of the bowl is accented by the grain as the bowl seems to jut out with the grain.  The effect catches the eye.  Added to this is the bird’s eye grain that is on the fore and rear of the bowl.  Whoever turned this block of briar into the Cutty was insightful and could see what the lines would do with the canted Cutty angles.  The picture of the Comoy’s Blue Riband 347 Cutty below (link) has the same eye catching grain motif.  I found this picture of a Cutty as I was doing an online survey looking at the different hues that briar Cuttys come in generally.  Of course, you will find a spectrum of color from dark to light as you look at the googled image pages.  Yet, as I looked at 100s of pictures, what seemed to be resonating with me was the darker hues like the Comoy’s above depicts.  Of course, the clay Cutty is white, but the older ‘English’ classic feel was communicated more through the darker hues like this striking Comoy’s.  My decision was made, and after assembling my desktop staining tools, I mix together Fiebing’s Dark Brown Leather Dye 2 parts to 1 with Fiebing’s Saddle Tan Pro Dye in a shot glass.  After wiping the stummel with alcohol to clean it, I insert into the mortise two doubled pipe cleaners to serve as my handle.  I then heat the Cutty stummel with a hot air gun to open the briar helping it to be more receptive to the dyes.  Using a folded pipe cleaner as an applicator, I ‘wash’ parts of the stummel with the dye and then ‘flame’ it using a lit candle.  As an aniline dye, the alcohol combusts when it meets the flame and as the alcohol burns off in a ‘puff!’ it sets the dye pigment into the briar.  I methodically apply the dyes to the entire stummel flaming as I go. When thoroughly covered, I put the stummel inverted on a cork situated in a candle stick holder to rest through the night allowing the dye to settle.  I discovered that this period of resting is important as it helps guard against the newly applied stain to come off on the fingers later when the pipe is first put into service and the briar is heated for the first time.The next morning I’m ready to start ‘unwrapping’ the fired and dyed stummel.  The firing creates a crust on the surface which I initially remove with the use of a felt buffing wheel applying Tripoli compound.  I mount the felt buffing wheel onto the Dremel, set the speed at the lowest RPMs because I do not want to create too much friction and scorch the briar.I methodically work the felt wheel through the crust revealing the briar grain underneath the crust.  Throughout the process, I purge the felt wheel often as it collects the crusty fired dye.  I stage a picture (below) to show the contrast after the felt wheel applies Tripoli compound and has unwrapped a portion of the stummel revealing the stained grain beneath.  After I complete the initial unwrapping of the entire stummel, I change from a felt cloth buffing wheel to a cotton cloth wheel and increase the speed of the Dremel to 40% full power.  I then apply another round of Tripoli compound with the softer cotton wheel.  I discovered doing this after the felt wheel helps to angle in to the crook of the shank/bowl junction better, but it also removes more dye blotches revealing a sharper grain contrast.After completing the second round of Tripoli, I wipe the stummel with a cotton cloth wetted with alcohol.  This can lighten the finish if I choose to rub more aggressively but I don’t.  I’m satisfied with the color, but the wipe helps blend the finish further and remove excess dye.I follow the Tripoli compound by applying the finer Blue Diamond compound.  I mount another cotton cloth wheel to the Dremel, keep the speed at 40%, and apply the compound.  I apply it to both the stummel and the stem.  Since the stem is longer, it’s easier to keep them separated as I apply the compound.Following the Blue Diamond, another cotton cloth wheel is mounted, the speed remains the same and I apply Carnauba wax to both the stem and stummel.After completing the application of wax, I try to reunite the stem and stummel and discover that the tenon/mortise fit is too snug for comfort.  This often happens after internal cleaning and the briar is wet and that can expand it microscopically – enough that forcing the tenon into this pencil thin shank is a recipe for disaster – cracking a shank is not a fun thing to deal with! To remedy this, I wrap a piece of 600 grit paper around the tenon and sand it down until it fits more easily and snuggly.  This restoration has told an interesting story.  The Cutty Tavern Pipe looks great.  The dark brown finish and polishing regimen has resulted in a unique Cutty bowl drawing even more attention.  The Cutty Tavern Pipe’s lines are classic and harken back to a day gone by when these pipes were fashioned with clay and were held proudly by both those with means and the common man and woman who had gathered with friends to enjoy each other at the pub and a smoke.  A fitting gift for a curator of history and even more so, the commissioning of this pipe by my son, benefits the Daughters of Bulgaria – helping women and girls who have been trafficked and sexually exploited.  The unexpected turn in this story is the painting, ‘Tavern Pipe’, depicting the pipe man and his pipe – an accurate and telling image captured on canvas by the brush of a gifted artist, Suzie Baker, whose generosity is making available a percentage of the sale of this painting to the Daughters of Bulgaria.  Is there a pipe man or woman out there to bring the Tavern Pipe home benefiting the Daughters?  I hope so!  Thank you for joining me!

 

A Breath of Life for a Variegated Finish S&R Sitter Billiard


Blog by Steve Laug

Years ago now I met Steve and Roswitha at the Chicago Pipe Show. I cannot even remember the year but I remember having a good conversation with them. I was not able to pick up one of their pipes at that time but I was amazed at the beauty and style of pipes that the two of them were creating in their shop, Pipes & Pleasures in Columbus, Ohio. Over the years I have watched for them and even bid on a few on eBay. Sadly, I never won any of the pipes that I bid on. They all escaped my grasp. Given that you may have a sense of the surprise I had when my brother and I picked up a pipe rack and 21 pipes from a fellow in Michigan and it had an S&R billiard. I clipped a photo of the collection and circled the S&R in the photo. It is the second pipe from the right on the second shelf of the rack. It is a nice looking two toned sitter billiard – sporting both smooth panels on the sides of the bowl and an interesting sandblast finish.Jeff took some photos of the pipe when he received them to show the general condition. I have included the photos of the S&R pipe. It was dirty and worn looking. There was a thick cake in the bowl and heavy lava overflow on the rim top. The smooth panels on both sides of the bowl and the ring around the shank end have great grain that follows the grain of the sandblast next to them. The stamping is very clear and shows the interlocked SR with a pipe. The sandblast is well done and really shows the grain. It is not to deep or rugged but it is very nicely done. The stem is vulcanite and slightly oxidized. There are deep tooth marks on both sides of the stem at the button edge and some scratching on the stem surface. The photos below tell the story and give a glimpse of the saddle billiard shape. Here is a close up of the bowl and rim top. You can see the thick lava coat. It is hard to see if there is any damage on the inner or outer edge of the rim. There is a thick cake in the bowl that is hard and rough. The second photo is a close up of the right side and the flat underside of the bowl. You can see the interesting grain in the sandblast.The next photo shows the interlocked S&R stamp with the pipe. It is clear and legible.The next two photos show the scratching, oxidation and tooth marks in the stem at the button. The first photo shows the top side of the stem and the second the underside.I decided to take some time to review my knowledge of the brand. I turned to Pipedia and read the article that was included there (https://pipedia.org/wiki/S%26R_Pipes). I quote in full below:

Stephen and Roswitha Anderson of S&R Pipes, also known as S&R Woodcrafters, have become pipe makers renowned throughout the world as talented carvers of high-grade briar pipes. They have been featured in several trade publications and magazines such as Pipes and Tobaccos and PipeSmoker, and have several pieces on display in museums in Europe and the United States.

They are the first American pipe carvers honored with induction into the Conferee of Pipe Makers of St. Claude, France; the very place where the carving of briar pipes became a world-wide industry. Sadly, Steve passed away in March of 2009. Roswitha is still carving S&R pipes and carrying on with the shop with help from her “guys” David, Marty, and Tony.

Steve and Roswitha began carving pipes in the 1960’s. They travelled to pipe shows and arts and crafts shows throughout the country and Europe selling their pipes and built up quite an extensive loyal customer base. Eventually, it became time to offer their pipes to the retail fraternity of pipe smokers.

Pipes & Pleasures had its grand opening in a distinct red brick house on Main Street in Columbus, Ohio in 1977. The front section of the house was converted into a traditional tobacco shop selling pipe tobacco, cigars, and pipes manufactured by well known companies such as Dunhill, Charatan, and Savinelli as well as the high-grade S&R pipes that Steve and Roswitha carved. A workshop was set up in the back section of the house.

When the cigar boom hit in the ’90’s, the shop was expanded by building a large computer controlled walk-in humidor. It’s no secret throughout the country that Pipes & Pleasures has the best maintained cigars in the Columbus area as well as the best selection of premium cigars available in the area including the much sought-after Davidoff line.

Soon after the boom began, Steve and Roswitha moved their pipe making workshop to their farm and converted that space into a large smoking lounge for their many customers. The lounge features comfortable easy chairs, a television set, a stereo, a library of books and magazines about every aspect of tobacciana, a chess table, and a couple of card tables. The lounge is populated daily with long-time loyal customers and newcomers to the enjoyment and relaxation of cigar and pipe smoking. It’s also the room where several cigar tastings and samplings are held every year by representatives from cigar companies such as Davidoff and La Flor Dominicana.

I captured a photof the shop from the Pipedia article to include below. It is a great looking shop.

The Pipes & Pleasures shop, home of S&R Woodcrafters

I also turned to the Pipes & Pleasures website and copied the “About Us” section. Here is the link to the site (https://www.pipesandpleasures.biz/maintenance). I quote in part.

Pipes & Pleasures proprietors Stephen and Roswitha Anderson have become pipe makers renowned throughout the world as talented carvers of high-grade briar pipes. They have been featured in several trade publications and magazines such as Pipes and Tobaccos and PipeSmoker, and have several pieces on display in museums in Europe and the United States. They are the first American pipe carvers honored with induction into the Conferee of Pipe Makers of St. Claude, France; the very place where the carving of briar pipes became a world-wide industry.

Steve and Roswitha began carving pipes in the 1960’s. They travelled to pipe shows and arts and crafts shows throughout the country and Europe selling their pipes and built up quite an extensive loyal customer base. Eventually, it became time to offer their pipes to the retail fraternity of pipe smokers…

…Sadly, Steve passed away in March of 2009. Roswitha is still carving S&R pipes and carrying on with the shop with help from her “guys” David, Marty, and Tony, who welcome you to this website.

Jeff 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 of the pipe. He rinsed it off under running water. He dried it off with a soft cloth. He was able to remove most of the lava build up on the rim top of the pipe leaving a clean rim with some debris in the sandblast. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started my work. I took a close up photo of the rim top to show the light debris in the sandblast finish of the rim. The inner and outer edge of the bowl looks really good. The stem photos show the scratching I noted above that extends from the button forward about an inch. They also show the tooth marks and the wear on the button surface on both sides.I started my restoration with the rim top. I used a brass bristle brush to clean out the remaining debris in the grooves of the sandblast. I wiped the rim top down with a damp cotton pad to remove the dust. I used a Walnut Brown and a Black stain pen to blend the colour on the rim top match the rest of the sandblast portion of the bowl.With the rim top cleaned and restained, I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the sandblast and smooth surfaces of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The following photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. The bowl and the rim top look good. I am very happy with the results. With the bowl finished I set it aside and turned my attention to the stem. I sanded the scratches and the tooth marks on the stem and then filled it in with clear super glue. I set it aside to cure for overnight. In the morning I smoothed out the fills with a needle file to dress up the sharp edge of the button. I sanded the repairs with 220 grit and 400 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surface. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each pad. I polished it with some Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra to deepen the shine. I wiped it down with a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. This interestingly finished S&R billiard was a surprise to me. I had pretty much forgotten about ever restoring one of Steve and Roswitha’s pipes when this one came to me in a lot my brother and I bought from Michigan. It is a stunning example of their craft – the mixed smooth panels, band and sandblast finish and the contrasting stain is very well done. I polished the stem with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The contrasting finishes came alive with the buffing. The rich, contrasting brown and black colours work well with the polished black vulcanite stem. The finished pipe is a beauty and feels great in the hand. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 6 1/4 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/2 inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. I will be putting this beautiful billiard on the rebornpipes online store soon. It may well the kind of unique pipe you have been looking for so have a look. Thanks for walking through the restoration of this pipe with me. It was a fun one to work on.

Rejuvenating a Ben Wade Hand Model London Made Billiard


Blog by Dal Stanton

This Ben Wade came to me a couple of years back when I landed, from the eBay auction block, what I have called the Lot of 66. It continues to yield nice collectable pipes. The finish on this Ben Wade is a rustic looking blasted finish which is eye catching with the detail and bowl shaping. It caught Todd’s eye in the For “Pipe Dreamers” Only! collection and is the last of 3 that he has commissioned. Here are pictures of the Ben Wade Hand Model now on my worktable: I’ve discovered through the reading I’ve done about the name ‘Ben Wade’ that it has an up and down history. The Pipedia article is helpful in simplifying the history in four helpful ‘eras’ which I’ve summarized from the Pipedia:

The Family era (1860 to 1962) – the heydays of the English name when the pipes were stamped Made in Leeds, England.

Charatan / Lane second (1962 to 1988) – When Herman G. Lane purchased the name, the transition from a higher quality pipe during the long Family Era transitioned exclusively to the fabrication of machine-made pipes. Lane moved the production from the Leeds factory (closed in 1965) to Charatan’s Prescott Street factory. Ben Wade became essentially lower quality series pipes produced in standard shapes. The pipes during this period were stamped, “Made in London, England” or dropping the “London” and stamped with “England” alone. After Lane died, in 1978 his heirs sold the Charatan and Ben Wade names to Dunhill, which left the production of Charatan/Ben wade at the Prescott Street factor. In 1988 production came to an end for Ben Wade when the Charatan’s Prescott Street factory closed.

Ben Wade turns Danish (1971-1989) – During this era Preben Holm, from Denmark, was in financial difficulties and Herman Lane and he went into partnership producing the Handmade and fancy pipes. These pipes were marked “Ben Wade Made in Denmark”. These pipes gained great popularity, especially as the were marketed in the US. After Lane’s death, Preben Holm, not the businessman, was in financial difficulties and reduced his workforce and production, but at his death in 1989, production of the Danish Preben Holm pipes came to an end.

Resurrection – (1998 to present) – Duncan Briars bought the Ben Wade name from Dunhill in 1998 and production of Ben Wade pipes restarted at the Walthamstow plant, sharing the same space where Dunhill pipes are produced and reportedly benefiting from the same quality of production. During this present era, the stamping on the pipes is: “Ben Wade, Made in London, England”The reason I went through this summary of Ben Wade’s morphing history is because in nothing I’ve read about Ben Wade (and I’m sure there’s more out there), I found no reference to a Ben Wade Hand Model with the COM, London Made. The stamping on the pipe before me is ‘Ben Wade’ [over] HAND MODEL [over] LONDON MADE. The saddle stem has the Ben Wade stamped on the upper side of the stem saddle. My first glance at the blasted finish made me wonder whether this Ben Wade came out during the ‘mystery’ Resurrection period in the Pipedia article. Here is the full text that made me wonder:

As said before Preben Holm’s death marked the third end of Ben Wade and for long years there were no Ben Wade pipes in the shops anymore. But then, all of a sudden they were back in the USA some years ago! Who made these pipes? A concrete manufacturer was not known at first.

The rumors spreading were considerable. Especially because these Ben Wades – originally all blasted and in deep black color – featured so perfect straight and / or ring-grain that they were almost suspicious in view of the prices. The supposition that “Mother Nature” had been given a leg up by means of rustication combined with subsequent blasting was evident as different sources confirmed.

Steve on rebornpipes refers to pipes as having a ‘blasticated’ finish. The process is blasting a rusticated pipe making it appear naturally blasted but the more perfect lines make it seem better than ‘mother nature’ as the Pipedia described. As I look at this Ben Wade, I wonder if it’s from that time period and the grain looks so good, is it blastication? I sent Steve the picture below and his verdict was not blastication, but a really nice looking blasted finish. Yet, I’m stumped by the COM marking. Here’s a close-up of the stummel, very nice natural 3-D blasted grain and not blastication. I sent out pictures of some pictures and the nomenclature to various pipe Facebook groups and the responses I did get, though they were anecdotal, pointed to an earlier period. Paul, from Pipe Smoker of America FB Group, said that he believed it was a Pre-78 and made in Charatan factory. He also said that these were some of his best smokers are London BWs. It sounds good to me!

As I look at the condition of this Ben Wade, the surface needs cleaning to see what the finish will do. The finish is dark and tired as I look at it. The chamber shows light cake buildup and the rim is darkened with some lava flow. The stem will need to be cleaned of the oxidation and the button is chewed some with bite compressions on both the upper and lower bit.

With a better knowledge of the Ben Wade Hand Model Billiard on my worktable, I begin by cleaning the stem airway with pipe cleaners wetted with alcohol and then add it to a bath of Before & After Deoxidizer along with other pipes and stems in the queue. After several hours, I fish out the Ben Wade’s stem and wipe it down with cotton pads wet with alcohol to remove the raised oxidation. The Deoxidizer did a great job.To begin to rejuvenate the stem, I apply a coat of paraffin oil (a mineral oil) to the vulcanite and then put it aside.Next, I go to work on the chamber using the Pipnet Reaming Kit. After putting paper towel down, I ream using 3 of the 4 blade heads available. I follow by fine-tuning with the Savinelli Fitsall tool and finish by sanding the chamber with 240 grit paper wrapped around a Sharpie Pen giving the briar a fresh start. I then wipe the chamber with a cotton pad and alcohol ridding it of leftover carbon dust. After inspecting the chamber, I see no heating or burning problems. I move on! The internals of the mortise and airway are next on the cleaning regimen. Using cotton buds and a few pipe cleaners, things clean up quickly. I also use a dental spatula and scrape the mortise wall and remove very little tars and oils. It’s nice when a stummel isn’t horrendously grungy! Moving on.Moving now to the external blasted finish, I use undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap with a cotton pad to scrub. I’m wondering how strong the finish is – it appears a bit thin and the cleaning will reveal the answer. I also use a bristled tooth brush as well as a brass wire brush on the rim. After scrubbing, I take it to the sink and rinse the stummel with cool tap water without allowing water in the internals! The verdict is that the finish is worn and the scrubbing on the rim has left bare briar. With the day closing, I want to give the internals a further cleaning using kosher salt and alcohol as a soak. I create a wick from a cotton ball by pulling and twisting it. The wick serves to draw the tars and oils out. I then insert the wick down the mortise and airway with the help of a stiff wire. I then fill the bowl with kosher salt (which leaves no aftertaste) and after placing the stummel in an egg carton to keep it stable; I put isopropyl 95% into the chamber until it fills. I wait a few minutes and top off the alcohol once more. I turn out the light allowing the stummel to soak through the night. The next morning, I discover that the soak has not unearthed too much additional tars and oils from the internals of the pipe. This was confirmed after I followed with a few cotton buds and pipe cleaners dipped in alcohol. Cleaned!Turning my attention now to the Ben Wade stem, the Before & After Deoxidizer did a great job excising the oxidation from the vulcanite rubber compound. Now I focus on the bit and button repair which have some significant bite compressions. I take a closer look with a couple of pictures to mark the start of the repair. I start by painting the bit area with a Bic lighter to heat and expand the vulcanite. After doing this for some time I take comparison pictures to show the unsatisfactory progress. Comparing first:

Upper bit, before and after:Lower bit, before and after:The heating process made little progress. I now mix activated charcoal with CA glue to form a patch material and apply it to the tooth compressions and to the button lips – I’ll need to reshape the button. I first clean the stem area with isopropyl 95%. I then gradually mix thick CA glue with activated charcoal on an index card. I aim for a thickness of molasses so it’s thick enough to stay in place not run but will allow some manipulation once applied. On the first mixing, I mixed too much activated charcoal with the CA glue and got one of the chemical reactions where the mixture hardens instantly giving off an acrid smoke!! This has happened before. I need to apply the mixture before it thickens too much. The next mixtures work well. After applying patch material to both upper and lower I set the stem aside to allow the patch to cure. I turn my attention now to the Ben Wade Hand Model stummel. I like the rustic look of this stummel. What I also like about it is that there is a curving or narrowing in the shaping of the bowl about 2/3s up as it moves toward the rim. With the rough finish, rough is good and the surface reminds me of tree bark! With the stummel being dry and with a light blotchy look in the valleys of the blasted areas, I decide to add some paraffin oil to the briar to hydrate it. Doing this also allows me to get a sneak preview of what the briar will look like somewhat finished, I apply paraffin oil to the surface with a cotton pad. This moisturizes the briar and I like what I’m seeing. The only thing I’m not liking is that the scorched place on the back side of the rim is still evident even with the help of a darkened blend. The pictures show what I’m seeing. I decide to go back to an elbow grease methodology and focus cleaning on the rim with a brass wire brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap. This time Murphy’s has its way. I did do a lot of scrubbing and the rim surface shows the skinned lighter area on the rim where the cleaning was, but the scorched area was removed.To darken the rim to blend with the rest of the bowl, I use a cherry dye stick which matches pretty well and I color the rim as well as the edge of the rim – external and internal. This looks good and will blend in more as I polish.Next, to clean up the lower shank panel, I very quickly and lightly, run the area through the full regimen of 9 micromesh pads from 1500 to 12000 – dry sanding with each. I wasn’t worried about the nomenclature because it is deep and solid, and I sanded very lightly with the pads. This gently cleaned the smooth briar of minor nicks and scratches.I like the look of the finish and decide that it looks good just as it is. In order to deepen and enrich the natural grain, I apply Before & After Restoration Balm. I like this product that can be found at http://www.lbepen.com. I apply some of the Balm to my fingers and thoroughly work it into the briar surface – into the nooks and crannies of the richly blasted briar. After applying, I let the stummel sit for a few minutes – 10 or so, and then I wipe the stummel with a microfiber cloth to remove the excess Balm and to buff it up a bit. I take a picture during the ‘absorbing’ period.The patches on bit and button of the stem are now cured after several hours. I begin to remove the excess patch material on the upper bit using a flat needle file. I’m careful to establish the new inner lip of the button. As I filed to shape the new button lip, I discover a crevasse hidden below which is too severe simply to remove. There are other pockets on the button that don’t look too promising. It is normal in my experience, that its necessary to apply additional patch material to fill pockets and gaps that appear during filing and sanding.To address patching the button problems, this time I use a black CA glue to fill the crevasse and pockets and I apply an accelerator to quicken the curing process. Again, filing and shaping the upper button lip and this time better results are realized.I follow filing by sanding with 240 grit paper (which I forgot to add as a prop to this picture!) to erase the marks left by filing. As with the filing of the button, the finer 240 paper reveal a cluster of pockets in the center bit area in the patch. Again, I spot drop black CA glue to fill the pockets, apply an accelerator and file the excess then sand the bit area with 240 grit paper. The upper bit and button area look good. The same process is repeated on the lower bit and button. It too, looks good. With the bit repairs completed and with the repaired button shaped, I continue by wet sanding the entire stem with 600 grade paper. I’m careful to work around the BEN WADE stem stamp on the saddle. After wet sanding with 600 grit, I apply 0000 steel wool to stem. Finally, I wet scrub the stem with Magic Eraser. I’m satisfied with the progress. I move forward with the micromesh pad regimen wet sanding using pads 1500 to 2400 followed by dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000. I follow each set of 3 pads with an application of Obsidian Oil which further rejuvenates the vulcanite. I like that vulcanite pop! The stem looks great. I try to reunite the stem and the stummel and as is the case sometimes, after cleaning the mortise, the briar inside can expand causing the fit with the tenon to become too tight. I do not want to force the stem and risk a cracked shank, so I gently ream the mortise with a half-rounded needle file. Then I gently sand the tenon by wrapping 600 grit paper around the tenon.This works and I am able then to reunite the stem with the stummel and mount a cotton cloth buffing wheel to the Dremel and set the speed at about 40% full power.  I apply Blue Diamond compound to the entire pipe.  I run the wheel along the grain of the blasting to bring out the contrasts of rough briar as well as to buff it up into a shine.  After completing the Blue Diamond, before applying wax, I freshen the Ben Wade white stem stamp.  I clean the area with alcohol and then I dab a bit of white acrylic paint over the stamping.  I then use a cotton pad to tamp the wet paint which draws off the excess paint and helps the paint to dry sooner. Then using a toothpick, I gently scrape off the excess paint leaving a refreshed BEN WADE stamp.  It looks nice and crisp.I then mount another cotton cloth buffing wheel onto the Dremel and apply carnauba wax to the stummel.  I increase the speed of the Dremel from my usual 40% up to about 50 to 60% full power.  I do this to create more heat with the friction of the wheel to encourage the wax to dissolve in the craggy blasted briar surface.  Waxing a rough surface can cause the wax to collect and not to absorb into the surface.  The added heat encourages this and as I look at the waxing action, it looks like it’s having the desired effect.  Nice!  After finishing the waxing process, I then give the stem and stummel a rigorous and substantial hand buffing to remove any excess wax and to raise the shine.

The blasted grain on this Ben Wade Hand Model is distinctive.  It looked so good I thought that it might be the blastification process, but it is the real deal.  The shaping of the bowl also adds to the rustic effect with it tightening near the top and then flaring out.  The blasted briar displays many hues of grain – very eye pleasing.  This is the third of three pipes that Todd commissioned, and he will have the first opportunity to acquire this Ben Wade Hand Model from The Pipe Steward Store.  These pipes benefit the work we do here in Bulgaria with the Daughters of Bulgaria working among women and girls who have been trafficked and sexually exploited.  Thank you for joining me!

Life for an interesting Triangle Shank Enrico Bocci Belgium 612


Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe in the queue is an interesting triangular shaped billiard – I think that is what I would call it. It came to us in the lot that included the pipe cabinet and 21 pipes. There is a decided slope from the button to the junction of the bowl and shank. The bottom of the bowl and shank is flattened and broad so that it is a very stable sitter. It is a unique piece and like many of those in this lot it is a brand that I have not seen before. It is on the second shelf, the third pipe from the right in the photo below. I have circled it in red to make it easier to identify.The finish on the pipe is very dirty with an interesting orange and black contrasting stain. I look forward to seeing it cleaned. There is a thick cake in the bowl and a lava overflow on the rim top. I can see some damage to the outer edge of the rim but because of the cake and tars it is hard to know what the inner edge looks like. Jeff took photos of the pipe before cleaning it. The photos give a pretty clear picture of the shape of the pipe and its general condition when we received it. Jeff took some photos of the bowl/rim top and the sides and bottom of the bowl to give and idea of the condition and the shape. You can see the nicks on the back and front side of the outer edge of the rim. He also took photos of the stamping on the left and underside of the shank. The left side was clear and readable. It read Enrico Bocci in script over Marrone. On the underside it said Belgium followed by the shape number 612. The left side of the stem also had a stamped EB logo. The stem had some deep scratching in the surface ahead of the button and some small tooth marks next to the button. There was also wear on the sharp edge of the button.Enrico Bocci was a brand that I was unfamiliar with so I did some research on the web to see what I could learn about the brand and the maker. I turned first to Pipephil and found the first lead. As usual the site gives a great summary. It identified the maker as Enrico Bocci and the brand as Italian (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-e3.html). This did not match the Belgium stamping on the underside of the shank so more searching would be necessary. I have included a screen capture from Pipephil that gave the initial information on the brand. It seems that Bocci retired from pipe making in the 1980s so that helped to date the pipe that I am working on.I turned then to Pipedia to see what I could find out there (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Bocci). The brand was listed under the country of Belgium. Sadly there was not a lot of information. I have copied the information and included it below.

Enrico Bocci, presumed to be of Italian origin, primarily turned out machine made pipes. The better ones were pre-turned and finally shaped and finished by hand.

From that at least I found that the maker was of Italian origin (not hard with a name like that). I knew that the pipe I had in hand was Belgian made and made prior to 1980. I also could deduce from the listing being in the Belgian list of pipemakers that Bocci lived there. Armed with that information I turned to deal with the pipe on the table.

As usual Jeff does a lot of the clean up on the pipes that we buy. He does a great job. When I pick them up here or do repairs here in Canada I am reminded just how much work he does to get the pipes to the point they are when I open his box to work on them.

Jeff 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 of the pipe. He rinsed it off under running water. He dried it off with a soft cloth. He was able to remove most of the lava build up on the rim top of the pipe leaving behind some darkening and a clear view of the damage to the outer edge. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started my work. I took a close up photo of the rim top to show the darkening on the top and the damage to the outer edge at both the back and the front. You can also see some nicks and marks on the surface of the rim top. The stem photos show the scratching I noted above that extends from the button forward about an inch. They also show the tooth marks and the wear on the button surface on both sides.I took photos of the stamping to document what it looked like at this point in our cleanup process. You can also see some of the fills in the bowl and shank.I decided to address the damage to the rim top and edges of the bowl first. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the inner edge of the bowl first. Once that was complete, I topped the bowl on a topping board using 220 grit sandpaper to remove the damage along the top surface and minimize the damage to the outer edge of the bowl. It looks like I forgot to take a photo of the rim top at this point. I removed the damaged surface (a minimal topping). I worked over the outer edge with a 1500 grit micromesh sanding pad to smooth out the damage on the edges (the condition of the rim top can be seen in the third photo below). Once I finished that I polished the entire bowl and shank with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded it with 1500-2400 grit pads to clean up the rim and smooth out the bowl. There were shiny spots on the finish from what looked like a light varnish coat that needed to be removed as well. I decided to stain the rim top and touch up the spots on the bowl and shank that needed it with a Maple stain pen before proceeding with the rest of the polishing. This might seem odd but I have found that it can work to blend the colours better. I let the stain coat dry for about 30 minutes and worked on the stem. Once the stain had cured for that time I continued polishing the bowl.I continued to polish the bowl with 3200-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads. Each successive grit of micromesh made the grain stand out more and hid the fills better. The overall look of the bowl improved. With the rim top and bowl polished, I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The following photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. The bowl and the rim top look really good and the darkening and lava are gone. The finish looks good and though the fills are visible they are not as obnoxious looking as before. I am very happy with the results. With the bowl finished I set it aside and turned my attention to the stem. I sanded the scratches and the tooth marks on the stem and then filled it in with clear super glue. I set it aside to cure for about a half hour then smoothed out the fills with a needle file to dress up the sharp edge of the button. I sanded the repairs with 220 grit and 400 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surface. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wetsanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each pad. I used some liquid paper or correction white out to touch up the stamping on the stem. I applied it with a tooth pick and when it had dried I buffed the excess off with a cotton pad.I further polished it with Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry.This interestingly shaped Enrico Bocci surprised me. When I first saw it I thought it was a Lorenzo pipe and expected a real mess under the stain and lacquer coat. It turned out I was wrong. 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 contrasting grain came alive with the buffing. The rich contrasting orange/brown and black colour works well with the polished black vulcanite stem. The finished pipe is a beauty and feels great in the hand. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/2 inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. I will be putting this triangular shanked billiard on the rebornpipes online store soon. It may well the kind of unique pipe you have been looking for so have a look. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me on this interestingly shaped Enrico Bocci.