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The Last of Boston’s Peretti Oom Paul Sitter Recommissioned

Blog by Dal Stanton

I’ve enjoyed restoring a Lot of 10 Peretti pipes and recommissioning them for new stewards. All the Oom Pauls in the picture below, except for one which I added to my collection, are in the hands of new stewards except for the one on my worktable now. I have been pleased to hear back from stewards who have these Oom Pauls and often I’ve heard that they have become favorites in their rotation lineups! I like Perettis myself and have a healthy collection of them. They are great smokers in my experience and my Peretti Oom Paul is a favorite for me too – he hangs on the chin perfectly, like a good lap dog! When I began my research on the L J Peretti name, I was surprised to discover that it is not an Italian pipe as one might expect with such a name! In fact, I discovered the genesis of a significant story of Americana pipe history with the establishment of the L. J. Peretti Company of Boston in 1870 (Pipedia citing: Pipes, Artisans and Trademarks, by José Manuel Lopes), the second oldest tobacco shop in the US, second only to Iwan Ries & Co. of Chicago established in 1857 (See: Link). The Peretti family originally comes from Switzerland, but the Italian name is explained by the fact that they originated from the southern slopes of the Swiss Alps which flows south toward Italy more easily than to the north – the heart of Switzerland. The Calabash (upper left) and the Goliath Billiard (bottom) are waiting to be restored to be added to my collection of Perettis. The hefty Egg in the middle is already in my lineup!Brian commissioned two pipes (See: For ‘Pipe Dreamers’ Only), a nice looking Jobey Hand Rubbed Dublin (next on the worktable) and the Oom Paul Sitter before me – both pipes benefit the Daughters of Bulgaria – helping women and girls who have been trafficked and sexually exploited. Thanks Brian! For a close-up look at the Oom Paul Sitter, I take several pictures on my worktable. The nomenclature is the simple L.J. PERETTI stamp on the left shank. This Oom Paul shares every single challenge that his former brothers had – the former steward seemed to have a scorched earth policy. The chamber is heavily caked, and the rim scorched. The rim challenges are the most daunting for this restoration. The stummel has a build up of grime and minor nicks from usual wear. The stem has significant oxidation and bit clenching and chewing which needs addressing. To begin the restoration of this, the last Peretti Oom Paul Sitter in need of a new steward, after cleaning the internal airway with a pipe cleaner dipped in isopropyl 95%, I put the stem in a soak with Before & After Deoxidizer along with 5 other stems. After some hours soaking, I fish out the Peretti stem and wipe off the raised oxidation with a cotton pad wetted with light paraffin oil (mineral oil in Bulgaria). The Deoxidizer seems to have done an adequate job. Next, I attack the chamber carbon cake build up using the Pipnet Reaming Tool. Putting paper towel down to minimize clean up, starting with the smallest blade head, I use 3 of the 4 blades available to me. I follow the blade heads by using the Savinelli Fitsall Tool to reach down into the chamber to scrape more carbon off the wall. Then, to clean the chamber and to bring out fresher briar, I sand the chamber using a piece of 240 grit paper wrapped around a Sharpie Pen. To remove the thick carbon dust left behind, I wipe the chamber with cotton pads wetted with alcohol. After clearing the cake away, a look into the chamber reveals no problems – no heat cracks or fissures. Good! Now to scrub the stummel surface and the rim with its thick lava I start with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and cotton pads. I also use a brass brush on the rim to break up the lava crust. To scrape the rim, I use a pin knife as well as the straight edge of the Savinelli Fitsall tool. As I scrape the crust off, I also remove the scorched charcoal that is on the inside of the rim mainly on the left side of the stummel – the area where the former steward damaged all his pipes. The result is that the left side of the rim is narrower after the cleaning. The stummel is in great condition – the rim is the challenge. Before moving on with the rim repairs I continue with the internal cleaning of the stummel. Using pipe cleaners and cotton buds dipped in isopropyl 95% I go to work. I also employ a dental scalpel to scrape the internal wall. I’m pleased that there wasn’t too much resistance. At the end of my work day I’ll continue the cleaning process by giving the stummel a kosher salt and alcohol soak.Turning now to the stem, I begin addressing the tooth dents and chatter on the bit. With his brother Oom Pauls, there usually was some button damage too, but this guy’s in better shape in that regard. I first use the heat method to raise the vulcanite dents to make them less severe. By heating the vulcanite, it expands, and the dented vulcanite naturally seeks its original positioning. I use a Bic lighter and paint the upper and lower bit and after heating several passes, I do see a lessening of the severity of the dents as the vulcanite expands. As a result, I can sand the remaining dents out with both the upper and lower bit. Before the heating:After the heating:I sand out the damage using 240 grit paper.I move on to using 600 grit paper by wet sanding the entire stem. I follow this with 0000 steel wool sanding/buffing the entire stem.Moving forward with the stem, I wet sand using micromesh pads 1500 to 2400 followed by dry sanding with pads 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000. To revitalize the vulcanite, I apply a coat of Obsidian Oil after each set of 3 pads. I love the glossy pop! Looking now to the stummel, I see a few very small, nicely camouflaged fills which are in good shape, but I see one significant cut into the briar that needs attention. To address it, using a toothpick, I lay a line of thick CA glue over the cut. I set the stummel aside to allow the patch to cure.After a while, the patch has set enough for me to work on the rim. The bad news is that the loss of briar on the left side of the internal rim from scorching is gone – it can’t be replaced. The good news is that the aesthetic imbalance of the rim as a result can be mitigated somewhat by creating a bevel around the entire rim. The bad news – there is additional loss of briar. In restoring a pipe there’s always this tension between loss and gain. With this Peretti, as with all his Oom Paul brothers, I did the same thing and they turned out well. I start the process by taking the stummel to the topping board to remove the damaged wood on the top. Topping an Oom Paul can be a challenge because the shank extends beyond the plane of the rim. So, to top the rim, the shank needs to hang off the side, so it isn’t unintentionally topped! I take a picture to mark the start. I turn some rotations on the board and check out the progress. I also utilize a small sanding block which allow me to focus on a certain area of the rim. After the 240 paper, I put 600 grit paper on the board and do a few more rotations. The pictures show this progress. Now, using a tightly rolled piece of coarse 120 grit paper, I begin beveling the internal rim edge – hoping to bring more balance to it. I take a bird’s eye picture first to mark the progress. I pinch the paper under my thumb as I move it in the areas of the rim to be reduced. While I work on equalizing the rim diameter, I’m also sanding down the chamber to taper the walls as they move downwardly. I’m looking for greater aesthetic balance. I come to the point where I’ve done all I can do. I think it looks much better. I do another bird’s eye shot for comparison. I take the stummel one more time to the topping board using 600 grade paper. I do this simply to reestablish the lines after the sanding. One more thing I want to do with the rim. I’ve worked on the inside balance, now I also introduce a very gentle bevel on the outside of the rim. I do this to soften the edge which is sharp after the topping. I use 120 grit paper then 240 and finish with 600 – each rolled tightly. With the rim repair done, I take the flat needle file and begin to file down the patch on the side of the stummel. When I bring the patch down close to the surface, I switch to using 240 grit paper to remove the excess patch to the briar surface, making the patch area flush with the surface. I then finish the sanding with 600 grit paper. The patch will blend well later.My day has ended and I will continue the cleaning process of the stummel with a kosher salt and alcohol soak. This freshens the briar and draws out more latent tars and oils from the briar. I fashion a wick from a cotton ball by pulling and twisting it. I insert it down the mortise and airway. I then fill the bowl with kosher salt, which has no aftertaste, and then put isopropyl 95% into the bowl until it surfaces over the salt. I wait a few minutes and top off the alcohol and turn out the lights. The next morning the soak has done the job through the night. The salt and wick show soiling from the tars and oils. I clean the stummel of residue salt with paper towel, blowing through the stummel, and to be on the safe side, I run a cotton bud with alcohol through the mortise to clean up any leftover remnants – after a couple of cotton buds I move on. The next step is to address the external briar surface of the Peretti Oom Paul Sitter. I filled the one cut I saw on the surface that stood out. There are other nicks and scratches that are normal from use. To address these, I use micromesh pads. I first wet sand using pads 1500 to 2400, then dry sanding 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000. The grain looks good as the micromesh pads coaxed it out. The one bummer is the darkened wood from the scorching damage around the inner edge of the rim. That will not go away because it would sacrifice too much briar to accomplish it. Since the rim had been topped and sanded, it is a shade lighter than the rest of the stummel. To remedy this, I apply a maple color dye stick around the rim. I forgot to take a starting picture for comparison but here is the aftermath. It looks good and matches well.As I’ve done with all the other Peretti Oom Pauls (and one Bent Billiard!) I restored, I kept the color true to the original as much as possible. To do this I used Before & After Restoration Balm on the briar and it does a great job deepening and enriching the color already there. I do the same with this Sitter. I squeeze some of the Balm on my fingers and work it into the surface. The Balm starts with the consistency of light oil but as it is worked into the briar it gradually thickens to a wax-like feel. After applying it fully and working it in, I set the stummel aside for a while, about 30 minutes to allow the Balm to do its thing and take a picture.After about 30 minutes I use a clean cloth to wipe and buff off the Balm. I’m pleased with the results. Turning now to the application of Blue Diamond compound, I rejoin stem and stummel, mount a cotton cloth wheel onto the Dremel, set the speed at 40%, and methodically apply the compound. After finished, I wipe the pipe with a felt cloth to remove compound dust in preparation for the wax. I mount a different cotton cloth wheel to the Dremel dedicated to applying carnauba wax, leave the speed at 40% and again, methodically apply a few coats of wax to stem and stummel. I finish the restoration of the Oom Paul Sitter by giving the pipe a rigorous hand buffing with a microfiber cloth to raise the shine.

I am very pleased with the restoration of this, my last for now, Peretti Oom Paul Sitter. The grain is rich on the huge, ample bowl which is the reason many pipe men and women desire an Oom Paul in their collections. The added benefit to this Oom Paul is that it is a Sitter. He can comfortably join his steward at a table playing cards or board games! Brian commissioned (see For ‘Pipe Dreamers’ Only) this Peretti Oom Paul Sitter and will have the first opportunity to acquire it in The Pipe Steward Store. This pipe benefits the Daughters of Bulgaria – women and girls who have been trafficked and sexually exploited. Thanks for joining me!

Resurrecting a Badly Damaged BBB ** Billiard

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Blog by Victor C. Naddeo

I have been following the Pipe Club of Brasil Group on Facebook for quite a while now and have enjoyed the posted that Victor Naddeo has made about his restoration work. He is the administrator of the Facebook Group and we have chatted back and forth. When he posted this restoration I was intrigued by his solution to the crack in the bowl. He sent me photos on Messenger and we talked about the repair and BBB pipes in general. Seems we are both devotees to BBB pipes. I asked him to write up this repair on an old BBB ** that was in very rough shape before he started. He gladly did so. I am hoping this is just the first of many blogs on rebornpipes by Victor. Welcome to rebornpipes! Now in Victor’s own words.

A few years ago i had my first experience with restorations. As a young man just into adulthood, I had little money to invest in good pipes, and on one fateful day I met an old Bent Apple BBB ** for sale at an antique dealer. The pipe had a very rusty stem, there were beat marks all over the edge of the bowl, and a cake that looked more like the shell of a turtle. Already for some time I followed the blog rebornpipes and the work of Steve, and inspired by him I decided to get involved in this project. Two months later (and after many mistakes made) I finally managed to bring the old warrior back into action. On that day I gained two new passions: Restoration and old BBB’s. This restoration I will show you below began months ago when in an auction I bought this BBB billiard from a not very honest auctioneer who had not reported that the bowl was cracked. After some time waiting in a drawer, I finally decided to do something to bring another warrior to this army of BBBs, I hope you like it!

As you can see, looking from the side he was just an old billiard that needed a bit of polishing and cleaning. Good shapes, harmonious proportions, these are typical features of an old BBB and the main reasons that made me fall in love with the brand. What I did not expect was that his former owner somehow managed to create a large crack in the front of the bowl with about 3cm.The interior of the ducts was also completely clogged with a mass of tar residues derived from years of non-cleaning use. The cake was also quite thick, which led me to believe that the pipe had never been reamed, and if it was, that was many decades ago. To remove the cake, I had to use some chisels first, because as the passage was very narrow, it was impossible to insert my Senior Reamer into the chamber. It took me some time (and I also got some blisters on my hand). In the picture you can see the amount of carbonized material being removed from inside the bowl. After using the chisels and also the senior reamer, I also use a series of sandpaper inside the bowl, starting from grit 220 through 400, 600 and ending with 800, so that the inside of the bowl has a uniform surface.After a 30 minute bath in a solution of Oxyclean and water, I washed the inside of the stem using bristle pipe cleaners and running water. With a Dremel and felt disks, used blue polishing compound to polish the inner tube. I finished cleaning the inside of the stem using cotton pipe cleaner soaked in grain alcohol, removing what was left of residues and possible bacteria. The Oxyclean bath brings the oxidation back to the surface of the stem, which facilitates the polishing and removal of the oxidized material. Returning to the subject of the dreaded crack in the bowl. I decided to use a briar insert to cover it. To prevent cracking from increasing over time and to facilitate insertion of the insert, I used a cutting blade attached to the Dremel to cut the broken part and make a V shape instead of the crack. I used this same disk to also cut out a briar block, an insert of a similar size and I used sanding paper to leave it the perfect size to fit into space. To glue the insert, I used a mixture of briar dust, pigments and super glue. I settled the insert and held it for a few minutes until the glue dried. I waited a few hours to make sure that all the glue was dry and insert was firmly in place. I cut the burrs and used sandpaper to level the insert with the rest of the bowl. I also used brown and black dye to match the colors. I used 220, 400, 600, 800, 1000 and 1200 grit sanding sticks to remake the shapes of the bowl edge that were completely destroyed by the beat marks. As you can see, after reshaping the top of the bowl, you can already see the ancient times of glory of this pipe that once was the faithful companion of some gentlemen.

After dying, it was time for the first polish. I used two different compounds, red and brown, on denim disks and jeans disks, such as a high spin, to remove sediments and dirt that were stuck to the outside of the bowl and excess dyeing of the insert and the new bowl top . I used the same process on the stem to remove the oxidized material, but finalizing with flannel discs using the blue compound and white diamond to give a mirrored sheen.

Recommissioning a Monarch Pat. 1989069 – 1074H Bent Ball

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Blog by Dal Stanton

This nice-looking Monarch Bent Ball shape came to me along with 65 pipes in an eBay acquisition which I’ve called the Lot of 66. The Bowl shape has a very nice feel in the palm with the dimensions an adequate: Length: 6 1/4 inches, Height: 1 1/4 inches, Bowl width: 1 3/4 inches, Bowl depth: 1 3/8 inches, Chamber width: 15/16 inches. This pipe got Andy’s attention in the special section on my blog site called “For ‘Pipe Dreamers’ Only!” where pipe men and women (and their significant others looking for special gifts!) can commission pipes. Andy is from the state of Maryland in the US and he and his wife attend church where I used to be the pastor – in a former life many, many years ago! Andy reached out to me via Facebook Messenger:

I really enjoy your posts with the restored pipes, and I’m wondering what might be available now and what the costs are. I really like the Oom Paul’s (and some of the other Peretti’s), and the Savinelli from May 29. Many years ago, I had a small collection which included a Comoy, and, if I recall correctly, a Peretti and a Savinelli. Sadly, they were lost somewhere along the way. Thanks for reigniting my interest (no pun intended). I looked at your website and found the answers I needed. What can you tell me about the Monarch Pat. 1989069 – 1074H Bent Ball shape on the Pipedreamer’s page? It looks very similar to one I had many years ago, and I might be interested in commissioning it if it’s still available. Thanks!

It’s amazing how pipes become so much a part of memories and associations in our lives! Andy and I dialogued, and he commissioned the Monarch and will have the first opportunity to acquire the Bent Ball when it is restored and placed in The Pipe Steward Store, benefiting the Daughters of Bulgaria. Here are the pictures that caught Andy’s attention. The stampings on the pipe are distinctive: on the left side of the shank is stamped ‘Monarch’ in cursive script with swirly tail, over ‘PAT. 1989069’. The right side of the shank has ‘1074H’ stamped which I assume is a shape number. The stem has a dot marked on the top which I notice actually appears to be a vent – the black center of the dot is not solid but a hole. Interesting. A quick trip to Pipedia in search of ‘Monarch’ turns up useful information.

Monarch Pipe Co. was established in Hartford Con, most likely in the late 1930 by Fred Warnke, who obtained a patent on the system pipe on January 22 1935. The company moved to Tulsa Oklahoma at some point in the 1950s, after which Monarch Pipe Co was moved to Bristow, Oklahoma. The Monarch Pipe Co. also makes E.A.Carey Magic Inch and Duncan Hill Aerosphere Pipes.

So, the question in my mind was, are pipes still being produced by the Monarch Pipe Co. in Bristow, Oklahoma? After searching the internet, I found an interesting newspaper article from the The Oklahoman, published January 15, 1995, entitled, ‘Bristow Manufacturer Lives on Pipe Dreams Pipe Fitting As Fragile as a Smoke Ring, The Art Still Burns in Bristow’ (LINK). Excerpts from the article are enlightening and interesting:

Monarch has manufactured pipes in Bristow for 32 years. Once it employed 12 workers and produced 5,000 pipes a month; now the workforce is four, including Austin (a manager mentioned earlier).

Monarch was founded in 1929 in Connecticut. In 1962, a Tulsa businessman who ordered his pipes from Monarch discovered his source might close down, so he bought it. He and his partners moved it to Bristow…. Some 15 years ago, Carey bought the little enterprise.

This excerpt mentions Monarch’s parent company was the E.A. Carey of Ohio, company most well known for the ‘Carey Magic Inch’ pipes which boasts of a system that produces a drier, cooler smoke. Still wondering if Monarch currently was producing pipes, I search again, “Monarch Pipe Co.” and found an old business link from Buzzfile.com that gave information and a ,mailing address – no email or website. I plugged the Bristow, OK, mailing address in Google Maps and found this picture of the Monarch Pipe Co. The date of the photograph from Google is July 2012 – now six years ago. Still desiring to know if Monarch pipes were being manufactured, I decided to try one more angle. The 1995 Oklahoman Newspaper article above said that E. A. Carey bought out the small Monarch enterprise 15 years earlier, in 1980. I searched for the Magic Inch E. A. Carey of Ohio name and found a website: http://www.eacarey.com. As I’ve successfully done many times in the past, I went to the sites ‘Contact Us’ page and used the email provided to see if anyone there knew anything about the Monarch Pipe Company? I received a reply from Danielle:

Thank you for the email. We are sorry, but the Monarch pipe company closed a few years ago. The woman who ran it has retired. We do still sell magic inch pipes, they can all be found on our website: www.eacarey.com Any pipes she made for us, we no longer have.

In reply, I went out on a limb asking if they had a Monarch Shapes Chart…. We’ll see what happens! (Addendum: Danielle responded in a few days to say that they had no information on Monarch pipes. Oh well!)

The closing lines in the 1995 Oklahoman article proved to be prophetic. The former manager of Monarch Pipe Co., Francis Austin was quoted:

Still, he said, Carey “realizes the stability of the smoking industry” is as fragile as a smoke ring, and is diversifying into such areas as children’s safety toys and goose down products.

Someday, concedes Austin, who’s 60, his artful pipes will be collectors’ items.

This Monarch Bent Ball is now a collectible! The other interesting aspect of the Monarch nomenclature is the patent number given: ‘PAT. 1989069’ which is for the system evident in the fittings of the Monarch ‘System’ pipe. I took the patent number to the United States Patent and Trademark Office site searched the patent number. I found that the patent was approved January 22, 1935 and a diagram that is also referenced by Pipedia, showing a cutout of a pipe with the system that remains in the Monarch on my worktable. I was also intrigued by reading the full patent document submitted by Fred L. Warnke in 1931. I clipped the header from that document and placed it below. The first several paragraphs describes how the system would provide the holy grail of pipe technology – a cooler and dryer smoke! One last interesting item to note which I referenced earlier. The dot on the top of the stem is a hole or a vent air regulator which is labeled #25 in the Fig. 1 1931 patent diagram. I found this caption that I clipped from the patent document interesting as it describes the purpose of the vent and how it contributes to a ‘dryer and cooler’ smoking experience as it regulates the introduction of fresh air to the to the smoke. I really wish I could try out some of the pipes I restore to experience these inventions in practice!As I take a close look at the Monarch Bent Ball, the chamber has light cake buildup with some lava flow on the rim, but light. The stummel looks to be in good shape. I see no fills and only the normal grime that builds on the surface. I’m not quite sure how the internals of this system pipe work, I’ll have to experiment to see how to clean it. The stem has mild oxidation and some tooth chatter. So, with a better understanding of the provenance of this Monarch Bent Ball and the technology of the patent, I begin the restoration by cleaning the internal airway and air chamber of the stem with pipe cleaners and cotton buds then I add the Monarch stem to Before & After Deoxidizer along with five other pipes’ stems to address the oxidation.After some hours, I fish the stem out of the Deoxidizer and wipe off the Deoxidizer and oxidation with a cotton pad and light paraffin oil (mineral oil). I also clear the airway of Deoxidizer using a pipe cleaner dipped in isopropyl 95%. The Before & After Deoxidizer did a good job – the stem’s oxidation is removed.Turning to the stummel, I begin to clear the light cake using the Pipnet Reaming Kit. I take a picture to mark the start and spread paper towel to minimize cleaning. I jump over the smallest blade head with this large chamber and use the next blade to the largest blade head. I then use the Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Tool to fine tune the reaming by scraping the chamber walls where the blade heads missed. To get down to fresher briar, I then sand the chamber by wrapping a piece of 240 grade paper around a Sharpie Pen. Finally, to clean the chamber removing the carbon dust, I wet a cotton pad and wipe the chamber. Looking at the chamber wall – I see no problems. The pictures chronicle the progress. Turning to the external surface, I use undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap to scrub with cotton pads and I also utilize a brass brush on the rim. After cleaning I rinse the bowl under tap water. The rim came out well with most of the lava removed.

I decide to explore the internals of the Monarch’s mortise. I first clean the nickel mortise airway tube with pipe cleaners and shank brushes. The tube was easily cleaned. After looking at the patent diagram again, mainly at figure five which shows the mortise fitting, I decide to see if it will come out. The base appears to be threaded. Carefully, I clamp down on the flat sided flange shown as #26, and gently rotate the stummel holding the mortise fitting stationary. It starts a bit sticky but then gradually loosens up until it is removed. What I’m looking at looks close to the 1935 patent diagram. I find that #15 is loose and comes off of the main threaded insert. I read in the patent document that this hardware was designed to enable an exact adjustment to position the stem with the stummel. We’ll see after I clean everything and reassemble how this works. I wanted to see if there was a crud trap at the end of the tubing near the draft hole. I am pleased to see that there wasn’t after plunging a few cotton buds down through the opened mortise. After cleaning and reassembling the mortise insert, it did take a bit to figure out how to work the adjustment mechanism. It was a combination of rotating the threaded insert (#14) so that the flange (#15) was loosened and could rotate a degree or so and tightened to change the alignment of the stem that would then be screwed on…. After a few tightenings and loosenings, I was able to align the stem as it should be! The new steward will have to figure this out! I take a picture to show the alignment. To address the stem’s tooth chatter, I first use the heating method to expand the vulcanite, thus reducing the severity of the indentations. I use a Bic lighter and paint both the upper and lower bit. I follow that by using a flat needle file to re-shape the button lips, both upper and lower, then I sand using 240 grit paper to erase the file scratches and to sand out the tooth chatter. Following the 240 grit paper, I use 600 grit paper to erase the scratches of the 240. Then, over the entire stem, I sand/buff using 0000 grade steel wool. The tooth chatter is removed, and the button’s new lines look good. The stem is ready for the micromesh process. Using micromesh pads 1500 to 2400, I wet sand the stem. Following this, I dry sand using pads 3200 to 4000 and 6000 to 12000. After each set of 3 pads, I apply a coat of Obsidian Oil to rejuvenate the vulcanite. The stem looks good – the glossy pop is what we aim for! The stem is waiting in the wings and I now look to the stummel. To begin, I decide to do a very light topping using 600 grade paper on the chopping board to refresh the rim lines and to remove the remaining lava traces. Inverting the stummel onto the board I only go a few rotations and I’m satisfied with the results. To remove the minor cuts and nicks on the stummel from normal wear, I use micromesh pads 1500 to 2400 and wet sand the stummel. Following this, I dry sand using pads 3200 to 4000 then 6000 to 12000. Well, at the beginning of the second set of micromesh pads while sanding, I spied a blemish in the briar that I hadn’t seen before (second picture below). It was a bit too large for me to be happy with the finished restoration, so I take a little detour. I apply a drop of clear CA glue on the spot. I spray it with an accelerator to instantly cure the patch. I keep the drop as small as possible so not to impact the surrounding briar. Surgically, I file and sand the patch down with a flat needle file, then use 240 and 600 grade papers and then play catchup with the spot with the first 3 micromesh pads. Finally, I then complete the micromesh process with the final six pads. The grain is looking good on this Monarch Bent Ball! At this point I decide to add a stain to darken the stummel, but to give it a nudge in a reddish direction. I decide to use Fiebing’s Saddle Tan Pro Dye to do this. For the staining process, I remove the Monarch System insert in the mortise. I then wipe the stummel with a cotton pad and alcohol to clean the surface. Using a hot air gun, I warm the bowl causing the briar to expand. This helps the grain be more receptive to the dye. After the bowl is heated, I use a folded pipe cleaner to apply the Saddle Tan dye to the briar. After I coat the stummel thoroughly, I flame the stain with a lit candle. This causes the alcohol in the dye to combust and to set the pigment in the briar. After a few minutes, I repeat the process of applying dye and flaming. I set the stummel aside to rest through the night. It’s a good idea, and I turn out the lights. The next morning has arrived and I’m anxious to ‘unwrap’ the flamed Saddle Tan crust encasing the stummel. I mount a felt buffing wheel on the Dremel and set the speed at the slowest and I use Tripoli compound to remove the layer. The felt wheel, coupled with the Tripoli, a coarser compound, removes the leftover stain as well as finely buffs the briar surface. I work the Tripoli compound methodically ‘sweeping’ the briar surface revealing the grain beneath. With my wife’s help, I include a picture of the process. At the end of the application of Tripoli compound, I give the stummel a light wipe with a cotton cloth wetted with isopropyl 95% to blend the new stain. Next, I rejoin stem and stummel and I mount a cotton cloth buffing wheel on the Dremel, turn up the speed to about 40% and apply Blue Diamond compound, a less abrasive compound. Completing this, I use a felt cloth and wipe the pipe removing the compound dust in preparation for applying wax. I mount another cotton cloth wheel to the Dremel, maintain the 40% speed and apply a few applications of carnauba wax to both stem and stummel. I complete the waxing with a rigorous hand buffing using a microfiber cloth.

My goodness! The grain on this Monarch Bent Ball just stands up and shouts! As one traces the patterns around the Ball’s bowl, there’s flame grain, some bird’s eye and a rippled stream of grain that reminds me tiger fur – a landscape of grain pleasing to the eye. The Monarch Ball shape fits naturally in the palm. Andy from Maryland commissioned this Monarch Bent Ball and he will have first dibs on it when it’s placed in The Pipe Steward Store. This pipe benefits the Daughters of Bulgaria – helping women and girls who have been trafficked and sexually exploited. Thanks for joining me!

Restoring a Beautiful K&P Dublin Bent Billiard

A THREE-CARD DRAW FOR AN INSIDE STRAIGHT WITH AN OLD KARL ERIK HAND MADE GRADE O FREEHAND

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Blog by Robert M. Boughton

https://www.facebook.com/roadrunnerpipes/

You’ve got to sing like you don’t need the money
Love like you’ll never get hurt
You’ve got to dance like nobody’s watchin’
It’s gotta come from the heart if you want it to work.

— In “Come from the Heart” (1987), a country music song by Susanna Clark and Richard Leigh

INTRODUCTION
The free-spirited quote I chose for today’s blog is a chorus of sorts to the darker, harder to control song of myself I change a little at a time, but concerning Danish freehands, at least, it shouts out. In regular prose as opposed to verse, the words have been attributed to many folks, the most famous of whom are Leroy “Satchel” Paige and Mark Twain.

Really? Satchel Paige and Mark Twain? Can anyone even summon to the mind an image of Satchel, showman though he was, hurling three evanescent fast balls for a strikeout and then sauntering off the mound, doffing his cap as for the National Anthem, to spout what would have been considered insane gibbering in his day and gotten him run out of town on a rail or worse? Or the wry and often hilarious Great American Writer – who can still leave readers today ROFL from his literary accounts of the myriad outrageous frays he entered with zeal and turn wickedly acerbic in his social commentary – wearing his famous white Southern suit and taking the cigar out of his mouth as he steps onto a gazebo to pronounce such life-affirming, feel good modern sentiments? I think not.

But I like the way Kathy Mattea sings those four lines, although I can’t recall any of the others, and the lively, high-strung electric fiddle plucking of an unsung but talented musician.

To the point, the pictures of a nine-pipe lot I bought at the beginning of the month, before the package arrived, had a magnetic pull on me. The main attraction was a pair of Danish freehands, and the other was the presence of at least two and maybe three other nice finds, about which the seller might have been oblivious. With no order whatsoever to the description and only three brands identifiable (Kaywoodie, Falcon and Missouri Meerschaum), the seller did reveal that one of the freehands was a Knute of Denmark and the other a Karl Erik. I had heard of Knute and was unfamiliar with the brand, but I’ve owned several Karl Eriks and was pretty sure the behemoth in the lower right side of the following photo was it. I was correct.

9-pipe eBay lot courtesy stwok74075

I restored the freehands from the lot first. Of those, I decided to start with the Knute for two reasons, the lesser being my inexperience with the brand and the more significant that, although both were large pipes, the Karl Erik was enormous and therefore had much more area to repair. Had I any idea there was something greater about the KE than its massive potential for beautiful geometric symmetry and fine example of chasing the grain, I might have chosen the opposite order. KE, by the way, is my abbreviation for convenience, not to be confused with the maker’s earliest pipe mark)

The pipe’s bleak façade of thick gunk at first hid the small block of nomenclature on the stem end of the shank. Before I would have taken photos of the pipe as it arrived, I used a thick cotton rag and more than a little force to wipe away the muck that at one point I thought might require alcohol. I stopped breathing a moment when I saw the mark. Instead of the regular two lines of imprint, there were three: KARL ERIK/HANDMADE IN DENMARK/O.

The grade mark, of course, was the part that surprised me. I’ve owned four KE pipes not counting my latest addition, two of which were far more striking at a glance than this one even after I finished its restoration, but none of them was graded.

As fast as I could, I browsed to Pipephil and found a mention of “previous grading” from 4-1 ascending, meaning1 would be the highest, not counting the Ekstravagant releases that were entirely handmade. Well, that was no help, and so I searched further, finding multiple sites that gave both the previous grades and the newer ones from D-A, again ascending. Some of the latter sources, including Pipedia, expanded on the Ekstravagant grade, noting that it in fact was divided into degrees, C, B, A, AA and AAA. I found no official mention of letter grading beyond D, but I did track down a Worthpoint auction that describes O as “[t]he highest grade in the old Karl Erik grading system.” Needless to say, my breath was taken away again. I’m calling on any readers with information on the maker’s early grading system to fill me in on it!

Speaking of the maker, his name was Karl Erik Ottendahl (1942-2004), and he was a lithographer struggling to make ends meet from his apprenticeship starting when he was 16 into his mid-20s when he took up carving pipes as a day job. Young Ottendahl had made pipes as a hobby since he was 16 and gave most of them to friends and senior co-workers. Never forgetting his “roots,” Ottendahl remained perhaps the most generous pipe maker in the history of the craft and trade. He was devoted to the proposition that fine pipes should be affordable to the average smoker, and to that end he priced his works of art far below the going rate. Likely for that reason, his brilliant work was underestimated and likewise valued during and after his lifetime, and it is only in recent years that the market has begun to appreciate their worth more. I’m sure that fact makes Karl Erik roll over in his grave.

The poor, big lunk of fine Danish stock in this blog had fallen on hard times and was in a sorry state. The following triple stem swap gets a little crazy, so try to follow this. The KE came with a nice dark brown swirled acrylic fancy stem that was just way too short to support its gigantic stummel but was perfect for a Knute of Denmark from the same lot that I already restored, blogged and sold – with the KE stem. The Knute, by the way, had a Vulcanite stem that was chomped, with a hole in the bottom below the button I fixed well but the absence of a full lip I knew I could mend enough for my own use but would never pass off to a customer. So that was a no-brainer. I decided on a temporary substitution of a bright orange Lucite stem from a Ben Wade by Preben Holm freehand I have. For now, the half-eaten but semi-repaired Vulcanite stem from the Knute is on the BW. I’ll just add that I’m anxiously awaiting replacements for both of them.

Here are photos of the KE as I received it minus the stem, and the Knute Vulcanite bollix I mended as far as I’m going to do for now, with no signs of the hole that was on the underside but a bit of a double lip there now and the pre-existing half lip topside. RESTORATION
Part of me knew, from the rich, dark briar grain that glowed through the long bottom of the shank after I vanquished the grime that had overcast its natural, smooth brilliance, that the rest of the wood could only be better. But the Devil’s Advocate in me gave rise to the tomfool but nevertheless undeniable apprehension that nothing good could come from stripping away the sedimentary layers of anomalous substances. I decided to be done with the majority of the business using an Everclear soak.

To keep my mind from its pointless and counterproductive negative preoccupation with the state of the stummel, I turned my attention to the Lucite stem that was taken off the BW to use in place of the lovely and too petite stem with which the pipe came. Note the dark stains inside the stem’s airhole and the bore and tenon opening. Most of the inner stain came out with alcohol soaked bristly cleaners, and the rest of that later with the retort. The bore and shank end, on the other hand, needed more wheedling. At first when I tried the small end of a bristly cleaner dipped in alcohol, I had minimal results. Switching to something more pointed, sharp and focused – an unwound paper clip – I scraped away the accreted blackness on both ends and used a 180 grit sanding pad on the tip of the shank end. Either I forgot to snap shots of the results or misplaced them, i.e., tapped Save As on the computer and didn’t look where I did it, but I don’t have the proof of cleaning to display. Later pictures will show all but the shank opening of the stem.

But there’s good news! The Everclear soak was finished! The color and grain I wanted to see were there.To remove the remaining odd caliginosity obscuring the fine wood, I gave the bowl and shank a quick rub with 600-grit paper and the rim with super fine “0000” steel wool. The difference was marked. The plateaux rim and shank opening needed a little more Everclear soaking. That done, I grabbed my handy sanding pad again and spot-scrubbed those places. I reamed and sanded the chamber with 150, 220-, 320- and 600-grit paper that took the char far enough down to the wood for the retort to handle what remained. For me, the most gratifying part of a pipe restore, if the wood has been prepped properly beforehand, is micro meshing from 1500-12000, for this is where the mettle of the pipe is revealed. The deep, shiny, shimmer that should result is something to behold with wonder. And the grain on the block of wood chosen for this pipe is spectacular. I also ran four Pyrex tubes of Everclear through the pipe afterward for the retort. Staining the rough rim and shank opening with Lincoln Medium Brown boot stain before flaming them, I took off the char with 8000 and 12000 micro mesh. The second of the next two pics shows before I finished it with a light touch of steel wool.With that, the pipe was finished except for buffing the stummel and stem with red rouge and carnauba wax. I’m out of Halcyon II and therefore could not use it on the plateau areas. CONCLUSION
One look at this pipe out of the box the lot came in and I fully intended to offer it for sale. The gentleman from one of my pipe smokers’ forums who bought the Knute was also more than eager, to put it lightly, to get his hands on the Karl Erik I told him I had. But all that was before I started unearthing – in a sense that may be literal given the fact that the pipe looked to have been buried for some time – the way Ottendahl chased the grain on this splendid example of one of his earlier works, when he graded them on an as yet undocumented scale. For all I know, O being the fifteenth letter of the English alphabet, my newest freehand may not be near the top end, but it’s still graded. That means it meant something to its maker, and I’m certain he would remember it if he could be reached where he is now. Besides, as his newer scales are ascending, meaning from “best” to “worst,” and I being more of a glass half-full kind of guy, I like to think it’s two grades closer to the sidewalk than the middle if the road.

SOURCES
http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-k1.html
https://pipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Erik
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/karl-erik-freehand-estate-pipe-521847614
https://rebornpipes.com/2016/07/06/a-stellar-find-a-gbd-prestige-1451-oval-shank-billiard/
https://rebornpipes.com/2018/07/17/finding-the-natural-beauty-of-a-knute-of-denmark-freehand/
https://pipedia.org/wiki/Knute

Restoring & Restemming a Zettervig Handmade 351 Freehand

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Blog by Steve Laug

This is another pipe from the fellow here in Vancouver that he dropped off for me to work on. There were 8 pipes in the lot – I have finished five and this is the sixth. It is a Brandy shaped freehand bowl stamped on the underside of the shank and reads Zettervig over Copenhagen over Handmade over the shape number 351 over Denmark. The pipe came with a stem that was obviously not the original. It was another one of his pipe finds on a recent pipe hunt in Vancouver. The smooth finish had a burnt orange colour over a black undercoat. The plateau on the rim top and shank end were also black. The briar had been covered with a lacquer that had gone cloudy. The finish was very dirty and there was a thick cake in the bowl. The pipe needed to be cleaned thoroughly and a new stem fit to the shank that was more of a freehand style stem. I took close up photos of the rim top and the shank end. I believe that the plateau “style” top of the rim was carved rather than natural. The shank end has a combination of carved finish and genuine plateau. The inside of the bowl has a thick cake around the bowl and some tar and oil on the top of the rim filling in the finish. Some of the original black finish was also worn off.I took photos of the pipe with the stem it had on the bowl when it had been found. It is a saddle stem made to fit flush against a rounded shank. It was not made for plateau style freehand shank ends. I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is very clear and readable. The stamping is clearer than the photo shows.I decided that I would look up some information on the Zettervig brand before I started the clean up on the pipe. I looked up information on two of my favourite sites. The first was Pipedia. Here is the link: https://pipedia.org/wiki/Zettervig. I quote in full:

In the 1960’s and into the early 1970’s Ole Zettervig had a shop in Copenhagen, Denmark where he was carving high quality pipes equal to Stanwell, Larsen, Anne Julie, Thurmann, Bang and others. These early pipes were marked “Copenhagen” and are very collectible. He sold his shop at some point in the 70’s and moved to Kolding and continued to produce pipes as a hobby, but the quality of briar and workmanship is said to not equal the early production. The later pipes he now marked as Kobenhaven rather than Copenhagen, and these were sold by Ole at flea markets throughout Europe.

http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-z.html

I started my clean up on the bowl with reaming and then cleaning out the airway to the bowl and the inside of the mortise. I reamed the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to remove the cake on the walls. I used a dowel wrapped with sandpaper to sand down the walls on the bowl. I cleaned out the airway with alcohol (99% isopropyl), pipe cleaners and cotton swabs until they were clean on the inside. I tried to wipe down the bowl with acetone to remove the shiny coat. It did not even begin to permeate the surface. I scrubbed the surface hard to try to break through the finish. It did not work. I sanded the finish with micromesh sanding pads to break the topcoat on the finish down. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit micromesh pads. I dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down after each pad with a cotton pad and acetone. That combination of sanding pads and acetone worked to break down the finish. I used a black Sharpie Pen to restain the rim top and the shank end. It was originally black and I have found over the years that the black pen matches the colour of the original stain.I rubbed down the briar with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the finish and the plateau style rim and shank end with my fingertips and finished working it in with a shoe brush. The balm worked to clean, preserve and enliven the surface of the finish on the small bowl. The briar was coming alive so I took some photos of the pipe at this point. I buffed the plateau style rim top and shank end with a horsehair shoe brush to give it a shine. I went through my can of stems and found one that would work well on the freehand style Zettervig bowl. I had one was from a freehand pipe. I turned the end of the tenon down with the PIMO tenon turning tool. I did not need to remove too much material from the tenon so it did not take too long. Once I had turned it I sanded it smooth with a piece of sandpaper then tried it in the pipe for the fit and the look. It looked good but needed to be bent a little to follow the low of the bowl. I heated it with a Bic lighter until the vulcanite softened then bent it slightly to match the flow of the bowl.The stem had two dents in the top surface. There was also some heavy oxidation in the vulcanite. I cleaned the areas around the button and filled in the dents with clear super glue. When the repair cured I sanded the repairs and the oxidation with 220 grit sandpaper. I folded the paper and worked in the grooves turned areas of the stem.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil between each sanding pad. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond polish on the buffing wheel. I lightly buffed the bowl so as not to fill in the sandblast finish. I also carefully avoided the stamping on the underside of the shank. I gave both the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. I have two more pipes to finish for him – both of them that are finds he made while pipe hunting. This is a fun bunch of pipes to work on. I look forward to moving through the rest of them. Thanks for looking.

Restoring a Cased Set – 2 JBV & 1 M&T Bent Billiards – Part 1

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Blog by Steve Laug

I was chatting with Chris van Hilst from Tobacco Pipe Restorers one day using Messenger and he was selling this old set of pipes. Two of them were stamped JBV in an oval and one was a M&T Best Briar & Bands. The set was missing the third JBV pipe and one of the stems was for the M&T. The silver was dirty and the bowls caked but there was something about the pipes that really attracted me. We talked prices and made a deal. I had him send the pipes to Jeff in Idaho as it was easier to deal with than sending them to Canada. I had him send me a couple of photos of the set that are shown below. The first is the pipes sitting in the case. It shows that there is some kind of cigarette holder and a tamper missing from the set. The second photo shows the JBV in an oval stamp on the left side of the shank of one of the pipes. I could also see hallmarks in the silver but was not able to clearly read them. Jeff received them pretty quickly and put them aside. My daughters went down for my Dad’s 90^th birthday so he took the opportunity to send them north with them on their return trip. He had not had a chance to clean them so I was left to my own devices on this set of three. When they arrived, I took a photo of the case before I opened it and of the case open showing the pipes. It is covered in leather and is kidney shaped. It is lightly stained but other than a few nicks it is in great condition.There was some gold leters on the front edge of the case that reads FOURNISSEUR DE SM LEROI DES BELGES. It translates from Belgian French to read PROVIDER HM KING OF BELGIAN. Or the Provider for His Majesty King of Belgium.I opened the case and took a photo of the pipes on the inside and the stamping on the inside of the lid. It reads J.B. Vinche over “Au Nabab” over Bruxelles. That is what it reads as best as I can make out. It is pretty blurry.I took photos of each of the pipes before I started to work on them. I started with the pipe on the left side of the photo above and worked my way across for the photos. The first pipe below is the one on the left. It is stamped JBV in an oval on the left side of the shank. The silver ferrule is also stamped JBV in an oval over BRUX over three hallmarks that are hard to read. The first appears to be a flower, the second a person and the third is ARG over 900. The pipe is in rough shape. The finish is shot; there is silver polish on the shank ahead of the ferrule. There are some gouges in the top and underside of the shank. The JBV Oval was originally gold leaf. There is a thick cake in the bowl and the rim top is beat up. There are big chunks of briar missing around the outer edge of the rim. The rim top is chipped and damaged and the inner edge is in rough condition. The pipe is very dirty. The second pipe is shown below and is the one in the center position in the case. It is stamped BEST BRIAR & BANDS with each word over the next on the left side of the shank. One the right side it is stamped M&T in a football shaped oval. The silver ferrule is also stamped with a BBB vertically on the side of the band next to the shank. Next to that is the same M&T stamp in an oval over three hallmarks that are hard to read. The first appears to be a flower, the second is 933 and the third is a crescent moon. The pipe is in rough shape. Once again the finish is shot; there is silver polish on the shank ahead of the ferrule. There are some gouges in the top and underside of the shank. There is a thick cake in the bowl and the rim top is beat up. There is a crack running down the back side from the rim halfway to the shank. The rim top is dented and damaged and the inner edge is in better condition than the first pipe. The pipe is very dirty. The third pipe is shown below and is the one on the right side of the case. It is stamped JBV in an oval on the left side of the shank. The silver ferrule is also stamped JBV in an oval over BRUX over three hallmarks that are hard to read. The first appears to be a flower, the second a person and the third is ARG over 900. The pipe is in rough shape. The finish is on this one is also shot; there is silver polish on the shank ahead of the ferrule. There are some gouges in the top and underside of the shank. The JBV Oval was originally gold leaf. There is a thick cake in the bowl and the rim top is beat up. There are big chunks of briar missing around the outer edge of the rim. The rim top is chipped and damaged and the inner edge is in rough condition. There looked like there could be a crack in the bowl down the left side. Like the rest of the pipes in this set the pipe is very dirty. There were two stems in the set. You can see from the photos below that they were different sizes. In the first photo the top stem is more delicate. It is narrower at the tenon end. It is for the M&T pipe while the bottom one is for the JBV pipes. The stems both are in decent condition with a little oxidation and minimal tooth chatter. There are no deep tooth marks so that is something to be thankful for. I knew that the set was older but I was unfamiliar with the brands. I had not heard of JBV so I did a bit of research on the brand and found an interesting link to an old catalogue. It turns out that the JBV is short for J.B. Vinche Company in Brussels. I have included the information on the brand that I found in the link as well as the link below.

This company maintained a factory in Brussels, Belgium, but records indicate that it also operated a retail establishment at 34, Rue Notre Dame des Victoires, in Paris under the name “Au Nabab” where, no doubt, it offered its product line for sale to the public.

https://www.facebook.com/tobaccopipeartistory/photos/a.111646685586370.24977.101191206631918/111646972253008/?type=3&theater

I also included some photos of a J.B. Vinche Catalogue from 1875. I checked on the Pipephil website to see what I could find there. Generally I find the site one of the most helpful in quickly confirming information on a brand. In this case it came through with a great bit of information. I did a screen capture of the pertinent section of the link. You can check it out further on the following link. http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-v2.html.

The information included in the capture reads:

The brand has been created in Bruxelles in 1864 by Jean Baptiste Vinche and run after him by his son Victor. Marcel and Rene Vinche (3^rd generation) managed the corporation from 1927 on. The brand is famous for its meerschaum pipes but briar pipes were also produced after 1938. In 1965 Jacques Vinche (4^th generation) entered the family firm. Jeff and Mia Koopmans from Hilson Pipes joined in 1977. Today (2009) Ben and Wim Koopmans manage the business.Pipedia confirms this information at the following link: https://pipedia.org/wiki/Vinche.

I could not find out any information on the third pipe – the M&T Best Briar Band pipe. I checked in all of my usual sources and came up empty. Does anyone know anything about the brand? Let me know.

Armed with the background information, I decided to start on these pipes by reaming all three of them. The cake in each was quite thick and the damage to the rim and bowl made me proceed with caution. I was concerned about the cracked bowl in the M&T pipe as well as the potential crack in the second JBV pipe. I started with the first JBV pipe and reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer starting with the first cutting head and working my way up to the second and lightly working on it with the third one. I took the cake back to bare briar to check out the interior of the bowl. I followed up by reaming it with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe knife and finally sanding the bowl with 180 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. I moved on to the M&T Best Briar Band pipe and reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer starting with the first cutting head and working my way up to the second and lightly working on it with the third one. I took the cake back to bare briar to check out the interior of the bowl. I followed up by reaming it with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe knife and finally sanding the bowl with 180 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. I moved on to the second JBV pipe (the one that I thought had a possible crack). I started with the smallest cutting head on the PipNet pipe reamer and turned it gently in the bowl one twist and the bowl split in half in my hands. I was sick when I felt it break. I have never had that happen in all these years of working on pipes. It really was unbelievable. I held the pieces together and took the cake back to bare briar to check out the interior of the bowl. I used a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe knife to scrape away the remnants of cake. The photo below shows the bowl in half with the reamer next to it.This is not what I wanted to do next! I had planned to work through each of the pipes and have a nice set! Now I had to deal with this one and because it was part of an old set I felt obligated to try to put it back together. I was just sickening to have the second original bowl break in my hands. Why couldn’t it have been the cracked M&T bowl? But since it was the other JBV bowl I needed to repair it. At this point this blog also took a turn. I would do the rest of the first part of the blog on the bowl repair of this particular JBV pipe. I would have to follow up with at least one more part on the other two pipes in the set.

I turned to repair the bowl. I decided to pin the two halves together and then fill it and line the bowl with JB Weld. It would be a process. I drilled 8 small pin holes in the front half of the bowl and put stainless pins in the holes. I matched the two halves together and marked the holes on the other side of the bowl. I drilled matching holes. Once I had the holes aligned I painted each half with gel super glue and pressed the halves together and held them in place until the glue set. I filled in the cracks around the sides and bottom of the bowl with briar dust and super glue. I used a dental spatula to apply the patch all around the bowl. I pressed the mixture into the crevices that remained in the sides and bottom.When the repair hardened I sanded it with 180 grit sandpaper to blend it into the surface of the bowl. I also repaired the chips out of the edges of the bowl with super glue and briar dust. I sanded the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper and smoothed out the repaired areas and sanded the rest of the bowl at the same time. I carefully avoided the stamping on the shank so as not to damage that area. I topped the bowl to remove the damage to the rim top. I had hand sanded it with sandpaper to start the process and filled in the damaged areas with super glue and briar dust. Now it was time to top it. Once I had it topped I wiped the bowl down with alcohol to remove the dust and the remainder of the finish on the shank and bowl. I cleaned out the inside of the mortise and shank as well as the airway into the bowl with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs. The airway was clogged so I pushed a pipe cleaner through into the bowl. The mortise was like a Peterson’s sump and it was filthy. It took a lot of work to clean it out.I sanded the exterior of the bowl with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge. At this point I paused in sanding the exterior and turned my attention to repairing the inside of the bowl. I mixed a batch of JB Weld and put a pipe cleaner in the airway into the bowl to keep the airway from being covered with the mixture. I applied the mix to the inside of the bowl with a popsicle stick. I pressed it into the cracks and build up the damaged areas to protect it from further damage. With that I called it a night, set the bowl aside to dry and turned out the lights. In the morning I sanded out the excess JB Weld with 180 grit sandpaper wrapped around a dowel. I wiped the bowl down with a damp paper towel to remove the dust. The photos below show the bowl at this point. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad to remove the dust. I stained the bowl with a Tan aniline stain. I had found that the stain was probably mislabeled as it had a definite red cast to it. I applied it with the dauber and flamed it with a lighter to set the stain in the finish.Once the stain cured I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. It cleans, enlivens and protects the briar. In this case I also found that it blended the stain well on the surface of the briar. I polished the silver with a jeweler’s cloth to polish and remove the tarnish. I reapplied the gold to the stamping on the shank using Rub’n Buff Antique Gold. I applied it in the stamping using the tip of a sanding stick. I let the stamping sit for a few minutes then buffed off the excess product.I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to making a stem for this pipe. Remember I mentioned that the second stem in the case was for the M&T pipe and was too small in diameter for the shank of the second JBV pipe. I found a Bakelite stem in my box of stems that only needed to be shaped to fit the shank of the pipe. I tapered the end of the stem with a Dremel and sanding drum to match the taper of the other stem. I sanded it with 180 grit sandpaper to smooth out the Dremel marks and further taper it.I sanded out the tooth chatter and reshaped the edges of the button with 220 grit sandpaper. I also smoothed out the flow of the stem.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with Obsidian Oil to wipe away the sanding dust and bring some life to the Bakelite. With the stem and bowl done it the first installment of this blog is complete. It is time to reconnect things and take some final photos. I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the entire pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect. I buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. This frustrating old pipe that split in half had been brought back to functional life and it does not look to bad to my eye. This is a long one. For some of you I am sure you are wondering what is wrong with me to take time to fix this one. To you I say it was worth the lessons that I learned and it is still a smokable pipe. Thanks for reading.

Refurbishing a Bjarne Hand Made Nosewarmer

A Harcourt Hand Carved Freehand – #7 of Anthony’s Dad’s Pipes

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Blog by Steve Laug

This is a continuation of the work that began with an email from Anthony, a reader of rebornpipes asking if I would be willing to help him clean up his Dad’s pipes. He wrote; “I have a few pipes (8 or so) that haven’t been smoked in 15 years. They were my dad’s. I would like to get someone to restore them”. We chatted back and forth via email and the long and short of the story is that I have eight of his Dad’s pipes in my shop now to work on. The photo below shows the mixture of pipes that he sent me. There are some interesting shapes and most are very dirty and have very little if any of the original finish left on the briar. All have an overflow of carbon on the rim top and all have chewed, damaged stems and buttons. Anthony remembers his Dad smoking them throughout the years he was growing up so they went from regular use to being boxed and stored. They will need a lot of TLC to bring life back to them but it should be fun to give it a go. I went through the pipes and assessed their condition and contacted him and got the go ahead to proceed on the lot.I have completed the restoration of six of the pipes. The next pipe I chose to work on was the tall freehand with plateau on the rim and the shank end. It too had a replacement vulcanite stem – it is the second pipe down on the left hand column in the above photo. I have circled it in red. It is a tall freehand with a 1/4 bent stem. It is a really pretty straight grain with patterns of rustication on the bottom portion of the bowl. It has plateau on the top and on the end of the shank. The plateau finish has what looks like mold or at least water damage on both the top and end of the shank. There is also water damage around the end of the shank. The stem that is on it is again a replacement twin bore/bite proof stem that is chewed and for all intents and purposes destroyed. The fact that most of these pipes have a replacement twin bore bite proof stem tells me a lot about Anthony’s Dad’s habitual gnawing on his pipes. The stem is ruined with large pieces tooth marks and holes on both the top and underside extending from the chewed button into the surface of the stem. I will need to find a different stem. The pipe is stamped on the underside of the shank with the number 0 and under that Harcourt over Hand Carved in Denmark. The bowl had a thick cake, and some lava overflow under the water damage. The finish was gone and very washed out looking. Even the dirt and grime were anemic. I took photos of the pipe to show its overall condition when it arrived at my work table. I took some close up photos of the bowl, rim top and the stem to show what I was going to be dealing with on this pipe. The plateau rim top was in rough condition – mold filled in the grooves and valleys of the plateau. There was also some lava overflowing from the bowl that had filled in the grooves. The plateau on the shank end was worse than the rim top (if possible). The finish worn off and there was water staining all around the shank end.The water damage around the end of the shank was darker than the rest of the finish. It was water stained and those are hard to remove. I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It reads 0 over Harcourt. Underneath that are two lines reading Hand Carved over In Denmark.The stem was ruined you can see from the second and third photos below. The “bite proof” stem evidently was not bite proof. Anthony’s Dad had gnawed through the twin bore and left holes in the deep tooth marks on the stem. It would need to be replaced.I had some vague memory about the Harcourt brand that had a connection to Preben Holm and the stamping seemed a lot like the way that he stamped his pipes. I did a bit of research on the brand to see the connection. The first place I looked was on Pipedia at the following link: https://pipedia.org/wiki/Harcourt. There I found the following information which I quote in full.

The brand Harcourt was produced by Preben Holm (†) for Dunhill to secure a share of the Danish fancy boom for Dunhill’s principal pipe dealers. Later Erik Nørding made Harcourt pipes for a shorter period. These pipe are sometimes (partially) rusticated.

It had been reported that the second generation of Harcourt pipes were sold exclusively through Dunhill stores, but we now know through Rich Mervin that the Brick Church Pipe Shop, a chain of 3 stores in NJ sold Danish freehands in the 1970s and 80s including Knute, Ben Wade, and Harcourt. They were also an authorized Charatan and Dunhill retailer. So, apparently Harcourt freehands were sold through at least some Dunhill dealers as well as the Dunhill stores.

I then turned to the pipephil site at this link and found out some more information on the brand. http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/infos/harcourt1.html. I followed the links there to some photos of a boxed pipe and the stamping on the shank.

This box contains a pipe carved for Dunhill in the 1970s. Harcourt pipes were Dunhill’s answer to the passion Danish style raised during this period.There was also a photo of the stamping on Preben Holm’s designed Harcourt that is recognizable by the characteristic shape of the pipe as well as by the stampings on its shank. The stampings in the photo are identical to the pipe I am working on. It is stamped with an 0 over HARCOURT and underneath that it reads HAND CARVED over IN DENMARK.

From the two sites I was able to make the connection between the pipe I am working on and the Harcourt pipes that were made by Preben Holm. The connection between Preben Holm and Dunhill’s desire to tap into the Danish Freehand market in the US was also helpful as it gave me a potential date for the pipe. It was made in the 1970s – the height of the Danish period in the US.

So now I knew that Anthony’s Dad had purchased this pipe during the 1970s from a shop probably somewhere in California. Possibly even the pipe shop that Anthony’s Mom had written about called “Andre’s,” around 1969 or ’70. She said it was a unique shop, originally located in Los Gatos, or Campbell, California she thought. She said that it later moved to the Alameda area in San Jose. Anthony’s Dad also bought his favorite tobacco blends there so it makes sense to me that he may have also purchased the pipe there. Perhaps Anthony will let us know when he reads this.

Once again I am including the tribute that I asked Anthony to write about his Dad and his pipe smoking once again in case some of you missed that and wanted to have some background. Here is what Anthony sent: When my dad died 6 years ago, my mom asked if I wanted my dad’s old pipes. He was a long time pipe smoker, ever since I was a kid I can remember him sitting on the couch smoking his pipe inside. He worked at IBM and used to smoke his pipe in his office before they changed the laws in California. So you can imagine he had quite the collection over the years.

I took his pipes and put them in storage for a few years, I myself recently quit smoking cigarettes and decided to take up pipe smoking as it was easier on the wallet. I asked in /r/pipetobacco if anyone could recommend a pipe restoration service and someone told me about rebornpipes.com. I was hesitant but after looking at the blog I knew it would be a good place to send my dad’s pipes.

My dad loved smoking his pipes, sitting out by the pool in the sun taking a nap or in the garage wood working. The house was my mom’s area and the garage was my dad’s area. I spent hours sitting out in the garage as a kid watching the niners or a’s and giants on tv while doing woodworking projects. I hope to do the same with my kids these days.

I’m not sure if my dad smoked other tobacco but I remember Captain Black was the kind he smoked regularly. He had tins of it in the garage, full and empty and would turn the old tin jars into storage for odds and ends, like screws or washers or miscellaneous stuff.

I remember when I played little league my dad would sit in the stands and smoke his pipes. One of my teammates asked “What is that smell?” and I ashamedly said “Oh that’s my dad’s pipe…I’ll go tell him to put it out” and my teammate said “No man, it smells good!”. It’s funny how the little conversations over the years you remember.

Another time when I was in 3rd grade or so we learned how smoking was bad for you (this was back in the 80s). I remember I asked my teacher if smoking a pipe was bad for you too….and she hesitated and said “Not as bad as cigarettes, since you don’t inhale it”. After that I was no longer worried about my dad smoking.

Knowing my mom I have no idea how my dad pulled this off but he managed to smoke his pipe in the house. I guess she liked the smell of it. Recently when I was waiting for my girls to get out of school I was sitting on a side street smoking my pipe and someone walked by and thanked me for bringing the pipe back. He said his dad used to smoke a pipe and he loved the smell. As did mine. The only difference is my daughters complain constantly about the smell of my car, but that is mostly because I smoke cigars too.

Anyway, grab some fine tobacco, light up a bowl and sit back and relax. I don’t have a pool like my dad did but you can catch me working on my laptop sitting in my driveway smoking a nice pipe, especially one of these restored pipes from reborn pipes….I can’t wait to smoke them.

Thanks Anthony, that gives me a sense of who your Dad was and how he enjoyed his pipes. I was ready to turn my attention to this seventh pipe. I went through my can of stems and found a stem that I really like the looks of. There was something classic about it and simple that looked right with the pipe. It was about ½ inch longer than the replacement stem. The tenon was the right length for the shank and once it was cleaned up it would look good. I would need to put a slight bend in the stem to fit the flow of the shank and pipe. It was lightly oxidized but otherwise a pretty clean saddle stem. I took photos of the two stems together to show how they compared.I heated the new stem with a heat gun to soften the vulcanite enough to bend it. When it was flexible I bent it over the end of the buffing wheel to get the proper bend on the shank. I put the stem in the shank and took photos of the newly bent stem. The fit was good. I liked the look of the bend and the flow of the pipe. I sanded down the circumference of the tenon with 150 and 220 grit sandpaper. It did not take too much work to get the stem to fit well in the shank the way I wanted. I sanded the oxidation off the surface of the stem and sanded out the tooth chatter and light tooth marks on the top and underside of the stem at the button. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I polished the stem with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to finish removing the light scratches that remained. I gave stem another coat of the oil after that and set it aside to let the oil dry. I set the stem aside and worked on the bowl. I reamed it back to bare briar using a PipNet pipe reamer to remove as much of the cake as I could. I finished with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife and then sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a dowel. There were some deep gouges and flaws in the briar on the left side toward the bottom half of the bowl. I cleaned the area and filled them in with drops of clear superglue. When the glue cured I sanded them back to blend into the surrounding bowl side.I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the nooks and crannies of the sandblast finish on the rim top, bowl and shank. I worked it deeper into the grooves with a horsehair shoe brush. The balm works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I really like the way it brings life to the briar. When I wipe it off with a soft cloth it not only adds a shine but takes away the grime that is in the finish. I needed to stain the bowl to get some coverage on the water damaged areas. Even after sanding they were darker than the rest of the briar. I stained the pipe with Fiebing’s Tan stain. It seems the tan stain may be improperly labelled because everything seems to come out like it has been stained with oxblood or cordovan stain. It brought the red out of the briar. I applied the stain and flamed it with a lighter. I repeated the process until the coverage was even around the bowl. Once the stain had cured I buffed the bowl with Blue Diamond on thebuffing wheel to polish the stain and smooth out the finish. The pipe is looking good. The finish is a little too opaque for me so I will need to address that shortly. I decided to make the finish less opaque by polishing it with micromesh sanding pads. I sanded with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads to make the finish more transparent. The photos below show the process. I put the pipe back together and polished the bowl with multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem with multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it 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 finished pipe is shown in the photos below. This is seventh of eight pipes that I am restoring from Anthony’s Dad’s collection. I am looking forward to hearing what Anthony thinks once he sees the finished pipe on the blog. Once I have the remaining pipe finished I will pack them up and send them back to him. It will give him opportunity to carrying on the trust from his Dad. The dimensions are Length: 7 inches, Height: 3 1/8 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 2 inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 inches. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this pipe from Anthony’s Dad’s collection. One more freehand pipe remains and will soon follow in the days ahead keep an eye out for it.