I picked up this threesome pictured below on EBay. The first photo is the one posted by the seller to show the pipes that were for sale. I bid and won the auction. The threesome arrived this week and I decided to tackle the refurb on the poker first. Something about it grabbed my interest.

When it arrived I unpacked the box to find that the three pipes were a bit worse for wear than the original picture above. The side shot of the photo obscured the tooth marks and oxidation of the stems. The poker had a white build up on the stem, almost a calcification that was rock hard and would need a soak to deal with. The finish was not too bad on the bowl – just a little spotty and dirty. The finish is a sandblast on the bowl that is quite deep and nicely done. The shank has a combination sandblast and rustication on it. The bottom of the bowl is smooth and there is a small ring of smooth briar next to the stem on the shank. The rim had originally been rusticated but appeared to have been sanded virtually smooth. It had a slight build up of tars and oils on it. There was a faint rustication pattern but the stain was gone under the grime. It looked as if the owner had sanded the rim clean and then left it to smoke it as it was.

I decided to ream the bowls on all three pipes. Once that was done I put all three in an alcohol bath – a jar with isopropyl alcohol. I leave the alcohol and replenish it as it evaporates or is used up. Once a month I pour it off and clean out the sediment in the bottom of the jar. The alcohol is dark and seems to give the briar a good patina as it soaks in it. It removes the stain a bit and also the grime and grit of the finish. I let all three bowls soak for several hours and then removed them and dried them off before setting them aside for the night. I also soaked the stems in a bath of Oxyclean while the bowls soaked. I find that this soak softens the calcification on the stems and also loosens the oxidation making it easier to deal with once I work on the stems. The picture below shows the bowls just after I removed them from the bath and had not dried them off.

The next four pictures show the bowls after they have been dried off and you can see the state of the finish on each of the pipes. The first one on the left side of the first picture is the little patent Brigham Lovat. The finish is clean and ready to work on. The middle pipe is the no name poker. The last pipe on the right is the Dr. Plumb Statesman long shanked billiard.

The poker came out very clean. The finish was ready to rework. The bowl had an undercoat of oxblood stain that is clearly visible and would pretty much determine the colour I would use in restaining it. In the photo below you can see the bowl rim of the poker in the middle. The faint rustication is visible and you can see that the rim had been sanded. In the second photo below you can see the smooth bottom on the poker and see the scratches in the briar that will need to be dealt with.

I used my rustication tool, the modified Philips screwdriver and reworked the rustication on the rim following the faint pattern that was visible. Once I had it way I wanted I worked on teh scratches on the bottom of the bowl. I sanded the bottom with micromesh pads 1500, 1800 and 2400 as the scratches were not deep. When I was finished and they were smooth I decided to restain the bowl with oxblood coloured aniline stain. I applied the stain with the dauber that came with the stain, making sure to get the stain in all of the crevices of the blast and the rustication. Once it was applied I flamed the stain and then set it aside to dry. I took it to the buffer once it was dry and buffed the bowl with Tripoli and White Diamond to polish the stain and give some depth to the finish. At this point in the process the pipe bowl was laid aside and I worked on the stem.

The stem took quite a bit of work. Not only was it calcified at the bit end but it also had some fairly deep scratches on the top of the stem. These needed to be sanded out to remove them. The stem also had some of the bevel of what appears to be a replacement stem blank. It may not be but it has all the look of one. It fits well but the edge bevels on the sides of the stem rather than a smooth transition from top to edge show the lack of finish to me. I wanted to sand out the scratches and the bevels and smooth the transition to a smooth edge with no bevels. I used some 280 grit sandpaper to begin with and progress through a medium grit sanding pad, a fine grit sanding pad, 400 and 600 wet dry sandpaper and water. Once I had the finish smooth and the bevels removed I then worked on the stem with the micromesh sanding pads from 1500 – 12,000 grit. I used 1500 – 2400 grit with water and was able to remove the remaining scratches. After that I used the Maguiar’s Scratch X2.0 polish on a cotton pad and rubbed the stem until it was smooth. I wiped off the polish and then proceeded to use the remainder of the micromesh pads. I gave the stem a coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I then used some Halcyon II wax on the bowl and hand polished it with a soft cotton buff. Once I finished that I wiped down the stem and gave it a buff with White Diamond and then gave the entire pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax until it glowed.