Tag Archives: Stem repairs

Replacing a broken tenon on a shank extension on a Meerschaum Figural

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Blog by Steve Laug

A local friend named Trevor dropped by my porch with a pipe that his boss had given him for his hard work through the years. The pipe had belonged to his boss’s father and he was quite clean to bringing to life so that he could actually smoke it. His boss’s father had never smoke it so it remained an unsmoked Figural Meerschaum in a presentation box. The box had a satin pillow lining and small pillow that sat on top of the pipe. He opened it up and a musty smell emerged from the long unused pipe. In the box sat a carved Meerschaum bowl, a small Meerschaum shank extension and an acrylic stem. The bone tenon in the stem was intact and undamaged. That is not what I was expecting when he had called about a repair on a broken tenon. What had broken was a plastic/nylon tenon that held the shank extension on the bowl and shank of the pipe. A portion of it was stuck in the bowl/shank and a portion of it was in the extension itself. It had snapped off without leaving anything to grab onto to pull it out. The fact that it was a threaded tenon also made this a challenging pipe to work on. Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of the pipe before I started working on it but I have a picture of the parts. You can see the bowl and extension in the photo below. You can also see the bone tenon at the bottom of the photo that goes in the stem. The broken plastic one is between the shank extension and the short shank.I had run out of bone tenons so I was just going to order some when Jeff called and reminded me that I had boxes of them at his place. I asked him to put together an assortment for me to go through and find the proper one for this pipe. While I waited for them to arrive I put the pipe aside and reflected on how I would remove the broken tenon pieces from the bowl and shank extension. I wrote to Charles Lemon and asked if he had any ideas for a quick and painless removal. Unfortunately he did not. His suggestion was the same as my initial thoughts which was to drill out both portions of the tenon. The threading was problematic if I wanted to keep those parts original but it could be done. However, I was not ready to give up yet on searching for another option.

This week the box of pipes and the bone tenons arrived here in Vancouver. This what he sent me… just a few tenons to choose from. There must be one that would fit in that assortment don’t you think?Now that the replacement tenons were here I had to come to some decisions on removing the broken tenon from the two parts of the pipe. I have often heard people say that they don’t like bone tenons but I have to say this plastic/nylon was far worse than any bone tenon I have worked on in the past.

Yesterday (Friday) I came to a possible solution. I have a set of Spiral                                                 Screw Extractors like those to the right. The idea is to twist them into the head of a damaged screw and then reverse the drill and pull the screw out. I thought possibly I could turn the one that was the same size as the airway in the broken tenon until it bit. Then with a pair of pliers reverse it out. With apprehension about cracking the meerschaum I cast my worries to wind and tried it out. I turned it carefully into the broken tenon in the shank. It bit into the nylon/plastic. I used a pair of pliers and carefully turned the bit to unscrew the broken tenon. It worked very well and within a few minutes the tenon piece was out of the bowl portion of the shank.

I was a little more reticent with the shank extension as it seemed more fragile and there was a small crack on each side of the meer already (at least I am pretty sure it was already there but I cannot be certain as it is certainly there now). I proceeded slowly and carefully with the same procedure and within minutes that piece of the broken tenon was also free of the shank extension. I let out a sigh of relief that it had work and not actually done more damage to the pipe. I took photos of the work and the results and have included them below.I went through the bag of tenons and found the perfect one. I took a photo of the parts of the pipe to show what I was working with. The tenon on the left is the one that joined the shank and shank extension. The one on the right is the one for the stem and shank extension. The smaller end screws into the stem itself.I turned the first tenon into the shank of the bowl to check the fit. The threads fit well but there was a little sloppiness at the shank end that I would need to deal with. You can see how it looks in the photo below.I turned the shank extension on to the tenon and took a photo. You can see the looseness at the joint. If you look closely you can also see the fine hairline crack in the middle of the extension next to the bowl. It is tiny and I repaired it with clear CA glue and clamped it together.I wrapped the bone tenon with some Teflon tape to assure that there was a snug fit in the shank and help tighten it. I taped the shank extension end with a little less of the to align things on the shank and extension and to snug the fit as well. I also wrapped the end of the tenon that fit in the stem end of the extension as well. I turned the stem onto the shank extension and lined it up. It looks good. I screwed parts together and everything lined up very well and the draught on the pipe was clear and unobstructed. I took photos of the pipe at this point in the process. It is a nice looking old pipe that is ready for its initial smoke. The pipe is ready for Trevor to pick up next time he stops by. I want to check with him about the hairline cracks in the shank extension to see if he remembers them or if perhaps it happened while it was in my care. I am hoping all is well. The cracks have sealed and do not seem to be growing at all. It is really a nice looking old pipe. Thanks for reading along as I worked on the process of this repair.

Repairing and restoring a Unique Tom Spanu Freehand Dublin

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe I have chosen is smooth finished Dublin with a plateau top and a horn shank end. The stem is acrylic with a briar saddle and two strips of briar running down the sides. It came to us on September, 2020 from a lady in Salina, Kansas USA. The contrast of the brown and black stains make the grain stand out. It was stamped at an angle on the left side of the shank and read Tom Spanu. On the underside it is stamped F 3 followed by S P. The pipe was very dirty in the plateau on the rim top. All of the grooves were filled in with a thick coat of lava. The bowl was heavily caked so it was hard to know for sure what the condition of the edges was under the lava. The interesting stem with briar inlays was good in the saddle and inlaid sides. The acrylic blade of the stem had tooth chatter and deep marks on the top and underside on and near the button. Jeff took photos of the pipe before his cleanup work. They tell the story and give a glimpse of the pipe. Jeff took photos of the rim top and stem to show the general condition of the pipe. The bowl is heavily caked with a thick overflow of lava on the top and edges fills in the plateau finish. The stem has deep tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside near the button. Jeff took photos of the bowl sides and heel to show the grain and around this bowl. Underneath all the grime it is a nice looking pipe. He took photos of the left side and underside of the shank to show the stamping. The stamping is readable in the photos below and is as noted above. He also included a photo of the inlaid silver dot in an acrylic ring on the topside of the stem to show the condition. To get a short history reminder about the brand I turned to Pipephil’ sites to read what he had written there in the side bar (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-t7.html#tomspanu). I quote below and also include a screen capture of the pertinent section.

Artisan: Tommaso Spanu (born 1944 in Chiaramonti Sardinia) is an independant pipe maker since 1979. He was established in Laerru (Sardinia) from 1979 to 1999 where he used to harvest, cut and condition his own ebauchons. During this period he often worked for Paronelli. The workshop moved to Sassari (Sardinia) in 1999. He crafts Briar but also Lemonwood, Olivewood, Boxwood, Juniper, Oak and even Cork Oak.I turned to Pipedia for more information (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Spanu). I quote below:

Novarte S.N.C. di Spanu Tommaso

Update: We are sad to report that it has come to our attention that Tommaso Spanu passed from this World in the Fall of 2015 to join the many great Italian pipe makers that came before him. Our hope is that Tommoso’s sons and brother will continue the Spanu pipe making tradition. We can also enjoy the legacy he leaves in the many pipes he has made over the years.

In 1963 Tommaso Spanu left his home in Sardinia and wandered to Northern Italy to become a pipemaker. His uncle had managed an apprenticeship for him in Gavirate, in the province of Varese, with it’s many pipe manufactures. His exceptional talent soon attracted the attention of Alberto Paronelli (→ Paronelli), the grand seigneur of Italian pipe business. Paronelli, a famed pipe designer himself, arranged that the best pipe craftsmen schooled his young fosterling and personally taught him in pipe design and styles. Soon Spanu reached a remarkable level of skills and began to work on the Clairmont pipes, a high-grade brand produced for and distributed by Paronelli. A little later the bulk of the Clairmonts was made by Spanu who was even allowed to stamp them with his own name additionally.

All in all Tom Spanu spent 16 years in the North where he worked with many other famous pipemakers like Guiseppe Ascorti and Luige Radice e.g. In 1979 he finally felt it was time now to continue on his own. So he returned to Sardinia where he established his own workshop with some help from his brothers. A firm was founded to market the pipes, the Novarte S.N.C. di Spanu Tommaso. Furthermore he purchased a licence from the local government and following Spanu is the only pipemaker worldwide who grows, harvests, mills and conditions his own briar!

Today his brother and two sons carry on the family tradition, making more than a thousand pipes a year. Mostly more classic models for Italy, but also a good amount of more stylish designs for the foreign markets. Now, if it comes to talking about “entirely handmade pipes” … Just as when Tommaso started carving pipes, only hand tools are used. Not a lathe or drill is to be found in his workshop!

Around 1997 Spanu was approached by Mercedes-Benz and asked to design briar-burl dashboards for their most luxurious sedans. And he replied “Maybe tomorrow!” We can assume that the envoys looked quite dumbfounded to be turned down that way, and so Spanu explained that while the project would be fun, his first love was pipes, and only once he was not making as many pipes he would consider it. Mercedes-Benz is said to have taken the rebuff in good nature, and even this automobile manufacturing giant is still waiting on Mr. Spanu to finish some pipes.

Beside the all-briar pipes Spanu loves to work with a wide variety of others woods ranging from the traditional olivewood to beech, oak, boxwood and juniper. He often produces hybrids composing different woods.

Jeff had done a great job cleaning up the pipe as usual. He reamed the pipe with a PipNet reamer and cut back the cake back to the bare briar. He cleaned up the walls with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the interior of the bowl and shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to remove the tars and oils. He scrubbed the exterior of the pipe with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime from the finish. He worked on the rim top lava with the soap and tooth brush. He scrubbed the inside of the stem with alcohol and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior with Soft. He rinsed it off with warm water to remove the Deoxidizer. It looked very good when I brought it to the worktable.   I took close up photos of the rim top and the stem surface. I wanted to show how well it had cleaned up. The rim top looked very good. The beveled inner edge had some damage on the right side toward the front that would need to be cleaned up in the process. I took photos of the stem to show the tooth marks on the surface ahead of the button and on the sharp edge of the button itself. I took a photo of the stamping on the left side and the underside of the shank. You can see that it is stamped as noted above. It is clear and readable. I took the pipe apart and took a photo of the pipe. It is a good looking pipe and has a few deep scratches around the bowl and shank. There were three small worm holes I the horn shank band where it met the briar stem. They were round and quite deep. They would need to be filled in and repaired to make the band round and smooth once more.I began my work on the pipe by dealing with worm holes in the horn shank band. I filled them in with clear super glue. I repeated the fill until the surface was smooth. I blended the repairs into the surrounding horn and it looked good. I put the stem on the shank and sanded the junction as well. I worked on the beveled inner edge of the bowl with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth it our and lessen the darkening. It cleaned up well and looked very good.I worked on the deep cuts in the left side of the bowl with sandpaper and filled them in with clear CA glue. I sanded the repaired areas with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth them out. I polished the repairs with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper.I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust. By the end of the process they looked very good. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar and plateau rim top with my fingertips and a horsehair shoe brush to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let the balm sit for 15 minutes and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. I set the bowl aside and worked on the stem. I filled in the deep tooth marks on the stem sides with black super glue and set it aside to cure. When it cured I flattened the repairs with a small file. I sanded out the repaired areas with 200 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surface. I started the polishing with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I am excited to finish this Tom Spanu F3 SP Freehand Dublin with a Plateau Rim Top. I put the pipe back together and buffed it with Blue Diamond 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 and hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine. It is fun to see what the polished bowl looks like with the rugged rustication all around it. Added to that the polished triple brass and emerald acrylic band and the black vulcanite stem was beautiful. This Spanu Freehand Dublin is nice looking and the pipe feels great in my hand. It is light and well balanced. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 6 ½ inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 2 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: 1 inch. The weight of the pipe is 76 grams/2.68 ounces. It is a beautiful pipe and one that will be on the Italian Pipe Makers Section of the rebornpipes store soon. If you are interested in adding it to your collection let me know. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this pipe. Thanks to each of you who are reading this blog.

Restoring and Reworking a Stem on a Ser Jacopo Maxima R2 Canadian

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is a Rusticated Ser Jacopo Canadian that is proportionally well done. Jeff and I purchased a group of pipes on 04/26/2022 from a woman who contacted us from Cleveland, Ohio, USA. They had belonged to her husband’s father. We spent time chatting with her and arrived at a price and she sent the pipes to Jeff. It included 28+ pipes including this one.

This Ser Jacopo Canadian is stamped on the underside and Maxima followed by Per Aspera [over] Ad Astra. That is followed by Ser Jacopo [over] Fatta A Mano [over] Italia. A circle R2 follows that next to the bowl/shank junction. On the top of the stem is a single coral dot. The finish was very dirty with spots of grime and debris ground into the rustication. The bowl had a thick cake in the bowl and heavy lava overflowing onto the rim top. The rim top appeared to have some burn damage on the inner edge of the bowl. The outer edges looked good. The acrylic stem was a disaster. It was gnawed off with only two points remaining on either side. The externals were filthy with calcification, oxidation and tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of what remained of the ruined button. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his clean up work on it. He took photos of the bowl and rim top to show the condition. You can see the thick cake in the bowl and rim top and edges. The lava is so thick that is hard to know what the edges and top look like underneath. The stem was heavily oxidized, calcified and the end of the stem and most of the button had been gnawed off. Overall the pipe is a real mess. Jeff took photos of the rusticated finish around the bowl sides and heel. It was nice looking if you can see through the grime ground into the surface. He took photos of the stamping on the underside of the shank. The stamping is clear and readable. It reads as noted above. I turned to Pipephil (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-s5.html) to remind myself of the background of the brand. I also wanted to see what the single Coral dot meant on the stem. I knew that the Coral dot was on the older pipes but that was all I knew. I include a screen capture of the section on the brand below. The third photo below shows a similar Coral dot on the stem.I am also including the information that I found there in the sidebar on PipePhil. I quote that below. I have highlighted the R2 designation below in red.

Founder of the brand in 1982: Giancarlo Guidi (1943 – †2012). Production (2006): ~ 6000 pipes/year. Ser Jacopo seconds: Gepetto.

Finish mark: Rusticated pipes: R1 (dark brown) R2 (light brown); Sandblasted pipes: S (black), S1 (dark brown), S2 (light brown), S3 (tanshell); Smooth pipes: L (red), L1 (acceptable grain), L2 (nice grain), L3 (exceptional grain).

I then turned to Pipedia (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Ser_Jacopo) to read some more about the brand and see if there were more details regarding the single Coral dot. I quote below.

Ser Jacopo (provided by Marble Arch Ltd., US importer and distributor of Ser Jacopo)

Smokingpipes.com has an excellent concise history available on their website Ser Jacopo History at Smoking Pipes.com

Ser Jacopo, better to say Ser Jacopo dalla Gemma, was started by Giancarlo Guidi in 1982 upon leaving Mastro de Paja.

Giancarlo Guidi and Bruto Sordini broke away from Mastro de Paja in 1981 in pursuit of their own company. Ser Jacopo was named after an Italian nobleman. Guidi and Sordini, having taken part in creating the now infamous Pesaro “school” of pipe making, wanted to expand further. To accomplish this, Ser Jacopo focused their efforts on the pairing of the briar with a seemingly endless variety of mounts. Through the use of precious metals and stones, horn, and exotic woods Ser Jacopo pipes are given unique characters that many collectors find quite aesthetically pleasing. Although Ser Jacopo pipes borrow heavily from classical shapes, they are indeed quite unique in style.

In addition to creative mountings, Ser Jacopo is also well known for making themed pipes, and the most famous of these themes is perhaps the Picta Series, where pipes are modeled after pipes seen in pictures by and of famous artists, such as Vincent Van Gough.

Ser Jacopo makes multiple grades of pipes, with the “entry” level being the Geppetto brand, and the highest grade being the “Gem” series.

The small Ser Jacopo shop produces approximately 6000 pipes per year. The pipes are known for using outstanding Italian briar, which is well seasoned. The pipes have earned a well-deserved reputation for having excellent smoking qualities, equal or better than any other fine Italian pipe maker (or, for that matter, any other pipe maker in the world).

Giancarlo Guidi passed away on August 6, 2012, leaving behind a great legacy. He was 64 years old.

Nomenclature – the section on the nomenclature helps understand the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is helpful and really quite interesting.

The standard nomenclature found on Ser Jacopo pipes is as follows:

Ser Jacopo Fatta A Mano In Italia Per Aspera Ad Astra  – Fatta A Mano translates to “Made By Hand”. Per Aspera Ad Astra is a Latin phrase found on Ser Jacopo pipes and is the Ser Jacopo motto. It translates to “To the Stars Through Travails”, meaning that success comes through hard work. In the Summer 1997 Pipes and Tobaccos article Giancarlo Guidi translated this as “through a difficult way until the stars are reached”.

Ser Jacopo Pipes are generally found in one of three finishes (rusticated, sandblast, smooth) designated by a letter and number code:

R1: Rusticated, dark brown or plum finish.

R2: Rusticated, light brown finish.

S:  Sandblast, black

S1: Sandblast, dark brown

S2: Sandblast, light brown

S3: Sandblast, tanshell

L:  Smooth, red, usually with silver trim

L1: Smooth, flame grain, various finishes

L2: Smooth, straight grain, various finishes

L3: Smooth, straight grain extra, discontinued

Dating Pipes

In the photo to the left you can see the development of the stem inserts on the pipes.

Top: Early Red Coral Logo Middle: Coral Logo with Silver Ring Bottom: Modern Day Silver J Logo – Courtesy of Mike Ahmadi

Ser Jacopo pipes is somewhat difficult, because Ser Jacopo does not generally use date codes (the exception being the Diamond Gemma series pipes, which are dated coded). Early pipes (from 1983 to 1997) featured a red coral dot on the mouthpiece, sometimes found encircled in a silver ring. This was discontinued and changed to a sterling silver letter “J”. On the Gemma series of pipes, the mouthpiece logo is a precious stone surrounded by an 18k gold ring.

The pipe I am working on is one of the early pipes (1983-1997). It is a lovely pipe with a deep and unique rustication. Now it is time to work on the pipe and bring it back to life.

Armed with that information I turned to work on the pipe itself. Before he sent it to me, Jeff had done an amazing job cleaning the pipe. It almost looked like a different pipe after his work. He reamed the pipe with a PipNet pipe reamer and removed the rest of the cake with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife.  He scrubbed the bowl with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. He rinsed it under running warm water to remove the soap and grime. The finish looked very good and the rugged finish felt good in the hand. He cleaned out the inside of the shank and the airway in the stem with isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He soaked the stem in Briarville’s Pipe Stem Deoxidizer and then rinsed it off with warm water. He scrubbed the stem with Soft Scrub and a tooth brush and rinsed it off with warm water. It looked amazing when I took it out of the package of pipes he shipped me. I took photos of the pipe before I started my part of the restoration work.   The rim top was cleaner and the inner edge of the bowl showed burn damage on the front right and back left. There was some chipping and damage around entire edge. The rim top and outer edge actually looked to be in good condition. The bowl was slightly out of round. The stem surface looked good with the oxidation gone and large chunk of the button missing. It was odd in that it was an even break on both sides and almost like a slot had been cut leaving behind two small thin posts on each side.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is faint but is still readable as noted above.I took the stem off the shank and took a photo of the parts of the pipe. The overall look of the pipe is quite nice. The stem is quite stubby and short so that gave me an idea that I would explore later in the restoration.I started my portion of the work on this pipe by addressing the damage to the rim top and the inner edge of the bowl. I worked over the rim top with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the damage and the darkening. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the inner edge and give it a slight bevel to deal with the chipping and cutting that was present. It cleaned up remarkably well. With polishing and buffing it would look even better.I polished the smooth rim top with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped the briar down with a damp cloth after each pad to remove the debris and sanding dust.The bowl looked very good at this point so I rubbed it down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the bowl and shank with my fingertips and a horse hair shoe brush to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let the balm sit for about 10-15 minutes and buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. I buffed the bowl with a shoe brush to raise the shine on the bowl. It is a really nice looking pipe with a finish that has a look like cut glass to me. The rich brown of the stain vary through the layers of the rustication. It is very nicely done. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I cut of the two pegs that remained of the button and flattened the end of the stem against a topping board and 220 grit sandpaper. Surprisingly, it did not shorten the stem significantly. I did not feel that the pegs provided enough body to support a repair so I opted on shortening the stem and rebuilding the button with rubberized black super glue. I layered the repair on slowly, letting each layer cure before adding the next one. Once the repair cured I would need to reshape the button with files. I reshaped the button and the edge with a small file. The repaired button was beginning to look good at this point. I touched up the edge surface with CA glue to smooth and fill it in. Once the glue cured I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to continue the shaping. I repaired and resanded until I was happy with it. I started the polishing process with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I used a small pottery shaping saw to cut the slot in the end of the stem and shape it. It is getting closer and closer to being finished.I sanded the button surface some more with 220 grit sandpaper to further shape it. I filled in the air-pockets with superglue and let it cure until dry. Once it cured I started the polishing with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with some Obsidian Oil. I polished it further with Before & After Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I wiped it down a further time with Obsidian Oil and let it cure. This Beautiful Rusticated Ser Jacopo Maxima R2 Canadian with a Coral Dot is a great looking pipe now that it has been restored. The rich and unique rusticated works well with the polished, repaired and rebuilt vulcanite stem. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Ser Jacopo Maxima Canadian is a large pipe that I am sure will be a great smoker. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 ¼ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 43 grams/1.52 ounces. I will be holding on to this one for awhile to test out the durability of the button rebuild. I take a moment to remind myself and each of us that we are trustees of pipes that will outlive us and the lives of many other pipe men and women who carry on the trust of their care and use. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it.

Restoring an Astleys 109 Jermyn St. London Rusticated Medium 52 Dublin

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the work table was purchased in July 27, 2020 as part of a group of pipes we obtained from a woman in Australia. The pipe is a medium sized Dublin that is rusticated with a classic Astleys style rustication that was meant to increase the surface area of a bowl and thus provide a cooler smoke. This one is stamped on the underside of the shank and reads 52 (shape number) followed by Astleys [over] 109 Jermyn St. [over] London. The pipe was quite dirty and the bowl was thickly caked. The rim edges looked to be in good condition. The taper stem was vulcanite and had tooth marks and chatter on both sides near the button. The stem was oxidized and had some calcification on the end. The Astleys “A” stamp on the top of the stem was visible and readable. Jeff took some photos of the pipe to show the general condition of the pipe before he started his clean up. He took some photos of the bowl and stem to give a sense of the condition of the pipe. You can see the cake and debris in the bowl and the lava in the rustication on the rim top. The stem was dirty and had calcification on both sides at the button. There is also some tooth chatter and some light tooth marks. Jeff took some photos of the sides and heel of the bowl to show the condition of the finish on the pipe. The photos show the rustication patterns around the bowl. Under the oils and grime it was a nice looking bowl. I think it will be a really nice looking pipe once it is restored. He took photos of the stamping on the underside of the shank and the top of the stem. On the shank it was stamped as noted above. The stem bore the Astleys “A” logo on the topside. I turned to Pipephil’s site to get an overview on the brand (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-a8.html). I have included a screen capture below of several pipes that showed the stamping and the logo on the stem.There was also a link on the site to a blog article in French on a Astleys Cavalier pipe that also included some helpful information (http://pipes.over-blog.com/article-4532650.html). I have included both the French article and the Google Translation below.

Il est à peu près inconcevable, dans une rubrique traitant des pipes Cavalier, de ne pas citer la marque anglaise Astley’s.

En fait de marque, il s’agit initialement d’une vénérable civette londonienne qui fêtait ses 100 ans en 1962. Le magasin, d’abord installé au 109 Jermyn Street (1) s’est déplacé à Piccadilly Arcade et a malheureusement fermé ses portes à la fin des années 90.

Comme le font souvent les civettes, les propriétaires avaient l’habitude de faire produire leurs pipes par les pipiers de leur choix et d’apposer ensuite leur propre label. Les pipes vendues chez Astley’s étaient produites, selon l’époque, par Charatan, Ashton ou James Upshall. Certains prétendent qu’avant la fermeture on commandait aussi à Comoy et GBD, ce qui n’est pas vraiment vérifié.

Quoiqu’il en soit la marque a été rachetée par Mordechai Ezrati, un collectionneur de pipe, qui a aussi acquis James Upshall.

Translation

It is almost inconceivable, in a section dealing with Cavalier pipes, not to mention the English brand Astley’s.

As a brand, it was initially a venerable London civet which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1962. The store, first installed at 109 Jermyn Street (1) moved to Piccadilly Arcade and unfortunately closed its doors in the late 90s.

As civets often do, owners used to have their pipes produced by the pipe makers of their choice and then affix their own label. The pipes sold at Astley’s were produced, depending on the era, by Charatan, Ashton or James Upshall. Some claim that before the closure we also ordered from Comoy and GBD, which is not really verified.

Anyway the brand was bought by Mordechai Ezrati, a pipe collector, who also acquired James Upshall.

From this I found it interesting that various English pipe makers crafted pipes for Astleys. I have highlighted the pertinent section on that above.

From there I turned to the article on Pipedia (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Astley%27s). I quote:

Astley’s was both a brand and name of a famous London tobacconist. The first shop was founded in 1862 and was located at 109 Jermyn Street, just down the road from the Charatan’s shop. They sold meerschaum pipes and later classic pipe shaped briar pipes. The owner of this shop was Mr. Paul Bentley whose family owned and ran the shop since the 1930’s. The shop closed some time ago, and the name of the brand was bought by Mordechai (Moty) Ezrati, who also owns the James Upshall pipe brand.

Astley’s served as an extremely exclusive and renowned shopping outlet for outstanding pipes for the British royalty and London gentry alike. Visitors to London sought out this shop as a ‘must visit’ during their stay. Although they never made their own pipes, the Astley branded pipe was made on contract by Charatan (until the 1980’s), James Upshall, Dunhill, L&JS, and Bill Taylor of Ashton pipes. Some sources (The Piperack for instance) say that Comoy’s and GBD had also made pipes for Astley’s. The shop always commanded extremely high prices for their much sought after specimens.

After Charatan had changed hands and was sold to Herman Lane Limited in the United States, Astley’s continued with their high grade pipe sales by presenting some of the best examples of British pipe manufacturing to pipe connoisseurs around the world.

Stamping: Astley’s, 109 Jermyn St, London (before, Wm Astley & Company, 109 Jermyn St S.W. London). Symbol: Styled white ‘A’.

I have a copy of an Astleys Catalogue on rebornpipes so I have included a link to that below as well as some pages that show the shape and the finish of the pipe I am working on. I have drawn a red box around the shape number (https://rebornpipes.com/2012/08/10/astleys-pipe-catalogue/).I have also drawn a box around the style of finish on the pipe I working on. The photo seems to show a sandblast but does not say so. The pipe I am working on looks similar but it is rusticated in a typical Astleys fashion.Jeff once again did an amazing job cleaning the pipe. He reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer and got rid of the cake. He cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife so that we could see the walls of the bowl and assess for damage. He cleaned the internals of the shank and stem with alcohol, pipe cleaners and alcohol. He scrubbed the exterior with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. He rinsed the pipe under warm water. He dried it off with a cloth and then let it air dry. The stem was scrubbed with Soft Scrub and soaked in Briarville’s Stem Deoxidizer. Once Jeff took it out of the bath and rinsed it the stem looked very good. The finish on the bowl and the rim top cleaned up nicely. I took pictures of the pipe to show how it looked when I brought it to the table. I took a close up photo of the rim top to show how clean it was. The stem looked good just some light tooth chatter and several deeper tooth marks near the button.I took a photo of the stamping and it is clear and readable as noted above. I took the stem off the pipe and took a picture to show the proportions of this nice little pipe.I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the briar with my fingertips. The product is a great addition to the restoration work. It enlivens, enriches and protects the briar while giving it a deep glow. I appreciate Mark Hoover’s work in developing this product. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I “painted” the tooth marks with the flame of a Bic lighter to try and raise them a bit. Remember vulcanite has “memory” and if the marks are not sharp edge the heat well raise them. In this case while they came up some there was still significant damage. I filled in the remaining tooth marks with Black CA glue and set the stem aside to dry.Once the repairs cured I used a needle file to flatten them out and recut the sharp edge of the button. I sanded the surface of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to further blend in the repairs. I started the polishing process with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. There was still some oxidation on the stem at the shank end. I scrubbed it with Soft Scrub All Purpose Cleanser to remove it and was able to remove the majority of it on both sides of the shank end. It looked better.I used some white acrylic fingernail polish to touch up the “A” logo on the top of the stem surface. I rubbed it on with the brush and worked it into the stamp with a tooth pick. Once it was dry I scraped off the excess and lightly buffed it with a 1500 grit micromesh sanding pad. It came out looking very good.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I buffed the stem with a soft cloth to raise the shine. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil to preserve and protect the stem surface. As always I am excited to finish a pipe that I am working on. I put the Astleys 52 Rusticated Dublin back together and buffed it with Blue Diamond 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 and hand buffed it to raise the shine. It is fun to see what the polished bowl looks like along with the polished vulcanite stem. This is nice looking pipe and I am sure that it will be comfortable in hand when smoking as it is light and well balanced. 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 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The pipe weighs .92 ounces/26 grams. It is another beautiful pipe and one that will be on the rebornpipes store in the Pipes by English Pipe Makers Section. If you are interested in adding it to your collection let me know. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this pipe. Thanks to each of you who are reading this blog.

Restoring a  Patent Era Dunhill Bruyere 40 Lovat

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is a Dunhill Group 4 Bruyere Lovat that is proportionally well done. It has a two digit the shape number that I will define below. Jeff and I purchased a group of pipes on 04/26/2022 from a woman who contacted us from Cleveland, Ohio, USA. They had belonged to her husband’s father. We spent time chatting with her and arrived at a price and she sent the pipes to Jeff. It included 28+ pipes including this one.

This Dunhill Lovat is stamped on the left side and reads 40 followed by Dunhill over Bruyere. On the right side it is stamped Made in England2 3 (double date stamp) [over] Pat. No. 417574/34. A circle 4 followed by A is stamped on the right side next to the bowl/shank junction. The numbers and stamping tell me that the pipe is a Bruyere and the size is a Group 4. The 2 digit shape number makes it an older pipe as does the Patent No. stamp under Made in England. The double date stamp says the pipe was made one year and sold the next. The finish was very dirty with spots of grime and debris stuck on it. The bowl had a thick cake in the bowl and heavy lava overflowing onto the rim top. The rim top had burned area on the left front top and inner and outer edges. There was darkening and burn damage on the inner edge all the way around. There were burn marks toward the back of the rim top. The stem had calcification, oxidation and tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. The button itself appeared to be in good condition. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his clean up work on it. He took photos of the bowl and rim top to show the condition. You can see the thick cake in the bowl and rim top and edges. The lava is so thick that is hard to know what the edges and top look like underneath. The stem was heavily oxidized, calcified and has tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. Overall the pipe is a real mess.Jeff took photos of the grain and the finish around the bowl sides and heel. It was nice looking if you can see through the grime ground into the surface.He took photos of the stamping on the sides of the shank. The stamping is faint but readable. It reads as noted above. Now it was time to begin to work on the stamping on the pipe. I turned first to Pipedia as I remembered they had some great information on the Bruyere finish and dates and how the finish was made (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill#Bruyere). The first quote below give the short version of the finish. The second link goes into more detail. I quote from both below.

Bruyere – The original finish produced (usually made using Calabrian briar), and a big part of developing and marketing the brand. It was the only finish from 1910 until 1917. A dark reddish-brown stain. Before the 1950s, there were three possible finishes for Dunhill pipes. The Bruyere was a smooth finish with a deep red stain, obtained through two coats, a brown understain followed by a deep red.

https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill_Bruyere

Initially, made from over century-old briar burls, classified by a “B” (denoted highest quality pipe); “DR” (denoted straight-grained) and an “A” (denoted first quality), until early 1915. After that, they became a high-end subset to the Dunhill ‘Bruyere’. The DR and B pipes, a limited production, they should be distinguished as hand-cut in London from burls as opposed to the Bruyere line which was generally finished from French turned bowls until 1917, when the Calabrian briar started to be used, but not completely. Only in 1920 Dunhill took the final step in its pipe making operation and began sourcing and cutting all of its own bowls, proudly announcing thereafter that “no French briar was employed”.

Bruyere pipes were usually made using Calabrian briar, a very dense and hardy briar that has a modest grain but does very well with the deep red stain.

“Before the 1950s, there were three possible finishes for Dunhill pipes. The Bruyere was a smooth finish with a deep red stain, obtained through two coats, a brown understain followed by a deep red. The Shell finish was the original sandblast with a near-black stain (though the degree to which it is truly black has varied over the years). Lastly, the Root finish was smooth also but with a light brown finish. Early Dunhill used different briars with different stains, resulting in more distinct and identifiable creations… Over the years, to these traditional styles were added four new finishes: Cumberland, Dress, Chestnut and Amber Root, plus some now-defunct finishes, such as County, Russet and Red Bark.”

With that information clear for me I wanted to identify the shape number and try to pin that down (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill_Shape_Chart). I turned to the section on the older 3 digit Shape Numbers and read it. I quote it below.

Early Days – 2 digits/letters – The original skus/model numbers from the 1920’s until the early 1970’s stood for very specific shapes and bowls. For example, the codes 31, 34, 59, 111, 113, 117, 196, LB, LBS… were all different types of Billiard shaped pipes and there were about 50(!), such codes for the Billiard shape alone. On top of those are a large variety of other shapes.

I knew that the pipe shape number locked in a time period between 1920-1970 – a large time span that I needed to narrow down more clearly. I turned to another link on Pipedia (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill_Shapes_List) to a shape list that Eric Boehm put together for Dunhills. I copied the four 2 digit numbers on Lovats from the list. The shape 40 was in the list.

Lovats:

37 Lovat, short, thick, saddle 1928 11

38 Lovat, long shank, saddle bit 3 4¾” 1928, 50, 60, 69 11

40 Lovat, long shank, saddle bit 4 5″ 1928, 1950, 1969 11

481 Lovat, long shank, saddle bit 1 5″ 1950, 1969 11

I turned next to dating the pipe. There is a superscript underlined 2 followed by superscript underlined 3 a little higher and to the right of the first superscript. The numbers follow the D in ENGLAND on the right side of the shank. I turned to the dating chart on Pipephil to pin down the date on this twin (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1a.html). I did a screen capture of Part 1 of the Dunhill Dating Key and included it below. I drew a red box around the section dating this pipe. It is clear that the pipe was made prior to 1954 as it includes a Patent Number. I drew a red box around the pertinent section that narrows the date down to between 1921 and 1954. It also had a link to further narrow down the dating.I followed the link to narrow it down and it took me to Page 2. The pipe has the patent number listed at the top of the chart – 417574/34. I followed the tree down the yes path to the part where it reads DUNHILL stamping aligned with SHELL. My pipe has BRUYERE aligned with DUNHILL. Again I followed the yes path to two options 1950 or 1940 + suffix (2-9). Since the pipe has a superscript 2 followed by a slightly higher superscript 3 told me that the pipe was made in 1942 and later sold in 1943. It was an old timer.Armed with that information I turned to work on the pipe itself. Before he sent it to me, Jeff had done an amazing job cleaning the pipe. It almost looked like a different pipe after his work. He reamed the pipe with a PipNet pipe reamer and removed the rest of it with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the bowl with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap with a tooth brush. He rinsed it under running warm water to remove the soap and grime. He cleaned out the inside of the shank and the airway in the stem with isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He soaked the stem in Briarville’s Pipe Stem Deoxidizer and then rinsed it off with warm water. He scrubbed the stem with Soft Scrub and a tooth brush and rinsed it off with warm water. It looked amazing when I took it out of the package of pipes he shipped me. I took photos of the pipe before I started my part of the restoration work. The rim top was cleaner and the inner edge of the bowl looked rough. The rim top was chipped and damaged with the edges carved. There was burn damage all the way around but heavier on the front and the back of the bowl on the top and inner edge. The bowl was slightly out of round. The stem surface looked good with the oxidation gone and light but visible tooth chatter on either side of the stem.  I took a photo of the stamping on the sides of the shank. It is faint but is still readable as noted above.I took the stem off the shank and took a photo of the parts of the pipe. The overall look of the pipe is quite nice.I started my portion of the work on this pipe by addressing the damage to the rim top and 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 top and minimize it on the edges. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the edge and give it a slight bevel to deal with the chipping and cutting on the inner edge. It cleaned up remarkably well. With polishing and buffing it would look even better. I polished the bowl and rim top with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped the briar down with a damp cloth after each pad to remove the debris and sanding dust. I used an Maple Stain Pen to restain the rim top and the inner bevel of the rim edge. With the darkening on the edges and the top still present the Maple stain worked well to mimic the stain on the rest of the bowl and shank. Once it dried I buffed it with a cotton cloth and the match was very good. It looked much better with the work on the rim edge. The bowl looked very good at this point so I rubbed it down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the bowl and shank with my fingertips and a horse hair shoe brush to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let the balm sit for about 10-15 minutes and buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I “painted” the surface of the vulcanite stem with the flame of the lighter. I was able to lift almost all of the tooth marks and chatter except one on the top side that I needed to fill in with drop of black CA glue. I sanded the repair and the remaining tooth chatter with 220 grit sandpaper. I started polishing the stem with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper to start the polishing. I polished the vulcanite stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem and gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil to finish it. This Beautiful Patented 1942/43 Dunhill Bruyere 40 Lovat is a great looking pipe now that it has been restored. The rich Bruyere finish that highlights the grain and works well with the polished vulcanite stem. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Dunhill Bruyere 40 Lovat is a Group 4 size pipe that will be a great smoker. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 35 grams/1.23 ounces. I will be adding the pipe to the British Pipemakers Section of the rebornpipes store shortly. If you are interested in adding it to your collection be sure to let me know. I take a moment to remind myself and each of us that we are trustees of pipes that will outlive us and the lives of many other pipe men and women who carry on the trust of their care and use. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it.

Restoring a 1967 Dunhill Shell Briar 659F/T 4S Saddle Stem Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is a Dunhill Group 4 Shell Briar Saddle Stem Billiard that is proportionally well done. It has a three digit the shape number that I will define below. Jeff and I purchased a group of pipes on 04/26/2022 from a woman who contacted us from Cleveland, Ohio, USA. They had belonged to her husband’s father. We spent time chatting with her and arrived at a price and she sent the pipes to Jeff. It included 28+ pipes including this one.

This Dunhill Billiard is stamped on the underside and reads 659F/T followed by Dunhill over Shell Briar followed by Made in England7 (two lines). A circle 4 followed by S is stamped on the flat underside of the saddle stem. The numbers and stamping tell me that the pipe is a Shell Briar and the size is a Group 4. The F/T refers to the Fish Tail style stem. The finish was very dirty with spots of grime and debris stuck on it. The bowl had a thick cake in the bowl and heavy lava overflowing onto the rim top. The rim top and inner edge appeared to have some damage. The stem had calcification, oxidation and tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. The button itself appeared to be in good condition. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his clean up work on it.He took photos of the bowl and rim top to show the condition. You can see the thick cake in the bowl and rim top and edges. The lava is so thick that is hard to know what the edges and top look like underneath. The sandblast on the rim top is also completely filled in with tar and lava. The stem was heavily oxidized, calcified and has tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. Overall the pipe is a real mess. Jeff took photos of the sandblast finish around the bowl sides and heel. It was nice looking if you can see through the grime ground into the rugged, deep blast. He took photos of the stamping on the underside of the bowl, shank and stem. The stamping is readable but filthy. It reads as noted above.Now it was time to begin to work on the stamping on the pipe. Pipedia had some great information on the Shell Briar finish and dates and how the finish was made (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill#Bruyere). The first quote below give the short version of the finish. I quote from both below.

Shell – A deep craggy sandblast with a black stain finish (usually made using Algerian briar) – the color of the stain used has varied over the years. Although there is some doubt as to them being the first to sandblast pipes, Dunhill’s Shell pipes, and the sandblasting techniques developed to create them are considered one of Dunhill’s greatest and most lasting contributions to the art of pipe making.

The documented history of Dunhill’s inception of the Shell is largely limited to patent applications — there are no catalog pages or advertisements promoting blasted pipes at the time. The preliminary work on the English patent (No. 1484/17) was submitted on October 13, 1917. The patent submission was completed half a year later, on April 12, 1918, followed by the granting of the English patent on October 14, 1918. This was less than a month before the end of The Great War on November 11th.

In 1986 Dunhill released a line of premium Shell finish pipes – “RING GRAIN”. These are high-quality straight grain pipes which are sandblasted. Initially only Ring Grain, but now in two different finishes. In 1995 the “Shilling” was introduced with Cumberland finish – it is an extremely rare series. These pipes exhibit a deeper blast characteristic of that of the 1930’s – mid-1960’s (and the limited ‘deep blast’ pipes of the early 1980s) and show a fine graining pattern. These are considered the best new Dunhills by many enthusiasts today and are very rare. The finish is sometimes described as tasting like vanilla at first, with the taste becoming more normal or good as the pipe breaks in.

With that information clear for me I wanted to identify the shape number and try to pin that down (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill_Shape_Chart). I turned to the section on the older 3 digit Shape Numbers and read it. I quote it below.

3-digit system – A 3-digit system (“Interim”) was developed that showed a logical approach to identify pipes in terms of size, mouthpiece, and shape, with the 1st digit being the size, the 2nd digit the mouthpiece, and the 3rd digit the shape, i.e. the old “85” became a “321” which was a group 3 Apple with taper mouthpiece. This was soon to be replaced by a more detailed, formal 4- and 5-digit system around 1978.

This interim numbering system is a bit confusing as the next paragraph and picture will illustrate. It says that the first digit is the size which in this case should have been a 6 but the pipe is stamped with a size 4 number. The second digit is supposed to point to the mouthpiece which is not clear to me. The third digit refers to the shape but again that is not clear. The paragraph below states that the shape number 577 has no special meaning accept for it being the model for that particular pipe.

The first image on the right, (with the shape number 577)  falls into this system, so 577 has no special meaning apart from describing/ being the model for that particular pipe shape (in this case a specific group 2 Billiard with saddle mouthpiece). Around 1973, with the introduction of computers, new categories were introduced that indicated size, mouthpiece, and shape. As for the “T”, in 1952 a full-size “T” was added after the circled group size stamp to further describe the Tanshell finish (in 1953 the “T” was reduced to about half the size). So this pipe dates from 1952.

With the information on the 3 digit stamp not making clear enough the meaning of the number I turned to another link on Pipedia (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill_Shapes_List) to a shape list that Eric Boehm put together for Dunhills. It is amazing to see the sheer number of variations on the Billiard shape. I copied the three of the three digit numbers in the list as it includes the shape 659 Billiard.

Billiards:

659 Billiard, saddle bit 4 5½” 1950, 1969 3

660 Billiard, saddle bit 4 5½” 1950, 1969 3

710 Billiard, tapered bit 4 5½” 1950, 1969 3

659F/T Billiard with a saddle bit. (This is the pipe I am working on. It is a tapered bit Billiard with an F/T or Fish Tail bit.)

I turned next to dating the pipe. There is a 7 following the D in ENGLAND on the right side of the shank. I turned to the dating chart on Pipephil to pin down the date on this twin (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1a.html). I did a screen capture of Part 2 of the Dunhill Dating Key and included it below. I drew a red box around the section dating this pipe. It is clear that the pipe was made after 1954 so that is why I went to Part 2. Once again, because the year suffix is a 7 that is the same size and on line with D in England that tells me that the pipe was made in 1960+7 for a date of 1967.Armed with that information I turned to work on the pipe itself. Before he sent it to me, Jeff had done an amazing job cleaning the pipe. It almost looked like a different pipe after his work. He reamed the pipe with a PipNet pipe reamer and removed the rest of it with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the bowl with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap with a tooth brush. He rinsed it under running warm water to remove the soap and grime. He cleaned out the inside of the shank and the airway in the stem with isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He soaked the stem in Briarville’s Pipe Stem Deoxidizer and then rinsed it off with warm water. He scrubbed the stem with Soft Scrub and a tooth brush and rinsed it off with warm water. It looked amazing when I took it out of the package of pipes he shipped me. I took photos of the pipe before I started my part of the restoration work. The rim top was cleaner and the inner edge of the bowl looked rough. There was burn damage all the way around but heavier on the front and the back of the bowl on the top and inner edge. The bowl was slightly out of round. The stem surface looked good with the oxidation gone and light but visible tooth chatter on either side of the stem.  I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank and the saddle portion of the stem. It is clear and readable as noted above.I took the stem off the shank and took a photo of the parts of the pipe. The overall look of the pipe is quite nice.I started my portion of the work on this pipe by addressing the damage to the inner edge of the bowl. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the edge and give it a slight bevel to deal with the chipping and cutting on the inner edge. It cleaned up remarkably well. With polishing and buffing it would look even better.I used an Walnut Stain Pen to restain the rim top and the inner bevel of the rim edge. Once it dried I buffed it with a cotton cloth and the match was very good. It looked much better with the work on the rim edge.The bowl looked very good at this point so I rubbed it down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the bowl and shank with my fingertips and a horse hair shoe brush to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let the balm sit for about 10-15 minutes and buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I “painted” the surface of the vulcanite stem with the flame of the lighter. I was able to lift almost all of the tooth marks and chatter except one on the top side that I needed to fill in with drop of clear CA glue. I sanded the repair and the remaining tooth chatter with 220 grit sandpaper. I started polishing the stem with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper to start the polishing.I polished the vulcanite stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem and gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil to finish it. This Deeply Sandblasted Dunhill Shell Briar 659F/T Saddle Stem 4S is a great looking pipe now that it has been restored. The rich Shell Briar sandblast finish that highlights the grain and works well with the polished vulcanite stem. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Dunhill Shell Briar Saddle Stem Billiard is a Group 4 size pipe that will be a great smoker. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 34 grams/1.20 ounces. I will be adding the pipe to the British Pipemakers Section of the rebornpipes store shortly. If you are interested in adding it to your collection be sure to let me know. I take a moment to remind myself and each of us that we are trustees of pipes that will outlive us and the lives of many other pipe men and women who carry on the trust of their care and use. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it.

Repairing a Chipped stem on a Savinelli Trevi 311KS Poker

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Blog by Steve Laug

I still receive referrals for repairs from a local pipe and cigar shop and this week I received and email from a fellow about his new pipe. The story is one of those that make you cringe and grimace for if it has not happened to you sometime in your “pipehood” it very well may happen. This is the email I received:

Hi. I just picked up a new Sav 311KS and promptly proceeded to drop it and chip the stem before even getting a chance to smoke it…. Sad day. Could you give me a quote on what a repair/ replacement would set me back? — Josh

I wrote him back and asked for photos of the pipe so I could see what he was referring to. He wrote again and sent the following note and the photos.

It’s just a little chip but annoying.We wrote back and forth and I let him know I could fix it. Yesterday Josh dropped off the pipe at my house for repair. This morning I decided to tackle the repair on this pipe. The fact that he had never smoked it and that it was new really touched me and decided it would be the next pipe on the worktable. I took photos of the pipe to give a sense of the beauty of the piece. It is a smooth finished Poker with what looks like a Walnut finish. The band on the shank is silver. The stem is acrylic with a silver Savinelli logo on the top of the saddle. The shank is stamped on the left side and read Savinelli [over] Trevi. On the right side it had the Savinelli Shield S followed by 311KS [over] Italy. The pipe had an inwardly beveled rim top and the bowl was smooth, unsmoked briar. The pipe had a Savinelli Balsa Filter in the tenon. I took a photo of the rim top and bowl to give a sense of the shape and finish of the bowl. It is a pretty pipe. I also took photos of the acrylic stem to show the general condition apart from the chipped right underside of the button and the stem (encircled in red in the photo below).I took photos of the stamping to try and capture it. The shiny varnish finish reflects light so much that the stamping is not clear in the photos. It reads as noted above.I removed the stem and took a photo of the pipe. It is a proportionally nice looking pipe.Now it was time to work on the stem. I cleaned off the chipped area with alcohol and a cotton swab to remove any debris. I took photos of the chipped area before I started working on it. You can see the damage. Though it is small it is rough to the touch and would certainly be rough to the mouth. I have drawn a red box around the damage in the photos below.I carefully filled in the chipped area with black CA glue and pressed it into the chipped spots with a tooth pick. I laid the stem aside to let the repair cure. Once the repair cured I reshaped the button with a piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I worked over the right edge and the button to match what was on the other side of the stem. Once finished it looked better. I started polishing the acrylic with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I set the bowl aside and turned to work on the stem. I polished the acrylic stem with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem and gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil to finish it. With the stem repaired on this Savinelli Trevi 311KS Poker it is ready to go back to Josh so he can enjoy his first bowl in his new pipe. It is a great looking pipe with a rich walnut finish that highlights the grain and works well with the silver band and the polished acrylic stem. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. I have email Josh and let him know it is ready to pick up. I take a moment to remind myself and each of us that we are trustees of pipes that will outlive us and the lives of many other pipe men and women who carry on the trust of their care and use. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it.

A Dunhill Shell Liverpool with a scratched in story on underside of the shank

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Blog by Steve Laug

Sometimes when you see a pipe you just need to pull the trigger and buy it. We put in a bid and picked up the pipe from an online auction on 02/02/22 in Cottage Grove, Minnesota, USA. It is a petite Dunhill Shell Liverpool. It is stamped on the heal of the bowl and reads 33/4 which is the shape number. Following that Trinidad 1942 scratched in. That is followed by Dunhill Shell Made in England over Pat. No.1341418/20. It is going to be fun figuring out the dating on the pipe as there is no date stamp on the pipe. The Patent No. should help but we shall see. To me what is interesting is the information scratched into the shank – Trinidad 1942. I will need to have a look at what happened there in 1942. Obviously the previous owner was there at that time and either purchased the pipe there or brought it with him to that moment.

Now for the condition of the pipe itself. It is a small pipe with a rugged blast. The finish was very dirty but no damage showed on the sides or shank. The rim top was lightly covered with lava but it did not show damage to the surface of the rim or the outer and inner edges. There was a moderate cake in the bowl with some tobacco debris in the cake. The stem was oxidized, calcified and had tooth marks on both the top and underside near the button. There was an aluminum inner tube in the shank that extended from the tenon to the entry of the airway at the bottom of the bowl. It was dirty and tarry looking. There was an aluminum washer on the tube that sat at the point it entered the tenon. It was a great looking pipe and once it was cleaned and restored it would be quite stunning. Jeff took photos of the pipe when it arrived in Idaho and before he started his clean up work. He took close up photos of the rim top and stem to give a clear idea of the condition of the pipe. You can see the items I pointed out regarding both in the above paragraphs. He took photos of the bowl from various angles to show the condition of the briar and the beautiful sandblast finish on the pipe. It is a beautiful old pipe under the grime and grit of the years.   Jeff captured the stamping on the heel of the bowl and the underside of the shank. It is clear and readable as noted above. You can also see the Trinidad 1942 stamping between the two.He removed the inner tube from the shank and stem and took photos of it. It extends the length of the shank with the angled end extending into the bottom of the bowl. Before I started my work on the pipe I wanted to try and establish the date it was made. I turned to John Loring’s, The Dunhill Briar Pipe – the Patent Years and After to see what I could learn from John’s work. Since there was no date stamp the Patent No. would help me at least give a time frame. I am thinking the Trinidad 1942 mark might also help with that.

On the Back cover there is a summary of the stamping on the shank. The one that applied is shown below 1935-1951 DUNHILL SHELL MADE IN ENGLAND. I have included that in a screen capture below. I drew a red box around the pertinent section below.I turned to Page 59 to follow up on the Patent No. 1341418/20. That points to a time period between 1941-?1943. I have drawn a red box around the section that matches the stamping on this pipe in the screen capture below.That 1941-43 time period fits the scratched Trinidad 1942 date as well. I did some reading on what happened in 1942 in Trinidad. I turned to Google and found several links to what was happening in Trinidad in 1942. The first of these gives an overview of what was happening there (https://ww2db.com/country/trinidad). I quote:

Trinidad, located just off South America, was a British Crown Colony since 1802 through the Treaty of Amiens. It was originally an agricultural colony (sugar cane, cocoa, among other products). In 1889, the nearby island of Tobago was placed within Trinidad’s borders. In 1857, oil was discovered in Trinidad, and major oil drilling operation began in 1907. In 1925, Trinidad held its first elections for the local Legislative Council. In 1941, during WW2, German submarines were detected in waters surrounding Trinidad, which intended on attacking Allied shipping. US Army personnel arrived on the island in Apr 1941 through the US-UK Destroyers for Bases Agreement. In early 1942, plans for establishing major air presence on Trinidad began to take shape, and before long, units on Trinidad and elsewhere in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico regions could effectively stave off most German efforts at disruptions. After WW2, bases on Trinidad were disbanded by 1950. Trinidad and Tobago obtained self-governance in 1958 and independence in 1962.

The second link referred to an article by Annette Palmer entitled “Black American Soldiers in Trinidad, 1942-44: Wartime Politics in a Colonial Society”. The article give a focus on the need of Trinidad in 1942 (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03086538608582720?journalCode=fich20). I quote from that article below.All of that information made me wonder if the pipe had traveled to or been purchased in Trinidad. Could it have traveled there with the Black American 99th Coastal Artillery Regiment who came there in May of 1942? Or perhaps the pipe came with other American soldiers white or black in 1942. We will probably never know for sure but it is an interesting piece of history.

Armed with that information I turned to work on the pipe itself. Before he sent it to me, Jeff had cleaned up the pipe with his usual procedure. He reamed the pipe with a PipNet pipe reamer and removed the rest of it with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife.  He scrubbed the bowl with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap with a tooth brush. He rinsed it under running warm water to remove the soap and grime. He cleaned out the inside of the shank and the airway in the stem with isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He soaked the stem in Briarville’s Pipe Stem Deoxidizer and then rinsed it off with warm water. He scrubbed the stem with Soft Scrub and a tooth brush and rinsed it off with warm water. It looked amazing when I took it out of the package of pipes he shipped me. So much so that it is the first of those pipes that I chose to work on. I took photos of the pipe before I started my part of the restoration work.  The rim top and the inner and outer edges of the bowl all look very good. The stem surface looked good with the oxidation gone and light tooth marks and chatter on either side of the stem. The stamping on the heel and underside of the shank is clear and readable as noted above.I removed the stem and took a photo of the pipe to give a sense of the whole. It is a proportionally pleasing pipe. The bowl looked very good after Jeff’s cleanup work so I rubbed it down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the bowl and shank with my fingertips and a horsehair shoe brush to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let the balm sit for about 10-15 minutes and buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. I set the bowl aside and turned to work on the stem. I “painted” the stem surface to try and raise the tooth marks on both sides. I was able to raise them a little but the deeper ones remained. I filled them in with Black Super Glue and set them aside to cure. Once the glue cured I used a small file to flatten the repairs and reshape the button edge. I sanded the stem surface with 220 grit sandpaper and started the polishing it with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper.I polished the vulcanite stem with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. This Beautiful, petite Dunhill Shell 33/4 Pat. No.1341418/20 Liverpool is a great looking pipe now that it has been restored. The deep sandblast that is used around the bowl is highlighted by the dark, rich stains and works well with both the polished vulcanite stem. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Dunhill Shell 33/4 Liverpool is petite pipe that will be great for enjoying a nice Virginia or Virginia/Perique blend. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ¼ inches, Height: 1 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 inch, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 20 grams/.71 ounces. This pipe will stay with me for now as the history of it intrigues me. I hope to enjoy it many times on the front porch over the summer ahead. I take a moment to remind myself and each of us that we are trustees of pipes that will outlive us and the lives of many other pipe men and women who carry on the trust of their care and use. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it.

Restoring a Mark Tinsky American Pristine 5 Rhodesian

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Blog by Steve Laug

I have worked on several pipes for a fellow in Israel over the past few months and he is great to work with. He has great taste in pipes and the ones he has purchased from me have also been beautiful. Periodically I receive an email from him about another pipe he was interested in purchasing EBay. This next one was one that caught my attention. He sent me the link and wanted my opinion on it. It was a nice Mark Tinsky signed American Pristine 5 Rhodesian. I really liked the look and the Rhodesian with a twin ring cap around the rim top. The pipe appeared to be in decent condition. Not too many days after that he wrote me to say he had won it and he had it shipped to me rather than to him in Israel. We chatted back and forth about it via email and I would let him know when I received it. Here are the pictures that the EBay seller included with the advertising.  The seller took several photos of the stamping on the left and underside of the shank. It is faint on the left side in the photo but is very readable on the underside. The inlaid American Smoking Pipe Five Point Star in a brass circle is visible in the first photo.I have collected and smoked Mark Tinsky’s pipes for over 30 years now and thoroughly enjoy them. I cannot speak highly enough about the quality and craftsmanship of his pipe. I have pipes made by Mark and by Curt Rollar in my collection and both are great smokers and pipes that reach for regularly in my choice of pipes. I turned to his website for a quick summary of the history of the brand (http://www.amsmoke.com/Index%20Folder/PipeHist.html). I quote from the site as it is a short, concise history.

The American Smoking Pipe Co. was formed in 1978 by Mark Tinsky and Curt Rollar. Both started making pipes for Jack Weinberger ( JHW Pipes ) while in high school and throughout college. Determined to blaze their own path, they formed their own company- its goal to create unique pipes, lightweight and comfortable, where attention to detail was the rule not the exception. Exulting in their new freedom, they carved out new shapes that were balanced between the radical freehand era of the 70’s and the board pipe look of other conservative companies. Hungry for recognition, they stormed the Eastern and Southern shops looking for markets to sell their pipes. Many hidebound retailers refused to try something new, preferring to sell, well, what has always sold before. However, their pipes did take root in many shops and the business thrived.

They continued expanding their pipe making capabilities, adding employees to help finish the pipes. In 1990, over a disagreement over how much to expand, Curt Rollar left the company. This put a break on expansion and coupled with a U.S. recession and rising anti-smoking fervor served to limit production to supplying existing retailers, thus ending a decade of growth. With pipes sales in decline, we turned to pipe repair as a way to supplement revenues. Finding that we liked fixing things, American concentrated on pipe repair. While working hard at repair and manufacture American is ready once again to expand its markets through its existing network of shops serviced by pipe repair.

With the advent of the Internet, we are exploring marketing pipes directly to consumers in markets not covered by retail accounts. Feel free to e-mail us at MT@MT.NET

From the history reminder, I turned to the section of the site that gave the price breakdown and information on the finishes and stamping of the pipes and stems. I have included that below (http://www.amsmoke.com/Index%20Folder/PRICE.html). The pipe I am working on is noted below with a red square – PRISTINE and the size is a 5 which sells for around $240USD.He also included a description of the Pristine finish and a photo below that is helpful to me as I restore this pipe.I am also including Mark’s description of the stamping and logo on the stem below.

Stamping:

Pipes are stamped with :
My signature
The American logo : with the year it was made( starting from 2000) This year reads 00
A Finish stamp
Size indication
Stars for straight grain rating
Special Orders are stamped SO, Special orders are priced using the above structure with possible some additional charge for a very difficult shape.

Difficulty of Shape:. A size six billiard is the same price as the same size hawkbill, which is a lot harder to make.Pipes that are more difficult to make now carry an “X” next to the Size designation. If a pipe is extremely difficult it may carry an XX, tho those are extremely rare.

Logos

Silver Star: All pipes except freehands & pipes with very thin stems carry a handmade sterling silver star logo with a black enamel backing.

Gold Star: A grade of pipes that will carry a solid gold star as the logo. So far only three have been made and if I get one every couple years I d consider it lucky.

The pipe I am working on has Mark’s signature as noted above. The American logo with the 00 under the American in the oval tells me that the pipe was made in 2000. The finish is  Pristine and the size is a 5 in a circle. There are no stars for a straight grain rating.

The pipe arrived this week in a Bubble Mailer from the seller. To me it is a questionable way to ship pipes as they can be easily damaged. I was concerned when I opened the mailer to examine the pipe inside. Fortunately the seller had separated the stem and bowl and wrapped each in thick bubble wrap which certainly helped. I examined the pipe carefully to assess both the condition of the pipe and what I needed to do with it. There was a light cake in the bowl and no lava on the rim top or edges. There was a nick in the rim top and inner edge on the right side in the middle. Otherwise the rim top looked quite good. The pipe was stamped on the on the sides the shank and on the left side was the Mark Tinsky signature. On the underside it was stamped American in an oval [over] Pristine [over] 5 in a circle. The finish was surprisingly clean but dull with some great grain hiding in the dullness. The stem had the inlaid metal five point star in a circle logo on the left side of the saddle. The acrylic was fairly clean and there were tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside. I took some photos of the pipe before I started my work on it. I have included them below. I took a photo of the bowl and rim top to show the thickness of the cake in the bowl and the slight darkening on the inner edges of the bowl. The nick on the rim top and edge on the right is visible in the photo. I took photos of the stem surface to show the condition and tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. I took photos of the stamping on the shank sides (left and underside). It is readable as noted above and though faint is clear. I took a photo of the Silver Star with a black background logo on the stem as well. It is in excellent condition.I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the pipe parts. It is quite a stunning piece.I started my work on the pipe by reaming the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and took the cake back to bare walls. I cleaned up the reaming with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. I sanded the bowl walls with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. I examined the walls with a lens and they were solid and undamaged. I worked over the darkening on the inside edge of the bowl and the rim top with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. It began to look a lot better.I used a butter knife, wet cloth and the flame of our gas stove to steam out the dent on the top right of the rim edge. I heated the knife with the flame on the stove and put the wet cloth on the dent. I touched the area of the dent with the hot knife. It came out easily and looks great. I cleaned out the airway in the shank and the stem as well as the mortise with isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. It was surprisingly quite clean.I scrubbed the exterior of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime from the finish of the bowl and rim top. I rinsed off the bowl with warm water and then dried the bowl with a cotton cloth. The grain that came to the surface once it was clean is quite stunning. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. After each pad I wiped the bowl down with a damp cloth to remove the sanding debris. It really took on a shine by the last three sanding pads. I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the briar with my fingertips and a shoe brush to get it in the grooves. It works to clean, restore and preserve the briar. I let it do its magic for 15 minutes then buffed it off with a cotton cloth. The pipe looks incredibly good at this point in the process.  With that the bowl had come a long way from when I started working on it. I set it aside and turned my attention to the stem. I filled in the few deep tooth marks in the acrylic with clear CA glue. Once the repairs cured I sanded them smooth with 220 grit sandpaper and started polishing them with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper. I continued to polish the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with Obsidian Oil. I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine and wiped it down with Obsidian Oil one more time. I am excited to finish this beautiful Mark Tinsky American Pristine Rhodesian size 5. I put the pipe back together and buffed it with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I hand buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. It is fun to see what the polished bowl looks like with beautiful mixed grain all around it. The polished grain on the pipe looks great with the black acrlyic stem. This smooth Tinsky American Pristine Rhodesian is great looking and the pipe feels great in my hand. It is light and well balanced. 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 ¾ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 72 grams/2.54 ounces. It turned out to be a beautiful pipe. I will be packing it up and sending it to my friend in Israel. I think he will enjoy this beauty once it is in his hands. Thanks for your time reading this blog and as Paresh says each time – Stay Safe.

Freshening Up A Pair Of WDC Meerschaum Bowl, Bakelite Base And Redmanol Stem Pipes In A Presentation Case Continued…

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Blog by Paresh Despande

I had been working on a pair of WDC pipes that came in a beautiful well preserved Presentation case. I have completed researching and refurbishing the first pipe, a straight Bulldog. Though I had worked on both these pipes simultaneously, I have done the write up in two parts.

For detailed information on the brand and other general information about the pipe and material used here, please read PART I of this series.

PART II: – BENT BULLDOG

Initial Visual Inspection

The condition of the pipe points to the fact that this pipe has seen significantly more use than the straight Bulldog. There is a thick cake in the chamber with lava overflow over the rim top surface. The base and shank shows heavy accumulation of tars and crud. The brass rim top cover over the Bakelite base/ shank is also covered in dried oils and tars. The Bakelite shank is dull and covered in completely dried out dirt and grime. The brass shank band at the shank end shows signs of wear but not badly damaged. The Redmanol stem is dull and lackluster with a few tooth indentations on either surface in the bite zone. All said, the condition of the pipe is not bad at all. Detailed Inspection
The three parts of the pipe are as shown below. The condition of the short threaded meerschaum bowl, filthy Bakelite shank and the bent Redmanol stem with threaded tenon all point to heavy use.The Meerschaum bowl has a thick layer of carbon in the chamber. The cake is soft and dry. The single draught hole at the heel of the bowl is partially clogged restricting the aperture opening. There is a thick layer of lava overflow on the rim top surface. There are a couple of spots where the white of the Meerschaum peeks out of the rim top surface but these are just spots from where the dry soft carbon cake had peeled off. The threads at the bottom of the bowl have worn out a bit but still firmly threads in to the Bakelite shank without any give or play. The convex bottom of the bowl is covered in dried ash and crud. There are a few scratches, nicks and dings over the surface but they are all very minor and do not detract from the beauty of the bowl.   The Bakelite base/shank shows heavy accumulation of old dried oils, tars and ash in the trough that houses the Meerschaum bowl. The threads in the base are all intact but covered in oils and grime. The brass rim top ring is covered in grime. Close scrutiny of the shank surface under magnification revealed a crack (indicated in green) along the seam running from the top front of the bowl to about half way to the foot of the Bakelite base. I would first need to clean the internals of the base to ascertain if this crack extends inside. This was an unanticipated damage, but one that would need to be addressed. The mortise is clogged with dried oils and gunk making the draw laborious and constricted. The bent Redmanol stem is dull looking but with a nice cleaning and polishing will add to the visual treat of the completed pipe. The stem airway has darkened considerably due to dried gunk that accumulated along the walls of the airway. There is some minor tooth chatter and couple of deeper tooth indentations on either surface of the stem. The round orifice and the threaded tenon are covered in gunk. Overall, there is not much damage to the stem and should clean up nicely.The Process
In normal course, I would have addressed the shank repairs first. However, since I worked on the pair concurrently, I first reamed the chamber with my smaller fabricated knife followed by sanding the walls with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. This removes cake completely and evens out the chamber wall surfaces. I scraped off the dried oils and tars from the bottom of the bowl and also from in between the threads. A wipe using isopropyl alcohol on a cotton swab ensured that the carbon dust that remained is completely lifted from the wall surface and the ghost smells are eliminated. I was pleased to find smooth and solid chamber walls. With the sharp knife, I gently scraped off the lava overflow from the rim top surface. I would continue further cleaning of the rim top during the refurbishing process. As I working the Meerschaum bowl, out of the blue, a round thin ring come off the bottom of the bowl and my heart sank… Did the bottom of the bowl just break in my hand? I heaved a sigh of relief when I realized that it was nothing more than a spacer that was cut out of a Greeting card. But it was so well cut and matched, that it missed my inspection. Now I am beginning to understand why the bowls were interchanged on the pipes in the first place. The long neck Meerschaum bowl with three draught holes should belong to this bent Bulldog but was switched with the shorter neck bowl with single hole. The crack along the seam must have been opening up as the Meerschaum bowl was threaded in to the base, pushing the bowl further down in to the base. The long neck of the bowl scraped the heel of the base, restricting the air flow. Thus, the short neck bowl from the straight Bulldog was swapped with this long neck and the paper washer was installed to make the seating of the short neck Meerschaum bowl in to the base airtight. With this modification, the bent Bulldog became a better smoker than the straight Bulldog and hence was more extensively used.I wiped the external surface of the bowl with Murphy’s Oil soap on a cotton swab. While cleaning, I was especially deliberate around the threads and over the rim top surface as I wanted to get rid of the entire gunk from those areas. Though the bowl cleaned up well, the rim remains darkened, akin to burning marks. This would need more invasive methods to clean away. The scratches and dings that are now visible will be left as they are for being a part of the journey of this pipe till date. I wiped the bowl with a moist cloth to remove the soap and grime that was left behind. Using folded piece 220 grit sandpaper, I sand the rim top to remove the darkening over the surface. Though not completely eliminated, the rim surface looks now looks much better. I handed over the cup to Abha, my wife, to work her magic in polishing the cup. She polished the rim top surface and rim edges with micromesh pads. She then went on to dry sand the entire stummel with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiped the bowl down with a damp cloth to remove the dust that was left behind by the sanding. I had requested her to minimize the scratches but not necessarily remove them. These lacerations and dings must have had a history and I wanted to preserve it. She did a fantastic job of polishing the meerschaum cup to a nice deep shine.  As Abha was polishing the Meerschaum bowl, I worked on the stem repairs. I first cleaned the stem surface and airway using anti-oil dish cleaning soap and thin shank brush and rinsed it under warm running water to remove the entire gunk from the airway. I also cleaned up the threaded tenon with a tooth brush and soap. To finish the cleaning, I ran a few bristled and regular pipe cleaners dipped in alcohol to remove the residual gunk from the airway and dry it out.   I next sand the bite zone with a 320 grit sandpaper to address the minor tooth chatter on either surface. I filled the deeper tooth indentations with clear CA superglue and set the stem aside for the glue to cure completely.  With the Meerschaum bowl polished by Abha and the stem repairs set aside for the fills to cure, I worked the Bakelite shank. With a fabricated tool, I scraped all the dried oils, tars and ash from the trough of the Bakelite base. I also cleaned the mortise by scraping out the dried gunk using my fabricated tool. As I was working on the shank, the brass cap over the shank rim top came free. I would need to reattach it once I was done with internal and external cleaning of the shank.Next, I cleaned the Bakelite shank with anti oil dish soap and tooth brush. I cleaned the shank internals and the mortise with shank brush and anti oil soap and rinsed it under warm water. The brass cap was scrubbed clean with the soap and Scotch Brite pad. The shank is now clean both from the inside and the outside. With the external and internal surface of the Bakelite shank cleaned up, the crack at the seam is now clearly visible. As I had expected, this crack extends to the inside of the shank also. Both these are encircled in red. I discussed with Steve and he advised that drilling of counter holes to arrest the spread of these cracks should be avoided as the Bakelite could shatter due to the impact of the drill machine. The best way to ensure a robust and lasting repair would be to lay a fine bead of CA superglue along the crack. The glue would seep into the crack and once hardened, would form a strong joint along the seam. I did just that and set the shank aside for the glue to cure.By next day afternoon, the fills had completely hardened. With a flat head needle file, I sand the fills to achieve a rough match with the rest of the shank surface. To further fine tune the match, I sand the fill with a 320 followed by 600 grit sandpapers. I sand the fill inside the Bakelite trough with the sandpapers only as it was not possible to use the needle file. I am quite happy with these repairs at this junction. The Redmanol stem fills too had hardened and I worked the fills with a needle file to match it with the rest of the stem surface. I fine tuned this match further by sanding it with a 320 followed by 600 grit sandpapers. The fills have blended in perfectly with the stem surface. Thereafter, I handed the stem over to Abha to polish it to a high gloss. After the stem was handed over to Abha, I polished the Bakelite base/ shank by wet sanding the surface with 800, 1000, 1500 and 2000 grit sandpapers. The Bakelite is now beginning to take on a nice shine.  Before moving on to final polish using micromesh pads, I decided to reattach the brass cap first. I polished the brass cap with a polishing compound that we get in India here. I rubbed the compound over the rim cap and wiped it using a soft cloth. I applied a small quantity of superglue along the rim top surface and pressed the rim cap over the rim top. I wiped the excess glue with a cotton swab wetted with alcohol.Next I polished the shank by dry sanding with 3200 to 12000 grit micromesh pads. I applied a little Extra Virgin Olive oil to the surface just to enhance the shine. All this while, Abha was quietly busy polishing the stem. She wet sanded the entire stem with 800, 1000, 1500 and 2000 grit sandpapers and followed it up by dry sanding with 3200 to 12000 grit micromesh pads. The stem looks fabulous and I cannot thank Abha enough for the help and support she extends in this hobby of mine. Next I gave a beeswax polish to the meerschaum bowl. The process that I followed for this polish has been explained in Part- I and not being repeated here. The following pictures will give you an idea of the process and also of the end results. It was here that I had swapped the Meerschaum bowls and correctly matched them with their original pipes. While the Meerschaum bowl was soaking in the beeswax, I cleaned the external surface of the Presentation Box with Murphy’s Oil soap and cotton swab. I wiped the surface with a moist cloth to remove any residual soap from the surface. Next I applied some “Before and After” Restoration balm to the surface to rehydrate the wood and polished it with a microfiber cloth. To finish, I re-attach the Redmanol stem with the Bakelite shank. I mount a cotton cloth buffing wheel on to my hand held rotary tool and setting the speed at 50% RPM, applied Blue Diamond compound over the shank and the stem surface. I wiped/ buffed the parts with a soft cotton cloth to clear it of any leftover compound dust. I then mounted another cotton cloth wheel on to the polishing machine and applied several coats of carnauba wax over the shank and the stem of the pipe. I finished the restoration by giving the pipe a rigorous hand buffing using a microfiber cloth to raise the shine further. Have a look at the completed pipe below. And here are a couple of pictures of both the pipes in their Presentation Case. Thank you all for joining me on this path as I repaired and restored this fabulous piece of pipe history to its former glory and functionality.