Tag Archives: stem work

Cleaning up a Beautiful Comoy’s Made Selected Straight Grain Bent Billiard

5 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

A few months back I sold a nice older Wally Frank pipe to a fellow named Jim in the South Eastern US. Recently he called to tell me about a group of six pipes that he purchased on one of his own pipe hunts. He wanted to know if I could help him identifying what he had found. There were two older Kaywoodies (a bent meerschaum lined billiard and a  Super Grain Zulu), a Selected Straight Grain bent billiard, a GBD Sauvage Bulldog, a Henley Club Apple (made by Sasieni), and the last one a Medico Crest Prince.

In our conversation he told me he was going to box up the lot and mail them to me to have a look. When they arrived he said we could talk and make an arrangement regarding the pipes that he decided to have restored. But he wanted my opinion on the others as well. The box arrived last week and I opened it to have a good look at what Jim had sent to me. I went through them making notes on what I saw regarding the condition of each pipe. I sent Jim my notes on the pipes and he sent back the two pipes that he wanted me to work on for him in the lot – the first one was a large Bent Selected Straight Grain Billiard and the second was the Kaywoodie Super Grain Zulu. We fired several emails back and forth talking about the pipes and the decision was made. I would restore the two pipes for him.

I decided to work larger of the two pipes first. It is stamped on the left side of the shank Selected arched over Straight and Grain underneath that. On the right side of the shank it is stamped with the standard circular COM (Country of Manufacture) stamp – Made in London in a circle over England followed by the shape number 43. Both the COM stamp and the shape number led me to believe this was a Comoy’s made pipe but I was not certain at this point in the process. The shape is a half bent billiard. It was a nice pipe that showed some extraordinary grain underneath the grime.

The pipe was larger than I expected when Jim and I spoke and was a pretty nice looking piece of briar. There were a couple of issues with the bowl. There were some small sand pits on the bottom of the bowl and shank. There was a large flaw that looked like an X at the junction of the bowl and the shank on the left side near the top of the shank. The bowl had a thick cake in it and there were actually cobwebs in the bowl. The rim had a light coat of tars and lava that overflowed onto the beveled surface of the inner edge of the rim. There was a deep gouge on the rim top on the right side toward the back of the bowl. The finish was spotty and worn with shiny spots and scratches on the shank and on parts of the bowl sides. The stem was lightly oxidized and sported a lot of tooth chatter but no deep tooth marks. The stem did not fit tight against the shank with a small gap at the top that told me that the tenon was slightly bent.

I took a series of photos of the pipe to record the condition it was in when it arrived. The next photo show the top of the rim, the darkened and lava encrusted beveled inner edge, the thick cake and the cobwebs deep inside the bowl. You can also see the gouge on the right side of the rim top at the 1 o’clock position in the photo below. I have circled it in red for ease of reference. The pipe certainly had great bones but it was in dire need of a cleanup so that it could be passed on in the pipeman’s trust. This was going to be a fun pipe to work on.I took photos of the oxidized stem to show the general condition of the vulcanite. It looked pretty good. The button was clean and not damaged. There was tooth chatter but no deep tooth marks on either side of the stem. The stem was lightly oxidized but good quality vulcanite.I did a bit of hunting online and read on Pipedia that these pipes were made by Comoy’s and were essentially “Specimen Straight Grain” (exceptional line of Comoy’s pipes). The Selected Straight Grain pipes were seconds to the Specimen line that exhibited some small flaw or sand pit. They were listed in the 1965 catalogue at $15 or $17.50 in Extraordinaire size.

Armed with that information I turned my attention to work on the pipe. It was dirty and sticky so I varied my usual habit of reaming the bowl first and scrubbed the exterior with Murphy’s Oil Soap and cotton pads. I was able to remove all of the grime on the bowl sides and much of the grime and lava on the rim top and inner beveled edge of the bowl. I took photos of the bowl after scrubbing. You can see the amazing grain on the bowl and shank sides. You can also see the X shaped sandpit in the first photo. I have circled it in red to highlight the damage there. With the outside of the bowl clean it was easier to hold onto while I reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer. I started with the smallest cutting head and worked my way up to the third cutting head. I took the cake back to bare briar. I cleaned up the remnants of the cake with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. I used a dental spatula to scrape out the buildup on the walls of the mortise. There was a thick coat of tars and oils that had hardened there and made the fit of the stem very tight in the shank. Once I had scraped out the hardened substances I cleaned out the mortise and the airway in the shank and stem with alcohol, cottons swabs and pipe cleaners.With the exterior and the interior of the bowl cleaned it was time to work on repairing the sandpits and gouges on the bowl. I wiped down the area of the X pit on the left side of the bowl at the shank bowl junction with alcohol.When it was dry I filled in the area with clear super glue and pressed it into the pit with a dental spatula. I repeated the process with the gouge on the right side of the rim top.  When the repair had cured I sanded it with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to blend it into the surface of the briar. I also sanded the inner beveled edge of the bowl to clean up the darkening and damage at that point. I sanded the repair on the side of the shank and bowl with the same sandpaper until the spots were blended into the briar and smooth to touch.I polished the repaired areas with micromesh sanding pads – sanding with 1500-4000 grit pads to smooth out the sanding scratches. I stained the rim top and the repair on the shank and bowl with a light brown stain pen to match the stain on the rest of the bowl.Whenever I used the stain pens, regardless of colour, I blend the stain with the existing stain using Conservator’s Wax. I find that the microcrystalline wax polishes and blends the two areas together when I hand buff the bowl once the wax dries. I buffed the bowl with Blue Diamond to polish it a bit and see where I needed to do some work before the final buff. I hand polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down with a damp clot after each buffing pad. I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth after the 12000 grit pad. The pictures below show the progress of the polishing on the briar. I addressed the fit of the stem against the shank. The tenon was slightly bent downward causing a gap at the top of the shank stem union. I heated the tenon with a Bic lighter to soften it and inserted it in the shank and straightened it. I held it in place while the stem cooled and the fit was perfect against the shank.I sanded the light tooth chatter and the oxidation on the stem with 220 grit sandpaper. I wanted to break up the oxidation on the surface of the vulcanite and that is the easiest way to do it. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down after each pad with Fine grit Before & After Pipe Polish. I buffed the pipe on the wheel using Blue Diamond Polish and worked over the stem and bowl to remove any remaining scratches. I was careful around the stamping so as not to buff it out and soften it. I gave the pipe multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise a shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It really is a beauty. The flaws that I repaired really disappeared into the grain of the pipe. If you did not know where they were before they are hard to identify. The black of the polished vulcanite and the polished briar work well together to present a beautiful pipe. I have to finish Jim’s second pipe and then the pair will go in the mail. I can’t wait to hear what he thinks of this one once he has it in hand and fires it up for the first time. Thanks for looking.

One Seriously Frustrating Refurb – a Broken Down Hilson Fantasia 206 Dublin

1 Reply

Blog by Steve Laug

The last of Steve’s pipes the remained for me to work on was a Hilson Fantasia. It is a Dublin shaped pipe made of resin with a meerschaum insert. It has a yellow coloured bowl and shank with swirls of green that are scattered throughout the pipe. When Steve sent me the box of pipes to work on I told him this one was not worth the effort to clean it up. It was in really rough shape on both the stem and the bowl insert. But in the end I decided to clean it and the Pipe just so he could see what these resin bowl pipes were like. I have cleaned a few of these up over the years that have almost psychedelic patterns in the resin. They are really a product of the 60s and 70s in my opinion. I took the following photos of the pipe before I started the clean up to show the general condition and give you some idea why I said the pipe was not worth cleaning up. The pipe really was in rough condition. The meerschaum bowl was not readily identifiable and there was major damage to the rim top. There chunks of the inner bowl missing from the top at the back edge of the bowl. There was a seriously thick cake in the bowl that was fuzzy with dust and debris. The outer resin bowl was covered with a layer of lava. The stem would not fit in the shank the way it was supposed to which signaled that the shank was cake with about as much debris and the bowl. The stem was oxidized and there were tooth marks on both the top and the underside at the button. The button itself was worn away and no longer clearly defined. The outer resin bowl was in pretty good shape with no deep scratches or gouges. I was hoping that once I reamed the bowl it would be intact lower down. I was basing that hope on the fact that Hilson used block meerschaum and not pressed meerschaum for their bowls. That made the quality of the lining far better and I have rarely seen a Hilson meerschaum lining cracked or broken.The next two photos show the stamping on the pipe. On the underside of the shank it is stamped Belgium and on the right side it is stamped with the shape number 206. The normal stamping on the stem was long gone. So it no longer read Hilson Fantasia. For the identity I am going with the stamping that is visible, the shape and material of the pipe for calling it a Hilson Fantasia.The photos of the stem show the condition of the oxidation and tooth marks on the surface as well as the worn condition of the button.I had previously researched the Hilson Fantasia for a blog I already did on a previous restoration. (https://rebornpipes.com/2016/07/05/is-it-really-a-plastic-smoking-pipe-what-is-a-hilson-fantasia/) On that blog I wrote of what I had found out about the brand. I had learned that the Hilson Fantasia was made in Belgium as this one was stamped. It originally came out as a meerschaum lined pipe with an outer bowl made of a new material that they called pipenite. From what I can find out about the material they call pipenite, it was a specially designed polyester resin. It was light weight and fairly indestructible. The block meerschaum insert was something that Hilson turned into a specialty. I had found a catalogue page on Chris’ Pipe pages, http://pipepages.com/hilson.htm that confirmed my guess regarding the 60s/70s look of the pipe. I have once again included a catalogue page from a 1962 Wally Frank Catalogue that was on the pipepages site. The write up on the Hilson Fantasia is entertaining to read in terms of the sales pitch that is delivered.I have also written about some of the history of the brand on a previous blog on Hilson Double Ecume pipes. If you are interested in reading about the history of the brand click on the following link: https://wordpress.com/post/rebornpipes.com/40547. In addition the following link on the Estervals Pipe House website gives a good summary of the history of the brand for those of you who want to read more: http://www.tecon-gmbh.de/info_pages.php?pages_id=70.

Now for the cleanup of the Fantasia! I carefully reamed the bowl with the smallest cutting head of the PipNet pipe reamer and cleaned up the inside of the bowl with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe knife. I say carefully because I did not want to damage the meerschaum insert in the bowl but I wanted to remove the rock hard cake in the bowl.I topped the bowl carefully using a medium and a fine grit sanding pad. I wanted to smooth out the surface of the rim and remove the lava that was on top. I wanted to remove the lip of lava that had formed on the top of the bowl. The second photo below shows the cleaned rim top and also the damage that was very evident at the back edge of the bowl and around the sides. I cleaned out the shank of the pipe with a thin pen knife to scrape away the hardened tars that lined the inside walls. I followed that with a sanding stick and many pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol before the shank was clean.The inner edge of the bowl was pitted and uneven so I sanded it with a piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth it out and to clean up the damaged area at the back of the bowl. It was not perfect but it looked better than when I started.I took the stem out of the Before & After Pipe Stem Deoxidizer and wiped it down with a cotton pad. I cleaned out the inside of the stem with pipe cleaners and alcohol to remove the left over deoxidizer. The photos below show that it removed most of the oxidation but there were some stubborn spots left. The tooth dents are also very clear in the next photos of the stem. I wiped the stem down with alcohol and filled in the dents with a black super glue. I set the stem aside to let the repairs cure. When the glue had cured I worked on the fit of the stem in the shank. The tenon was still too big for the stem to sit properly in the shank so I sanded it down with 220 grit sandpaper. There were some high spots on the tenon that needed to be rounded out and cleaned up. Once that was completed the stem fit perfectly.Once the fit of the stem was correct, I turned to work on the stem itself. I wanted to blend the patched areas into the surface of the stem and also recut and redefine the button with needle files. I used a knife-edge needle file to redefine the sharp edge of the button and give it form. I also used it to flatten out the repaired areas on both sides of the stem.I smoothed out the repairs with 220 grit sandpaper and worked to blend them into the surface of the stem. I was a little concerned in that the repairs seemed to look almost red against the surface of the still oxidized vulcanite. I would have to work that to see if I could blend it in more. At worse the repairs will show but the pipe will be smokable.Now the frustration heightened – I really should have listened to my initial thoughts on this pipe. It was not worth working on. But I did not listen and now one of the reasons became more apparent. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads. The more I polished them the more the two repaired spots on the top of the stem showed a red colour. I have never had that happen before. I cleaned the stems before patching them with alcohol and dried them off. I used black super glue for the repairs, like I have many times before. Yet this time the repairs show a red tint. I have no idea what is going on with this repair. Fortunately it is one that I am calling finished. It was just a quick clean up on a badly damaged pipe. The stem is functionally very good just those spots are irritating. I used micromesh sanding pads to polish the stem – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each pad and set it aside to dry after the 12000 grit pad. I was irritated with the way the pipe looked – both bowl and stem. They were ragged looking still and even though they were better they were not what I like to see in a finished pipe. I was finished though as I decided that more work would not improve the damaged pipe. I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I hoped that the buffing might blend the repairs into the surface of the stem. While they certainly looked better they still showed. The overall look of the pipe was much better than when I started. The damage to the back side top edge of the meerschaum bowl liner was significant but the pipe was still able to be smoked. It was clean and would certainly make a workable yard pipe. I have boxed the pipe with the rest of Steve’s pipes and have them packed and ready to send to Dawson Creek. I am hoping he enjoys the lot and gives them a good workout in the days ahead. Thanks for looking.

 

Cleaning up a sad “the Pipe” Billiard

3 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

I have hinted at the fact that my friend Steve from Dawson Creek included two pipes in his box of pipes for me to refurbish that I had relegated to a “not worth doing” category. One of these was a Hilson Fantasia – Resin bowl and shank with a meerschaum lining and a plastic pipe stamped “the Pipe” that has a pyrolytic graphite bowl lining and a phenolic resin exterior. When I was working on the last one, the Kriswill made Danish Crown pipe I thought I would just do a clean up on these two just to be able to send a clean batch of pipes back to Steve.

I decided to begin working on the pipe labeled “the Pipe”. I have never paid attention to these pipes and have actually never had one in hand until this moment. I have avoided buying them or even being gifted one of them. I just was not interested in this combination of phenolic resin and pyrolytic graphite at all. I am generally intrigued by the unusual as those of you who follow the blog know, but this one had no draw for me. It was a bit of a mess. The bowl had a crumbling cake that was uneven. It had flowed over the rim top leaving it a mess. The outer edge of the bowl had been knocked against hard surfaces to empty the bowl leaving behind characteristic dents and chips. The right side of the bowl and the entire shank was scratched with deep scratches that carried on up the stem. The top and underside of the stem was also covered with bite marks and tooth chatter. The pipe looked pretty sad with all of the damage. I wondered if I could make it look any better and to be honest, if there was a point to doing so.

I took photos of the pipe before I started for comparison sake. Once I was finished I could look back and see if my work had made any difference at all. I wanted to get a quick education regarding the manufacture and date of this brand of pipes. My gut feel was that it was a product of the 60s and 70s. I looked up the brand on Pipedia and found that it began in 1963. There was a good summary of the history of the brand there. The Super-Temp Corporation who started making plastic pipes with pyrolytic graphite bowl liners made it. They called them “the Pipe”. In 1965, Super-Temp contracted to market their unique pipes through Venturi, Inc., the company that sold Tar Gard cigarette filters. Colors and stripes were added to the pipes that were offered circa 1967. About 1970, THE SMOKE pipes were added to the line – they were non-traditional shapes with a less expensive bowl liner. Venturi pipes were added around 1972 – they had no liner in the bowls at all. The pipes were out of production by 1975 (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Super-Temp). If you would like to read more about the brand, including a comprehensive history visit Dr. Billie W. Taylor’s site http://www.thepipe.info/. He is a collector of the Super-Temp Corporation pipes. He is a source of incredible information if you want to tap into it.

I took a close up photo of the bowl and the rim top to show the condition of both. The cake is heavy in the bowl and overflowing onto the black rim. It is hard to see because both the bowl insert and the exterior of the pipe are black. You can also see the damage on the outer edges of the bowl.The stem damage was one of the most worrisome parts of this restoration. The scratches running both the length of the stem and across the stem had left deep marks. Underneath and on top of those scratches there was a lot of small tooth marks and chatter that would need to be sanded out. The scratches extended up the top side and partly up both the right and left side of the shank. There were even scratches on the right side of the bowl. It was almost as if the pipe had road rash from being dragged across concrete or asphalt. The stem was not vulcanite so it would be hard to polish. It was going to be an interesting part of the work on this pipe. The stamping on the left side of the shank was very clear and readable. It was deeply embossed and no amount of sanding to remove the scratching would damage it. The stem was held snug in the shank by a rubber grommet that fit over the tenon. This was replaceable as the rubber wore out and air leaked by. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and carefully took the cake back to the graphite bowl insert. I left a little cake to protect the insert and cleaned it up with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. Using the knife I scraped the bowl back to bare walls and scraped the rim top free of the buildup of lava that was there.I scraped the top of the bowl with the edges of the Savinelli Fitsall Knife to remove the lava build up. Once I had the majority of it off I polished the rim with 1500 grit micromesh sanding pads to polish both the bowl insert and the rim top. I sanded the outer edges of the bowl to smooth out the damage to the edge of the bowl.I polished the entire bowl with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads. I wiped the bowl down after each pad using a damp cotton pad. I worked on the left side of the bowl and the top and left side of the shank where there were a lot of deep scratches running both vertically and horizontally on both. I polished the shank and bowl with 3200-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down after each pad with the damp cotton pad. When I finished with the 12000 grit pad I buffed the bowl on the buffing wheel using Blue Diamond to polish it further. The photos below tell the story. With the bowl finished for now, I turned to work on the horrendous damage to the stem. It was in rough shape as was seen in the above photos. I sanded the surface of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the scratches. It took a lot of sanding but I was able to remove almost all of them on the top and underside of the stem. I ran a pipe cleaner through the stem to clean out any debris that might have been in the airway before continuing on the stem. I used black super glue to fill in the small tooth marks on the top and underside of the stem at the button. I sanded the repaired areas with 220 grit sandpaper until the repairs blended into the surface of the stem. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each pad. After the final 12000 grit pad I gave it a last coat of the Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I had already spent quite a few hours working over the badly gouged and scratched stem and I was able to remove many of the scratches. I tried to lightly buff the pipe to remove more of them but the nylon stem resists buffing too much as it heats quickly and melts. I decided to call the pipe finished at this point. It was not going to get much better without many more hours of work that I am unable to give it. I buffed the bowl on the buffing wheel with Blue Diamond to buff out some more of the scratches on the shank and right side. I gave the bowl a buff with a clean buffing pad. I polished the stem with Before & After Pipe Polish – both fine and extra fine. I did not bother giving the stem a carnauba coat as it is plastic and the wax does not do much. I hand waxed the stem with Conservator’s Wax to polish it more. The finished pipe is far from perfect but it is better than when I started. I will box it up later this week when I finish the Hilson Fantasia I have left and then mail it back to Steve in Dawson Creek, BC. Thanks for looking.

 

On Bending and Straightening Amber Stone Stems

2 Replies

Blog by Robert M. Boughton

Copyright © Reborn Pipes and the Author except as cited

No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right.  A single experiment can prove me wrong.

— Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born theoretical physicist and winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, received in 1922 (don’t ask why – the answer in some ways is more complex than Relativity)

THE POWER OF PERSUASION

This is the most difficult pipe restoration blog I’ve ever written, for the things about which it is not.  It is not about an antique gold-banded KB&B Blue Line Bakelite, c. 1910-1914.  A friend of mine won that distinguished, classic shaped pipe from the pre-Kaywoodie era for a very low price on eBay, and I offered, for a small fee, to restore it.  It is not about the still older gold band CPF Best Make turned lion’s head meerschaum, c. 1898, that only lacked a bone tenon to be complete.  As much as I dislike the cliché, I poured my heart and soul into that pipe since 2013 in a true labor of love to return the 19th century treasure to its original structural form.  The simple act of restoration was – and remains – intended as a tribute to the man most of the readers here know as my good friend and mentor, Chuck Richards, who gave it to me.

It is not about either of these things, or the writing between the lines as it were, but some choice details are relevant.  For example, the connection between the two pipes named above is their stems.  The Blue Line’s is Bakelite, the world’s first synthetic plastic, which could be colored dark brownish red.  The Best Make’s genuine dark red amber stem comes from wholly organic-based resins from exotic, extinct trees that were washed away by large bodies of water and fossilized into mineral form 10-100 million years ago.

The focal point of this blog is the immediate but temporary solution to a series of events that still has not been resolved.  Never in my wildest apprehensions, during the last several years of taking some truly ruined pipes and making them whole again, did I conceive that something seeming to be simple could become so bloody banjacked , as the Irish might put it with good cause.  At first, I intended to include the details as usual, in a single account of the finished project.  And so, with a little help from a friend, I adapted my thinking, draft after draft, to write this aspect of the overall restoration into a single blog.  To be brief, here is what happened.

My friend (the one who owns the Blueline, Daryl Loomis), holds the status of co-top buyer of my pipes, numbering five so far, with someone else who came and went in short order.  Daryl also let me restore one of his own pipes before, a gorgeous Redmanol Socket system pipe related to this one by its maker, KB&B, and the Redmanol of its construction that was consumed by the General Bakelite Co. in 1922.  Thereafter, Redmanol was classed as Bakelite despite certain superior qualities.  For extensive details on Bakelite’s origins and development, see the fourth link in my Sources.

At any rate, without going into details that will be covered in my eventual blog on the full restoration of the Blueline, there was a mishap – oh, the understatement! – wherein the bone tenon was crushed.  The photo below was taken after I Super Glued the bits and pieces of the shank end of the tenon, minus the powdered remains, as best I could.This catastrophe was followed close on its heels by a second calamity that left the Bakelite stem ruined, as far as I am concerned., other than for use with some unforeseeable shop pipe.  There is no way I will place a stem I broke, or anyone else did for that matter, on a paid restoration, even though, for obvious reasons, I’m refunding the small fee.  And so, with the immediate goal being to return the Blueline in a condition that it can be smoked as soon as possible, I am left with no alternative than using the genuine cherry red amber stem from my Best Make pending the acquisition of a Bakelite replacement.  Here is the Bakelite stem after I was done with it, in the negative sense of the expression.

Top view Bakelite stem

Bottom of Bakelite stem, broken

Open end with both sides of the break shown on either side

Steve wrote an excellent blog called “What Is the Amber Used in Pipe Stems and How Do You Bend It?” in 2013, but had never tried the theoretical guidelines proposed.  He still has not had occasion to attempt the unusual process.  In other words, it occurred to me, I would be the guinea pig to test the theories.  The prospect was not appealing given the potential for destroying my 119-year-old amber stem for the sake of “progress” in this obscure field of pipe restoration.  Steve’s blog is a trove of information about amber in general and the article from Scientific American on how amber stems were once custom-crafted and bent per the specifications needed for a specific pipe.  Steve raised some good questions in his fine blog that can be read at the third link below.

ABOUT BENDING AMBER

Having spent a great deal of time pouring over every word of Steve’s piece as it related to bending amber, from the viewpoint of having an immediate job to do so, I was left with still more troubling questions.  The key concerns were:

  1. Since amber stems were made and shaped for specific pipes, could they be re-bent later for replacements on other pipes? After all, bending a stem once is one thing, while bending it back is another.
  2. If so, what might be the effect of age, which tends to make amber more brittle, on a stem?
  3. Was my hope that the answers to the first two questions just that, wishful thinking, or put more plainly, a crock?

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER: The method I am about to describe, although it worked beyond my wildest dream, does not follow the better, safer steps set forth in the article upon which Steve’s blog is based.  Read his blog and, if you already possess or have the means to acquire the equipment described, or the wherewithal to fashion your own versions, please do so.  Also follow the other procedures described.  I am taking responsibility for my own mistake(s) that made this drastic measure necessary but will not be responsible for anyone else’s misfortunes!

Having abandoned myself to the certainty that my efforts would either turn out well or the whole thing would go awry in the most hideous way, I didn’t bother re-visiting Steve’s blog when I reached the desperate state of mind necessary to go through with the “experiment.”  Instead, I winged it.  The following pic shows my beloved 1898 amber stem not only in the bent form in which it was hand-fashioned by some unknown but master CPF meerschaum crafter late in the century before the one preceding the current, but as I still feared would be the last time I saw it in any recognizable form.OK, here’s what I did.  Pre-heating the oven, instead of the 210° or 220° F. temperature I’ve always used for regular stems, on a whim, if you will (since I was throwing everything else to the wind), I cranked it up to 335°.  Steve’s blog states that the process does not even involve an oven and the softening temperature of amber is about 150° C. ((302° F.). I just now confirmed that he was, no surprise, correct.

Therefore, 335° F., or 168° C., was a little high.  Placing the stem on a piece of aluminum foil, I forgot to put anything through the airway to prevent more than likely collapse until about a minute after I closed the oven door on it. 

Snapping to my terrible lapse of memory, I grabbed a regular pipe cleaner and bolted to the oven, where I found the stem very hot already but the airway still intact, and inserted the cleaner through it.

I also checked after only 10 minutes more (thank God), and found the amber stem had straightened itself!  Not only that, but when I touched the stem on the piece of aluminum, it had a bizarre limpness to it.  My heart was racing as I removed the aluminum foil with the stem from the oven and placed it on the counter.  Picking up the stem with care using both hands on either end of the cleaner, I saw the middle sag downward with gravity.

Sure for a few seconds that I would become ill and have to rush to the sink to vomit, I got a hold of myself and moved my hands to both ends of the stem, at which time I found it was so soft it reminded me of the hilarious old cartoons with Bugs Bunny or whatever Toon character flopping a broken arm about like a cooked noodle.  Of course, I didn’t play with the stem, but rushed it to the aforementioned sink and ran cold water over the whole thing until it was firm again and cool.The cleaner came out with no resistance.  Needless to say, I sighed in relief and wiped the sweat from my brow.  The experiment was a success!

Bakelite above, amber below. I know the bone tenon is backward!

And the amber stem with the KB&B Blueline stummel that’s ready for the temporary amber substitute as soon as I have a suitable new tenon.

CONCLUSION

In my most recent, exultant email to Steve, I wrote: “As the attached pics show, I finally got the gumption to go for it, and believe it or not it was the easiest bending material I’ve ever worked with.  Lucite was a dog when I re-stemmed the BW Preben Holm, but 10 minutes in the oven and the amber not only straightened itself but was like Gumby to the touch — no, like a children’s cartoon of someone with a broken arm!”  I attached a couple of photos.

His immediate, doubtful reply told me I was correct in my assumption that Steve didn’t really know what would happen, either.  He wrote, with apparent doubt, “Was the stem a true amber stem or is it the Bakelite one that you sent pictures of?”

I responded that the stem I baked was without doubt amber, then sent this added comment: “PS: I decided to crank the temp up to 335, also, on a hunch.  It may

have been reckless, but it worked perfectly.  I’m planning on writing the process up in my blog on the Blueline.”

Steve wrote back the following words a short time later, and I appreciate them very much, although I don’t know for sure that I “discovered” the process, other than my own oven method.  “Thanks for experimenting, Robert.  That is an incredible discovery.  Do a separate write up on just the bending of amber.  I think that alone will be a must read for those of us who love to restore old pipes.  Thank you for being reckless.”

Until then, I didn’t understand just how risky this little exercise in stem repair was.  But Steve’s power of persuasion being formidable, I took his advice for the blog.

I found the following quote, from a September 1924 Time magazine write-up on Bakelite, amusing in its revelation of the fantastic and egotistic personality of Bakelite’s founder, Leo H. Baekeland, not to mention the influence his company’s PR department must have had in its writing.

“From the time that a man brushes his teeth in the morning with a Bakelite-handled brush, until the moment when he removes his last cigarette from a Bakelite holder, extinguishes it in a Bakelite ashtray, and falls back upon a Bakelite bed, all that he touches, sees, uses, will be made of this material of a thousand purposes.  Books and papers will be set up in Bakelite type.  People will read Bakeliterature, Bakelitigate their cases, offer Bakeliturgies for their dead, bring young into the world in Bakelitters.”

Hubris? Indeed!  But still, it’s amazing stuff.  By the way, the lawyers at Bakelite know something about Bakelitigating from their 1922 Patent infringement suit against the Redmanol Chemical Products Co. and the Condensite Co.

Last, but not least, I wish to thank Steve for his blog and invaluable help throughout the ordeal of my collapsing Blueline restoration, and Troy Wilburn for his wonderful blog on another Blueline and its dating.

SOURCES

http://www.elvenkrafte.com/bakelite%20presentation.htm

https://rebornpipes.com/2015/06/06/spiffing-up-a-kbb-blue-line-bakelite-poker-1908-1914/

https://rebornpipes.com/2013/02/23/what-is-the-amber-used-in-pipe-stems-and-how-are-they-bent/

https://rebornpipes.com/2016/07/05/the-scintillating-antique-kbb-redmanol-pipe/