Tag Archives: topping a bowl

Rebirth – A Genuine Briar Zulu

Blog by Steve Laug

I am working on yet another Idaho find. This one comes from a small shop in Victor, Idaho. I had a great visit with the shop keeper who has traveled the world. We talked about travels and pipes. She had a small jar of pipes behind the counter and I purchased all of them. I love the Zulu shape and this one is a good example of it. The pipe is in rough shape. The finish is worn and is peeling off on the sides of the bowl. The rim is damaged. The cake had been reamed with a knife and the bowl was out of round. The top was rough and the back outer edge was beat down and had a large nick on the back right side. The stem did not fit in the mortise all the way. It had some oxidation and a band of calcification toward the back near the button. The slot was almost closed off with grit and when I removed it from the shank it had a very grimy short stinger. Not sure but I think I will lose the stinger. I am not sure the stem is the original as the diameter of the shank and the stem are not quite the same.

I took a close up photo of the rim to show the damage to the top and the back side of the rim. It was truly a mess. I took the stem off the pipe and pulled the stinger with a pair of pliers. I scrubbed down the exterior of the bowl and the rim with acetone on cotton pads to remove the peeling varnish and the grime as much as possible before I worked on the rim and the backside of the bowl.

There was a large fill that had crumbled on the underside of the shank about mid shank. It would need to be picked out and repaired. I picked out the crumbling fill with a dental pick and then topped the bowl on the topping board using 220 grit sandpaper. When I had flattened out the majority of the rim damage I repaired the damaged back side of the bowl using super glue and briar dust. I also replaced the fill in the bottom of the shank at the same time.

When the patch dried I did some more topping of the rim to blend the repair into the flat surface of the rim. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer using the first two cutting heads. I took the cake back to bare briar to check for damage to the inside of the bowl.

I sanded the repairs on the underside of the shank and the back of the bowl to blend it into the briar around it. I wanted the transition to be smooth and seamless. The top and the backside of the bowl took some effort to clean up. You can see from the photos the size of the repairs. They had dried hard as a rock and were very stable but they were quite large.

I sanded the bowl and shank with 0000 steel wool to smooth out the scratches and polish the repairs. I used it on the entire bowl to help remove the previous finish.

I used the KleenReem drill bit to clean out the air way between the mortise and the bowl. It was constricted from the build-up of the grime. I could not get a thin pipe cleaner into the airway before I used the bit to open it up. I cleaned out the shank and airway in the bowl with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. I scrubbed it until they came out clean and white. It was incredibly dirty. I tried to get a pipe cleaner down the stem but the slot in the button was too constricted to get even a thin cleaner through it.

I sanded the transition between the stem and shank. The stem did not fit properly in the shank. I worked on the tenon to even it up the fit in the shank. It was almost conical at the end next to the stem so I used a Dremel and sanding drum to even it up. It was also sanded at a bit of an angle so there was a gap on the right side of the shank. I even out the tenon and made it round again. When I was finished the gap was gone and the stem fit. Now all I had to do was adjust the diameter of the shank on the right side and top as it was slightly larger than the diameter of the stem. I sanded the shank with 220 grit sandpaper until the transition was smooth and the diameter the same on both the shank and stem. I sanded the stem at the same time and removed the tooth chatter and calcification on the button end.

I sanded the inside edge of the bowl with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the roughness on the back edge. I sanded the bowl and stem with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches left behind by the sandpaper.

I sanded it with 0000 steel wool to take out the next level of scratches on the briar.

With all of the sanding completed I stained the bowl with the oxblood alcohol based stain to highlight the grain. It would be the first coat of stain that I used. I wanted to make some of the birdseye and cross grain standout and chose the oxblood colour to be the undercoat. I flamed the stain and then buffed it to remove the excess stain.

I wiped the bowl down with alcohol and sanded it with 1500 grit micromesh to further remove the excess stain.

I then stained it with the top coat – a dark brown aniline stain thinned 50/50 with alcohol to make it more of a brown wash coat. I applied it with a cotton swab and then flamed it. I repeated the process until it gave a good coverage. I applied heavily around the top of the rim and on the underside of the shank over the repairs. I buffed it with White Diamond on the buffer and then rubbed down the bowl with a light coat of olive oil to bring life and depth to the finish.

At this point I set the bowl aside to work on the stem. The slot was so tight that I could not get a thin pipe cleaner through it. That had to change so that I could easily clean it. I used small needle files to open it up. I started with a flat oval file and worked on the bottom and top edge of the slot. Once I had them opened I used a thicker oval to give the top and bottom edge more depth and the sides more of a taper inwards to the airway. I finished with a round file and folded sandpaper to smooth out the opening.

I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads to remove the scratching and oxidation that remained. I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil and continued by dry sanding with 3200-4000 grit micromesh pads. I gave it another coat of oil and finished with 6000-12000 grit micromesh pads. I gave it a final coat of oil and let it dry.

I buffed the bowl and the stem with Blue Diamond Plastic Polish on the buffing wheel and then gave the bowl and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean flannel buff and then hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to add depth to the shine. The finished pipe is shown below. The contrast stain worked well and the birdseye grain stands out on both sides of the bowl. The cross grain on the front and back also looks great. The repairs are still visible but less so than they were before the two coat stain process. It came out pretty well considering where it was when I started on this old timer. Now it should continue to deliver good smokes for a long time to come. I put the stinger in for the photos but it is easily removed and I am pretty sure that I will remove it once I smoke it!

Restoring a 20’s Era LHS PUREX Patent 1587048 Octagonal Pot

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Blog by Steve Laug
The pipe I chose to work on is stamped on the left side of the shank LHS in a Diamond then PUREX. Underneath is the stamping PATN 1587048. On the right side it is stamped Real Briar Root. On the underside of the shank is stamped 69. The pipe is in decent shape for a oldtimer. It is tiny and delicate looking and that is hard to capture in these photos. The length of the pipe is 5 ¼ inches, the diameter of the bowl is 1 1/8 inches, the bowl height is1 3/8 inches. The bore on the bowl is 5/8 inches. The diameter of the shank and the stem is 3/8 inches. The stem is lightly oxidized and has some tooth chatter on the top and bottom near the button. The finish is dark and dirty with worn spots showing through the varnish that covered it. The aluminum on the shank and the stem was oxidized and lightly pitted.

The bowl was slightly out of round on the back inner edge. There were some nicks in the inner edge and on the rim top. Here is a close-up of the rim showing the nicks and damage to the rim.

I did a bit of searching on the internet and on the Pipephil site I found my pipe – An LHS Patent Purex. It is stamped like the second pipe in the photo below and has the Real Briar on the right side of the shank. The stem has a combination of the dot pattern in the photo below. Mine is in the pattern of the second one on the yellow stem but it has two white dots on the sides with a red dot in the middle.

I also researched the patent number and it led me to the following diagram and patent information. It was filed in 1924 and awarded on June 1, 1926. The interesting thing is that it combines some of the concepts from a later patent filing on July 1, 1932 and granted on May 9, 1933. The stamping places it as a 1926 pipe. The shape of the stinger and the threaded mortise make me think of the 1926 pipe in many ways. I cannot see deep enough into the pencil shank to see if there is a metal cup insert in the shank behind the mortise. Maybe that will become clear in the cleanup. The smooth portion of the tenon after the threads and the metal disk that is threaded into the stem make me think of the 1933 patent pipe. The threaded mortis is the same in both but if it ends in the shank without the cup then it has a lot of similarity to the 1933. The 1926 patent gives me a start date for this pipe and the 1933 patent gives me an end date. The fact that the metal works combine both makes me wonder if the pipe did not come out of the factor late 1920s or early 1930s just prior to the new patent release in 1933. I am including the two different patents for you to see the interesting combination in this pipe.

I have screen captured the insert in the shank and the stinger apparatus from the 1926 patent drawings. Figure 2 shows the stinger. It is identical in both the 1926 and the 1933 patent drawings. Figure 3 shows a metal cup that is inserted in the shank. The mortise end is threaded to receive the threads on the tenon. Figure 4 shows the end of the stem looking at the head on the stinger. The slot is at the top. Figure 5 shows the inside of the shank looking at it from the end. The mortise end is threaded and the cup has an airway hole in the center of the rounded end. That end sits against the airway from the bottom of the bowl as seen in Figure 6. When I started cleaning out the shank I was unsure of the interior. Once I was cleaning it I was certain that I was working with the insert that is shown in these figures. The inside of the shank is smooth and shiny now that it is clean. Looking down the shank with a flash light it is visible. Here is a photo of the stinger – note the length of the tenon behind the stinger – particularly the smooth portion. Note also the metal plate on against the stem that is threaded and inserted into the vulcanite of the stem. I have also included a screen capture below of Figure 2 from the 1933 patent drawings. The insert in the shank is shorter than the 1926 version and does not include the cup. The tenon is the same though it has a longer smooth portion. It also has a plate that rest against the face of the stem when inserted. The rim damage required me to lightly top the bowl to minimize it and flatten the top of the rim. Doing so removed most of the damage and brought the bowl back into round.

I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to try to break down the varnish coat. I sanded it with a fine grit sanding sponge to open the surface. It was stubborn stuff to remove. There was some beautiful grain under the dark varnish coat.

I still did not have the varnish coat removed so I dropped the bowl into an alcohol bath to let it soak. The dark colour of the alcohol bath comes from all of the bowls that have soaked in it in the past. I filter it but the dark colour remains. I like it as it adds a bit of a patina to the briar as it soaks there. While the bowl soaked I worked on the stem. I cleaned out the inside of the stem and cleaned the stinger with pipe cleaners, cotton pads and alcohol. With the inside clean I decided to take a break from working on this pipe and went out to enjoy a bit of sunshine while it is here in Vancouver. Rain is forecast and coming in even while I am outside. I picked about 6 pints of blueberries while I was outside.

When I came back to the pipe after it had been sitting in the bath for about an hour and a half. I dried it off with a paper towel. The varnish coat was gone and the topped bowl had picked up a patina from the bath that almost matched the colour of the briar of the bowl.

I scrubbed out the cup insert and mortise in the shank. It took a lot of scrubbing. I did not want to use the retort as I was not sure what the stem material was and did not want to risk dissolving it with the hot alcohol. I scrubbed it with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners until they finally came out clean. I shone a flashlight down the shank from the bowl and the mortise and it was sparkling and shiny. It was indeed the cup insert – all doubts were removed. With the insides and outside clean I rubbed the bowl down with a light coat of olive oil to highlight the grain. When it dried it made the grain pop and the rim colour was a match. I will need to give it multiple coats of carnauba wax once I am finished with the stem. The bowl however is going to be a beauty.

The nicks in the inner rim bothered me so I folded a piece of sandpaper and worked on the inner edge to smooth it out while keeping it round.

I then mixed two stain pens – a medium and a dark brown to match the colour of the bowl and try to blend the rim in more closely. I then sanded the rim with a 3200 grit micromesh sanding pad to work on the blend even more. I buffed the bowl with White Diamond and then set it aside so that I could finish working on the stem. I sanded it lightly with a fine grit sanding sponge and then worked on it with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads, rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil and then dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads. I gave it another coat and then sanded it with 6000-12000 grit pads. When I finished I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and let it dry.

I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the wheel and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buffing pad and then by hand with a microfibre cloth to give depth to the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below.

Thanks for looking.

Breathing new life into a White Flame Saddle Billiard 353

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Blog by Steve Laug

This was another of the pipes I picked up on a recent trip to Idaho Falls. I found it and several nice older pipes in a local antique mall. This one is stamped White Flame over Natural Briar on the left side of the shank and 353 on the right side. On the underside of the stem there was a lightly stamped FRANCE on the saddle. I had never seen a pipe with the White Flame stamping. I looked on the pipephil site and there was nothing there either. I did find a reference to the brand in Who Made That Pipe. There it was listed as a brand made by both Imperial and Civic. The book said the make was English and American. From my experience though, both the Imperial brand and the Civic brand were English made pipes. I know that Yello Bole made an Imperial and I am wondering if that is not what WMTP is referring to. This one however, just says British Briar in the shape, the stamping and everything else. I searched on the web to find a shape chart for either Imperial or Civic and so far have found nothing that lists the shapes of the two brands.

The pipe had a natural, virgin finish that had picked up a slight patina over the years. There was a hint of red in the briar under the grime. The stem was badly oxidized. The bowl had a thick cake and the rim was nicked on the back right side outer edge and the top was blackened with a coat of tars and carbon that had run over from the bowl. Other than that the pipe was in decent shape. The bowl was still round. There were a few slight nicks and dings in the sides but it still was decent enough that a restoration would not be too difficult. I have included a close-up of the rim to show the thickness of the cake in the bowl and the damage to the outer edge of the rim. The tarry lava overflow on the top of the rim is also very visible.

I have also included some photos of the stamping to see if any of you reading this have any ideas of the maker.

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer starting with the smallest head on the T handle and working up to the third head. I took the cake back to the briar walls of the pipe.

Because of the rim damage and the thick build-up I decided to top the bowl and remove the damage. I would not be able to remove all of it without changing the profile of the bowl but I could minimize its visibility. I topped it on the topping board with 220 grit sandpaper. I finished topping it by sanding it with a medium and a fine grit sanding block to smooth out the scratches left from the sandpaper. The topped bowl is shown below. The oxidation was bad enough that I decided to drop it in a mixture of Oxyclean and let it soak for an hour to let the Oxy do its magic. As soon as it hit the warm mixture the water turned amber as the oxidation bubbled away. While it soaked I scrubbed the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to remove the grime and the wax from the briar.

I cleaned out the shank and mortise with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. The patina of the bowl was darker than the newly topped rim so I used a light coloured stain pen to match the colour of the briar. It would need some more work to blend it but the colour was very close. I gave the bowl and rim a light coat of olive oil to give back some life to the grain and work to match the bowl and rim even more. After oiling it I hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to remove the excess and to get a clear picture of the match of the rim to the bowl. The match was perfect as can be seen from the photos below.

After the stem had soaked for an hour I took it out of the bath and dried it off with a coarse cotton cloth. I was able to rub off the majority of the remaining oxidation. The stem is shown in the photo below after the rub down. I sanded the stem with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the remaining oxidation. I then worked on the stem with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit pads and then rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads, rubbed it down with oil again and then finished by dry sanding with 6000-12000 grit pads. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and then buffed it with Blue Diamond on the wheel.

I finished the restoration by buffing the pipe with Blue Diamond and then I gave the stem and bowl multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buff and then took it back to the work table and hand buffed it with the microfibre cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. We are in the midst of a much needed rain storm but I love the look of the pipes in the fronds of the palm tree in my back yard. On these photos you will see some raindrops on the stem and bowl in several of the photos. I am pleased with the finished look of the pipe. The natural light brings out the reds in the briar. It is a beautiful pipe. Thanks for looking.

Restoring a Dr. Grabow Viscount 39 Continental

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Blog by Steve Laug

I was gifted this beautifully grained Grabow Viscount Shape 39 in a box of pipes that needed to be reconditioned and repaired. It was a shape that I had seen pictures of but I had never seen one in person. Holding it in hand led me to have a few questions regarding it. It is stamped on the left side of the shank Viscount over Dr. Grabow and on the right side 39 near the shank and then Imported Briar over Adjustomatic over Pat.2461905. I posted the questions and some photos of the pipe on the Dr. Grabow Collectors Forum as I have found the folks there to be extremely helpful and knowledgeable about all things Grabow.

Here are the questions:
1. Any idea on the dates of this one.
2. The rim top has ridges but I am not sure if they are scratches or original. They are in no particular pattern and the rest of the bowl is smooth. Did this shape have a rusticated rim?
3. Did it have the Grabow scoop stinger as it is missing in this one?
4. The Grabow spade on the stem is raised above the surface. Was this normal? I have not seen it before.

I concluded my questions with a short comment on the pipe. The briar is amazing – birdseye on the sides and cross grain on the front and back of the bowl.

The pipe needed some work as can be seen from the above questions. The stem was rough. It was oxidized and had been scraped clean with a knife or other tool and left ridges and scratches all over the stem. It gave it a striped look. The rim had a hatched rustic pattern on it and had probably fallen prey to the same knife wielding owner. The finish was actually quite good underneath the dirt and sticky spots that may have come from price tags on the bowl or labels. I was surprised that it did not have any lacquer or varnish coat over the briar. It was just stained briar and would be quite easy to clean up.

It was not long before I got a reply from Ted over on the Dr. Grabow Collectors Forum. He answered all of the questions that I had regarding this particular pipe and did them in reverse order. Here is his reply.

Yes, The grain is great. A fine example.

4) Spade on the stem has raised over time. It was flush when it left the factory. Even if it comes out (unlikely) it is a relatively easy fix. Joe and Ed have bunches of spades that they picked up off the factory floor.

3) It had the scoop (72B) cleaner. Unfortunately I don’t have any left. Someone will get you one.

2) Rim scratches weren’t there when it left the factory. Someone cleaned the top a little too vigorously.

1) This is fun…… The Continentals started in 1959/60 and their heyday was 1964-1966. Almost none were produced after 1967 because the sales just weren’t there. Shape stamped with a vulcanite stem makes me believe it was made in 66/67. I can’t speculate as to when it was sold… just made.

Here are some close up photos of the rim and the grain on this beautiful little pipe.

Troy Wilburn sent me some catalogue photos of the Continental Line. There are some unique and interesting shapes. I thought you might enjoy seeing the photos.

I did a light reaming of the bowl with a sharp pen knife being careful to keep it vertical and not damage the inner edge of the rim. I scrubbed the bowl, shank and stem airway with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. These metal mortise inserts collect a lot of “gunk” behind them and it takes some work to remove all of the debris and oils from the shank. I scrubbed down the exterior of the briar with isopropyl alcohol to remove the sticky areas and also the general grime that was built up on the bowl and shank.

I lightly sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and also a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to loosen the oxidation. Then I dropped it in a bath of warm Oxy Clean to soften and bring the oxidation to the surface.

While the stem soaked I worked on the scratches and hatch work on the rim surface. It was not only dirty but it looked like someone had scraped off the tars with a knife and left a rough hatch pattern all over the surface of the rim. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the scratches and smooth it out once again. I then sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to reduce the scratches left behind by the sandpaper.

I sanded the rim down with micromesh pads, wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and then dry sanding with 3200-4000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down with alcohol once more to remove the dust and sanding grit.

Troy mentioned that these older Continentals were not stained but general just had a light oil coat on the natural briar. It appeared that this was true on this old pipe but the patina that had developed over the years since 1966-67 had darkened the briar. I used a medium brown stain pen to touch up the rim as it matched the patina exactly. I took the stem out of the bath and dried it off with a coarse cotton cloth. The oxidation was greatly reduced and the stem was ready to work on.

I put a plastic washer between the stem and the shank and sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and the sanding sponges to remove the hard to get oxidation at that point. I took the stem off again and finished sanding with the sandpaper and sanding sponges. Then it was time to work on the polish of the stem. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and then rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads and repeated the oil. I finished with 6000-12000 grit pads, gave the stem a final coat of oil and when it dried buffed the stem with Blue Diamond on the wheel.

I gave the entire pipe a light buff with Blue Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buff to raise the shine. I took it back to the work table and hand buffed it with a microfibre cloth to bring out a deeper shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It turned out to be a beautiful piece of briar and a unique looking pipe. The old briar is rich with colour and warmth.

I want to thank the Dr. Grabow Collectors Forum and Ted of that Forum for their help on this pipe. I also want to thank Troy for the catalogue pages and for sending me the spoon stinger to insert to completely finish the restoration of the Continental. Thanks for looking.

Crafting another Frankenpipe – one plus one equals three

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Blog by Steve Laug

I have wanted to do some more experimenting and learning new ways of doing things for a while now. That is why I love refurbishing, there is always something new to learn. I was sent some pipes as a gift to either scrap out or clean up. In this lot was an Israeli Anderson freehand pipe. The bowl had been cut off and what was left was not much different from a Falcon base. There was no way it would hold any tobacco that would even make it worth smoking and it was in pretty rough shape. The stem was great the base was solid but the finish was done. I also had a pipe that I had cut the shank off of and repurpose on another project so the bowl was left. It had a lot of large fills on the side that were full of pink putty. I thought maybe with a little imagination I could join the two parts together and get a workable pipe. Let’s see what I can do with the parts.

I don’t have a table saw or a band saw so any kind of cutting briar needs to be done by hand. In this case I used a hacksaw to cut the bottom of the bowl off so that I could splice the bowl and the base together. I figured it would work and I might get a half way decent pipe out of the blend.

I used a small drill bit to place six small holes around the base and the bowl. I stabilized the small cracks with wood glue and briar dust. I planned on putting a bowl coating on the interior so I was not too concerned with the walls of the base. I had some small stainless steel pins that I had found that would work well to join the two parts together. I inserted the pins in the holes in the base and glued them in place. When the glue had set I put glue on the top of the base and the bottom of the bowl portion and set it on the pins as well.

I pressed the bowl onto the pins in the base until the two surfaces connected. I clamped it in place until the glue dried. Once it was dry I put a ring of super glue around the joint on the two and pressed briar dust into the remaining crevices in the joint.

I used a Dremel and sanding drum to remove the excess briar on the front of the base and bring it into alignment with the bowl. I did the same on the sides and back of the bowl.

I sanded the bowl and base union with a medium grit emery paper and then with 180 grit sandpaper to smooth out the surface of the two parts and to work on making the junction smooth between the two. I followed that by sanding it with 220 grit sandpaper to further smooth out the walls of the new pipe. The photos below show the new “Stack” that had been fashioned from the two parts – one plus one did in this case render a third.

I sanded the exterior of the bowl and base with a coarse grit sanding block and then with a medium grit block. The photos below show the state of the bowl after much sanding with the blocks. The surface of the bowl and base junction is smooth to touch. The large fills on the side of the bowl and the dark ring of the glue and briar dust patch around the middle were going to take some work to make them “disappear”.

I sanded the bowl with a fine grit sanding sponge to further smooth things out while I decide on how to proceed next with the finish on the bowl.

The internal junction of the bowl and base needed some work as well. The bowl I had used was slightly conical on the base so the internal walls came in at an angle. The base walls were straight. I needed to sand the joint from the inside to smooth out the junction. I used the Dremel and the sanding drum to smooth out the junction. I proceeded slowly and carefully and was able to smooth out the walls. The photo below shows the inside of the bowl after the first work over with the Dremel and sanding drum. More needs to be done but you can see the progress. When I got back from the office I decided to rusticate the new bowl with the same tree bark rustication pattern that the Anderson Freehand had. I used a pointed dental burr with striations through the shape of the cone. I held it like a pencil and worked on the surface of the briar. I followed the pattern on the lower portion of the pipe and worked to match it and continue it to the top of the rim.

As I got closer to the top of the bowl I wrapped the edge with several layers of cellophane tape and folded it over the rim as well. I continued to use the burr until I had carried the pattern all the way to the edge of the tape. The original bowl also had some smooth spots in the midst of the rustication. These looked like the ends of cut off branches. I put several of them on the sides of the new bowl as well to match the lower portion.

The next two photos show the conical burr that I used for the rustication pattern.

To highlight the barklike nature of the rustication I used a black Sharpie permanent marker to colour in the trails in the briar.

I wiped the bowl down with alcohol on a cotton pad to even out the black and to set it in the bottoms of the lines.

I stained over the black marker with a dark brown thinned 50% with alcohol. I applied the stain and then flamed it. I repeated the process until the coverage was even.

I then gave the bowl a coat of oxblood stain thinned 50/50 with alcohol and set it on the cork stand to dry.

To protect the newly sanded bowl and the joint between the bowl and the base until a cake had a chance to form I mixed a batch of organic bowl coating that I have used for years. It sounds like it would smell and make things a mess but it does not. I use sour cream and activated charcoal powder. I put a dollop of sour cream in a bowl and empty the contents of three or more charcoal capsules into the sour cream. I mix it until it is a grey pasted. At this point there is very little smell to the mixture.

I painted the inside of the bowl walls and bottom with a folded pipe cleaner. I want to give the bowl a coating on all sides. I insert a pipe cleaner in the airway so I do not get the mixture in the airway. I put on the coating in several layers letting the one underneath get a little set. I paid special attention to the area around the junction of the two parts. I set the bowl aside to dry. When it dries the coating will be a charcoal black colour and provide a base for the formation of the cake. While it dried I worked on the stem. I sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge and then moved on to sanding with micromesh pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads, rubbed it down with oil again and then dry sanded with 6000-12000 grit pads. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and when it dried I buffed the stem with Blue Diamond.

I lightly buffed the stem and the bowl with carnauba – spending more time on the stem than on the bowl. I then took it back to the work table and hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to raise the shine. I did not want too much of a shine as I think the matte finish looks good on the tree bark rustication. The finished pipe is shown below. Once the bowl coating has dried for several days it will be ready to smoke. I am still mulling over what I will pack it with for the inaugural smoke. Thanks for looking.

NEPAL PROJECT PIPE SALE 15 – From Ugly Toad to Handsome Prince. Converting an Ehrlich Special Grain Stack into a Beautiful Billiard

Bringing New Life to a Gift Pipe – a Gasparini MGM Elegante Brandy

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Blog by Steve Laug

A few evenings ago my friend John stopped by to drop off some pipes for repair and to visit. We loaded up our pipes and sat on my porch while we chatted. He pulled a pipe out of his pocket and said it was a gift to me. It was a nice Brandy shaped pipe that was stamped Gasparini MGM on the left side of the shank and Elegante on the right side. On the underside it is stamped Briar 1912 and Italy. John had purchased the pipe and smoked it for awhile. He wanted to pass it on to me. I am honoured to have received his gift. Being an obsessive refurbisher I decided to clean it up and make a few modifications that I thought would make it look even better. I don’t know why I think like that but it is what goes through my eye every time I look at a pipe. It is like a small voice says, “hmmmm I could change that and tweak that and…. When I am done it will be better. Sometimes that voice gets me into trouble and sometimes it works. When John gave me the pipe these are some of the things that I saw. The bend in the stem was too sharp of an angle. It needed to be gentler in its curve. The rim was slightly out of round and the inner edge was damaged on the back right side and the right front it had some nicks in the edge. The stain on the rim had worn off and it no long had a shine. It did not match the rest of the bowl. There was a thick urethane finish on the bowl. Other than those few small things it was a nice looking pipe. It had a lot of promise. I really liked the contrast stain on it and the mix of birdseye grain and cross grain.

I decided to address the rim damage first. It would not take long and a light topping of the bowl would take care of the damage. I set up the topping board and some 220 grit sandpaper to do the job. I twisted the bowl against the sandpaper and removed the damaged part of the rim. It did not take long and the rim was flat and looked clean.

I sanded the newly topped bowl with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge and then with 1500-2400 micromesh sanding pads to remove the scratches from the briar. I coloured the top with a black permanent marker to get the black undertones, wiped it down with acetone and then used two different stain pens – a medium and a dark brown – to match the bowl colour. With the bowl cleaned, repaired and restained I set it aside to work on the stem. I would buff the whole pipe once I finished the stem work. I set up the heat gun and straightened the bend in the stem first. Once it was straight I would then heat it a bit more and bend it over a rolling pin to get a gentle curve.

I put the newly bent stem into the shank and took a few photos to see the new look of the pipe.

With the bend done it was time to polish the stem. Even with the stem held 6 inches above the heat gun there was some slight bubbling in the surface of the Lucite. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper and then with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the bubbling and smooth out the surface of the stem. Once the bubbling and rippling were removed I went on to polish the stem with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and then dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads to return it to its original shine.

I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond Plastic Polish on the buffer and then gave them both a few coats of wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buff and then with a microfibre cloth to raise a good shine. I was unable to permeate the urethane finish and since it was in decent shape I left it alone. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It is cleaned and ready to be loaded and smoked. I hope to do that later today. Thanks for the “new pipe” John. I know I am going to really like this one.

Replacing a Broken Tenon & Doing a Simple Restoration on a Unique Bjarne Danish Handmade Egg

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Blog by Steve Laug

I found this interestingly shape pipe in an antique mall in Idaho Falls. I was attracted to the egg shape, the hanging bottom and the rectangular shank and saddle stem before I even knew who had made it. I was pretty sure that it was a Danish made pipe but did not know who had made it. When the clerk took it out of the display case I saw that it was priced at $15 US – not a bad price these days for estate pipes. I turned it over in my hands and could see that it was well made and barely smoked. The bottom of the bowl still showed unseasoned briar. The stem was oxidized but free of tooth marks and tooth damage. The finish was in decent shape other than some sticky spots where the person selling it had put price tags. On the bottom of the shank it is stamped BJARNE over Handmade in Denmark. That is the only stamping on the shank. It is the pipe circled in the photos below.

I was excited by this find. I liked the shape and the cleanup would be simple. I purchased it and took it back to my mom and dad’s place. But then the something happened that I have come to dread. I was carrying the bag across their parlour when the bottom fell out of the bag and the pipe bounced off the tile floor. There was a sharp crack and the stem had disappeared. I found it hidden in the pattern of the carpet about three feet from the bowl. I was sick to my stomach. The tenon had snapped off evenly in the shank. The stem and the bowl were undamaged otherwise. This meant that what was originally a simple restoration would now be a bit more complicated. I would need to replace either the tenon or the stem. I took some photos of the bowl when I brought it to my work table. The briar was beautiful and not a flaw in the grain on the bowl itself. There was one small sand pit on the bottom side of the shank but it had only darkened from handling and was not that big a deal. The rim had some darkening and burn marks on the top near the back, the right side and the right front. These would have to be dealt with.

I used my tried and true method for pulling broken tenons. I twisted a drywall screw with wide threads by hand into the airway on the tenon. When it bit, I wiggled the tenon free of the shank. It did not take much to pull it out. If it had I would have put the bowl in the freezer for a half hour and repeated the process. I faced the stem on my topping board to knock off the remnants of the broken tenon and then twisted the stem onto a drill bit slightly larger than the airway in the stem. I don’t use the power feature on the drill as I would rather turn the stem onto the bit by hand. This is critical when working on short saddle stems where it is very easy to over drill the airway and ruin the stem. When I had the airway open for a new tenon I improvised by using a junk stem I had in my can of stems. I pressed the tenon on the thin stem into the freshly drilled airway on the stem. The fit was snug and the once I cut back the donor stem I would have a new vulcanite tenon. I glued the new tenon in place with super glue and pressed it until it set. The next three photos give an idea of how the new tenon and the donor stem fit in the stem as a replacement tenon. I cut off the stem with a hacksaw. In this case, after measuring the depth of the mortise I knew I could cut of the tenon portion of the donor stem and be left with a tenon the right length for the pipe. I turned the diameter of the new tenon down with a sanding drum on my Dremel until it was close to fitting and then finished the fit by hand with 220 grit sandpaper.

As often happens with a new tenon I had to do a little fine tuning on the shank – not much really but a slight removal of briar on the left side and a little vulcanite on the left. I probably could have left it but I am picky so I sanded it lightly until the transition was smooth. I wiped down the bowl with acetone on a cotton pad to remove the mottled finish and the glue that was on the shank and the bowl from the price tags.

I examined the burns on the rim and to repair/remove them the bowl would have to be lightly topped. I used the topping board and 220 grit sandpaper to take off most of the burn marks and minimize the damage.

I sanded the rim with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge and then wiped the bowl down with a cotton pad to remove the sanding dust.

I restained the sanded areas on the shank and the rim with a stain touch up pen using the lightest colour stain. I was able to match the colour of the bowl and not have to restain the whole pipe.

I gave the bowl a quick buff with a coarse cotton rag to blend in the stained areas with the rest of the bowl and feather in the new stain.

I took the stem off and cleaned out the shank and the stem. It was a pretty clean pipe which lent proof to my earlier assumption of the pipe being lightly smoked. With the tenon replaced, the bowl stained and looking fresh all that remained was to remove the oxidation on the stem. I lightly sanded the stem with medium and fine grit sanding sponges and then went on to sand it with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit pads and rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I “painted” over the saddle area and the edge of the button with the flame from a Bic lighter to remove the oxidation. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads, rubbed it down with oil once again and then sanded it with 6000-12000 grit pads. I gave it a final rubdown with Obsidian Oil.

Once the oil dried I buffed the stem and the bowl with Blue Diamond on the wheel and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed it with a clean flannel buff to raise the shine. I then used the new addition to my order of things, learned from Dave Gossett and hand buffed the bowl and stem with a microfibre cloth to take the shine to the next level. The finished pipe is shown below. The fit of the stem makes the repair look like it came that way. The final photos of the stem and tenon show how the new tenon looks when it was completed. I am sure glad that the broken tenon did not ruin this old pipe and that once the new tenon was replaced the restoration was quite simple. This pipe should serve me well for years to come. Thanks for looking.

Repairing and Restemming a York (KBB) Diamond Shank Bent Billiard

7 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

When I was traveling in Idaho my brother and I took the family for a trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. On the way we stopped in a little town called Victor, Idaho. There was an antique shop there in the town and I found four more old pipes. The first of these reminded me of an old WDC Diamond shank billiard that I have. This one was stamped YORK on the left side of the shank and from research it may have been made by KBB. It was in rough shape. The shank had been cracked and repaired with glue and a piece of twisted wire. The stem obviously had a broken tenon and the previous owner had carved it down to fit in the shank anyway. The bowl had a thick cake and the finish was gone. The rim was damaged on the front outer edge and there was some tar on the rim.

On the right side of the bowl near the shank junction there was a pink putty fill that was coming out. Most of the putty had fallen out of the briar. This would need to be repaired. When I got back home I took the pipe out of the bag to have a look. The silver end cap had some hallmarks but they were the faux hallmarks that I have found on older American made pipes to give them a touch of class. All four edges of the band were split. I removed the stem and looked inside the mortise and could see that a major part of the briar was missing on the right side of the shank under the cap. With little effort I removed the cap and sure enough a huge chunk was missing out of the briar. In fact the whole right side under the cap was gone. There was a small crack that had been repaired earlier. There was a small hole in the shank to stop the crack and the crack was glued and clamped with the wire. This was going to take a bit of work to bring it back from the brink of destruction. I clipped the wire with a pair of wire cutters so that I could work on repairing the broken portion of the shank. This repair would take some careful and time consuming work to rebuild the missing portion of briar. I reamed the bowl to clean out the thick cake. It was crumbling so I wanted it removed so that the repair of the shank would be less dirty. I use a PipNet reamer to take the cake back to the bare briar.

The first step in rebuilding the broken area was to clean up the damaged ends of the remaining briar. Once it was clean I put clear super glue on the raw edge of the broken spot and tamped the end into some briar dust. I repeated the process until the edge was repaired as much as possible with this method.

During the process I also picked out the broken putty fill and replaced it with briar dust and super glue. I sanded the flat surface of each of the four sides of the diamond shank smooth with 220 grit sandpaper until the cap slid easily over the shank. I also faced the end of the shank on the topping board.

The next step in the process of rebuilding the shank and the mortise was a little more difficult than the briar dust and super glue rebuild. It involved working on the internals of the shank. I glued the end cap in place with wood glue and clamped it in place to take care of small splits in the edges of the metal cap. Once that dried and set, I mixed white wood glue with briar dust to make putty. I tamped the mixture into the remaining areas of the shank with a dental pick and dental spatula until the area was filled solid looking once again. The next two photos show the rough repair on the inside of the mortise and shank. The broken area is gone! The holes are filled in and the repair is complete. Once the glue set I would have to clean up the mortise and make the walls smooth. The edges of the metal cap, looking at it from the end are damaged and I will not be able to repair them.

While the shank repair cured I worked on the rim. There was a thick tar build up that was like rock on the back edge and the front edge of the rim had been knocked against something hard and was rough. I decided to top the bowl to remove the rock hard tar and also minimize the damage to the front of the bowl. I used a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper and worked the rim against the sandpaper until the damage was minimized. Once I had it smoothed out I put some briar dust and super glue on the remaining divot on the front edge of the bowl as a fill. When it dried I sanded it smooth and lightly topped the rim once more to even out the repair with the rest of the rim. (That picture will be shown shortly.) The stem that came with the bowl was damaged beyond repair. It had been repeatedly been cut off by the previous owner and hacked at until it fit in the damaged tenon. It was not a stem I would use again on this pipe. I went through my can of stems and found a faux p-lip stem – the airway came out the end of the button rather than on the top. It was old enough to work on this pipe and with some modification I thought it would look just right. The problem was that it did not have a tenon. When I found it the tenon was missing and the end of the stem had been drilled out to receive a replacement tenon. I am currently out of Delrin tenons so I used a thin vulcanite stem as the sacrificial tenon. I glued the tenon on the donor stem in place in the diamond shaped stem with super glue and then cut off the stem with a hacksaw. I left a piece of vulcanite that was longer than necessary so that I could work it to a proper fit in the repaired shank.

The next photo shows the repaired stem and tenon and the topped bowl before I put the two parts together. I used a Dremel to remove the excess material on the new tenon and shortened it to the depth of the mortise in the shank. The next photo shows the repaired fill on the bowl side with another photo of the new stem. Once the shank repair was dry I used a needle file to clean up the rough areas and smooth out the inside of the mortise. I gave it several more coats of glue and briar dust to buildup the areas that had shrunk as the glue dried. I continued to work it with the files and sandpaper until the fit was correct. I cleaned out the airway to the bowl and the inside of the mortise with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners in preparation for putting the new stem in place. The next two photos show the newly fit stem. There was still work to do to fine tune the flow of the diamond stem sides to match the flow of the diamond shank but the look is clear at this point in the process.

I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to fine tune the fit. When I had it the way I wanted, it was time to bend the stem. I used my heat gun to do the work. In this case I quickly set it up on the dryer in our laundry room (shh don’t tell my wife I did this) and heated the stem. I bent it over an old rolling pin that I use for this purpose until the bend in the stem matched the curve of the bottom of the bowl. I set the bend by holding the stem under cool running water.

The next two photos show the newly bent stem and give an idea of how it will look with the pipe once it is finished.

With the easiest part of fitting a stem completed I went on to do the laborious and tedious part of sanding and more sanding to get the fit just right. To do this without rounding the edges of the stem at the shank stem junction I use a plastic washer placed between the two areas. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the transition and make the angles square (or at least as square as possible on these old pipes where every side has a different angle and width). When I had the fit of the stem correct it was time to polish it. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I needed a break from the stem work so I turned my attention to the bowl. I rubbed it down with a light coat of olive oil to highlight the grain. I took a few photos to show what it looked like at this point. It is certainly looking far different than it did when I started working on it. There is a deep richness in the red tones of the briar.

I decided to highlight those tones with a dark brown aniline stain thinned by 50% with some isopropyl alcohol. I applied it and flamed it to set it in the grain. I hand buffed it with a cotton cloth to get an idea of the coverage. It was still too dark to my liking so I would need to address that.

I wiped the bowl down with some acetone on a cotton pad to remove some of the stain and make the grain show through better.

I buffed the bowl with White Diamond and then gave it the first of many coats of carnauba. I don’t know about you but by this point in a long refurbishment I get a bit anxious to see what I have accomplished. It always seems that it is going to go on forever so I rewarded myself by putting the stem in place and taking a few photos to see what I had achieved.

For comparison purposes I took the next two photos of the pipe with the old stem next to the new one. You can see how badly hacked the vulcanite was from the previous owners salvage work on his broken pipe. The pipe is beginning to look like a very different pipe than when I started. That always encourages me!

Now it was time to finish up with this long project and get the stem done. I dry sanded it with 3200-4000 grit micromesh sanding pads and then rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil once again. I then dry sanded it with 6000-12000 grit pads and gave it a final coat of oil and let it soak into the vulcanite.

I buffed the stem and bowl with Blue Diamond and then gave them both multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed them with a clean soft flannel buff to raise the shine and then hand buffed the pipe with a microfibre cloth to finish. The completed pipe is shown below. It has come a long way from the pipe I started on this morning. I had a quiet day at home and between reading and napping finished the work on this old timer. From what I can find out in my research and from Who Made That Pipe, the pipe may well be from the old KBB pipe works. Thanks for looking.

Take a Sad Pipe and Make It Better

8 Replies

Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.naspc.org
http://www.roadrunnerpipes.com
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

“Only when you eat a lemon do you appreciate what sugar is.”
― Ukrainian proverb]

INTRODUCTION
The Beatles sang the idea more perfectly, to take the same liberty with the English language as Thomas Jefferson when beginning to pen the U.S. Constitution, and I’m not looking to start a revolution or create an international incident or any other uproar by saying that all Ukrainian pipes are lemons. My personal experiences have both been with the Veresk Company in Kiev, now the capitol city of the Republic of Ukraine. Before the fall of the former Soviet Union, the Veresk Cooperative factory was the only official outlet for tobacco pipes throughout the USSR. On the other hand, the following work of briar art was created by Ukrainian pipe crafter Konstantin Shekita, who made his start at Veresk. The Cooperative made all of its pipes during the Soviet days from fruit woods including cherry, pear, peach and apricot. After the collapse of the entire Soviet empire, brought about as an unforeseen consequence of Mikhail Gorbachev’s attempt to ease economic hardship for the common Russian with perestroika (rebuilding, reorganization) and to remove the iron-clad clamp on discussion of economic and political realities employing glasnost (openness), Veresk became a company and started to use briar imported from Tuscany, Italy. Although the fruit woods are still sometimes substituted, briar is now the preferred wood. This Golden Gate billiard, which with help from my mentor, Chuck, was determined to be pear wood, was probably made before the end of the Cold War.

On occasion, I find myself having to track down information on a given odd pipe every way I can: Internet engines using multiple query terms, emailing or calling friends, posting threads on various forums – even some Deep Web methods. Having a background as a newspaper reporter, I then try to verify the first source as well as I can. By and large, however, the first place I check is Pipephil, at http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/index-en.html. If that site has nothing on a pipe I have bought and/or restored, then I know I’m in for some real work. The contributions of Pipephil as a database trove of information on pipe brands, history, dating and other useful details is, for the most part, invaluable and irrefutable.

For example, about a week ago I saw a Kaywoodie Super Grain Lovat advertised as pre-1930s. Checking Pipephil, I learned that although that dating was not quite accurate, the placing of the Super Grain stamp above Kaywoodie and a four-digit shape number – in this case 5190 – dated the pipe to between 1931 and 1938. The inclusion of Imported Briar, introduced in 1935, narrowed the pipe’s manufacture to within three years during the latter part of the Great Depression. Lucky that no one else seemed to see these details, I won the very old but pristine Lovat for $32.50 with S&H.

At about the same time, seeing the Golden Gate advertised on eBay as “Wooden Smoking Estate Pipe,” I was able to make my decision to buy it based on the GG I spotted on the bit, which Pipephil, with its amazing logo-finding resources, identified with certainty as a Ukrainian brand with the unlikely name Golden Gate. I was also warned that I was liable to receive a pipe made with very alternative wood, meaning something from a fruit tree. For $10 Buy Now with no S&H, I didn’t care. P.A.D., I embrace thee! There are so many worse things on which to spend one’s money.

However, in its entry on the Golden Gate brand, Pipephil gives the translation of Veresk as briar. I have been unable to determine from which language this assertion is drawn. The Russian word for briar, шиповник, transliterates to shipovnik (ship-ŌV-nee-yik), and the Ukrainian шипшина is shypshnya (SHIP-shnee-uh). The best references to Veresk in regard to Russian I can find are a sub machine gun known to players as the SR 2M Veresk, used in a computer role playing game (RPG) called Alliance of Valiant Arms [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9BFocl97_Y], and a surname most common in Russia [http://forebears.io/surnames/veresk]. Hence I suspect Pipephil has this tidbit wrong, and Veresk is in fact derived from the last name of some Party-loyal old Comrade. I emailed Pipephil the details above and asked if perhaps Veresk is briar in another language or dialect. I’m hoping for a response.

RESTORATION I snapped this first photo to add to my private collection, as I do all of my new and unused pipes that need no restoration, before I realized the peculiar stain probably hid something, such as a fruit wood that Pipephil identified as the most common type used by Veresk, whatever the company’s name means. Here is the Golden Gate after I stripped the old stain with an Everclear soak and then used super fine steel wool to begin the process of smoothing the assaulted pear wood’s skin, so to say.

I’m no expert on woods, but this does most resemble pear to me, after comparing all of the possibilities. Any knowledgeable wood-workers who might read this, please feel free to correct me

I tried a couple of fills of favorite tobacco blends before beginning the restoration, and enjoyed them, and after the Everclear soak, I was sure the pipe needed no retort. In hindsight, it occurs to me that I should have taken a close-up of the chamber before soaking the wood in alcohol and then using my reamer and sandpaper to remove the unusual coating that came in it as the billiard arrived in the mail.

Researching that general subtopic of pipe knowledge after my instincts already led me to eradicate the harsh-feeling stuff, I was horrified and reached the conclusion that the somewhat sharp and definitely alien material used to coat the chambers of both Veresk pipes I have purchased was the so-called “waterglass.” This attractive sounding term is a euphemism for sodium metasilicate (Na2O3Si), a highly toxic chemical compound that is “[i}rritating & caustic to skin, mucous membranes. If swallowed causes vomiting & diarrhea.” Then there are the serious consequences of absorbing or ingesting this diabolical method of coating the chamber of a pipe that, when lit, cannot help delivering its sickening and potentially deadly payload directly into the hapless pipe smoker’s body, causing “[u]pper airway irritation, fever/hyperthermia [and] leukocytosis.” [http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Sodium_metasilicate#section=Top. Also see its use in tobacco pipes at http://pipesmagazine.com/blog/out-of-the-ashes/bowl-coatings-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-part-ii/.%5D

On a brighter note, I observed an unevenness of the rim. With the gentlest wood file I have, I corrected that minor problem and re-sanded and micro-meshed again until it was smooth.

I proceeded to sand the wood with 320-grit paper and used micromesh from 1500-4000.

Although I liked the grain on most of the Golden Gate and considered buffing without stain, I recognized the need for something darker to lessen the flaws on the front and back of the bowl. I chose Lincoln Brown boot stain and flamed it after I applied a couple of coats. This time I took off the char with 4000-grade micromesh and some extra pressure on the pad instead of going down to 3600 and risking removal of the new color in spots.

You can see in the first photo above that the small metal band came off from the alcohol soak, and so I used a few dabs of Super Glue to reattach it. Seeing the surface of the wood could use some slight further attention to prepare it for buffing, I took a small piece of super fine steel wool and only ran it over the surface of the wood with the gentlest touch, as though wiping dust or hand smears from the wood. With the pear wood ready to buff, I did so with white Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba. The stem I left as it was.

CONCLUSION
Altogether I think I took this sad billiard and, with a little help from a friend, as the Beatles also sang, made it better. At the very least I am now willing to offer it for sale, knowing it won’t send anyone to the hospital or perhaps even kill him.

rebornpipes

reclaiming old and worn estate pipes

Tag Archives: topping a bowl

Rebirth – A Genuine Briar Zulu

Restoring a 20’s Era LHS PUREX Patent 1587048 Octagonal Pot

Breathing new life into a White Flame Saddle Billiard 353

Restoring a Dr. Grabow Viscount 39 Continental

Crafting another Frankenpipe – one plus one equals three

NEPAL PROJECT PIPE SALE 15 – From Ugly Toad to Handsome Prince. Converting an Ehrlich Special Grain Stack into a Beautiful Billiard

Bringing New Life to a Gift Pipe – a Gasparini MGM Elegante Brandy

Replacing a Broken Tenon & Doing a Simple Restoration on a Unique Bjarne Danish Handmade Egg

Repairing and Restemming a York (KBB) Diamond Shank Bent Billiard

Take a Sad Pipe and Make It Better

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