Tag Archives: vulcanite

Restoring an old Bruyere Extra Chubby Billiard

Yet another gift pipe is on the worktable. It is an interesting bowl. The exterior is carved with what looked like scales. There were several sandpits in the trails surrounding the scales. The shank had several cracks and looked as if it had previously sported a band. By appearances the band that was missing looked like it had been original rather than an addition for repairs. But the repairs were there nonetheless. The bowl was caked and the finish very dirty. It was worn away to a large degree. The fascinating part of the bowl was the drilling of the airway. The end of the mortise, which is quite large, is concave. At the end of the concave mortise there are two holes drilled looking like a colon “:”. The top hole is the airway leading into the bowl and the bottom hole is about a ½ inch deep and ends. With a stem in place the mortise looks to serve as a second chamber for cooling the smoke. The shank is stamped Bruyere over Extra in and oval with the ends flattened. There is no other stamping on the shank.

I went through my box of bands and found one that would work well on the cracked and repaired shank of the pipe. I also found a stem in my can of stems that would work well with this pipe. The tenon needed to be quite large in diameter to fit the large mortise. The stem I had was a faux Peterson stem. The airway was directly in the end of the button not on the top. Thus the look was Peterson like but the stem was actually a straight airway from tenon to button.

I added some wood glue to the area of the shank that the band would be pressed on and then heated the band and pressed it onto the shank. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer to take the cake back to bare wood. I also scrubbed the rim down as it had a chamfered inner edge around the bowl.

I wiped down the bowl with acetone on cotton pads to remove the remnants of the finish and to clean up the debris and dust in the carved trails between the scales on the bowl and shank. I picked out the debris in the flaws in the trails, scratched the surface surrounding the flawed areas and then packed in briar dust with a dental pick and dripped superglue into the dust. I lightly sanded the areas of the fills and wiped the bowl down again with acetone on the cotton pads.

With the repairs completed, the band in place and the stem fitted to the shank it was time to stain the bowl. I wiped it down a final time to remove any remaining dust and debris before staining. I decided to use a dark brown aniline stain and applied it with the dauber that comes with the Feibings Shoe Dyes. The dauber works well on the wider grooves between the carved scales on the finish. I applied the stain, flamed the finish, reapplied the stain and flamed it again until the coverage of the stain was even.

I wanted a contrast to the finish – dark stain in the grooves of the trails and a bit more opaque stain on the surface of the scales so I wiped the bowl down with isopropyl alcohol to reduce the stain colour on the smooth surfaces of the finish.

I buffed the bowl with Red Tripoli and White Diamond on the buffing wheels to polish the bowl and give me an idea of the look of the finish once polished.

I sanded the smooth surfaces of the bowl with a 1500 grit micromesh sanding pad to further lighten the stain and allow the grain to pop through. The smooth surfaces had birdseye on most of them and I wanted that to stand out on the pipe.

I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to make the fit the shank even around the circumference of the saddle portion of the stem. I sanded it with medium and fine grit sanding sponges to remove the deeper scratches on the stem. I then used my normal line of micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I also sanded the nickel band to polish it and remove the small scratches that were present in the finish.

I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and once it was dry buffed the bowl and stem with White Diamond. I gave the pipe and stem multiple coats of carnauba wax and polished it with a clean flannel buff to finish the process. The old pipe has a new look and a great feel. I look forward to giving it a try to see how the second chamber – the reverse calabash actually works on this pipe. The photos below show the finished pipe ready to use!

Restoring a Briarmeer Rhodesian 175 ED that was Made in Canada

8 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

I received an email from Andrew saying that he had a pipe he wanted to send my way. It was my kind of shape – a Rhodesian. He said that it was an odd pipe in that on the bottom of the bowl it had a slightly inset circular divot. The round inset was almost like a poorly made plug on the bottom of the bowl, or one that had shrunken with time. He thought that it would be a great challenge for me to do a repair on it. The stamping on the pipe shank was Briarmeer 175 ED Canada.

The brand was one I had not heard of before. And since I am in Canada I wanted to try to figure out where the pipe was made and what the plug was about. The name seemed to suggest that it was a meerlined pipe or at least included meerschaum in some form or fashion. Yet when I emailed Andrew about it he replied that there was no meerschaum lining present in the bowl. Instead it was just a nice looking briar pipe with the strange, misfit looking round plug on the bottom of the bowl.

This would require some research to see what I could find out. I went online and searched for any information that I could find regarding the brand. I wrote to the trademark attorney who was listed as the representative of the brand and received a very cryptic answer that was not helpful at all. I did learn however that Briarmeer pipes were made by Briarmeer Pipes Limited, 226 Park Street, Brockville, Ontario. The business was no longer present at that address and did not show up in any Brockville Business Directories available online or through the Yellow Pages .I searched the Canadian, American and British patent sites hoping to find a patent registration for the pipe but was not able to find one. I found a trademark registration document from the US patent office that showed that the brand or trademark was registered in the US in 1973. The document pictured below gives that information as well as the Canadian Registration Number 180,805 and that it was registered in Canada on January 21, 1972.

Using these registration numbers I searched both the Canadian and US patent records but could find no patent information available. From the public records it appears that the Briarmeer Company went out of business sometime in the late1980’s or early 1990’s and the name became public domain.

I was able to find out through further digging that the pipe is a variation on what Kaywoodiedid with its famous Carburetor.Kaywoodie had drilled a hole in the bottom of the bowl and inserted a metal airhole to introduce air into the bottom of the bowl to enhance burning of the tobacco. In the Briarmeer the drilled out area in the bottom of the bowl was significantly larger.It had been drilled out and a meerschaum disk inserted in the resultant hole. The draw hole was to be perfectly centered at the bottom of the bowl. From what I could find out the idea of using the meerschaum insert came to a Canadian engineer about 30+ years ago. He reasoned that the meerschaum bottom of the bowl would allow for a drier and cooler smoke while the briar would be sturdier than the meerschaum for the walls of the bowl.Now I knew what the inset on the bottom of the bowl was and where the Meer portion of the Briarmeer name came from.

I decided to see if I could hunt down some photos of the pipe. I had not noticed them before and did not figure I would find many available. I was wrong. I found quite a few clear photos online that showed the novel meerschaum insert with clarity. In all of the photos it was clear that the insert sits inset into the bottom of the bowl and there is a variance in the external bowl bottom and the depth of the inset meerschaum disk. I have included four of the photos I found to show the insert in the exterior bowl bottom. Some of the photos show a new and unsmoked pipe and other show an estate pipe. All have the pipes show the same variation in the depth of the bottom of the bowl and the depth of the meerschaum disk.

I also learned that the American Company, Briarcraft who made the Smokemaster pipe also made a pipe with called the Briarmeer Acadian. The Briarcraft version of the pipe was a meerschaum lined pipe and was stamped with the Briarcraft logo, a B in a diamond on the shank and on the stem.However, the pipe I was gifted was not a meerschaum lined briar and it did not have the B stamp on either the shank or the stem. The stem appears to be original and the stamping on the shank clearly says that the pipe is Canadian made.

The pipe from Andrew arrived and it was indeed one of my favourite shapes. The finish was a little dirty and the rim had some carbon build up. The stem was oxidized and had some tooth marks on the underside of the stem near the button. There was also a darkened spot like a burn mark on the underside of the shank near the insert. There were several fills in the grooves of the rustication but I was fairly certain that when I restained the pipe they would be hidden. The meerschaum insert looked to be in very good shape from the outside of the bowl. Inside was caked with a fair amount of carbon and the insert was not visible looking into the bowl.

Upon closer examination it was evident that there was a crack in the shank on the right side that ran at an angle from mid-shank toward the back of the bowl shank union. The crack did not start on the bottom of the shank but rather started midway up on the right side of the shank and ended near the top middle of the shank. It was very clear under a lens that it was present. The next two photos, though slightly out of focus show the crack. It runs across the rustication pattern mid-shank.

I cleaned out the crack with a dental pick to remove the buildup of grime that filled it. The grime was evident through the lens. Once I had it clean when I viewed it through the lens I used superglue to repair the crack. Fortunately the crack did not go all the way into the airway. I checked the inside of the airway with a penlight and it was smooth and flawless. The repair externally would remove the visible damage.

I left the superglue to cure overnight and in the morning used the dental pick to clean out the grooves of the rustication and sanded the smooth portions of the briar surface with 220 grit sandpaper and then medium and fine grit sanding sponges. The photo below shows the repair after sanding and shaping.

I wiped the surface of the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to remove the damaged finish and enable me to blend in the patch when I restained the pipe. I scrubbed the rusticated rim of the bowl with the pads as well and was able to remove the carbon build up.

I sanded the darkened area (burn?) on the bottom of the bowl to lighten it in preparation for staining. I wiped that area down with acetone on cotton pads afterward.

I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and a medium and fine grit sanding sponge to remove the oxidation. I sanded the tooth marks on the underside of the stem near the button and was able to remove them.

I wiped the bowl down a final time with acetone, being careful not to scrub the insert with it. Once it was cleaned off I stained it with a dark brown aniline stain applied with a cotton swab. I avoided the meerschaum insert as I did not want to have the stain penetrate the meerschaum. I flamed the stain and reapplied it. I flamed it again and reapplied it again. After the final flaming of the bowl I set it aside to dry.

When the stain had dried I buffed it with White Diamond on the buffer to even out the stain and give it a shine. I also applied a coat of Halcyon II wax to the rusticated surface and hand buffed the bowl with a shoe brush. The next four photos show the bowl after the buffing and waxing.

I worked on the stem with my usual group of micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads. I then buffed the stem with red Tripoli and White Diamond before going back to the work table and dry sanding with 3200-12,000 grit micromesh pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and let it soak into the vulcanite.

I buffed the finished pipe with White Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The meerschaum disk inset into the bottom of the bowl is an interesting touch. I look forward to loading up a bowl and giving it a test run very soon. At the very least this is a great piece of tobacciana that still leaves a bit of mystery unsolved.

A GBD Quantum 9438 Given a New Look and New Life

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I am always on the lookout for Rhodesian shaped pipes and 9438s in particular. I have a few that I picked up before they became so sought after. So when I picked up this 9438 Rhodesian for $9.99 on Ebay recently I figured I had a deal. I am pretty sure that the reason for the low price was the condition of the stem and the look of the pipe in the photos on the sale. I was hoping that the bowl was actually in better shape than it looked. I knew that the stem was ruined and a real mess but the bowl looked like it had some life left in it. To me the price it was listed at made it worth bidding on and I won it. I had several possible solutions in mind for the pipe if the bowl was as salvageable as it looked. One possibility is that I have a terribly over reamed 9438 that I could salvage the stem from and utilize on this pipe. If that does not work, my second possibility is to make a new taper stem for it. At the moment I am leaning toward the taper stem. I have included the photos from the seller to give an idea of the pipe’s condition.

When it arrived it was in worse shape than the photos alluded to, if that is possible. The bowl was badly caked and the rim was caked and slightly scorched. That part was actually not a big issue to me. I could easily take care of that. The finish was shot as expected so that was no surprise. But the stem was not only chewed and broken but also was quite brittle. It was almost as if it was rotted. To cut it off back to the solid material would make the stem very short and stubby. There were also no guarantees that the rest of the stem was not in the same condition once I removed the ruined portion. The shank was dirty and there was a lot of build up inside.

The stamping is actually quite unique. I have not seen a 9438 stamped this way. On the left side of the shank it is stamped with a letter G in a circle to the left of the GBD in the oval as normal. Underneath it is stamped QUANTUM, which is a line I am not familiar with in the GBD family. On the underside of the shank next to the stem is stamped with a J. On the right side it is stamped Made in London in a circle with the “in” inside the circle. Underneath it reads England. Next to that is the 9438 stamping. All of these stampings leave me with many questions. I know from previous study that the oval Made in London stamping, a Comoy’s like stamping, dates it as a Cadogan era pipe and that would likely put it in the 1980’s. The parts that leave me wondering are the G in a circle stamp on the left side and the line QUANTUM. I have never seen or heard of either of those stampings. I have included the next three photos to show the stamping on the shank for those of you who are interested.

I checked my over reamed GBD 9438 to see if it would work on this pipe. It is a Perspex stem and would look quite nice. However, the stem was already a repair and the shank diameter was slightly smaller so that was a no go. I was left with my second option mentioned above – to fit a new taper stem on it. Since the pipe was already in need of a lot of work fitting a taper stem on it would not be an issue. I was pretty sure that I had a vulcanite taper stem that would be a close fit. I went through my stem box until I found the fat taper stem I was looking for. The tenon was too large so I turned it with the PIMO Tenon Turning Tool until it was a close fit to the shank and then took it back to the work table to hand sand it to a snug fit. The two photos below show the new stem. The first photo shows the new stem alone and the second one shows it in comparison with the damaged stem. It is slightly shorter and the shape of the end of the stem tapers more than the original chewed one.

The diameter of the stem at the shank was slightly larger than the shank so I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to get a good fit between the shank and the stem. I carefully sanded the shank to clean up the fit and make a smooth transition. I wanted to avoid all of the stamping to leave it as pristine as possible.

The next two photos show the extent of damage to the old stem. I wanted to have those photos for comparison purposes and to give an idea of how short I would have to cut back the original stem to remove the damage.

I reamed the bowl with the PipNet reamer until it was bare wood. In doing that I found that underneath the cake, on the right side about half way down the inside, there was some charring on the wall. It was the beginning of a burn through in that area. I cleaned up around the area with sandpaper and picked at it with the dental pick. In doing so I found that it was still solid and not too deeply damaged. It would require some damage control and protection so I coated it with some pipe mud. The airway entered the bowl a bit high as well so I raised the bottom of the bowl with the pipe mud at the same time. I may well give it a bowl coating to further protect it but will decide that in the future.

The rim also needed to be lightly topped to remove some of the damage there that I could not steam out or repair. I did that with a piece of sandpaper on a board and lightly sanded the rim until it was smooth and the damage minimized. I used a folded piece of sandpaper to bevel the inner edge of the rim to match what remained in the undamaged portion of the rim.

I wiped the bowl down with acetone on a cotton pad to clean up the finish and remove the remaining stain. I have found that when I am planning to restain a bowl it is easier blend the sanded portions and the remainder of the bowl when I wash down the finish with acetone before restaining.

I removed the GBD oval from the old stem with a dental pick. I am still deciding whether to insert it on the new stem or to save it for later use on another old pipe in need of one. Time will tell. I always scavenge as much as is usable before discarding old pipe parts.

I washed the pipe down with acetone another time to further clean it up and prepare it for staining. This final wash removed the rest of the finish nicely and I sanded the bowl with micromesh sanding pads 1500-2400 grit to further prepare it.

I warmed the briar with a heat gun and then stained it with a dark brown aniline stain. I flamed it and reapplied the stain and reflamed it until it had an even coat of the brown stain. I mixed the aniline stain with isopropyl alcohol – 2 parts stain to 1 part alcohol. I wanted the grain on the pipe to show through the stain and I also was using it as the undercoat before giving it a slightly darker topcoat.

I buffed the pipe with White Diamond and then applied a Danish Oil Walnut stain as the top coat. It is a mixture of stain and linseed oil and gives a great finish when put over the top of the previous stain coat. The first three pictures below show the pipe while the stain is still wet. I wiped it down with a soft cotton cloth and hand buffed it to give it an initial shine (Photos 4-7).

Once the bowl was finished I put it aside and worked on the stem. I had already sanded it with a fine grit sanding sponge so now it was time to sand with the micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. Each successive grit of micromesh deepened the shine in the vulcanite.

I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil, rubbed it down afterwards when it had dried and then buffed it lightly with White diamond. I reinserted it in the shank and then buffed the entire pipe with White Diamond and gave it multiple coats of carnauba to protect and give it a shine. I gave the bowl a second coat of pipe mud on the damage section to fill the shrinkage that had occurred as the pipe mud dried. It is drying and curing now but I look forward to firing up a bowl soon. I like the new look of the pipe and definitely like the taper stem. The shorter stem gives it a stubby look but it actually less than ¼ inch shorter than the saddle stem on my other 9438s.

Here are a couple of photos with the rondelle inserted in the stem and a bit more of a bend applied to the stem.

Restemmed Dr. Grabow Royal Duke Billiard

7 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

I am getting close to the bottom of the box of pipes to refurbish so I pulled out this Dr. Grabow bowl to restem and to refinish. It is stamped Royal Duke over Dr. Grabow on the left side of the shank and Imported Briar on the right side. I like taking the sealer coat of varnish off of these old Grabows and seeing what they look like refinished. I reamed the bowl with the PipNet reamer and cutting heads. I found a stem blank in my box and turned the tenon with a Pimo Tenon Turning Tool until it was close and then finnished the fit by hand. I ran a Dremel with a sanding drum on it down the sides where the overflow from the casting of the stem blanks left the sides and end rough. The next six photos show the fit of the new stem and the look of the pipe with its new stem.

I wiped the bowl down with acetone to remove the finish (photos 1-3 below). I then sanded the smooth surface of the bowl with a medium grit sanding sponge to break up the varnish finish on the rim and sides. I then wiped it down with acetone a second time and was more successful removing the varnish coat (photos 4-9 below). As can be seen from the progress of the photos the finish came off nicely and the rim darkening and bubbled varnish was also removed.

I decided to stain the pipe with a medium walnut stain in a linseed oil mixture. I rubbed it on the bowl and rubbed it off until the colour was solid and even over the bowl. The next series of three photos show the freshly stained bowl of the pipe. I was able to get into the grooves of the rustication with the cotton pads dipped in stain so that all surfaces were covered.

I rubbed off the stain and took the pipe to the buffer. I buffed it with White Diamond to polish the surface of the bowl and rim. The fibres from the pad also polished the grooves of the rustication as well. I put the stem back on the bowl and sanded it down with 220 grit sandpaper and a medium grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches left behind by the Dremel. I particularly worked on the shank stem union to make sure it was a smooth transition. I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit sanding pads. The progress of the sanding with micromesh pads is visible in the next series of three photos below. When I finished sanding the stem I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil and let it dry. I rubbed it down and buffed it with White Diamond on the buffing wheel.

The finished pipe is pictured below. I buffed the pipe with multiple coats of carnauba wax and then polished it with a clean flannel buff. This old timer is ready to go back into service and will be a nice addition to someone’s pipe rack.

An Ultrasonic Stem Cleaning Experiment – AJ Verstraten (aka Bananabox-Ninja)

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What follows is another article by AJ on his use of the ultrasonic cleaning machine. He has written it in response to the many who asked to hear more about it after his first article here on rebornpipes. I wish to thank AJ for his contributions to the blog and to encourage him to continue to write for us. It is a pleasure to post his next contribution. Thank you AJ.

Greetings, when using a new technique I can’t help but experiment like a mad scientist. So when I heard of the ultra sonic cleaning from my fellow cleaner on the PRF (The Dutch Flemish pipe smoking forum) named ‘Meindert’ I dove into it, because science! One of the first try-outs was posted in my first article and I was carefully optimistic about the end result. During the course of this clean-up I learned why I was not completely happy about it.

When I read the comments on my first article, Mark Domingues mentioned the Oxyclean method. To be honest I never heard of Oxyclean but it triggered a mention done by another fellow PRF-er named ‘annie69’. Who once told me he used hand warm water and Oxi-Action to remove the heavy oxidation on a stem. I tried this method a few months ago, but was not very happy with the end results as it left the stems slippery and gooey, which in my eyes prevented the rest of the oxy-water reaching the stem.

As an ultrasonic vibrates the water I thought: “What if the water is in motion, would it remove the goo from the stem during the soak and so give a deeper penetration?” followed by: “What if I combine the oxy-method with the ultrasonic?” So I set up a test with two almost similar oxidized stems which are from my ‘bit-box’ of pipe heads and stems that are missing their counterpart.

Oh, I should mention I work for a company that supplies laboratory equipment and some of the tools are old stock that was distributed to personnel, hence the use of a magnetic stirrer.

First the stems: The one on the left for the ultrasonic, the one on the right for the stirrer.

The stirrer setup: A glass on a magnetic stirrer, hand warm water, stirrer, amount of Oxi-Action and the stem.

To keep the stem in the liquid I used a bent electric wire and hung it in the glass.

So I poured the hand warm water, the Oxi-Action, and the stirrer in the glass, hung the stem in the mixture and set the timer for 20 minutes.

What happens is that a rotating magnetic field lets the stir bar rotate in the liquid, creating a whirlpool inside the glass. Thus the water is in motion and hopefully rinses off the goo that is formed on the stem by the Oxi-Action.

When I retrieved the stem and it was as I expected, greenish brown from the Oxi-Action. But not as gooey as before, so it worked to some degree.

Then I put the stem to the grind wheel and it came out as normal.

The light brown patches are hard to reach for the wheel and I normally do those by hand.
To be honest, I was not really happy with the end result and did not finish all the way through with polishing and buffing the stem. In all it only saved me a little time and was a headache to set up right.

While I worked the previous stem on the grind wheel I let the ultrasonic do its thing. Again the setup: Warm water, ultrasonic with Oxi-Action and the stem.

The ultrasonic in action.

The stem just removed from the bath.

When I retrieved the stem I was blown away by the result, the stem came out cleaner than with the normal soak method and less gooey as with the stirring method. (However the photo did not show this, so I had to lighten it to make it clearer.) Also when I put the stem to the grind wheel I found that the liquid was a deeper brown colour instead of the golden light-brown colour I usually get when grinding.

The result after grinding.

Was I on to something or was it a fluke with this particular stem? I decided to leave the stems as is, find another stem in my ‘bit-box’ and try the ultrasonic again to see if I could duplicate the result. I found a stem without its tenon and dunked it in the ultrasonic.

While this was going on I Googled about ultrasonic cleaning and I stumbled on a very well written site: http://www.tmasc.com/qa%20process.htm by an unknown author. In it I found a certain line that made me stop the ultrasonic and reconfigure it, namely this:

‘Parts should be racked in a basket or work holder designed to handle your specific part. This is very important in high-end cleaning systems where you want the cleanest part possible. You should always use a stainless steel basket, as softer materials will absorb the ultrasonic energy. Never use plastic or other soft materials. If your part is easily damaged or scratched, stainless steel racks with Nylobond or Teflon coatings are available.’

Now if you look in the previous pictures you will notice I left the basket out of the cleaner thinking it was not needed for my purposes. Boy was I wrong. Having the stems in contact with the bottom meant that the sonic vibrations were interrupted and as such the cleaning was not optimum. Whoops. So I put the basket that came with the cleaner, put the stem in and let it go for 8 minutes. The end result really surprised me.

When I used the grind wheel on it the liquid was almost black. Here are the stems next to each other.

You can clearly see that the middle one has had more oxidation removed than the other two and in the case of the upper stem I blame my inexperience with the ultrasonic. Still the end result for me was quite exciting and I wanted to try it in a complete cleaning process. So I rummaged through my pipe- and bit-boxes to find almost equally oxidized stems. I found a ‘Belmont Grain London Style’ pipe and a loose stem.

First I cleaned the inside using 96% alcohol and pipe cleaners, they came out pretty clean indicating that the stems were not heavily used.

Then I set up the ultrasonic again with the Oxi-Action solution, warm water and the basket in place. The stems were placed in the basket and I let her go for 8 minutes.

When I retrieved the stems, the first thing I noticed was that they were not as gooey as I was used to and the water smelled rather…..well….like oxidation but more moist. There is no good way to describe it.

I put the stems to the grind wheel and the oxidation came off way faster than if I would not have soaked them. Also the liquid that came off the wheel and stems was way darker as I mentioned before. At this time I also sanded the hard to get edges with 600 grit paper wrapped around a modelling file.

Then I proceeded to empty the ultrasonic and put in the 50-50 alcohol and water mixture with a dash of disinfectant.

One of the positive things of the ultrasonic is that it goes on a timer and you have your hand free to do another thing until it is done, so I proceeded to clear the top of the bowl of its soot using a sock, salvia and the abrasive pads. Using the sock I got most of the soot build-up off the bowl and used the 1800 grit to get the thicker and harder pieces off.

Then it was time to retrieve the stems. They came out nice and clean and when dried were a little dull. I pulled pipe cleaners through them and as you can see they were only a little brown at the beginning (right side).

Replacing the stem on the pipe I used the muslin buff wheels and polishing wheels to buff the stems to get a nice shine on them.

And the final pictures of the tools used in the experiment and the cleaning.

So far I am optimistic and happy with the end results using the ultrasonic cleaner with the Oxi-Action cleaning solution. The oxidation gets off rather well using the grinding wheel and it saves me roughly 30 minutes of work. This means a relief for my tennis elbow I have in both arms. So for me it is quite a pleasant addition in the cleaning process.

The negative aspect so far encountered was that this particular model ultrasonic bath is not very drain friendly, in this I mean that getting the liquid out is rather a messy business. Also I have no idea what will happen in the long run with the stem if you use it for a prolonged time. As I read that some items can turn brittle when used too much in an ultrasonic cleaner. But so far I have not found any evidence this is happening with the stems. And there is of course the fact that Vulcanite tends to bend back to its original form when heated too hot, so far this has not happened but I can imagine that if using water that is too hot in combination with the ultrasonic vibrations that add extra heat it can happen.

All-in-all an experiment that opened my eyes to two cleaning methods and I hope it was as informative for you to read as it was for me to do.

Repairing Deep Tooth Marks and Bite Throughs on Vulcanite Stems – AJ Verstraten

21 Replies

Blog by AJ Verstraten

It is with pleasure that I post AJ’s second post on rebornpipes. AJ is known to the online community as Bananabox-Ninja.

Greetings, today a small post about the use of black super glue on a few pipes I had previously cleaned and refurbished; before I found Rebornpipes. This did give me a small problem as I did not extensively take pictures of the process as I had no reason to share the process at that moment and as such I am missing a few ‘before’ pictures.

The pipes I revisited for this project were:
– 11 Wahl Filtro
– Lorenzo Elba
– Machiavelli Como
– BBB Medina
– Spitfire by Lorenzo Riviera
All of them had bite marks on the mouthpiece and the Riviera had even been bitten clean through.

Lorenzo is a good Italian brand that is quite popular in Germany. The BBB Medina is an old English made pipe that has a good reputation here in the Dutchlands. The Wahl and the Machiavelli pipes are a mystery to me. I can find some eBay listings for them but I cannot pinpoint their true origin.

First up the pictures I did have of the before process.

BBB Medina

Lorenzo Elba

11 Wahl

As these pipes had already been waxed I first removed the wax layer using my motor, water and grinding wheel. This only took a few moments, after which I used a cotton swab and some alcohol to really clean the surface of the mouthpiece.

The following steps I repeated a few times as I found I was a little impatient in the drying process, I advise to let the glue set for a night just to be sure it is dry to the core.

Using a piece of cardboard dipped in Vaseline (sorry no pictures) I closed the hole in the Riviera mouthpiece and with cotton swabs and toothpicks applied the glue to the bite marks on all the other mouthpieces.

When the glue had dried I used 600 and 1000 grit sanding paper wrapped around a model file to sand off the excess glue and smooth the mouthpiece.

I checked the smoothness using my mouth and tongue and although in all cases it felt smooth I noticed that in taking the pictures of the finished product the glue spots are visible. This bothered me, like when I sand a round shoulder or edge on the stem. A casual observer will not notice this, but I know it is there and it will bother me. However I decided against re-sanding them in the hopes of getting them perfect. Because in the end it is my lips and tongue that are handling the mouthpiece the most, not my eyes 

To finalize this short post here are the finished mouthpieces, pipes and the tools I used for this project.

11 Wahl Filtro

Lorenzo Elba

Machiavelli Como

BBB Medina

Spitfire by Lorenzo Riviera

Tools used during this project

Cleaning a Bristol Mat Geante – by AJ Verstraten (AKA Bananabox-Ninja)

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This post has been written by a Dutch reader of the blog, AJ Verstraten who contacted me a few weeks ago. Several emails later and we had exchanged a lot of ideas and tips. I thought it would be of interest for others here to read about AJ’s ultrasonic cleaner addition to the process. It was one I had not heard of before so I asked him to write up a piece on it with pictures of a pipe that he put through his process. AJ was graciously willing to write it up and submit it for posting here. Thanks AJ for your willingness to do this. It is great to hear from others about the methods they are using and how they work. The photos are well done and the words well written. Without further ado here is AJ’s article.

Greetings, my name is AJ and I hail from the Dutch city of Dordrecht. I go by the internet name of ‘Bananabox-Ninja’ and I am more easily found under that name then under AJ.

A few weeks ago I broke my knee in a motorcycle accident and it was put in a plaster cast with the instruction to let it rest and heal up. In this time I stumbled upon Steve’s website through ‘Het Pijprokersforum’ a forum of Dutch and Belgium pipe smokers.

As I like to refurbish pipes myself and I had time to kill I went through his whole website and learned many, many new things. In the weeks that followed I tried to get a hold of the things Steve used and tried them myself, like the black superglue and the grinding pads for example. Blown away by how well some things worked out I sent an email thanking Steve for all the tips and asking if he had ever used an ultrasonic cleaner. He replied that he had not but that he was interested to know in the workings and would I like to write about it?

So this weekend I cleaned a pipe from my ‘project-box’ and snapped pictures from beginning to end including the ultrasonic cleaning method I currently use. (The numerical key below the photo identifies the tools in the photo.)

These are the tools I tend to use in the cleaning/refurbishing of a pipe, currently I have some tools on order and they have not come in yet.

1 – Polishing wheels and waxes
2 – Sanding paper (600 & 1000), sanding pads (1500 to 12000) and modeling files.
3 – Ultrasonic cleaner
4 – Old socks (but clean)
5 – Vaseline and 96% alcohol
6 – Hard and soft bristled pipe cleaners
7 – Q-tips (cotton swabs)
8 – Pliers
9 – Assortment of drills
10 – Senior pipe reamer
11 – Games Workshop paint
12 – Electric motor (0-2000 RPM) with grinding wheel (1500)
13 – Toothpicks

The pipe I chose to work on and record is a nice straight, big chambered Bristol Mat Geante, I presume the Geante is for its size as the chamber is rather big or as we say in Dutch a ‘Speciekuip’ (mortar trough). As far as I can tell Bristol a B-brand from France but I am unable to pinpoint exactly. I personally like the bird’s-eyes all over the left and right side of the bowl.

As you can see the stem has oxidation all over and the bowl itself is rather dull. Not visible on this photo are the 2 bite marks on the stem.

First I cleaned the pipe on the inside with alcohol and pipe cleaners until they came out almost white. If there is a thick layer of tar in the air canal I use the drills to scrape the inside out lightly using drills of various diameters. Tar will give way far more easily than the ebonite or acrylic it is in.

In this case it was not needed as the pipe’s previous owner was very tidy or had not smoked it much.

Then with just water and the grinding wheel I removed the heavy oxidation from the stem, careful not to create a round shoulder or to grind off too much for it to create a ridge.

Using the sanding paper wrapped around a file I removed the hard to reach oxidation on the mouth bit.

And afterwards to fill the bite marks using the superglue, q-tips and toothpick.

Now the stem was ready for the ultrasonic bath. This is a new method I have only recently started using and so far I am positive on the results. Using a mixture of 50-50 water and alcohol with a teaspoon of disinfection agent, place the stem in the liquid and let the bath go at it for 8 minutes.

This bath can also heat up to 40 degrees but seeing as ebonite tends to bend back to it’s original shape if heated too much I leave that feature off.

You’ll notice in the last picture that the stem looks almost the same as it went in, however when you pull a pipe cleaner through it, there will be some mild discoloration coming out of the stem.

This method of cleaning is a good way to get the last remaining specks of dirt out of those hard to reach places, I myself was skeptical at first but I was swayed when I pulled the pipe cleaner through it after the bath I found that it did do its job.

It does not however remove oxidation completely, I tried with an unprepared stem and it came out browner than going in.

So as an extra step I find it a great addition to my cleaning process.

In the mean time I cleaned some of the soot from the top of the bowl with some spit and the old sock. Especially the part of the sock that fits over your ankle is rather coarse and excellent for this process. The chamber had a nice smooth coal layer in it so I left it in there.

After the bath I gave the inside of the stem few more scrubs with the pipe cleaner and the outside another run with the grinding wheel.

Then I started polishing with the wheels and the waxes.

First a pre-polish with brown, followed by white, a coat of carnauba wax and a final buff.

The end result as you can see below:

A Unique Vertical Oval Shank Meerschaum Reborn

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I saw this old Meerschaum pipe bowl on Ebay and decided to put a low bid on it. I was not surprised to have won it and paid for it quickly. The seller packed it very well and shipped it off to Vancouver, Canada. Below are the Ebay photos that caught my attention. I think the thing that intrigued me the most was the vertical oval shank on the pipe. To restem that pipe would be a great challenge – find a stem large enough to work with and shape it until it fit. I thought I had just the stem in my box – a gift from a friend on Pipesmokers Unleashed Forum, Robert.

From the photos it looked to be in rough shape. The pipe case said it was a WDC but I have no way of knowing if that is true. The gold filigree on the band looks like the old WDC pipes of the late 1890s but I am still uncertain as to the maker. It was in rough shape as can be seen from the photos. There were many scratches and gouges around the outside of the bowl. The shank had marks on the top that looked like someone had taken a file to it. The rim was probably the worst. With the rough edges on the back right side of the bowl the rim/top appeared to be angled to the right side and worn down. The tar build up was heavy in the bowl and on the rim. The tenon was broken off in the shank. It appeared to be an old bone tenon and a bone insert in the mortise that was threaded to take the screw in tenon. I am assuming the pipe probably had an amber stem in its first appearance in the shop but that was long since broken and lost. The WDC case was also very rough – the edges were worn away, the wood broken and a hinge dangling unused. The inside was badly stained.

Yesterday afternoon I came home from work early and found a package awaiting me – I knew that the meer had arrived. I had to laugh when I cut open the box – it had a previous label a Funeral Home in Ohio. I don’t know if that was a commentary on the pipe bowl that resided inside the box or if a funny coincidence. I cut the tape and opened the box. The pipe inside was both in worse shape than I had imagined from the seller’s excellent pictures and in better shape. The meer under the band was cracked as can be seen in the photo above and that was as it was when it arrived. The scratches in the surface of the bowl were not as deep as they appeared in the photos and the pipe when place on the rim on a flat board was actually not slanted to the right – the damage to the outer edges of the right back side made it appear worse than it actually was in reality. The next photos show the pipe on the work table just out of the box.

After examining it carefully with my lens and a dental pick I decided to begin the clean up by trying to remove the tenon. I used the screw that I generally use to remove a tenon to no avail. The threads in the mortise were locked tight around the tenon. I picked at it with the dental pick and was unable to remove it that way either. I decided to drill out the old tenon. So I set up a cordless drill with a drill bit slightly larger than the airway in the broken tenon. I slowly drilled the airway with the bit and exchanged it for increasingly larger bits until I had the airway cleared of the debris. I then used a ¼ inch bit to open the mortise and clear out the remaining debris of the mortise and tenon. The second photo below shows the mortise after I opened it up. I used a dental pick to clean out the remaining pieces and hand turned the quarter-inch drill bit into the mortise to smooth out the walls of the airway and open it to receive a new tenon.

I took the pipe bowl back to the work table and set up a coarse sanding block on my worktable to top the bowl of the meer. I have used this block in the past with good success on the softer meerschaum material. I placed the bowl, rim down on the surface of the block and sanded it in a clockwise direction (no reason for that other than I am right-handed). I sanded it, checking often to see how the rim was cleaning up until the surface was clear and the top of the bowl once again level. Surprisingly I did not have to remove too much material from the rim to clean up the surface.

When I had finished the sanding, I used micromesh sanding pads to sand the top smooth once again and remove the scratches from the coarse sanding block. The micromesh sanding pads from 1500 – 12,000 grit bring a shine back to the surface of the meer and prepare it for rewaxing once the pipe is finished.

At this point in the process I decided to see if I could fit a new stem on the pipe. The diameter of the oval shank was quite large and would require a large diameter round stem. To make it an oval stem would require that much of the existing vulcanite of the stem would have to be removed in the shaping process. I had an old Brebbia stem that a friend on Pipe Smoker Unleashed Forum sent me for an old Peterson that I was restemming. The tenon was too small for the Pete but too large for the old meer. I used a Dremel with a sanding drum to remove the excess material from the tenon until the fit was very close. The remainder of the fitting was done with a wood rasp and sandpaper. Once the tenon was finished I pushed the stem into the old meer to check on the fit of the tenon in the newly opened mortise. As can be seen in the photo below, the fit was perfect. You can also see from that photo how much work would need to be done to fit the stem to match the shank of the pipe.

The stem had deep bite marks on the top and the bottom near the button. They did not break the surface of the vulcanite. I decided to heat the surface of the stem with a heat gun and try to lift the dents from both sides as much as possible. I also wanted to straighten the stem significantly to give a better profile to the pipe. The heat gun worked to achieve both aims. The tooth marks lifted quite a bit and would have to be filled with black superglue to finish the work and the bend straightened to the angle I wanted for the new stem.

I sanded the initial excess vulcanite off the diameter of the shank with the sanding drum on the Dremel. Once I had removed a large portion I took it back to the work table and used a rasp to continue to shape and reduce the stem to the right proportions. The next series of eight photos shows the effectiveness of the rasp in shaping the stem. (In the midst of the shaping my daughters brought down a bowl of popcorn for a snack while I worked – that appears in several of the photos.)

I removed the stem from the shank and cleaned up the tooth dents so that I could fill them with black superglue. The glue takes quite a bit of time to cure so I waited until I was finished for the evening and then filled the dents and set the stem aside to cure over night.

This morning I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and also sanded the superglue patch on the underside of the stem. The next four photos show the stem as it begins to take shape and the repaired spot on the underside of the stem. The oval is coming along nicely but there was still a lot of excess material that still needed to be removed.

I continued to sand the stem to further tune the shape of the oval to match the shank. I used 220 grit sandpaper to remove the excess and shape the stem. I worked on the superglue patch on the underside of the stem with the 220 grit sandpaper as well. In the next series of three photos you can see the shape I am aiming for with this stem. You can also see the size of the patch on the stem. The patch is still larger than the marks it covers so more sanding will need to be done on it to blend it into the vulcanite.

I cleaned up the bite marks on the top of the stem and applied the black superglue patch to that surface as well. I set it aside while I worked on the bowl. I wiped the bowl down with Murphy’s Oil Soap on a cotton pad to clean off the grime on the surface while leaving as much of the old patina as possible. The first photo below shows the superglue patch. I applied it and used a dental pick to push it around the surface and also build up a few tooth marks on the edge of the button. The second photo below shows the patch after it had dried and I had sanded the patch with 220 grit sandpaper.

While working on the stem I decided to open the button to make it simpler to insert a pipe cleaner. I used needle files to make the slot larger. The second photo shows the opened slot in the button. I sanded the inside of the slot with a folded piece of sandpaper to smooth the surface and polish the slot.

I took the pipe back to the Dremel and sanding drum to remove more of the excess vulcanite. I had the basic shape in hand and just wanted to get it closer to the size of the shank before doing the finish sanding. I brought it back to the work table and sanded with 220 grit sandpaper until the fit was right. The next four photos show the progress in the fitting of the stem.

I sanded the stem with a medium grit sponge backed sanding pad. It helped to remove the scratches left behind by the 200 grit sandpaper. Then I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit to polish and shine the vulcanite and the patched areas. The white Lucite band that was a part of the stem began to take on a shine as well in the process. The next nine photos capture what took about an hour to achieve in the sanding process. I wet sanded with the 1500, 1800 and 2400 grit sanding pads and dry sanded with the remaining grits of micromesh.

I buffed the stem with White Diamond and a blue plastic polishing compound to bring out the final shine on the stem. I hand waxed the meerschaum with beeswax and hand buffed it with a shoe brush. The next four photos show the finished pipe with the new stem. I like the marks and scratches in the meer as they seem to speak of the long journey the pipe took to get to me. The white Lucite band on the stem fits nicely in my thinking against the gold of the filigree band. The slight bend it the stem works nicely for me. From the last two photos you can see the oval shape of the stem now that it is completed. It has come a long way from the round stem I received as a gift from Ron.

A New Look for a Duncan Hill Aerosphere

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Blog by Steve Laug

Over the years I have owned and sold several Duncan Hill Aerosphere pipes. The system on the pipes and the thinness of the bit always made the airway too tight for me and the draught sluggish at best. I have repaired several of them over the years as well and never found one that really worked well for me. Then in one of the lots I picked up on Ebay that needed new stems there was a Duncan Hill Aerosphere bowl without a stem. It had a wide open airway and was in decent shape. The bowl had a light cake and the rim was tarred but not damage. The bowl was still round and obviously the pipe had not been smoked very much. I figured it was an opportunity to restem it with a standard stem and see what I could get from it.

I tried two different stems on the pipe. The first was a flat blade saddle stem blank. I turned the tenon with a PIMO tenon turning tool and fit it to the pipe. I decided to put a nickel band on the shank for cosmetic purposes as I thought it would look good with the saddle stem. There were two problems with this fitting. The rustication pattern on the Duncan Hill made a smooth fit of the band virtually impossible and the gap around the shank did not work for me. The second issue was that the stem itself was just a few millimeters’ smaller in diameter than the shank. It was not noticeable except with the band it was accentuated. I removed the band and tried the stem without the band and it did not work well. I abandoned that option and went back to my can of stems to see what else I could find that might work in terms of both diameter and length.

For the second stem I found an older “pre-used” stem that worked in terms of length and diameter. I cleaned up the tenon and shortened it slightly and the fit was quite good. I left the band in place and tried to rusticate the band to match the bowl rustication. I heated it and used a scribing tool to carve it up to get the bowl finish look. I stopped that rustication process and worked on the stem fit. For some reason the stem taper on top and bottom did not match. With the fitting on the Duncan Hill bowl the angles at the top did not match the bottom. Reversing the stem made the stem fit even worse. The diameter needed slight adjustments to repair the taper and fit it well against the band.

I used a Dremel to take off material on the stem to adjust the taper to match on both the top and the bottom. I also used the Dremel to clean up the fit at the shank/band. I tried to mark the band with the Dremel in the process as well. I used a scribing tip and still did not get much more of finish than I had with the hand scribing tip. I did not like the look so I took the stem back to the worktable and sanded it to remove the scratches left behind by the sanding drum.

I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper, a medium grit sanding sponge and a fine grit sanding block to clean up the fit and also remove the scratches. The more I looked at it the less I liked the band. The area around the stem shank union looked terrible and the scribing merely looked like scratches. It was awful looking. I decided at this point to remove the band from the shank. I heated the band and slipped it off the shank. I cleaned up the light marks left by the band on the shank with micromesh sanding pads.

With the band off the pipe the tenon was too long for the stem to seat properly. This was not visible to me with the band in place. It felt tight but without the band there was a gap at the junction. I measured the tenon and found that I needed to remove some of the length on the tenon and also needed to countersink the mortise slightly. The countersink on the mortise is a slight bevel inward. I used a knife to bevel the inner edge of the mortise. Once the mortise was prepared and the tenon shortened to measure the stem fit tightly against the shank. I used 220 grit sandpaper and a medium grit sanding sponge to remove a little more of the diameter of the stem to clean up the junction. The two bands on the stem appear to be briar but are actually Cumberland/brindle inserts. I sanded the top of the bowl/rim and the colour matched the twin bands on the stem.

I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit to remove the scratches on the vulcanite and polish the stem. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit micromesh pads and dry sanded with the remaining grits. Between 3600 and 4000 grit pads I polished the stem with Maguiars Scratch X2.0. It polished the stem considerably. I then finished sanding with the micromesh pads. While I sanded the stem with the micromesh I also sanded the rim to polish it. With each successive change of grit the rim and the twin bands on the stem began to truly match. The combination looked like it was factory designed to be a combination. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil and set it aside for the evening. In the morning I rubbed the stem down and then waxed it with carnauba.

I gave the bowl a several coats of Halcyon II wax and buffed it with a shoe brush to raise the shine. I buffed the stem with carnauba several time to raise the shine as well. I then buffed the pipe with a soft flannel buffing pad. The finished pipe is pictured below. The look of the Duncan Hill with the banded stem that matches the rim is a great combination. The improved draught of the pipe is exactly what I was aiming for. The Duncan Hill Aerosphere pipe re-enters life with a new level of service to the pipeman who ends up with it in their collection.

K&P London Made Found in a Bargain Shop

8 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

Yesterday afternoon I went with my eldest daughter to Walmart here in Vancouver. Across the street is a bargain shop that sells lot of movie set items and other things that are collectible and antique. I have found quite a few good pipes there over the years. I went to the shop while she was in Walmart and looked over the lot they had this time. There were quite a few pipes in the case and most of them while interesting just did not capture my attention. Then I moved a few of them out of the way and underneath was this little P-lip apple. I could tell it was a Pete and an older one because of the thick shank and stem. I held it up to the light and my guess was confirmed. It was a Peterson. It was marked $28 and I offered $25 for it. They accepted the offer and I paid the bill and put the pipe in my pocket. I picked up my daughter and headed home to check it out.

I wiped off the shank with a cotton pad dampened with saliva and found that it was stamped K&P LONDONMADE on the right side of the shank. On the left side it was stamped 215 and A “PETERSON’S PRODUCT” Made In London. So I had found an English made Peterson’s shape 215 pipe. The band was silver and was badly tarnished but I could see from the hallmarks that it was also stamped with English hallmarks. The first was an anchor which told me that the band was made in Birmingham. The second was a reclining lion which is the stamping for Sterling silver. The third mark was hard to see with the grime and tarnish but looked like an animal face in the cartouche. Closer examination would have to wait until I had cleaned up the tarnish.

The pipe was in fair shape. The bowl had nicks in the sides in several places as well as a very rough rim. It looked as if it had been hammered about and was damaged. It would require topping to remedy that problem. The bowl had been reamed and was slightly out of round and then smoked again for some time – long enough to build up an uneven cake with most of the cake at the top of the bowl and the bottom of the bowl was bare wood. The silver band was loose and had turned about a quarter turn clockwise. The stem was very tight in the shank – which thankfully had kept the band in place on the pipe. The stem had many bite marks and tooth dents up the shaft from the button for about an inch. It looked as if the individual who had smoked it held it far back in his teeth. Both the underside and topside of the stem were damaged with tooth marks and a series of grooves from a tool. The button itself and the ledge on the underside were in very good shape. The round opening in the button was elongated from years of pipe cleaners.

I was able to carefully remove the stem and the inside of the shank was darkened with tars but not terribly dirty. The end of the tenon is stepped down and the fit in the shank was very snug. After cleaning the stem would fit well. There was no stamping on the oxidized stem and appeared to be no remnant of stamping. The oxidation on the stem was heavy at the shank stem union and also around the button on the top and bottom.

I wrote about the stamping to Mark Irwin who is my Peterson’s go to contact for information on Peterson pipes. He is a wealth of information that I have been unable to find in other places. He was on the road but sent me the following information. “…The “Peterson Product” indicates the pipe is a lower line. They began using this stamp in the 1930 catalog for their “K” pipes, but if it was this, you should’ve seen a “K” on it. There were several “200” series shapes, but the “215” is not in a catalog I have here. The London factory was much smaller than the Dublin, but I’ll have to ask Gary about the hallmarks, as I’m unfamiliar with the Brit system. Best my guess tonight is that the pipe dates anywhere from 1920-1940. I have photos of a thick-shanked and thick-stemmed straight apple hallmarked Dublin 1920–I can send you a .gif when I get home if this sounds like the pipe. If so, the shape itself goes back to at least that year.”

That was helpful information on the dating of the pipe. I sent Mark the photos last evening and then this morning received this reply concerning the pipe. “… Gorgeous! Yup, it’s the same shape as the photo I have, which means the shape itself goes back to at least 1920.” In the mean time I had cleaned up the band with silver polish and scrubbed it with a soft cotton pad. I reset it with white glue on the shank and examined the hallmarks under a bright light with a jewelers loop. It became clear that the last of the hallmarks was not an animal but rather a letter in the cartouche. It was well worn but from the outlines on the mark it appeared to be the letter “T” which dates the pipe to 1943.

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer using the smallest cutting head and the next size as well. I removed the cake back to the wood to even out the broken cake. I cleaned out the shank with cotton swabs to remove all the tars and oils in the shank. Once I had cleaned out the shank I also cleaned the stem with pipe cleaners. I used Everclear with cotton swabs on both. When it was finished I put the stem back in the shank and the fit was snug.

I topped the bowl with my usual method – 220 grit sandpaper on a flat board and turned the bowl clockwise as I pressed the rim into the sandpaper. I sanded the top until the damaged portion of the rim was removed. One side benefit of the process was that it also removed some of the damaged inner rim as well bringing the bowl back into round.

To prepare the bowl for restaining I wiped it down with acetone on a cotton pad. I wanted to remove as much of the finish as possible so that I could more easily blend the new stain on the rim with the stain on the bowl. I have found that if I thin down the original stain on the bowl I can generally make a good match with the rim when I stain the entire pipe. The rim always takes several more coats of stain than the bowl but the match comes out very well. I wanted to end up with a stain colour that matched the original stain colour as much as possible. Between each coat of stain I flamed the stain to set it in the grain of the briar. The stain I used was an aniline stain in a dark brown that I thinned 2:1 with isopropyl alcohol. Once it was dry I hand buffed it with a shoe brush to blend the colours of the stain and give me a clear look at the stain to make sure it was evenly applied.

I set the bowl aside and worked on the stem. I sanded the stem with medium grit emery paper to remove the oxidation and also clean up the vulcanite around the tooth dents. Once clean, I heated the dents by passing the flame of a lighter across the tooth marks. The heat of the flame lifts the dents to the surface. The key is to keep the flame moving quickly and not allow it to sit in one place too long or the stem will burn. The first photo below shows the tooth marks on the top side of the stem. There were matching tooth marks on the underside. The second photo shows the stem after the heating with the flame. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and also a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the scratches and remnants of the dents. I filled the two remaining dents with super glue, sanded the glue down to match the surface of the stem and then finished the sanding with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit (Photos 3 – 5).

Once the stem was sanded with the 12,000 grit micromesh pad I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil and when dry rubbed it into the stem. I gave the stem several coats of wax and returned it to the bowl. I polished the silver band a final time and also waxed that. I buffed the pipe lightly with White Diamond and gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean flannel buffing pad. The finished pipe is pictured below. It has some beautiful grain on it. There are also some flaws in the briar that I chose to leave as I find they add character to the pipe.

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