Tag Archives: waxing a stem

Rejuvenating an English Made Sandblast Jobey Nut Bruyere Push Stem Billiard 050

Blog by Steve Laug

This is another pipe find from the Idaho Falls antique mall. I am pretty certain it comes from the era that Jobey made pipes in Britain. It is a very proper British looking sandblast saddle stem billiard. The blast is quite nice revealing some great swirls and crags. It is not a deep blast but it is a medium one that stands out well. The pipe is stamped on the underside of the flat shank with Jobey over Nut Bruyere toward the front of the pipe. Moving back toward the stem it is stamped Imported Bruyere over 050. The stem has the Jobey insert on the top of the saddle and it is stamped on the right side – English Para. The pipe is solid but dirty. The stem is not badly oxidized at all bearing testimony to the quality of the vulcanite. The stem also has an inner tube insert in the tenon. This pipe was in the same lot as the White Flame billiard that I just finished and posted early. The stem is dirty but not oxidized. The sandblast finish is also dirty with dust and grime in the valleys of the blast. The rim is almost flat with the build-up of tars. The bowl is still round with no damage to the inner or out edge of the rim. There is slight cake build-up in the bowl. Internally the shank and mortise area are very clean – pristine is the proper word. The inner tube inserts into the airway in the shank so the mortise is fresh briar. The fit of the stem in the shank is tight and inserts with a click. This pipe is in pretty decent shape other than the cosmetics I have noted above.

I took a close-up photo of the bowl rim and the cake to show the state of both when I started the cleanup. The shank and mortise appeared to be pristine and clean as I mentioned above. I took a photo of the mortise and the inner tube on the stem. I started the cleanup with a gentle reaming of the bowl. I took the cake back to bare briar. I like to start with a clean bowl on the pipes I refurbish. I know others leave a thin cake but I have chosen the “cakeless” route.

I scrubbed the blast and rim with Murphy’s Oil Soap. I used a short bristle tooth brush and a brass bristle tooth brush to scrub the briar. When I had finished and rinsed the bowl I used the long bristle tooth brush to polish it a bit.

The next series of pictures show the bowl after the scrub and rinse with running water. The briar looks really good. The blast is clean and the rim looks like new – just a wee bit of darkening.

With the outside clean it was time to swab out the shank airway, mortise and bowl. I used alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs. The seemingly pristine mortise actually was quite clean. Just a few cotton swabs and a pipe cleaner took care of the little bit of tars that were there. I used a dental pick to clean out the slot in the button. I scrubbed the internals of the inner tube and the externals with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. The stem was not too dirty and it did not take too much to clean it out. I sanded the stem with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge and then moved on to working over it with the micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and then rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil. I continued by dry sanding, before the oil dried, with 3200-4000 grit pads. I lightly buffed the stem with red Tripoli and White Diamond and then finished dry sanding with 6000-12000 grit micromesh pads. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry.

I tried a new wax on the sandblast. I have used it before on other pipes but never on a blast. It is called Conservator’s Wax which is a microcrystalline cleaner and wax product. I applied it to the blast by hand rubbing it in lightly, making sure it did not clump up in the grooves. Once it dried I buffed the bowl with a shoe brush. The picture below shows the buffed briar. I lightly buffed the stem with Blue Diamond on the buffer and gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the bowl and stem with a clean flannel buff and then hand buffed the pipe with a microfibre cloth to give the polish depth and a deeper sheen. The finished pipe is shown below. It is clean and ready to fire up!

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

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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.

Restoring a Made in London England Saddle Billiard Shape 195

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Blog by Steve Laug

I found this small saddle billiard on a recent trip to Idaho Falls. My brother and I went on a pipe hunt in some of the antique malls in the city and the surrounding area. It was one of five that I picked up on that first day. I have circled it in the photo below so that you can see which pipe I am talking about. I apologize for the blurry photo I took with my iPad, but it gives a basic idea of the way the pipe looked. The bowl was caked, the rim was tarred and darkened, the stem was oxidized but in relatively good shape. The stamping on the left side of the shank reads Made in London over England. On the right side is the shape number 195. I have looked in the catalogues for Comoy’s, Barlings and Orlik to see if I can identify the English maker of this pipe but the shape number does not match any of the numbers in the catalogues.

It was one of two pipes that I worked on at my mom and dad’s house. I bought a set of micromesh pads from a local hobby shop that included pads from 1500-4000 grit. I started by sanding the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads. I scrubbed the bowl and rim with a paper towel and cool water to remove the tar buildup. Then I sanded the rim and the bowl with the same grit pads. I was able to remove the tars and darkening quite easily. The rim was undamaged on either the outer or inner edges. I carefully reamed it with a small sharp blade until the inner walls were bare.

I dry sanded the stem and bowl with 3200-4000 grit micromesh sanding pads. I did not have any higher grit micromesh pads with me. I gave the bowl and stem a light coat of olive oil and hand buffed it with a microfiber clothe to raise a shine and took the next series of photos to show where it stood after this process. Once I took it home and gave it a buff on the buffer and several coats of carnauba wax this would be a beautiful little billiard in the English tradition.

I brought the pipe back to Vancouver and gave it a quick sanding with 6000-12000 grit micromesh pads and then buffed the stem and bowl with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave it several coats of carnauba wax and then a quick buff with a clean flannel buff. I finished by trying out what Dave Gossett spoke of and buffed it by hand with a microfibre cloth until the finish glowed. The finished pipe is shown in the next series of photos.

I took a few photos in a pipe rest that my daughters found on a second trip to the antique malls. It is a golden coloured cocker spaniel similar looking to my dog Bailey that died a year ago after 14 years as a member of our family. The photos give a good view of the grain on this beautiful little billiard.

WDC Wellington Bent System – Restoring a Mainstay Pipe of the Celebrated Maker

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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

Bruno Antony: Each fellow does the other fellow’s murder. Then there is nothing to connect them. The one who had the motive isn’t there. Each fellow murders a total stranger. Like you do my murder and I do yours…For example, your wife, my father. Criss-cross.
― from “Strangers on a Train” (1951), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, screenplay by Raymond Chandler and Czenzi Ormonde, starring Farley Granger and Robert Walker [Bruno]

INTRODUCTION
The movie was one of Hitchcock’s greatest and a favorite of mine. How could it not be, with the legendary detective novelist Raymond Chandler as the top word-man? But this is not a blog about swapping murders. It does concern the swapping of a bit, however, or to be more accurate, the removal of one from a basic Peterson’s System Standard in my collection of pipes awaiting more extreme repair, and which won’t be missed before it can be mended, to use for the William Demuth Co. Wellington System Billiard.

But first, let’s play Find the Pipe in the Lot. No doubt you have spotted it without trouble, or will soon deduce the answer from following photos.

Now for the criss-cross: watch as the bit, at first loose but in place in the shank of the Peterson’s Standard System to the right in photo one, without warning falling to the trademark green sleeve along with the battered band in photo two. Look long enough, and I guarantee you’ll see the moment of selfless sacrifice for the blighted, bit-less predicament of the once proud, near-twin WDC close by. And then, in photo three – the miraculous transplant to the WDC after the donated organ has embraced its new host body, at least tentatively.

A few words concerning the William Demuth Co. are in order, for those not familiar with its illustrious history. Demuth (1835-1911) entered the U.S. as an emigrant from Germany with no money when he was 16 and worked a number of odd jobs. His break came when he attained the position of clerk for a tobacco products trade company. Demuth founded his own company in Brooklyn, New York in 1862, two years into the Civil War, when he was only 27.

Success was rapid, leading to friendships with such prominent figures as James A. Garfield. [Garfield was inaugurated as the twentieth U.S. president in 1881 after winning by the narrowest popular vote margin in history, a mere 9,464 ballots, but with an extra 59 Electoral College votes. He served only four months before he was gunned down by a single shot aimed by Charles Julius Guiteau, an American lawyer denied an ambassadorship to France(evidently for good cause, as shooting the president on July 2, four months into his term, was not very diplomatic). Although Garfield lingered for about two and a half months, the assassin’s bullet caused the blood poisoning to which he succumbed. Guiteau was hanged several days short of a year after the ultimate assassination.]

At the Presidential Inauguration, Demuth presented Garfield with two meerschaum pipes, one in Garfield’s image and the other in the new First Lady’s. The friendship of the two men led to Demuth’s commissioning of a partial presidential line of pipes. But the linchpin WDC pipe was the Wellington, which lasted beyond the company’s own lifetime. Having become a subsidiary of S.M. Frank & Co. in 1937, WDC continued until the final day of 1972. The Wellington, however, was still offered in Frank’s catalog until 1976 and even had a brief reprise in the mid-1980s by way of consumer-direct sales.

Here are two other Wellington’s, the first courtesy of pipephil.eu and the second from pipedia.org. RESTORATION

In a sentence, this restoration was more about the stem than anything else. I had decided to go with a perfect replacement from a Peterson’s Standard System pipe in my personal collection. Then, when I donned my Dollar Store 3.75X glasses for a “final” close inspection, I cringed at the sight of the faint black outline of the Peterson’s P, shown below, now filled in with a white china marker. Note the correct shape of this bit from lip to tenon. My next brainstorm was to sand off the P, and in fact set out to do so when I came to my senses. What can I say? Sometimes I have the stupidest ideas. And so I opted to let the buck stop here and repair the bit I took off of the Peterson’s System Standard shown in the criss-cross photos of the Introduction. That System Standard needs serious work, also; not only a new, genuine bit but a replacement matching band. I will tackle that one when I have the new bit and band and am up to speed on the process of banding.

With a happy glow of contentment in the pit of my belly, I replaced the above bit, with the P filled in at last, on its rightful pipe in the stand-up, two sided bookshelf with doors where I store most of my collection, and opted to proceed with this restoration by doing the long, tedious work of applying layers of black Super Glue to build up the thinner, bottom section of the bit that lacks a tenon. As a result, while the rest of the Wellington has been finished for about ten days, the old bit, mangled by some wannabe pipe fixer, took days of patient layering, sanding and micro-meshing each phase, then polishing on the buffers, and was only completed moments ago.

I started the bit on its way, which I knew would take some days, by filing it to a uniform tapering roundness and sanding with 150- and 320-grit paper before micro-meshing from 1500-4000.

After that I gave the entire surface of the bit below the bulge the first of four thick coats of black Super Glue. Aware of the risk, I then stripped the old finish with as short as possible of an Everclear soak.

Leaving the bowl and shank for about 10 minutes in the alcohol and time enough to dry, I reamed and sanded the chamber to the smoothness of a chamois cloth and retorted the pipe using the bit from my own Peterson’s System Standard. Starting with super fine 0000 steel wool, then micromesh every step from 1500-4000, the wood and steel band had a nice natural sheen.

Without stain, using the natural rich color of the briar, I prepared the bowl and shank for the coming test to see if the bit worked out, the likelihood of which I had doubts, by buffing it with white Tripoli, White Diamond and two coats of carnauba, using the plain cloth buffer between each, of course.

The following days seemed to drag with each successive layer of black Super Glue and the long drying time followed by sanding with 200-grit paper and micro-meshing up the scale each time. But in the end, the result was worth the time and effort, considerable and somewhat unnerving as they were.

CONCLUSION
Again, this battle was far more about trying to recover an available bit, so that it would fit and lock in the shank, rather than any problems I faced with the bowl and shank. As the bit was when I received the Pete System Standard with which it came, well, the bit was the tip of the iceberg with that future project. In fact, my friend and mentor, Chuck, recommended that I send it to someone he knows in Denver – not so much because the task was beyond my skills but that it was what he would do if he needed a new Peterson’s bent system pipe stem with the right measurements as well as a replacement band of the appropriate type. I was fortunate with the WDC in that it called for a bit designed after the Pete System variety.

Of course I would have preferred to place a perfect, like-new bit in this great WDC Wellington, but the personal reward came in finding out that I could take what I had and make it work.

I think I’ll do the same with the estate Peterson’s Standard System that gave its bit for this pipe, after I’ve received the new parts in the mail.

Building a New Button on the Cut off Stem of a Savinelli Autograph 4

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Blog by Steve Laug

I decided to tackle another button rebuild. A friend brought over a cut off Savinelli Autograph long shank plateau Dublin that he had picked up. The shank was stamped Savinelli Autograph 4 on the underside and there was a signature stamp on the stem. I have no idea how the stem got cut off but my guess would be that someone removed the damaged part of the stem and button and then saw how close to the surface the airway was and decided to abort the mission of cutting a new button on the stem. I have been working with developing my mixture of medium viscosity black cyanoacrylate glue and charcoal powder to rebuild/craft new buttons. I have used it on quite a few repairs of my own and on a few for friends. It definitely dries harder than the glue by itself and seems to be very strong once it has cured. I thought this pipe would be a good candidate for that process. I wrapped the end of the stem with a band of cellophane tape to make a straight edge to work against for the glue and charcoal powder mixture. It works to keep a semi-straight edge but I find it is more of a guide than anything else. It gives me an edge to work with when I build up the layers of patch material.

I mixed a batch of glue and charcoal powder on a card that I use for that purpose. That way when I have finished the mix and repair I can fold the card and throw it away without getting the glue all over the place. I stirred the powder and glue together with a dental pick until I had a thick paste mixture that was still workable. I applied it to the end of the cut off stem with the dental pick and shaped it roughly to match the kind of button shape I was aiming for when finished.

I put the pipe on a cork and candle stick holder that I use for drying bowls when I stain them or stems when I have done this kind of repair and set it aside to cure for two days. This kind of patch is a long haul project. It is not a quick repair. If you start reshaping the button too soon the repair breaks off in chunks that are still soft underneath the surface. So, having learned that I left it alone and did other work while the days passed. After two days of curing the repair was solid all the way through. I would still need to be careful as the longer it cured the harder it would become. I used emery cloth and 180 grit sandpaper to shape the button into an oval and to face the end of the button. You can see in the photo below how much more material there was to work with now in terms of shaping the airway and the slot in the button thanks to the build-up of material.

I worked over the edge of the button with the sand paper as well to clean up the sharp edge next to the blade of the stem. I moved on to sand with 220 grit sandpaper and also with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to further define the new button and to clean up the scratches. After the initial shaping and sanding I put the stem to the side to cure longer and addressed the bowl and shank. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and took the cake back to a very thin layer.

I cleaned the interior of the airway and mortise with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol until they were clean. I scrubbed the bowl and the plateau rim with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to clean off the grime and dirt in the plateau and the sandblast shank.

I scrubbed the plateau with a brass tire brush to dig out the built up tars and oils that had clogged the crevices in the finish there. I put my thumb in the bowl and carefully rinsed off the soap with cool running water. I dried the bowl with a cotton rag and took the next series of photos to show what the bowl looked like clean.

The next day I decided to work on the slot in the button and open it up with a flare to create a Y shape. I used needle files to work on the airway. The next series of photos show the files and the progress of opening the airway.

With the airway/slot roughed in it was time to continue shaping the button and the face of the slot. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to refined the shape and to smooth out the end of the stem.

I used a folded piece of sandpaper to smooth out the interior of the slot and further shape it. The photo below shows the state of the slot and the shape of the button. With the shaping completed it was time to work on fine sanding of the stem and new button. The charcoal bits in the mixture are hard and coarse and need to be refined with fine sanding. I worked over the stem and button with micromesh sanding pads, wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads to remove the majority of the coarseness. It is only this first step in the process of polishing the stem but it is amazing to see the transformation as I work through the various grits of micromesh. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil when I had finished with the 2400 grit pad. I will still need to refine the inner edge of the button with files but the overall shape of the stem and button are clearly visible.

I wet sanded the stem with the 2400 grit micromesh until I had minimized the scratches and polished the button. I then rubbed it down with another coat of Obsidian Oil and then sanded it with 3200-4000 grit micromesh pads. I gave it another coat of oil and then sanded it with 6000-12,000 grit pads. I gave it a final coat of oil and let it dry.

I buffed the stem and the bowl with Blue Diamond and then lightly buffed the blast with the same. I gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean flannel buffing pad to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown below. The new button looks like it belongs. The shape of the slot is open and it accepts a pipe cleaner with ease. It should provide years of service to the pipeman who is holding it in trust. He should enjoy smoking it with much more ease. Thanks for having a look!

Cleaned up a Small KBB Yello Bole Sandblast Billiard

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Blog by Troy Wilburn

I know what you all of you are thinking ….another Yello Bole? lol

I was just telling a friend of mine that I most likely would not be going to go after anymore Yello Bole’s for a while unless I saw another sandblast I liked. Sure enough just after that this one popped up EBay. Here is the way it looked on EBay. I thought nice pipe but it has some stem chatter that won’t be too hard to get rid of. Well when I got it in, come to find out it wasn’t stem chatter but just some glue residue. You can see in the picture where I wiped some off with my finger. The pipe has not been smoked much at all. There were a few nicks and spots around the rim. All in all, I lucked out again and got a really nice excellent condition original Yello Bole. I wiped off glue with 91% alcohol and cleaned inside stem and stinger. I sanded the stem lightly with 2500 grit. I touched up nicks with some black acrylic. Gave the inside a quick swab with a cleaner and 91% alcohol. I gave the pipe a good scrubbing with mineral oil and toothbrush. I wiped it dry with cotton cloth. Quick buff and wax ….Voila finished.

Looking up the pipe on my Kaywoodie charts I believe this to be a shape #67 Small Billiard Long Shank. Due to its small size this will be used mostly for flakes. I have smoked a bowl of Bold Kentucky in it already and it’s a great little smoker. I have been thinking about doing a write up on why I like KBB Yello Boles so much and add some pictures of my Yello Bole collection. Steve has also mentioned this to me. So maybe in the near future I will post the article.

NEPAL PROJECT PIPE SALE 9 – A Simple Restoration on a Wally Frank Rusticated Canadian

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Blog by Steve Laug

This is the ninth pipe from the box of pipes that I was gifted by a good friend of mine with the instructed purpose of cleaning them up and selling them with all of the proceeds going to the aid of earthquake victims in Nepal. Once again all funds raised will all go to the SA Foundation, and organization that has worked in Nepal for over 15 years helping provide recovery, housing and job training for women who are victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking. The ongoing earthquakes (over 300) that continue to shake Nepal have left much in ruins. The SA Foundation Project there was able to find new housing for the women and help with staff as well. Every dollar raised from the sale of these pipes will go to the work in Nepal.

This one is a Wally Frank Rusticated Canadian. It is stamped very clearly on the left side of the shank, Wally Frank Ltd. There are no other stampings on the pipe. It was in decent shape though dirty. The finish was in very good shape under the grime and the rustication is interesting and will look great after a cleanup. The bowl needed a light reaming and the shank and airway were dirty. The rim was dirty but still very sharp and crisp. The stem was oxidized and was rough to the touch. Everything else about the pipe looked really good.

The externals of the pipe were sharp but dusty and had a build-up of grime in the grooves of the rustication. When I pulled the stem I was a bit surprised to see the stinger apparatus that was pressure fit in the tenon. It was thick with tars and oils. I twisted the stinger out of the tenon with a pair of pliers with the jaws wrapped in tape to protect the metal when I clamped down on it to remove it from the stem. I cleaned it with alcohol and 0000 steel wool to remove the tars. I was surprised how clean the shank was when I used pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to scrub it. The stem was the dirtiest part after the stinger was removed. I ran pipe cleaners through the airway and removed all the oils and tars that had accumulated behind the stinger. I scrubbed the exterior with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the dust from the grooves in the rusticated finish. Once it was scrubbed I put a thumb over the bowl and rinsed it off with cool water and then dried it off with a towel.

The next four photos show the pipe after the scrubbing and drying. The finish is in great shape and will only need to be waxed and buffed.

I put a plastic washer on the tenon between the shank and the stem so that I could sand it without damaging the shoulders of the shank or stem. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the small tooth marks on the top of the stem next to the button and also to remove the oxidation. I then sanded it with a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to minimize the scratches left behind by the sandpaper. I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and then rubbing it down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads and repeated the rub down with oil. I finished with 6000-12,000 grit pads and gave the stem a final coat of Obsidian Oil. I set it aside to dry.

I buffed the stem and pipe with Blue Diamond Plastic Polish and then with a light buff of carnauba wax to protect it. I finished by buffing it with a clean flannel buff. I hand buffed the bowl with a shoe brush to make sure there was no residual wax in the rustication grooves. The finished pipe is shown below. It is ready for its new home.

This Wally Frank Canadian is a very light weight pipe and the rustication and stain – a combination of browns and black gives it a distinctive look. It should make someone a great addition. If you are interested in this pipe email me with an offer at slaug@uniserve.com and we can discuss it. The entirety of the sale price will go to the Nepal project. I will pay the postage so that does not get taken off the proceeds. If you are interested in reading about the SA Foundation you can look at their website at http://www.safoundation.com.

Thanks for looking.

Repairing a hole in a stem on a Mario Grande Olivewood Billiard

11 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

When this Mario Grande Olivewood Billiard came to my worktable it had a large hole in the topside of the stem. There was also a large chunk missing from the bottom side of the button. The rest of the stem was in pretty decent shape and the combination of olivewood and acrylic looked quite nice. This repair would take a while as I would need to layer the patch materials and build up the hole until it was a solid flat patch on the stem. Blending it in with the black of the acrylic would also be a challenge as no two blacks are identical but this would be an interesting repair. The rebuilding of the button would also require careful application of the patch and a reshaping of the slot once it cured.

I greased two pipe cleaners with Vaseline petroleum jelly so that when I put the patch in place it would not stick to the pipe cleaners. I wiped down the surface of the stem with alcohol on a cotton pad to clean it before I put the pipe cleaners in place. I inserted one from the tenon end and one from the button end as the hole was larger in width than one pipe cleaner. I wiped away the excess Vaseline that squeezed out of the hole with a damp alcohol pad to make sure the surface was clean and the patch would stick.

I mixed one capsule of finely ground charcoal powder (I get this at a pharmacy where it is sold as a digestive) with some black super glue (cyanoacrylate glue). I mixed them together until I had some thick paste that could be applied to the hole. I have found that the combination of the two hardens and makes a secure patch. I applied it to the hole in the stem with a dental pick making sure that I pushed the glue into the hole and against the pipe cleaners. I did not want it to be just a surface repair but one that bonded to the edges of the hole. I did not use the accelerant on this repair as I find that when I spray it on the glue it leaves air bubbles and I have to sand and repeat the repair. When it was dry at the surface, I removed the pipe cleaner carefully from the airway and then turned the stem on end and rebuilt the area where the button was damaged and missing a piece of acrylic. I applied the glue mix with the dental pick and pressed it into place in the missing area. I also build up the edge of the button where it was missing. This was a bit tricky in that I did not want to close the airway.

I set the stem aside to cure for two days before I began the sanding of the patch and the shaping of the button. When I picked up the stem to begin sanding I took the following photos of the hardened glue.

I started sanding with 220 grit sandpaper but quickly moved on to using a flat file to remove the excess and flatten the repaired area and the button.

Once I had filed the excess flat I went back to sanding with 220 grit sandpaper. I sanded the stem flat and then used medium and fine grit sanding sponges to clean up the scratches. There were still small air holes in the patch that needed to be addressed. I applied some more black super glue not mixed with charcoal to fill in the air holes in the patch. Once the patch dried I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper, a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge and then moved on to sanding with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. I paused between sanding and wiped off the dust to check the small air holes.

Once I finished with the micromesh pads I buffed the stem and bowl with Blue Diamond to polish and give it a shine. I gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and then buffed it with a clean flannel buff to raise the shine to another level. The finished pipe and stem are shown in the photos below.

I took two close-up photos to show the stem repair to the top of the stem and also to the button. The pipe is ready for its owner to pick it up and put it back in rotation.

A Windy Perpetual Drysmoker Restored

5 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

One of the contributors to rebornpipes,Troy Wilburn gifted me with a couple of pipes not long ago. Today I worked on the first of them – an interestingly odd old pipe the likes of which I have never seen. It is stamped on the left side of the shank WINDY over PERPETUAL over DRYSMOKER and on the right side of the shank IMPORTED BRIAR. Around the end of the shank on what I assume is the bottom of the pipe it is stamped ITALY.

This odd pipe is a bit of a mystery to me in terms of how it is smoked. You may laugh at that and say, “Put the end in your mouth and fire it up.” However it is a little more complicated. This particular pipe has a screw on wooden cap that sits on the “top” of the bowl if looked at the way I took the photos above. Held this way the stamping is right side up. On the other end of the bowl is what is like a normal windcap with five airholes in it. It is screwed into the bowl. When held with the windcap as the “top” the stamping is upside down. I can find nothing online that gives a hint to how it is to be smoked. When I took it apart it was clear to me how the previous owner had smoked it. There was a cake on the walls of the bowl. There was a cake on the threaded five hole windcap. There was not any cake of darkening on the flat threaded cap. So the pipe had been smoked with the windcap facing downward and the stamping in the correct position. The bowl had been lit from the windcap end and then the cap put back in place and the bowl turned over and smoked with the coal on the bottom… I shall have to experiment with that to see what I can tell after smoking it myself.

The pipe was quite dirty. Tobacco shards were around the threads in both the top and the bottom of the bowl. There was a light cake that was crumbly in the bowl. The airway was reduced in size by the tars and cake. The stem was rough and the airway partially blocked. The finish on the briar was crackling and spotty. Before cleaning up the pipe I did a quick Google search to see if I could find out any information. I wanted to see if the brand was known and if there was anything on the Pipephil site regarding the stamping. I found just two links to the pipe. One was on the smokingmetal site. The other was a YouTube video that was about a fellow smoking his Windy Perpetual Drysmoker. I did not find it helpful in that it was just a running commentary on the experience rather than information about the brand. The link to the smokingmetal site is here: http://www.smokingmetal.co.uk/pipe.php?page=508
I am quoting the article in full as it is really the only source of information I found.
WINDY – perpetual drysmoker
Appears to be a late 1940’s pipe, briar, which I thought initially should have had an internal bowl which did not appear to be present with this one. Some doubt as to how many parts there should be to this pipe, but see the following comments. The stamping is simply WINDY Perpetual Drysmoker one side of shank and Italy Imported Briar on the other

Sitter pipe. The pipe is just over 5 inches of the bowl to end of bit. Chamber diameter is just over 5/8 inch and depth is over 1 1/2 inch.

I have the following from Stan Wolcott, his are the images as well:

“WINDY PERPETUAL DRYSMOKER by Stan Wolcott”
In my travels I recently came across this intriguing pipe on which very little information appears online by Google search. The left side (?) is stamped “Windy Perpetual Drysmoker” and on the right side (?) “Imported Briar/Italy”. The stem has a small round gold medallion on the left side bearing a “R”. Although several similar pipes are pictured online here in the USA and UK, no explanatory information is included with those images. Floyd Norwood of Tennessee, who restored the pipe for me, also had no idea how the pipe was to be smoked. Tony Pringle of the UK, who has one pictured on his website, believes there may be other pieces which are missing from the four present in the images—flat cap, rounded cap with five vent holes (presumably the wind cap) and the pipe bowl and stem. As can be seen from the images, the flat cap has female threads and screws into the bottom (?) onto male threads on the bowl. The wind cap has male threads and screws into the top (?) of the bowl. I have placed the question marks in parentheses following the terms top, bottom, right and left, since I’m not even sure whether the flat cap is intended to be the bottom. Can someone out there enlighten me and the NASPC readership about this “mystery pipe”, its manufacturer and the proper way of smoking it?

This guy seems to have mastered it ..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Zk3qxuce0

The “Perpetual” part of the name seems to come from the ability to actually load more tobacco from the bottom of the pipe whilst still alight and of course the dottle etc. gets burnt as the smoking progresses. Rather ingenious. There are at least two possible for makers from the logo, REGIS and EMPIRE STATE and nothing seems to be known of these either.

Tony Pringle of smokingmetal then includes the following photos of the pipe. There is no doubt that it is the same pipe that I have. There are a few variations between the two but the overall design is the same. He shows photos of the pipe as a whole, taken apart and of the stamping.

The pipe that Troy gave me is in much better condition and also is stamped slightly different. The left side of the shank is the same but the right side only reads IMPORTED BRIAR on mine. The ITALY stamping runs around the shank at the junction of the shank and stem. It is stamped on what would be the bottom side if the cap is on the bottom. The stem on the one I have does not have the gold logo or seal. I used a cotton swab and alcohol to scrub the threads on the bowl and the two lids. There was a lot of debris in both sets of threads.

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and the second cutting head as it was a perfect fit for the diameter of the bowl. I took the cake back to bare wood.

With the major debris cleaned away with the alcohol and cotton swabs I used a toothbrush to scrub the threads on both the top and bottom of the bowl and also on the two caps. With the interior cleaned out and the threads cleaned I put some Vaseline on the threads of the caps and put the pipe back together. I used some acetone on cotton pads to remove the spotty and broken finish on the bowl. I was amazed at the grain that was underneath the finish. There were no fills and just a few small sandpits.

With the finish removed the pipe was beginning to look like new. All that was left was to clean up the stem and then buff the two of them together. Look closely at the grain on the bowl and caps. I really find this a beautiful pipe.

I put a plastic washer on the tenon between the shank and the stem so I could sand the stem in place in the shank and keep the shoulders of the stem from rounding. I sanded the tooth chatter on the top and bottom of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and then with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge. I went on to sand it with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and then rubbing it down with Obsidian Oil. One this that was very interesting about this stem was the quality of the vulcanite. The sanding dust was absolutely black rather than the usual brown. It left black streaks on the micromesh.

I dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads and then rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil after the 4000 grit pad and the 12,000 grit pad.

I buffed the pipe and stem on the buffer using Blue Diamond Plastic Polish on the wheel to polish the bowl and the stem. I gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax to protect the finish and then buffed it with a clean, flannel buff to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. Thanks Troy for the strange yet beautiful pipe. I enjoyed working on this one and will also enjoy experimenting with how to smoke it!

Thanks Troy and thanks for looking!

NEPAL PROJECT PIPE SALE 4 – Jobey 300 Bent Diamond Shank Brandy 9mm Meerschaum Filter Pipe

1 Reply

Blog by Steve Laug

This is the fourth pipe from the box of pipes that I was gifted by a good friend of mine with the instructed purpose of cleaning them up and selling them with all of the proceeds going to the aid of earthquake victims in Nepal. Once again all funds raised will all go to the SA Foundation, and organization that has worked in Nepal for over 15 years helping provide recovery, housing and job training for women who are victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking. The ongoing earthquakes (over 300) that continue to shake Nepal have left much in ruins. The SA Foundation Project there was able to find new housing for the women and help with staff as well. Every dollar raised from the sale of these pipes will go to the work in Nepal.

This one is a little Jobey pipe has the typical Jobey fitment system with the tenon in the shank and the stem sliding over that. However that is where the typical ends. It is open for a 9mm filter and in this case a 9mm meerschaum filter. The pipe is stamped on the underside of the shank on the left side with the words Jobey over Meerschaum over Filter and on the right side it is stamped 300.

The finish on the bowl was in great shape, just dirty. The bowl itself needed a light reaming. The stem was dirty, oxidized and had straightened over time. There was a small nick on the top of the stem about mid-point. The inside of the bowl, shank and stem were dirty with tars and oils. There was no filter moldering away inside the shank which I was glad to see.

I did some searching to find out about the filters that were used. I found some pictures of the meerschaum filters that were used. I checked and the shank easily holds a regular 9mm filter from Vauen should the new owner wish to use one.

I set up the heat gun and heated the stem to deal with the bend first. I wanted to bend enough to give it a proper look. Once it was flexible I bent it over a wooden rolling pin that I use for this purpose.

With that corrected I took it back to the work table to address the cleaning issues. I used a PipNet reamer to ream the cake from the bowl and clean up the inside of the bowl.

I cleaned the shank and the airway in the bowl and stem with cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and alcohol until it was clean. It did not take much to clean it out. A few pipe cleaners and cotton swabs and it was clean. I used a medium and a fine grit sanding sponge to knock off the grime on the stem and work over the small nick on the top of the stem. Once I had it cleaned up I moved on to polishing the stem with the micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit pads and then dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads. As is my practice, I rubbed the stem down between each set of three pads with my Obsidian Oil Sock to give me continued traction in polishing the stem.

When I finished with the micromesh sanding pads I buffed the pipe and stem with Blue Diamond Plastic polish on the wheel and then gave it several coats of carnauba wax to preserve and protect. I finished by giving it a final buff with a clean, soft flannel buffing pad to raise the shine. The finished pipe is shown below. It should make whoever picks it up a decent smoking pipe.

This Jobey 300 bent brandy should make someone a great addition. If you are interested in this pipe email me with an offer at slaug@uniserve.com and we can discuss it. The entirety of the sale price will go to the Nepal project. I will pay the postage so that does not get taken off the proceeds. If you are interested in reading about the SA Foundation you can look at their website at http://www.safoundation.com.

Thanks for looking.

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