Tag Archives: waxing a stem

A Canadian Pipe Maker I had never heard of: Leonard Payne Pipes

Blog by Steve Laug

On a Saturday not too long ago I went on a pipe hunt in Vancouver. I began at the Vancouver Flea Market and worked my way back toward my home. I stopped a quite a few antique shops and “malls” in my hunt for old pipes. I found a few at the flea market and several old timers at the shops that I left behind. However, one pipe caught my eye. It was not a brand that I had seen before or heard of.It was a nicely shaped thick shanked apple that needed very little work. It had a bit of tarry build up on the rim, some tooth chatter on the stem and minor oxidation. It grabbed my attention. The stamping was Leonard Payne on the left side of the shank and Made in Canada on the right side. The stem bears a green dot in the centre of a white circle on the left side of the stem. I decided to do a bit of research on the web and found the following advertisement that highlighted the pipes.

Further digging with Google came up with this short note from alt.smokers.pipes forum. It was written by Mike Glukler of Briar Blues. I quote it below in full. (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.smokers.pipes/RrICLiVgE2o) “Leonard Payne was based in B.C. for many years. He came to Canada from England. He had shops in Surrey, B.C. and Kelowna, B.C.Interesting fellow. Gruff as the day is long. When you bought a pipe it was handed to you in a paper bag. No sock, no box. Most of his pipes carried a “carburetor” system at the shank / stem junction.Another Payne idea was his shanks. Almost all his pipes were two pieces. He’d turn the bowl and shank, then cut off the shank and reattach with glue (not always with the same piece of briar, so many did not match grains). His thinking was that the shank being the weakest link, if cut and glued would never break and thus “correcting”the weakest link.You may find his pipes on E-Bay on occasion listed as a Len Cayne. The P in his stamping looks more like a fancy upper case C.”

That is the extent of information that I could find on the pipe. It was a Canadian made pipe carved by an eccentric BC pipe carver. The one example I purchase was a single piece of briar without the broken and reglued shank that Mike mentions above. It is a light weight piece of briar and the fit of the stem and shank is very well done. The gap between the end of the tenon and the end of the mortise is very small – just enough to allow for expansion. The finish was very good and the stain well done.

My clean up on the pipe was very simple. I sanded out the tooth chatter on the stem near the button and polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit. I then took it to the buffer and used red Tripoli and White Diamond on the buffing wheels to further polish the stem. I reamed the bowl and cleaned the tars off the rim and polished it as well with White Diamond. I am careful when buffing the shank area where the stamping is so that I do not harm the stamping. Once I was finished with the polishing I gave the bowl and the stem several coats of carnauba wax. I polished the pipe with a soft flannel buffing pad. The finished pipe is pictured below.

Fast forward several months to a conversation had with a friend in Ontario via email. She had come across several Leonard Payne pipes and done the same research I did. She found the same information I did and sent me photos of the three pipes she found. We talked for a while and I offered to restem a pipe of hers. She sent me the pipe for work and then also the nice little Leonard Payne Zulu/Dublin pictured below.

She said that it needed some TLC but it was really in quite good shape. The finish was clean, though somewhat spotty. There were very few scratches or dings. There was a scuff mark on the bottom of the shank next to the stem and the stem was slightly scuffed in the same area. The rim was also clean. The bowl was already reamed and relatively clean. The bowl and shank smelled of Latakia but the pipe really seemed to be hardly smoked and certainly not broken in to the bottom of the bowl. The stem had some ripples in the surface near the button and in those were the remnants of tooth marks. The shoulders of the stem at the stem/shank junction were slightly rounded from sanding or buffing with the stem off the pipe. There were two small spots of oxidation around the logo.

I sanded the stems and shank with a fine grit sanding sponge and used a sanding block to reduce the rounding to the shoulders of the stem. I then sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit to polish the vulcanite. I rubbed stem down with Obsidian Oil and let it soak into the surface. Once it was dry I buffed it with White Diamond and then carnauba wax. The ripples in the stem are gone and the oxidation around the logo is also gone. My Black and Tan Cocker Spaniel decided to sit and “help” me this morning. He has learned that I generally have some dog chews at the work table but he gives me the illusion that he is really interested in what I am doing!

I set the stem aside and worked on the bowl. I found that though the finish was clean it was faded and spotty in places. I decided to give it a coat of medium walnut aniline stain mixed with linseed oil to even out the finish and give it a shine. I applied the stain with a cotton pad and then buffed it by hand with a cotton cloth when it was dry.

I reinserted the stem and gave the entire pipe a buff with White Diamond and then gave it several coats of carnauba wax. I finished by buffing the entirety with multiple coats of carnauba wax. The finished pipe is pictured below. This nice little pipe is cleaned, restored and ready to smoke. It joins the other Leonard Payne pipe in my collection.

A Petite Egg Cup Sitter – (English Made?) Repaired

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This pipe is a total mystery to me, but the shape and form of it caught my eye and I put a bid on it. The case that came with the pipe did not appear to be a pipe case at all but rather a case for a pair of glasses. The case thus did not lend any information to the maker of the pipe. The pipe itself looked to be quite small and petite. The dimensions given by the seller were a great help in determining whether this pipe was a miniature or not. Its overall length was 5 ¼ inches (which is not a small pipe). The bowl was 1 3/8 inches tall and the inner diameter of the bowl was 5/8 inches. The outer diameter of the bowl was 15/16 inches. The stem appeared to be attached to the bowl by a metal tip that was anchored in the bowl much like the insert in a cob – though way more elegant. The stem looked delicate and pencil like.

The bowl was like an egg cup – a round, egg shaped bowl sitting on a flat pedestal. The finish looked to be in good shape. There was a chip out of the top edge of the bowl, outside edge of the rim that had been repaired with a red putty of some sort that had bubbled. The rim was clean and undamaged. The bowl was very clean and the finish was a dark oxblood/dark brown combination that looked nice. The stem seemed to be in excellent shape. There were no bite marks of consequence. It was oxidized and brown but intact. In the photos the oxidation did not look too bad. There was a mark on the right side of the stem near the metal insert into the bowl. It did not look too deep but it was visible. The seller thought it may have once held a logo/medallion or some kind of identifying mark. It does not look like it did; rather it looks like an accidental burn (the burn mark and the bowl repair are visible in the seller’s photo below).

The next five photos below are the remainder of those posted by the seller.

When it arrived it was more delicate looking than it was in the pictures. Even though the measurements were correct it gives the illusion of being much smaller. My observations above drawn from the photos provided by the seller were correct. The case was indeed made for eye glasses and not the pipe. The stem was in excellent shape in terms of dents or bite marks. The mark on the side near the front was indeed a burn mark left by a match or cigarette in the ashtray. The aluminum was scratched and oxidized. The stem itself was more oxidized than the photos showed. The bowl finish was not bad and would not need to be refinished but would need to be touched up when I repaired the divot on the side of the bowl and rim. The next four photos show the pipe when I took it from the box and put it on my worktable.

The next photo below shows the burn mark on the stem. It is slightly blurry and I apologize for that but the burn itself is very visible. I cleaned out the burn mark with a dental pick to remove any of the damaged vulcanite around the mark. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and a medium grit sanding sponge to clean up the vulcanite. I wiped it down with Everclear to remove and sanding debris and prepared it for a superglue patch.

The next series of three photos show the patching of the burn mark. I put a drop of superglue in the burn mark and let it dry. When it dried I sanded it with the medium grit sanding sponge to even out the surface and remove the excess glue. The center of the patch was still concave so once I cleaned the surface of the stem again I put another drop of black superglue on the mark and set it aside to dry.

The superglue dried over night and was hard in the morning. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper and the sanding sponge to blend it into the surface of the stem. This is done carefully so as to not change or damage the profile of the stem. The next two photos show the progress of the blending. The first one was done with 220 grit and the second with the sanding sponge.

Once the initial sanding was done with the sponge I moved on to sanding the stem with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500, 1800 and 2400 grit micromesh and dry sanded with the remaining grits of pad from 3200-12,000. When I had finished sanding and polishing the stem with the micromesh I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil. When it had dried I polished the stem with a soft cotton cloth.

With the stem finished I worked on the chip and repair on the bowl and rim. I carefully picked out the putty fill with a dental pick. It only covered half of the chip so it was necessary to clean it out enough to repair the whole chip with one solid patch. I also sanded the rim in that area as the chip also extended into the surface of the rim. I wiped down the bowl and the area of the chip with acetone on a cloth to clean up the surface for the superglue and briar dust repair.

I packed briar dust into the chipped area with a dental pick and tamped it in place. I over filled the area on the side and on the rim of the bowl. Once it was solidly packed in place I dripped clear superglue into the briar dust on the side and the rim. The glue dries very quickly so it is a good idea to pack the dust in well the first time. If it sinks you can refill it and reapply the glue. It can be done in layers to build up the chip or fill area.

As the clear superglue dries quickly, the patch can be sanded soon after the application. I sanded it first with a corner of 220 grit sandpaper to remove the excess of patching material. I then sanded it with the sanding sponge to clean up the scratches and remaining surface grit. I also used a sanding sponge to top the bowl. The aim was not to remove much of the rim but to blend the patch into the rest of the rim.

I sanded the rim and the side of the bowl with micromesh sanding pads to smooth out the surface and to prepare it for staining. The next two photos show the patch after sanding and cleanup. It is ready for staining at this point in the process in terms of smoothness of the bowl. The red of the original putty patch came through the briar dust and superglue fill. It is evident in the photos below but should blend fairly well into the stain of the bowl once it is finished.

Before staining the pipe I wiped it down with acetone to even out the stain and to remove any remaining dust left behind by sanding.

I applied an oxblood aniline stain to the rim and bowl of the pipe. I flamed it and reapplied it as necessary. The rim and the repair took more coats of stain than the rest of the bowl which is to be expected.

Once the stain had set, I hand buffed the bowl with a cotton cloth and a buffing brush. I then gave the bowl and stem a hand applied a coat of carnauba wax and buffed it again by hand. I then took it to the buffer and gave it a buff with White Diamond and several coats of carnauba. I buffed the pipe with a soft flannel buff to give it a shine. The finished pipe pictured below. I have also included a close shot of the area of the stem and the bowl that were repaired.

Al asked in a comment below that I post a picture of the pipe with a regular pipe to give an idea of the size. The pipe I have in the picture is the blue dot billiard that I posted earlier. It is about a group four sized pipe.

Restoring An Interesting Piece of Pipe History – An Art Deco C.B. Weber Streamliner

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Blog by Steve Laug

In a recent EBay purchase I picked up a unique pipe that has a flowing look to it. I was intrigued to figure out the history and any information I could find regarding it so I went on a hunt on the web. One of the first articles I came across is found in the link below. http://streamlinesdeluxe.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/weber-streamliner-pipe-2/ The author of the blog makes a brief reference the pipe I found and even has a picture of it. He speaks of the stem being made of something other than vulcanite. Other references I found in online pipe forums spoke of the fact that the bowl was not made of briar but of some composite material. Others said that the bowls were made of American hardwoods. Interestingly no one spoke of what hardwoods were used. I have hunted high and low on the web and can find nothing definitive on the pipe’s manufacture or composition.

I broadened my search to information on finned pipes. I did not want information on Porsche design pipes or metal finned pipes but was looking for anything on wooden finned pipes. I came across the following information on a patent taken by a carver/designer named Wayne Leser. His diagrams and patent application is included below and it can be seen that it is actually very close to CB Weber’s Streamliner. His patent was applied for through the US Patent Office in January of 1941. I assume the patent was granted as it is on the Patent website. Weber’s design seems to be elongated a bit more than the Leser design but the tear drop shape of the outer bowl and the similarly tear drop shape of the drilling match quite well.

I can find no further information on Wayne Leser so I have no idea if he sold his concept to Weber, or worked for Weber. If anyone has further information on that connection it would be great to learn about it. Please post a response below.

The pipe I picked up is pictured below in photos from the EBay seller. The photos were not very clear so I could not see the condition of the pipe very well but I was intrigued by it nonetheless. It looked like the bowl was in good condition. The stem however, appeared to be a replacement stem and the fit was poorly done. In the second photo below it is evident that the junction of the stem and shank does not meet.

When the package arrived from the seller I took the pipe to my worktable and photographed the condition of the pipe. The pipe was in fairly decent condition. The left side of the bowl was clean. It is stamped Streamliner in script over C.B. Weber & Co.

There were two small divots in the shank just below the stamping. I thought at first these might be dents but they are actually spots where the wood is missing. The right side of the bowl is also in good shape. The fins are intact all the way around the bowl with no chips or breakage. The rim was tarred and had a small burn spot on the point at the front of the bowl. The stem was definitely a replacement stem. In my reading I had found copies of the logo that was originally on the stem and also the fact that the stem had a stinger apparatus as part of the fitments. This stem had neither and the fit was wrong. The diameter of the stem was bigger; the tenon was off center therefore the fit was out of line with the left side being too large and the right side too small. The length of the stem was also too long and did not match the dimensions that I had found online regarding the overall length of the pipe. The bowl was in pretty decent shape though there was some kind of bowl coating on it that had broken free of the walls. It is a tear drop shaped bowl with a downward angle on the front portion so reaming it would be tricky. The wood on this one was definitely not briar. The bottom of the bowl has a foot that makes it a sitter and there is a rusticated pattern on the bottom of the bowl.

I carefully reamed the bowl to remove the bowl coating and the slight cake that was there. I used two different cutting heads on the PipNet reamer. The first head was the same diameter as the main portion of the bowl. For the angle teardrop end I used the smallest cutting head. Between the two of them I was able to clean up the bowl and remove all of the coating.

Removing the tars from the rim was a bit of a challenge and combined with burn mark on the point I decided to sand off the rim with a medium grit sanding sponge. I would then have to restain the bowl. I sanded it with the medium grit sponge and then with a fine grit sanding block to work on the burn mark and the darkening of the rim.

I finished the sanding by wiping down the bowl with acetone on a cotton pad. I was able to even out the finish on the bowl and rim so matching stain would be much easier to do. I was also able to lighten the burn spot with the same process to the point that a good coat of oxblood stain would make it fade into the surface of the rim.

I then set the bowl aside and went to work on fitting a new stem to the bowl and shank. In the first photo below I have the new stem blank fit to the shank. It still needs work to make the diameters match. The stem is about an inch shorter and brings the pipe back to the original length as noted from my online work. I also think that proportionally it works better with the elongated bowl and shank than the one that came with it.

In order to get the fit good and tight I used a sanding block to make sure that the transition between the bowl and shank was smooth. This entailed sanding the shank slightly in the process. In the next series of four photos below the fit is finished. The transition is smooth and the fit is good and tight.

I wiped the pipe down with acetone once again to even out the finish on the shank. The grain in the original wood is quite visible in these photos and it is not briar.

The flow of the taper on the stem was still too chunky in my opinion to match the Streamline concept of the pipe. I used 220 grit sandpaper and files to change the slope of the stem. When I had it the way I envisioned I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper, a medium grit sanding sponge and also a fine grit sanding block. The angle was right and the profile looked much more “streamlined”.

I sanded the stem, bowl and shank with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded them with 1500-2400 grit sanding pads and dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads.

I decided to try to match the original stain using a Danish Oil (linseed oil with a cherry stain). I applied the stain with a cotton pad and wiped it down. When it had dried I was not happy with the coverage and appearance so I removed the stain with acetone to try a different stain.

Once I had the finish removed I restained it with an oxblood aniline stain. I had to apply it and flame it several times to the top of the bowl and shank to get the stain to set deeply and match the rest of the bowl. This was a hard one to get a good stain on. I decided to not apply the stain in the grooves of the fins but just on the surface of the bowl. It worked quite well with the original stain in the fins matching the surface colour really well.

I did some further polishing on the stem with the higher grits of micromesh from 3600-12,000. Once I had finished the sanding I polished the stem with Maguiar’s Scratch X2.0 to deepen the shine. I coated the stem with Obsidian Oil and then buffed it with carnauba wax to seal it and protect it. The final buff on the stem was done with a soft flannel pad.

I reinserted the stem and gave the pipe a final buff with carnauba wax and a soft flannel buffing pad. The finished pipe clearly shows some of the grain pattern of the alternative wood on the shank and the top and bottom of the bowl. The stem came out fitting nicely and giving the overall pipe a new “streamlined” appearance more accurately approximating the original stem. The bowl feels great in the hand and is uniquely attractive as a piece of pipe history. Time will tell if I smoke this one or just keep it around for display purposes. Below are photos of the finished pipe.

A National Bent Apple Diamond Shank Restored

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A National Bent Apple Diamond Shank Restored
It is stamped NATIONAL in italics over Washington D.C. on the bottom right side of the diamond shank.

That portion of the shank is smooth. The remainder of the pipe has a deep, craggy sandblast that is quite nice. The stem has no logo or identifying marks other than being stamped PARA on the top right side of the saddle stem.

The two photos above and the series of ten photos below were included in the listing on Ebay. The pipe looked to be in excellent condition. I am uncertain as to the brand of the pipe. The book, Who Made That Pipe identifies the brand as being made by Comoy’s and stamped England. However, this pipe is clearly stamped Washington D.C. The book identifies a brand that is stamped National Mazda as made by LH Stern in the US. The pipe may have been made by LH Stern or possibly it was made for a pipe shop in Washington D.C. and made by Comoy’s. There is also a company called National Briar Pipe Company in Jersey City, New Jersey that could possibly have made the pipe as well. There is something about the stamping that reminds me of the Bertram pipes that also came from Washington D.C. This pipe is a bit of a mystery but I like the diamond shank apple shape and the nice blast on the bowl.

Whoever made the pipe, it has a great looking sandblast as can be seen in the photos below.

The bowl was lightly caked with carbon and was quite clean in the shank and stem. It appeared to have been barely broken in.

The stem seemed to have light tooth chatter on the top and the bottom near the button. There appeared to be light oxidation on the vulcanite.

When the pipe arrived, I unpacked it and took it to the worktable. I removed the carefully stem out of the shank because it was very tight and was hard to turn. I was just about ready to put it in the freezer for a few moments to let the contraction and expansion loosen the stem when it turned. I was able to remove it from the shank without damaging either shank or stem. Looking at the tenon I could see a slight buildup of grime that was on the last ¼ inch and looking into the shank the same band of grit was present. Interestingly to me, the shank was dirty but there was not a lot of tar or oils built up inside. There was bare briar clearly visible in the shank other than the band of grit that had held the stem tightly in place. I cleaned out the shank with cotton swabs dipped in Everclear and the inside of the stem with pipe cleaners and the same. It did not take too much work before they both came out clean and white.

I reamed the bowl of the pipe with a PipNet pipe reamer to remove the slight cake and the tobacco debris that had built up on the walls. It was quite soft and came easily away from the wall of the pipe.

I buffed the bowl with White Diamond and then gave it a coating of Halcyon II wax to give the surface a shine. The finish was actually in excellent shape and after hand buffing the Halcyon II the pipe bowl looked as good as new. I set the bowl aside and worked on the stem. I sanded the stem with a medium grit sanding sponge to remove the surface oxidation and the slight tooth chatter at the button. There was also some calcification around the button that I sanded off as well. After the stem was clean of oxidation and debris I sanded it with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500-2400 grit micromesh and the dry sanded with 3200-12,000 grit pads.

Just after wet sanding with the 1500-2400 micromesh pads I used a white out/correction pen to whiten the stamping on the stem. I applied the white out with the tip of the pen and when it dried sanded off the excess with the 1500-2400 grit pads.

Once the stem was polished with the final grit of micromesh I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil and when it was absorbed I buffed the stem with White Diamond on the wheel. I gave the bowl a light buff with White Diamond as well. I finished by buffing the stem with carnauba wax, giving it several coats and then buffing the entire pipe with a soft flannel buff to raise a shine. The finished pipe is pictured in the last four photos below.

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.

Link

One of the pipes that I had been given years ago was stamped SmokeMaster Series 200 and was an acorn shaped rusticated bow with a smooth side on each side of the shank for stamping and a smooth rim. The left side bore the name and series number and the right side was stamped Imported Briar. The stem had been well chewed and the internal apparatus was missing. It was not useable on this pipe. I would have to restem it. I knew nothing of the brand name. My search on the internet gave me some information on the brand.

On the Dr. Grabow site ( http://drgrabows.myfreeforum.org/sutra13181.php ) I found some interesting information. I quote this post by Dave Whitney, the author of Old Briar, a book on refurbishing. “Smokemaster was a Briarcraft pipe. Richard Kliethermes Sr. was the founder of Briarcraft. First located on Pipetown Hill Rd, Spring Valley, NY, it moved later to 66 Central Ave., Spring Valley, NY. After the death of RK Sr., the business was run by Richard Kliethermes Jr. († 1943) and was quite prosperous between 1920 and 1940. The company closed in 1950. Briarcraft seconds are as follows: Airo, Arcadian, Briarmeer, Smokemaster, Cavalcade, Hallmark, Sterling Hall, and Wimbledon. The Orange off-center diamond was one of their logos.”

The link also had the following scan that shows the original design for the stems and the unique folded pipe cleaner filtration system of the original pipe. I decided to restem the pipe with a stem of my own choice rather than hunt down an original stem.

Please forgive the poor focus on the next three photos but they still give the idea of what the pipe looked like when it arrived to my work table. It was in rough shape. The bowl finish was spotty and the varnish was coming off. The rim was out of round and the back edge of the inner rim and top were beat up and rough. The stem was gnawed off and the short length would not work with this old pipe. The cake was thick and uneven with large flakes of tobacco stuck to the inner walls of the bowl.

I went through my stash of stems and found an old saddle stem with a built in brass band that would approximate the aluminum one on the original stem. I would need to do some work on the tenon length and the diameter of the saddle portion of the stem to get a correct fit but it was workable as the new stem.

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer (Photo 1 below) and a plumber’s wire brush (Photo 2 below) to clean out the debris. I used a sharp knife (Photo 3 below) to reshape the inner edge of the bowl and bring it back to round. Photo 4 shows the reshaped and cleaned bowl. I would have to top the bowl to repair the roughness to the top of the rim.

I used a sanding drum on a Dremel to shape the saddle diameter to meet that of the shank. The sanding drum worked well on the vulcanite and the brass. Due to the difference in hardness of the two materials I had to be careful to not cut the vulcanite deeper than the brass. The idea was to make a smooth transition between the two materials on the stem.

The next photo shows the condition of the top rim of the bowl. I decided to top the bowl and then rework the rounded edge to keep the acorn shape intact. I set up a piece of sandpaper on my flat board and turned the bowl into the sandpaper. I worked it and sanded it, repeatedly checking the flatness of the rim and also the amount of briar I was removing from the rim.

Once the roughness was smoothed out I sanded the rim with 220 grit sandpaper and a medium grit sanding block to smooth out the top and to round the outer edge of the rim to make it less abrupt and more like the original shape. The next two photos show the rim after the sanding and shaping with the sanding block.

At this point in the process I put the bowl into an alcohol bath and let it soak overnight to remove the varnish finish that was spotty and damaged. The next morning I took it out of the bath, dried it off and cleaned out the shank and the shank. The first photo below shows the bowl after I removed it from the bath. The second, third and fourth photos show the bowl after drying.

I restained the pipe with a Danish Oil Cherry stain applied with a cotton pad. I need to be able to work the stain into the deep rustication and also on to the smooth portions of the shank and rim. The rim took several applications to match the rest of the bowl.

I put the bowl aside to dry and worked on the stem. I sanded out the remaining scratches around the brass band on the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and then reworked it with the medium grit sanding block. Once the scratches were no longer evident I worked on the stem using the micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit to polish the stem and prepare it for waxing and buffing. Once I finished with the 12,000 grit pad I gave the stem a coat of Obsidian Oil to seal the surface and to soak deeply into vulcanite. I buffed the stem with White Diamond to finish the shine and then reinserted it into the shank.

I buffed the entire pipe with White Diamond and gave it a coat of Halcyon II wax for rusticated pipes. I then buffed it again with a clean flannel buff to raise the shine. The photos below show the finished pipe.

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

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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

Restoring an Old Amphora X-tra 509 Pot

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Blog by Steve Laug

This is the last of the lot I found while on a recent trip in Northern Alberta, Canada. It is stamped Amphora X-tra 509 on the left side of the shank and on the right side it is stamped Genuine Briar over Made in Holland. The stem has an AA in a circle stamped on it (not a stamping for Amphora pipes I was familiar with). The pipe was in good shape. The rim was dirty and had a slight bit of build up on the surface. The bowl had a thin cake that was crumbly. The outside of the bowl was soiled and had some white paint on the surface. The stem was dirty and very slightly oxidized. There were no teeth marks on it so it was just dirty. The insides were also dirty. The inside of the shank and the stem were caked with a tarry buildup. There was an inner tube inserted in the tenon that extended into the shank almost as far as the airway at the bottom of the bowl.

I used a PipNet reamer and started with the smallest cutting head and took back the cake. I followed that with the next size of cutting head and took the cake back to the bare wood in the bowl. The bottom of the bowl had some gouges in it and looked like someone had done a reaming with a knife.

I removed the stem and dropped the bowl into an alcohol bath to soak overnight.

I mixed a batch of Oxyclean and put the stem together with others I was working on into the bath of Oxy clean to soak at the same time.

In the morning I took out the bowl and dried it off with a soft cloth. The finish was clean and the surface of the bowl free of the paint and grime that was present when I placed them in the bath. I took the stems out of the bath of Oxyclean and dried them off as well. The oxidation on the stem was softened and the stem was dark (it is the top stem in the second photo below).

I wiped down the bowl with acetone on a cotton pad to clean off the remaining finish. In the photo above of the bowl it appeared to have a fill on the bowl side. As I scrubbed it the surface cleaned up and the area was not a fill. The piece of briar has some great birdseye grain and a some cross grain on the front right side and the top of the bowl and shank. I also cleaned out the shank and the stem with pipe cleaners and Everclear. I scrubbed the rim to remove the tars and buildup.

I wanted to highlight the grain on this one so I decided to stain it using some Cherry Danish Oil which is Linseed oil and stain. I rubbed on the stain, rubbed it off and rubbed it on a second time. I set it aside to dry. Once it was dry I buffed it with White Diamond.

While it was drying I used micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit to work on the stem. I worked around the double AA on the stem logo. It is faint but still visible. Once I had finished sanding I rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil and let it dry. When it was dry I rubbed it with a soft cloth to buff it by hand.

I polished the aluminum inner tube with 0000 steel wool to remove all grime that was remaining on the aluminum. I gave it a coat of wax and polished it off with a clean soft cloth.

I buffed the pipe and stem with White Diamond and then gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and then with a soft flannel buff to give it a shine. The final photos below show the finished pipe.

A Handmade Denmark Dublin Reborn

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Blog by Greg Wolford

A week or so ago I went into a local antique shop that houses a variety of vendors. In the past I have found a few decent pipes here so I always have high hopes when I go there. This trip yielded a nice little haul of four pipes which I plan to restore over the next few weeks as i have time. The first two have already been started one: one completed and one still in the process. This post will mainly focus on a Dublin shape that is stamped on the shank Handmade over Denmark, with no other information on the pipe or stem. This is the pipe as it looked when I got it home:

As you can see, it was heavily caked and had what I thought were some deep scratches on it, the rim was charred and damaged from knocking out the dottle, the finish was gone, and the stem was oxidized but had little chatter on it. I decided to start with reaming the back the cake. This bowl is a tapered one, as many Dublins are, and required the use of all four of the bits on my Castleford reamer. After reaming the cake back considerably, to an even, thin layer, I decided to sanitize it with my retort. And since one of the other of the lot I picked up needed very little work other than cleaning (or so I thought at the time) I decided to go ahead and retort it (no reaming needed on this one) while I had the equipment out and also do both stems at this time, too. The Dublin took several “runs” with the retort to produce a clean tube of alcohol at the end; the cherrywood that I was also doing only took two tubes, but I knew it hadn’t been used much and wouldn’t be very dirty.

After I finished the work with the retort I dropped the stems in a OxyClean bath and left them to soak while I cleaned the shanks out. The retort had done a nice job of taking out most of the gunk in the shank of the Dublin; it took comparatively fewer pipe cleaners and cotton swabs than most restorations. I expected the shank from the cherrywood to be all but clean with one or two passes and it sort of was; instead of tar I found the alcohol had “raised” a mahogany-like stain inside the shank – and a lot of it. I then noticed that there was some of this same color on the outside, bottom edge of the shank. The pipe itself wasn’t a reddish color but a more maple, orange-ish one and I hadn’t planned on refinishing it since the color was nice and I didn’t really see a need – until now. Once I noticed the red color it had to come off the outside and out of the shank. Now the entire finish was going to have to be removed so both pipes got wiped down several time with acetone and then put into the alcohol bath overnight.

Several hours later I removed the stems from their soak to begin to make them look new again. I was disappointed to see that the thin layer of petroleum jelly I’d put over the logo on the cherrywood’s stem had washed away and the “white” which had been there was now gone; the stem logo had only been about 60% colored and I’d have had to apply more white anyway so I suppose it wasn’t that big of a deal. I washed the stem well with dish soap and then sprayed them with some liquid Bar Keeper’s Friend, a new product to me (I’ve tried the powdered form before but not the spray). I scrubbed them off with a Miracle Eraser hoping for the good results I had gotten last time I used the eraser but they weren’t as good, though a lot of the oxidation had softened and been removed.

I now moved onto using the micro mesh pads, wet sanding them with 1500 & 1800 grit. At this point I noticed there was some oxidation that hadn’t come out well so I took some 400 grit wet/dry paper to the stems, then “painted” them with a Bic lighter, and then back to the 400 grit paper until the oxidation spots were gone. I then went back to wet sanding with the micro mesh 1500-3200 grits. After the 3200 grit I polished the stems with plastic polish and then dry sanded with the remaining grits through 12,000. Here are a few photos of the shine progression:

I now set the stems aside until the next day when the stummels would come out of their bath.

After removing the stummels from the alcohol bath I wiped them down and them dry a bit. Then I began cleaning the shanks again to make sure all the tar, gunk, and stain were gone. I also cleaned as much gunk off the rims as I could so I could see what their condition really was; fair on the cherrywood and poor on the Dublin. I decided to top the bowl of the Dublin and set the cherrywood aside to finish later. This what the Dublin looked like at this point:

You can see much better the condition of the rim here. You can also see that the “scratches” I referred to earlier are in reality fills that have fallen out; I scraped them with my dental pick to be 100% certain. These would have to be dealt with after I topped the bowl.

I used 400 girt wet.dry paper to top the bowl, checking it often to see how it progressed. The char marks wouldn’t come out completely but were reduced substantially. And the dings in the rim were nearly sanded out, in good enough shape that I was happy with them; the one on the outside edge would require me to sand at least another 1/16″ off the entire bowl and I didn’t want to remove anymore material than I already had.

Now I turned my attention back to the fills. Taking the dental pick, I picked out the remaining fill material. I recently picked up a new product that I wanted to try on fills made by DAP and I thought this would be a good opportunity.

These sticks are a wax-like substance that softens with heat/friction. I chose the darkest of the four sticks and rubbed it into the two largest fill areas. The sticks worked easily into the areas that needed filled:

I buffed the excess off lightly with an old cotton rag, getting it into the fill well and just below the surface. I then put a bit of super glue over the new fills and let it dry. After it dried I sanded the fills back down to flush. There were also some areas that needed small scratches/marks sanded out on the bottom of the stummel so I did that at this time, too.

I avoided sanding around the nomenclature and the shank in general. As you can see, the spot sanding left some obvious differences in the finish. But I didn’t want to sand any more than I needed to and knew that as it was I’d have to blend the stain. I decided to use the new-to-me wood stain markers for this job as well as the bowl’s rim. I applied the stain from the marker in small sections and blended it immediately with my finger after I put it on; I did this with all of the fills, spot sanding and the rim. The stain from the markers is very easy to apply in just the area you want it and blending by “finger” was very smooth and didn’t take long at all. I think that the pens did a great job and they have earned a permanent place in my restoration arsenal!

I know took the entire pipe to the buffer and buffed the stummel with Tripoli and then the pipe with white diamond and carnauba wax, finishing with a few passes on a clean soft buff. This is the finished pipe:

The DAP fill sticks did a pretty good job I think. In retrospect, I should have, perhaps, used a lighter color; the fills were so near the grain I thought darker would be better. I do think that they are something that I will explore using further and believe they have potential for some good results.

Medico Ventilator — Unventilated (Thanks Ed for the idea)

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When I read this post by Ed James (Ozark southpaw) on Pipe Smoker Unlimited. This is the link to his post: http://pipesmokerunlimited.com/showthread.php?3186-Medico-Ventilator-unventilated I thought I would love to try that as well. Here is Ed’s first post in that thread that got me started thinking about the project. Ed also is a refurbisher of long standing and does excellent work. Here is his website: http://www.ozarksouthpawpipes.com/index.html

On PSU Ed wrote; “I’ve had a few of these and they smoke fine, although sometimes it was hard to get the filter seated so the pipe will draw as it should. If you’re not familiar with the Ventilators, they cannot be smoked without a filter. I smoke mostly filtered pipes, but thought I would see if I could make a Ventilator filterless. Accomplished it by turning a piece of briar the length of the shank and epoxying it in place. For the stem I used a vulcanite blank after replacing the tenon with delrin and adding a ring of tortoise shell acrylic. On my third bowl in it and it is smoking fine.”

Here is the pipe – pictured below. It is a nice looking sandblast that Ed “unventilated”.

So today was the day that I got to finally work on “unventilating” one of my own. Mark Domingues (dogtalker) recently sent me a few old bowls and pipe parts that needed some work. In that package was a Medico Ventilator. It was not as nice as the one Ed worked on, pictured above, but it was a Ventilator sans stem nonetheless and it was the opportunity I was looking for to try my hand at unventilating the Ventilator. This bowl was absolutely clean. I don’t think that it had been smoked other than maybe the first light or so. The bottom 2/3s of the bowl was still virgin briar. The bowl had the typical Medico lacquer coat and there were carved leaves all around the outside of the bowl. I decided to leave the finish alone and rework it as it stood. One day I may remove the finish but for now it will remain as it is.

I have kept a few unredeemable bowls around in my box of stuff and they came in handy this time. I took two different bowls out of the box and used a hack saw to cut off the shank as close as I could to the back side of the bowl. My plan was to follow Ed’s instructions noted above about turning a piece of briar to fit inside the Ventilator tube. I do not have a lathe so I decided to repurpose some briar shanks to do the same job.

After cutting them off the bowl they were ready for me to begin shaping them. I used a Dremel and sanding drum to take the diameter of the cut off shanks down to the diameter of the tube on the Medico. The next seven photos show the process of removing the excess briar. I used two different pieces of slightly different lengths that could be used depending on the stem I chose to use. The one pictured in the first seven photos below was about ½ inch shorter than the length of the tube. I thought about using a plug in the bottom of the tube but later decided to use the longer of the two briar tubes.

I used both the Dremel and 220 grit sandpaper to shape the briar tube to fit in the Ventilator. The first one was just briar. The second one was off of a screw mount shank. I decided to leave the aluminum in the shank and use that to but up against the aluminum seat in the Ventilator tube.

I sanded both tubes so that I could try both and see which one I wanted to use. I chose the long of the two with the aluminum base. I inserted it in the shank of the Ventilator with the aluminum end in first. I pressed it into place in the tube. It is a pressure fit so I did not need to glue it to fasten it in place. I chose not to use epoxy or glue to hold it in place and opted instead for a tight fit. Once in place it was slightly longer than the tube. The aluminum was tight against the interior and could go no further. I used the Dremel with the sanding drum on it to remove the excess briar. Once was flush against the aluminum it was time to fit a new stem to the shank.

I had several saddle stems in my can of stems that would work on the new shank insert. I turned the tenon down with a PIMO tenon turner until it was close to the right size and then finished with sandpaper and files. I used a file to shape the seat in the insert so that the stem would sit well against the tube. The next three photos show the newly seated stem in place.

I took the photo below to show the fit of the briar tube in the aluminum shank. There was a small divot out of the edge that is visible at about the ten o’clock position on the shank. This would be smoothed out as I beveled the inner edge of the shank inward.

I beveled the shank inward with small round needle files to give the stem a proper seat in the shank. I used some cherry aniline stain to stain the briar shank inset in the fins on the aluminum. I applied the stain with a cotton swab and wiped it off. I sanded the aluminum with micromesh sanding pads. I used the 1500 and 1800 grit to polish the aluminum and remove the scratches that were present on the shank.

I sanded the stem with a Dremel and sanding drum and then with 220 grit sandpaper to bring the diameter down to match the shank. I continued to sand until the scratches were minimized. Then I progressed to sanding with the micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded with 1500 and 1800 grit and then dry sanded with the remaining grits of pads from 2400-12,000 grit. I decided to fit an acrylic ring on the stem with a slight ridge to match the slight ridge at the junction of the aluminum and the briar near the bowl. I liked the look of the black blue ring so I epoxied it in place. It began as a square piece of acrylic that had been a spacer on another stem. I shaped it with a Dremel to build a slight ridge that would parallel the one on the front of the aluminum shank.

With the spacer glued in place the new look of the stem was more complete to my eye. The stem still needed a lot of sanding and shaping. I used the 1500 and 1800 grit micromesh sanding pads once again to sand the newly added ring and the stem. I worked through 2400 and 3200 grit sanding pads to give yet more polish to the stem. I wet sanded right through 3200 grit this time, something I rarely do to polish the ring and the stem. I continued to dry sand the stem to a shine with the remaining grits of micromesh sanding pads (3600-12,000).

Once the sanding was finished I buffed the stem with White Diamond on the buffing wheel and then gave the pipe and stem several coats of carnauba wax and buffed with a clean flannel buff to give it a shine. The finished pipe is pictured below. It is now a working pipe – an “unventilated” Ventilator. Thanks Ed, for the great idea on doing this Ed. It was fun to figure out how to make it work. Your “groundbreaking” made it much easier however!! Again I say thank you.

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