Tag Archives: waxing

Dorset “Genuine Briar” Rhodesian

By Al Jones (aka “Upshallfan”)

I found this unknown to me pipe on Ebay. It looked to be in decent condition and it is a shape that I love (tapered stem Rhodesian). The pipe had a dark red finish, with a few fills but they were covered up nicely. The stem fitment was excellent and also in overall very good condition. I was hoping that this would be a relatively easy restoration.

I reamed the light cake from the bowl and soaked it for several hours with isopropyl alcohol and sea salt. The bowl only required a light buff with white diamond to bring back the shine, after which I applied several coats of carnuba wax. The bowl had some scuff marks but they came out nicely. The beading around the bowl was in excellent condition.

The stem was badly oxidized, but in great shape. I soaked it in a mild oxyclean solution, then used first 800 then 1500 and 2000 grit wet sandpaper to remove the oxidation. After which I sanded it with 8000 and 12000 grade micromesh paper. The stem was inserted back onto the bowl for work around the shank end and I was careful not to damage the “D” stem stamp. I then buffed the stem with white diamond and red rouge, followed by a buff using automotive plastic polish. The stem came back quite nicely. Here is the stem before moving to the buffing wheel.

Overall, I was very pleased with the finish of the pipe. It was delivered to the new owner this weekend, and they were also pleased with the appearance and how it smoked.

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.

I had no idea Douwe Egberts made pipes

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Blog by Steve Laug

When I posted the find of this pipe on Twitter, I received an email from Al Jones (upshallfan) that pretty well summarized my thinking. I post a bit of that email here: Douwe Egberts pipe??? We used them for our restaurant coffee program for many years (they provide the on-demand brewers used by Burger Kings as well). They are now owned by Sara-Lee. Who knew they made pipes! I’ll look forward to that restore and history lesson… If I had thought a bit more about it I would have remembered that Amphora tobacco was once made by Douwe Egberts but I did not remember that.

The one I picked up is a nice rusticated briar billiard. It is stamped Douwe Egberts X-tra 819. The stem also has a logo – an upward pointing white arrow-head. The bowl had a thick cake and the rim had a buildup of cake and tars. The bowl had what appears to be a combination of sandblasted and rusticated finish. The shank is sandblasted and it appears that the bowl was rusticated first and then sandblasted afterwards. The rustication has a rough edge appearance to it like it was blasted after the patterns were cut. The finish was dirty and worn and the stem had hints of oxidation under the grit and grime. There was minor tooth chatter on the top and bottom of the stem near the button. In the photo below, taken on my iPhone the pipe I am speaking about is the second one down from the top of the photo. (I apologize for the blurriness of the photo.)

Wikipedia states that Douwe Egberts (often abbreviated as DE) is a Dutch corporation that processes and trades coffee, tea, and other groceries. Its full name is Douwe Egberts Koninklijke Tabaksfabriek-Koffiebranderijen-Theehandel NV, which translates as “Douwe Egberts Royal Tobacco Factory – Coffee Roasters – Tea Traders, Plc.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douwe_Egberts

The late Bob Runowski (Morelysson) had this to say about the brand: Douwe Egbert was a conglomerate which used to manufacture Amphora. I don’t recall if the conglomerate ever owned pipe manufacturing. DE offered pipes as a premium for coupons in Amphora Pipe Tobacco, I think in the ’60s. Strange to me, though, because their Amphora pipes were always stamped “Amphora”. I did smoke a fair amount of Amphora Brown in my time. It was quite common for most tobacco firms to offer some inducement for the smoker to continue to buy their products. One of the better known was the Reynolds offerings for PA and CH users. H&H used to include a pipe tool (tamper/knife).

As Bob spoke of above, I have seen DE offering pipes with Amphora coupons. But those pipes were consistently stamped Amphora –and sometimes X-tra as the DE one I have is stamped. Generally they also bore the Made in Holland stamp as well. This pipe is not stamped with any other than the Douwe Egberts stamp.

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer to remove the cake, taking it back to bare wood. This pipe had a heavy aromatic smell so I decided to go back to the beginning and clean it out. Once I had reamed it I dropped it in an alcohol bath to soak for several hours.

I dropped the stem in a Oxyclean bath while the bowl was soaking. The Oxyclean softens the oxidation and makes it much easier to remove.

After a two hour soak, I took the bowl and the stem out of their respective baths and dried them off. In the first photo below you can see the oxidation has all risen to the surface of the DE stem. It is the third stem from the top in the photo.

I pushed the stem back into the shank once the shank had dried out and took some pictures to show the state of the pipe after the soaks.

I scrubbed the exterior bowl and shank down with a soft bristle tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime and build up in the grooves of the finish. I also scrubbed top of the rim with the tooth brush and used a dental pick to remove the buildup from the grooves of the finish. Once I had scrubbed the bowl I rinsed it with warm water under the tap. I scrubbed it with the warm water to remove the soap and then dried it with a soft cloth.

I wiped the bowl down with acetone on cotton pads to clean off the remainder of the finish on the pipe. I worked on the rim until it was clean and free of the buildup that was deep in the grooves.

I restained the bowl and shank with a dark brown aniline stain, flamed it and then gave it a coat of Linseed oil with a light cherry stain.

This time around in the cleaning process I had gotten ahead of myself and stained the pipe before I had thoroughly cleaned out the interior of the pipe. IT WAS AN ERROR. Normally I clean and scrub the interior the same time I do the outside. It makes the cleaning with Everclear much easier and if the alcohol drips on the surface no harm is done. Doing it after the staining made the cleaner process fussy and I had to be careful not to harm the finish of the newly stained bowl and shank.

Once the interior was cleaned I set the bowl aside and worked on the stem. I sanded the stem with a fine grit sanding sponge to remove the surface oxidation. The Oxyclean had done a great job in bringing it all to the surface.

I put the stem back in the shank and did some work on the tooth marks on the top and bottom of the stem. I flamed them with a Bic lighter to lift them as much as possible. On the top side the marks disappeared altogether between the light sanding and the flame of the lighter. On the underside one deeper bite mark remained. I continued to flame it and sand until I had minimized its appearance on the stem.

I dry sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit. Each successive grit removed more of the scratches on the vulcanite and brought a deeper shine to the stem.

I rubbed down the stem with Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry and soak into the stem and buffed it by hand.

I took it to the buffer and buffed it with White Diamond and then with carnauba wax. I gave it multiple coats of wax and then buffed the pipe with a soft flannel buffing pad to give it a shine. The finished pipe is pictured below.

Reworking an Old Pal Pencil Shank Pot

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I just finished cleaning up another of the old pipes I found on my trip. It is a petite pot shaped pipe with a pencil shank. The overall length is barely over 5 inches and the weight is negligible. It is stamped on the left side of the shank in arc – Old Pal, over an Eagle with spread wings and then underneath Made in France.

On the right side of the shank it is stamped 5 which I assume is the shape number. The stem is also stamped with the words OLD PAL on the left side of the saddle portion. On this particular pipe it is faint. In checking on the background information on “Who Made That Pipe” I found that it had two French makers for Old Pal listed. The first of those is Marechal Ruchon and Cie. (Incidentally it is the company that owned the GBD brand). The second maker listed is Rubinovich & Haskell Ltd. The bird emblem is probably the key, but I can find no reference to it. My own thinking is that the brand was made by Marechal Ruchon & Cie. I was able to dig up this brief summary of the MR&C brand. Ganeval, Bondier and Donninger began making pipes in 1850 and rapidly gained prominence in briar pipe making. Of the three, Bondier survived the others by 30 years, but new partners took their places. The name of the company changed to Bondier Ulrich & Cie, then Bine Marechal & Cie and finally to A Marechal, Ruchon & Cie. August Marechal and Ferdinand Ruchon saw the firm into the 20th century, their names being used for the company for well over 50 years.

Prior to 1899, Marechal, Ruchon & Co. became A. Oppenhiemer’s sole agent for cigarette papers but still remained in the pipe making business. Then in 1902, Marechal, Ruchon & Co.. owners of GBD and referred to as French pipe makers, merged with A. Oppenhiemer. In the 1915 London Directory of briar pipe makers one will find: “”Marechal, Ruchon & Co. – 38 Finsbury Sq. E.C.; London works, 15 & 16 Featherstone St. E.C. and Oppenhiemer, A. & Co. – 38 Finsbury Sq. E.C. listed separately.

With that background information I worked on this old pipe to clean it up and restore it. When I picked it up the bowl was badly caked and packed full. The rim was dirty and tarred with what appeared to be a fill on the top of the rim right side. The entire right side of the pipe was full of fills of various sizes and shaped. There was one fill on the left side as well. The grain on the bowl was mixed and the finish was pretty beat up. The fills were shrunken and they left small pits in the surface of the pipe. The stem was oxidized and had tooth chatter on both sides near the button. The shank and airway were dirty and tarry. When the stem was removed there was an interesting flared tube that extended into the shank from the end of the tenon. The end looked like the bell of a horn. This was badly tarred and the inside of the tube was packed with debris.

I separated the stem and the bowl. The bowl was reamed with a PipNet pipe reamer back to a thin cake. Then I dropped the bowl in an alcohol bath to soak away the grime and to soften the fills. I drop the stem in an Oxyclean bath to raise the oxidation and soften it. I scrubbed both while in their respective baths to loosen the grime and buildup on the surfaces. I removed the bowl from the alcohol bath after two hours of soaking. I cleaned out the inside of the shank and the bowl as well as the inside of the stem. The trumpet like tube came out of the tenon and I cleaned it inside and out and reset it in the tenon. It is an interesting contraption as it is flared and the flared end rests against the end of the mortise directing the smoke directly into the mouthpiece. I have not seen that design before (see the photo below after the stem cleanup paragraph).

I used a dental pick to dig out the fills that had softened in the bowl. My objective was to remove them altogether and replace them with a briar dust and superglue fill that turns black and gives a different look than the red putty fills.

After removing the fills I wiped down the bowl with acetone on a cotton pad to remove the finish from the bowl and to remove extraneous dust from the holes where the fills used to be. I repeated this process until the bowl was clean. Once finished I used a drop of superglue in each pit and then pressed briar dust into the holes using a dental pick. I repeated the process until the fills were repaired. I then sanded the bowl to remove the excess briar and superglue fill material with 220 grit sandpaper, medium grit sanding sponges and a fine grit sanding block.

The black marks on the right side of the bowl highlight the fills in the bowl. I have often used a permanent black marker to blend in the fills to the grain. I decided to try that with this pipe as well.

I gave the bowl several coats of dark brown aniline stain mixed 1:1 with alcohol. I applied the stain, flamed the bowl, reapplied and reflamed until the colour was even over the entire surface. I then took it to the buffer and buffed the bowl with red Tripoli and White Diamond to polish the stain. I also wanted to see how well the fill material was working. I have found that as it dries it can still shrink.

I brought it back to the work table and gave it a coat of linseed oil.

The fills had shrunk and left divots in several spots so I reapplied the superglue and briar dust (less this time around). I sanded the bowl with a sanding sponge and a fine grit sanding block to smooth out the surface. I reapplied the stain and the linseed oil and then buffed the bowl.

I took the stem out of the bath and wiped it down. The majority of the oxidation wiped off with a damp cloth and then I polished it with Meguiar’s Scratch X2.0 and wiped it off the stem. I wiped the stem down with a polishing cloth and buffed it with White Diamond.

I applied a coat of Obsidian Oil and when dry rubbed it off. I reinserted the stem and buffed the stem with multiple coats of carnauba wax. I took the pipe to the buffer and buffed the entirety with carnauba wax and a soft flannel buff to a shine. The following pictures show the finished pipe.

In the bright flash of the camera the fills on the right side of the bowl appear to stand out more than they do in the natural light. They tend to look dark spots in the birdseye of the grain. They do not stick out as badly as they appear in the photo below.

The final picture I have included is one of the Old Pal pipe with a package of Old Pal Pipe Cleaners that I picked up at an antique shop in Edmonton. The two form a nice complement to one another.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then I started polishing with the wheels and the waxes.

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

The end result as you can see below:

Refurbed a Tanganyika Meerschaum Prince

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Blog by Steve Laug

This morning I got around to cleaning up another one of the pipes I found on my trip – a little Tanganyika Meerschaum prince. The stampings on the pipe were simple, only a shape number that looked like a 27 on the underside of the shank and the block letters Tanganyika on the underside of the stem. The star logo on the left side of the stem is different from the typical elephant, giraffe or running man, which have come to be associated with Tanganyika Meerschaums. I wanted to see what I could find out about the little pipe so I did a search on Pipedia and was able to find some information on the pipes made from Meerschaum that was mined there. The following is a synopsis of the article found there.

Kiko, meaning “pipe” in Swahili-Kiswahili to English translation, is probably the best known of the various brands of meerschaum pipes from there. In East Africa Meerschaum is found in Tanganyika, once known as German East Africa, and since 1964 part of the United Republic of Tanzania. The main deposit comes from the Amboseli basin surrounding the Lake Amboseli. Tanganyika Meerschaum is normally stained in shades of brown, black and yellow, and is considered to be inferior to Meerschaum from Turkey. Even though, the raw material is mined by the Tanganyika Meerschaum Corporation and to a large extent used for pipe making. Uncounted pipe makers throughout the world were supplied with Amboseli Meerschaum, preferentially used for Meerschaum lined briars or leather-clad pipes. In Tanganyika the Kilimanjaro Pipe Company Ltd. produced the following brands: Caveman, Countryman (Elephant logo), Kiko (Elephant logo), Kikob (Elephant logo), Kilimanjaro (Rhinoceros logo), Kudu (Giraffe Logo), Makonde (Rhinoceros logo), Merlin (Flying bird or Antelope logo), Sportsman (Elephant logo), Tembo, Townsman, Twiga (Giraffe Logo), White elephant (Elephant logo)

This little prince I had was dirty and there was a screen contraption in the bottom of the bowl. It did not smell of anything other than strong Lakeland style tobacco so I am guessing this was a contraption to keep the bowl from getting moist in the bottom. Not sure about that however. The exterior was dirty and had sticky gum on it from the sales label. The rim top and down the top edges of the bowl had been darkened prior to smoking to give it a classic aged look like the pictures below.

The top of the rim was darkened as were the edges when it left the factory. In this case they were spotty and uneven. The bowl had a slight build up of cake. The shank was dirty with tars but smelled strongly of tobacco. The stem was slightly oxidized and also very dirty inside and out. The metal screw in tenon was dirty and had tarry buildup on the threads. The stem was slightly overturned.

I used a dental pick to pry the screen ball from the bottom of the bowl. It had been squashed into shape and the top indented to mirror the bottom of the bowl. The side of the screen had been opened toward the airway in the bowl bottom as well to facilitate smoke getting through. I wiped down the exterior of the bowl with alcohol dampened cotton pad to remove the grime and the buildup of gum on the stem and the bowl.

I sanded the meerschaum bowl with 1500 and 1800 grit micromesh sanding pads and then buffed the bowl with Tripoli and White Diamond to get a shine on the meerschaum.

I cleaned out the shank and the bowl as well as the stem with pipe cleaners and cotton swabs dipped in Everclear. I kept cleaning until the pipe cleaners came out clean and unstained.

Once finished with the inside I sanded the outside of the stem with a medium grit sanding sponge and then wipe it down with Meguair’s Scratch X2.0 on a cotton pad. Then I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads from 1500 – 12,000 grit. I wet sanded the stem with the 1500-2400 grits and then dry sanded with the remaining grits.

I then buffed the stem and bowl with White Diamond on the buffing wheel. The four pictures below show the finished pipe. In the fifth picture, I decided to sand the rim down some more before finishing and then stained it with a dark brown aniline stain to get the darkened look back to the pipe edges and rim. When I had finished that I flamed it and restained until it was as dark as I could get it and then I buffed it again with White Diamond and coated the stem with carnauba wax and the bowl with a beeswax mixture.

Parker Super Briar Bark Cherrywood Restored

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Blog by Steve Laug

The first of the latest lot I picked up on my trip to Northern Alberta was brought to the work bench this afternoon. I decided to work on little Parker Super Briar Bark Cherrywood. It is stamped on the underside of the shank Parker over Super in a diamond over Briar Bark. Next to that is Made in London England with both a size number – 4 – and a shape number – 283.

The bowl had a lot of cake build up in the bowl and had some nicks in the briar around the outer edge of the rim. The finish was dirty with grime in the deep crevices of the sandblast on the outside of the bowl and a buildup of tars on the top of the rim. The stem was oxidized and had some tooth damage on both the top and bottom sides near the button. The Parker logo “P” in a diamond was partly visible on top of the stem. It was merely a painted on logo and not stamped in the vulcanite so it would be hard to clean and leave in place.

I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer – a T handle and different cutting heads. The smallest diameter cutting head trimmed back the cake to a thin coat. I dumped the carbon buildup in the rubbish and then cleaned out the bowl with a cotton swab dipped in Everclear to remove any leftover loose carbon.

I removed the stem and found that the pipe had an inner tube like the Dunhill Inner Tube that was used as a method of keeping the shank clean from tar buildup.

I scrubbed the surface of the bowl and shank with a soft bristle tooth brush and undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap. I scrubbed it until the soap was dirty and then rinsed it off under warm running water and patted it dry. I kept the water out of the bowl and the shank as I did not want those areas wet.

I cleaned out the shank and the bowl with pipe cleaners and cotton swabs and pipe cleaners dipped in Everclear. Once the inside was clean I worked on the oxidized stem. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper to break up the calcium buildup around the button area and to also minimize the tooth marks on the top and the bottom side of the stem. After the initial sanding I scrubbed the surface of the stem with Meguiar’s Scratch X2.0 to remove the surface oxidation and to soften the oxidation deep in the stem.

I scrubbed the inside of the stem with pipe cleaners and Everclear and used 0000 steel wool on the aluminum inner tube. I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit. I wet sanded with the 1500 and the 1800 grit and afterward applied some white out to the area of the logo. I decided to try and build it up a bit. The logo appeared to be stamped in the stem but as I looked at it I could see that it was a painted on logo. In the polishing of the stem I sacrificed the logo. I dry sanded with the remaining grits of micromesh from 2400-12,000.

When the sanding was completed I gave the stem a rub down with Obsidian Oil and let it soak into the vulcanite. I buffed it with a soft cloth and gave the stem a coating of carnauba wax by hand. I restained the bowl with a dark brown stain that had been diluted with one part alcohol to one part stain. I wanted to cover some of the nicks in the outer rim and some of the light spots on the shank that showed wear and tear. I applied it with a cotton swab and then flamed it with a lighter. I reapplied the stain and reflamed it until I had the colour match I was looking for.

I reinserted the stem and gave the bowl and the stem a coat of Halcyon II wax and hand buffed it with a soft cotton cloth and a shoe brush.

To finish the pipe I buffed the stem with White Diamond and lightly buffed the bowl with the same. After the buffing I gave it a light coat of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean flannel buff. The finished pipe is pictured below and awaits its inaugural smoke.

A Schulte deLuxe Reborn – by Joey Bruce

11 Replies

Blog by Joey Bruce

Joey has been a reader of the blog for a while now. Then about a month ago now I received and email from him with some questions on an old pipe he had picked up. It turned out to be a WDC bulldog that was in rough shape. We exchanged a few emails and over the course of reworking that old-timer I could see that Joey was hooked on this hobby! I invited him to do a write-up on some of his work and post it here for others to be encouraged and challenged. Last evening he sent me this article on an old Schulte deLuxe that through his efforts had been reborn. What follows is his article and photos. Thank you Joey for taking the time to write this up and send a copy to me. It is great to have you posting on the blog as a writer. Enjoy his work readers.

Hello all. Just dipping my toes into the pipe refurbishing world. I’ve been reading the posts here obsessively for a while now and couldn’t resist trying it for myself. I’ve always loved restoring things whether it’s, old bikes, cars or motorcycles. All the way to obscure things like pens and sewing machines. So it was a natural move into this. Hopefully I won’t bore you. At the very least you’ll be able to see the difference between and amateur like me and the real deal like Steve and Greg.

I recently bought a few estate pipes off eBay. Most were in such great shape they didn’t need anything more than a spit shine. A few I used as practice. Trying out different techniques I’ve read here and see what I like the best. This weekend I went to a flea market and grabbed a bunch of old cheapos that were laying in a box for a few bucks. Figured I’d get more practice and this time actually take pictures.

I grabbed the Schulte deLuxe first as that one seemed like it would be the easiest. First I soaked the stem in an Oxy Clean and water solution (no real ratio. Just about half a tbs to 3/4 water. But really just guessed) to bring out the oxidation. Then I wet sanded it with 1500 grit sandpaper (all I had. Would have been easier to work my way up to that but I just went with what was here) until all the oxidation was removed. After a little elbow grease I took it over to the polishing wheel (Ryobi bench grinder with two 6″ polishing wheels) and hit it up with some red rouge. Working it back and forth until it had a nice smooth shine. Then moved to the other wheel with Eastwood Supply’s version of White Diamond. Working it with a much gentler touch. Wiped off the residue and voila. Better than new.

I moved onto the bowl. This time I decided to try wet sanding the bowl just to see what would happen. I hypothesized that a quick wet sand might just remove the grit and grime. Turns out it quickly moved right past that and into the stain. I probably won’t do that again unless the bowl needs serious work but it was worth a shot. Wet sanding did work well on the top of the bowl to remove the tar. Much quicker than the spit shine method.

You can see how one turn on the bowl with the red rouge turns the wet sand into a nice shine. Probably my favorite part of this whole thing is when you break it all down to its base and start to rebuild it.

I did the same to the bowl as I did to the stem. Took about an hour on the wheel for both. And I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I have yet to polish them with any wax to keep the shine up. I just haven’t picked any carnauba wax up and I’ve noticed the super bright shine dulls after a few days so I’ll be sure to grab some wax ASAP.

If you’re reading still thanks and I hope this helps anyone who is just getting started.

Cheers.

’63 Dunhill 552 Restoration

6 Replies

Blog by Al Jones

I found this 1963 Dunhill shape 552 on Ebay last week. The auction ended early in the week at an odd time and it went largely unnoticed. It looked to be in pretty decent shape, but with some bite marks on the bottom of the stem. It is a Group 4 pipe in Bruyere finish (A = Bruyere) At first, I thought it was a Rhodesian, then later thought it looked more like a tomato. Neill Archer Roan commented that it had some Diplomat DNA.

The pipe was delivered today. It was pretty much as pictured, but I also discovered it is a 6 mm filter pipe. The briar was in great shape, with a little tar and rim darkening. There were no dings or bruises to deal with. The stem was also in decent shape and only lightly oxidized. There were a few light teeth marks on both sides of the stem, and all but one lifted out with some heat from a lighter flame.

The bowl had a fairly thick cake and I reamed it with my Castleford bit set. The bowl was then soaked with Everclear and sea salt.

I polished the stem with some 800 grit wet paper, followed by 1500 and 2000 grade. Then I moved to the micromesh, 8000 and 12000 grades were used. I gave the stem a light buff (mounted to the briar) with some White Diamond. I have a bar of jewelers “Red” rouge on order and I’m curious to see how it compares to the White Diamond for finish work. The stem has some odd marks in the vulcanite, almost like an imperfection. I could not remove them by sanding or buffing.

I polished briar lightly with some 8000 grade micromesh, keeping away from the weak nomenclature. I then buffed the bowl, again lightly with White diamond and then several coats of carnuba wax.

After searching online for several days, I couldn’t find out much about this shape. I found only one other shape 552, a shell finish pipe sold at an Ebay auction in 2007. The 552 is also not on any Dunhill shape chart (Loring, etc.). On the SmokersForums.uk in the “Streets of London” social group, one member there, dmcmtk (Dave) said he has a shape 556 from 1963. He had heard Dunhill was experimenting with shape variations at this time and perhaps my 552 was part of that experimentation. I have emails out to several Dunhill collectors, but haven’t yet received a reply. If you know anything about this shape number, please comment.

Here’s the finished pipe.

Churchill’s Bent Pot

12 Replies

Blog by Steve Laug

I saw this pipe come up on Ebay and love the shape. Some have called it a bent pot but I am not sure that the name captures the shape but I will call it that nonetheless. Churchill’s was not a brand I was familiar with but it looked very good. The stamping on the pipe is very simple on the left side of the shank it is stamped Churchill’s and on the right side it is stamped Matt Grain. The bowl had been reamed back by the seller before shipping and was well done. No damage to the roundness of the bowl. The inside of the shank was filled with chips of carbon from the reaming and they were stuck in the tar in the shank. The buildup was enough that the stem did not seat in the mortise and there was a gap in the fit of the stem and shank. The rim had some tarry buildup. The stem sat at an angle to the shank as if the tenon was bent slightly. There were three deep tooth marks on the top and the bottom of the stem near the button. The oxidation was present but not heavy at this point. The stem was also plugged with tars and the airflow was very constricted. There was an old English style C stamped on the stem. The first nine photos below were provided by the Ebay seller.

I am fairly certain that the pipe came from Churchill’s Tobacco Shop in Norwich, England. I found the following information on the Pipes and Logos website http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-c4.html On the site there is a small paragraph which I have copied as follows: “Churchill’s Tobacco shop is situated in St Andrew’s Street at the corner of Bridewell Alley in Norwich, England. The shop was next to a church and at the bottom of two hills, and that’s how it became “Churchill’s”. Former manager: John Elvin (retired on May, 31 2008). Current owner (2008): Keith Garrard.” I have included these pictures from that website as they show the stamping on both the shank and stem that is identical to the pipe that I have just refurbished.

According to the Churchill’s website it is the last remaining specialist tobacconist in Norwich, originally standing at 32 St Andrews Street for over 23 years. http://www.churchillsofnorwich.com/index.php?_a=viewDoc&docId=1 The site also notifies the shop’s clients that Keith Garrard, who had a wealth of knowledge and was an avid pipe and cigar smoker himself, passed away on 23rd March 2012. His wife Coral continues to maintain the business in his honor.

I decided to try to remedy the bent tenon on the pipe to begin with. I heated it in a cup of boiling water to try to adjust it and tighten the fit in the mortise. I was able to adjust the fit and get a good tight seat with no gap between the shank and the stem. However, in the process the water oxidized the stem badly. The four photos below show the adjusted fit of the stem and also clearly show the bite marks on the stem – top and bottom near the button.

I scrubbed the inside of the shank with Everclear and cotton swabs. I cleaned the airway with bristle pipe cleaners and then fluffy pipe cleaners. I continued to scrub it until the pipe cleaners and cotton swabs came out clean. I cleaned the rim of the bowl with saliva and a cotton pad until the grime was gone. It took a bit more than a cotton pad and saliva so I also used a very fine grit sanding block to knock off the remaining tar, being careful to not break the finish.

The stem took a bit of work as it was plugged with grit and tar. I used a dental pick to clean out the slot. To the right of the stem in the photo is some of tar and grit I picked out of the slot. I used a straightened end of the pick to clean deeply in the slot. I then used pipe cleaners soaked in Everclear and pushed them through the blockage. I also opened the slot with needle files to facilitate easy access with pipe cleaners. The slot was very narrow which also made the blockage hard to get at.

I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the surface around the bite marks. In the next three photos the bite marks are visible. I heated them to lift them as much as possible. The bite marks on the top were less troublesome than the ones on the underside. Fortunately the stem was quite thick so that the tooth marks did not go all the way through the vulcanite.

I picked the tooth marks clean with a dental pick and then used black super glue to patch the deep marks that remained. Once the glue had cured and was hard I sanded the patches with 220 grit sandpaper and then a medium grit sanding sponge to smooth out the surface and blend in the patch. The next three photos show the patch after it had been applied and after sanding.

I sanded the stem with micromesh sanding pads from 1500-12,000 grit to finish removing the oxidation and the scratches left behind by the various sandpapers I used. The next series of photos show the progress of the shine after each group of sanding pads.

I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil and rubbed it into the surface of the stem. Once it had dried I rubbed it and polished it with a shoe brush before taking the pipe to the buffer. I buffed it with White Diamond and then carnauba wax. I gave it a polish with a clean flannel buffing wheel. The next four photos show the finished pipe. I really like the way the matte finish came alive. The grain really pops. This was an easy refurbish as the finish was in very good shape under the top layer of grime.

rebornpipes

reclaiming old and worn estate pipes

Tag Archives: waxing

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Refurbed a Tanganyika Meerschaum Prince

Parker Super Briar Bark Cherrywood Restored

A Schulte deLuxe Reborn – by Joey Bruce

’63 Dunhill 552 Restoration

Churchill’s Bent Pot

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