Tag Archives: Zeppelin style pipes

Cleaning up a lightly smoked Italian Made Zeppelin Style Cigar Pipe

Blog by Steve Laug

Jeff and I pick up a lot of pipes from a variety of places. The last time I visited him in Idaho I went through out boxes of pipes to be restored and picked out some unsmoked pipe that I could quickly spruce up and turn around on the rebornpipes store. This is another one of those pipes. It is called a Sparkless, Zeppelin or Cigar pipe. It unscrews in the centre of the pipe and the tobacco is stuffed in the cone side and then the pipe is screwed back together. I have yet to read a definitive description of how to light it. Some light it before putting it back together and others light it through the cone end. It remains a mystery to me! It has a vulcanite saddle stem. It is stamped Made In Italy around the thin band between the briar and the vulcanite stem. The pipe was lightly smoked and dusty from sitting around for a long time before coming to us. I say lightly smoked where actually I am not sure if a full bowl was ever smoked in it. It is impeccably clean on the inside with slight darkening in the bowl portion. The finish was a mix of smooth and rusticated in twists and turns around the bowl. It dirty but you can see the finish was okay. The nickel plated cone is oxidized but was not dented. The stem looked good but had some small nicks and scratches in the surface. Otherwise it was a great looking little pipe. It is a unique pipe for sure and well made. I took some photos of the pipe before I cleaned and polished it. I took a close-up photo of the nose cone of the pipe and of both sides of the stem. You can see the dust and debris in the rustication on the nose cone photo. That is how the rustication looks all around the bowl. The stem is scratched and dirty. It looks like it might have had a price tag sticker on it that left behind some stickiness. The smooth portions also seemed to have a light shellac or varnish coat on them that was flaking.I took the pipe apart and took some photos to show what I was trying to explain in the opening paragraph. You can see the front half is threaded in the briar. The mouthpiece end has metal threads over the briar. I removed the bit/stem from the other end and took a photo. It had a metal cone shaped stinger apparatus that is built into the tenon. It looks like it is pressure fit in place. I took a photo of the Made in Italy stamp on the shank end of the cone – just above the stem/shank junction. It is stamped on the smooth portion of the briar.I started my clean-up of the briar with a wire brush. I worked it over the rustications to remove the grime and grit and over the smooth areas to remove the loose varnish or shellac coat. I followed that with a quick application of a 1500 grit micromesh pad on the smooth parts of the pipe. When I was finished it looked dull but clean.I wanted give a little life to the bowl finish so I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my fingertips and a horsehair shoe brush to get it into the grooves of the rustication. The product works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. I polished the nickel nose cone with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down after each pad with a damp cotton pad. The cone took on a rich shine. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. The nicks were prevalent on the surface of the stem so I sanded them out with 220 grit sandpaper and started the polishing with 400 grit wet dry sandpaper.I rubbed the stem down with Denicare Mouthpiece Polish – a red Tripoli like gritty pasted that seems to work really well to smooth out the scratches and remove light oxidation. I don’t think the product is made anymore but it is a great one to use while I still have a bit of it around. I wiped it off with a cotton pad to polish the vulcanite.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with a cloth containing some Obsidian Oil. I finished polishing it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine and buffed it off with a cotton cloth. I gave it a coat of Briarville’s No Oxy Oil to preserve and protect it. I put the pipe back together and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I carefully avoided the stamping on the shank during the process. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad on the buffer. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished pipe is actually a nice looking unique. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ¼ inches, Height: 1 1/8 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inch, Chamber diameter: 5/8 of an inch. This unique Zeppelin style Cigar Pipe is a well-made little pipe in great condition. Thanks for walking through the sprucing up process with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. This one will be going on the rebornpipes store shortly. If you are interested in adding it to your collection let me know. Thanks for your time.

Amazing Grain came alive on a Zeppelin Style Safe-Tee Patent Pipe

1 Reply

Blog by Steve Laug

When my brother sent me a photo of another cigar pipe he was bidding on I wondered about it. I have cleaned up two of them made by Mastercraft (https://rebornpipes.com/2016/09/12/back-in-flight-a-pair-of-mastercraft-sparkless-cigar-pipe-zeppelins/). They were an interesting pair of pipes. This one was different he said. The design was quite a bit more streamlined and smooth in terms of look. The aluminum nose cone was smooth and there were two air holes drilled in the briar itself rather than just in the nose cone. I am assuming this was to aid airflow in the pipe. It still had an aluminum to briar connector for the two parts. The vulcanite stem was well fitted. What would be the left shank side was stamped SAFE-TEE over Pat. June 23, 1925. I did a lot of searching online and could only find one other picture of a rusticated version of the pipe. It is not listed on Pipedia or on pipephil’s Logos and Stampings site. I looked in my reference books here and found it listed in Who Made That Pipe. In classic form, giving an almost dictionary style definition the book says that the pipe was made by the Safe-Tee Pipe Company in the US. Now to me that is classic – the SAFE-TEE pipe made by the SAFE-TEE Pipe Company. The only additional piece of information was that it was made in the USA and it was patented originally in 1924. The photo below shows the stamping. The stem was in great shape with minor pitting and some tooth chatter but no heavy damage. There was light oxidation as well.My brother took the photos above and the ones below to show the condition of the pipe before he cleaned it. The next one shows the pipe taken apart. The nose cone portion of the pipe is all briar with threads cut into the briar. The shank portion has an aluminum connector that turns into the briar cone. There is a washer that serves as a spacer/band between the portions. The stem is straightforward with no stinger apparatus. He also took photos of each side looking down the barrel. The washer is free and spins on the aluminum connector. It needs to be aligned for the two sides to meet properly. There was a small crack/flaw in the briar of the shank portion of the pipe.Once again I am thankful for my brother Jeff’s cleaning skills. The inside of the pipe and stem were spotless when it arrived in Vancouver. The exterior had also been scrubbed clean of dirt, debris and the mottle finish. The pipe was ready to restore. I took some photos of it when I brought it to my work table.I took some photos of the pipe taken apart to show some of the structure on the pipe. You can see the internals of the connector and the metal tube in the bottom of that portion (the one on the left of the photo) you can also see the end of the cone. It is an interesting design that is different from the Mastercraft version.The next photos show the condition of the stem – you can see both the tooth chatter and the oxidation in the photos. There was also some pitting in the vulcanite.My first order of business was to repair the crack and several of the deeper pits in the briar. I cleaned the entire pipe with a cotton pad and acetone. I examined the crack to see how deep it went in the briar and was pleased to see that it was really surface flaw. The tube inside the shank portion stabilized it from causing further damage. I used a dental pick to clean it out and filled it in with clear super glue. It was small enough that I did not mix any briar dust with the super glue repair.When the glue dried I sanded the repairs with 220 grit sandpaper to blend them into the surrounding briar and make them smooth.I sanded the repaired areas with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-2400 grit pads and dry sanding with 3200-4000 grit pads. I used the higher grit pads on the entire area around the repairs.I used a dark brown stain pen to touch up the repaired areas and blend them into the colour of the briar on the rest of the pipe. I gave the pipe a coat of Conservator’s Wax and buffed it. I set it aside and turned my attention to the stem.I did not stain the rest of the pipe but decided to leave it as it was. The repaired areas were stained to match the rest of the pipe but other than that it is unstained by me. I took the next two photos of the repaired areas after waxing and hand buffing them. The repairs blend in very well.I sanded out the tooth chatter and pitting on the stem with 220 grit sandpaper. It also removed the majority of the oxidation.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding with 1500-1800 grit pads and dry sanding with 2400-12000 grit pads. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each set of three pads. After the final set of pads I gave it a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry. I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel being particularly careful around the stamping on the side. The stamping was already light on the left and right side so I did not want to damage it more. I gave it multiple coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to give it a shine. I finished by hand buffing it with a microfiber cloth. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. It turned out to be a beautiful piece of briar with a mix of flame, cross and birdseye grain surrounding the two halves. The aluminum polished up nicely and the black vulcanite, the natural finish and the aluminum combine to give the pipe a classic appeal. This was a fun one to work on. Thanks for walking with me through the process.