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Pipe refinishing

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  • KA9FFJKA9FFJ Master
    edited May 2020
    Totally stripped the varnish and went down to the bare wood. Revealed about 7 small pits. Because of the amount of pits, decided to keep it a little on the dark side (that's Darth Vader for you Star Wars fans).
    Restained first with a base of medium brown, lightly sanded, then went with 25 drops of buckskin/1 drop of oxblood (gives it a slight redish hue). Then a very light sanding, waxing and polishing. Here's the final on the stummel... the stem is next...
  • Londy3Londy3 Master
    edited May 2020
    @KA9FFJ I like how the red brings out the wood grain. Very very nice!  Looks like a completely different pipe! 
  • KA9FFJKA9FFJ Master
    edited May 2020
    @Londy3 It's appearance is actually a little darker than the pictures show.  The light and camera auto contrast make it look a little lighter...
  • KA9FFJKA9FFJ Master
    Going to attempt to make this chatter disappear.After incremental sanding, micro padding and polishing, I'm hoping for a "like new" stem...
  • KA9FFJKA9FFJ Master
    Stem's finished, pipe's completed...
  • Londy3Londy3 Master
    @KA9FFJ excellent! Stem looks amazing. 
  • KA9FFJKA9FFJ Master
    edited May 2020
  • KA9FFJKA9FFJ Master
    I received this pipe from a friend that is in pretty bad shape.  There are at least 4 hairline cracks around the bowl and a huge hole in the stem. 
    He gave it to me so I decided to do some experimentations. My thumbnail is marking the cracks that I have been able to find so far.
    Here it is:

  • KA9FFJKA9FFJ Master
    Needless to say, I'm not going to try to repair all those hairline cracks. If this project turns out like I'm hoping, at BEST it will make a work bench pipe. 
    First things first. I removed the stinger and gave the internals a good cleaning. The stem was really bad, probably because the stinger limited pipe cleaners from doing their job. The rim also needed attention from charring...

  • KA9FFJKA9FFJ Master
    edited May 2020
    Cleaned and sanded the bowl (inside and out). The cracks really show up now, but relieved to find out they were surface cracks and did not go through to the inside of the bowl. The fist pic shows the worst one. And although it was looking bad, it too did not breech the inside of the bowl. Very close, but ok at least for now...
  • KA9FFJKA9FFJ Master
    Now the fun begins. I decided to rusticate all of those heavily grooved areas, and around the rim area as well.
  • KA9FFJKA9FFJ Master
    Next came an artist's brush and black stain/dye.  The pic is self explanatory. 
  • KA9FFJKA9FFJ Master
    Decided to use oxblood on the raised areas. Again, trying to have some fun.
    While stain finished setting, I worked on the stem:
    Repairing the hole
    Heavy oxidation 
    Sanding and micro padding.

  • KA9FFJKA9FFJ Master
    Ok. Waxed, buffed, polished and stem completed.
    Wouldn't dream of even giving this pipe away fearing the cracks might eventually work their way to the inside of the bowl, but I had some fun with it and, for who knows how long, it will serve as a good work bench pipe. 
    Anyway, here it is.

  • You are the pipe repair genius!! I can't believe it. If it were mine, I would have done a rim shot off the garbage can.
  • Londy3Londy3 Master
    @KA9FFJ I really love the rustication on the top of the bowl, that was a brilliant idea. It looks so much better. 

    Can you put glue in the cracks?

    Also, I never understood the point of the stinger. Fill me in on that.
  • KA9FFJKA9FFJ Master
    edited May 2020
    @motie2 Tnx for the compliment. 
    The stringer's primary purpose is to catch tars AND condensation. Supposedly it helps to provide a cooler/ dryer smoke. Personally, I have no need for them. 
    Rather than cut them out, I use a heat gun to heat it up being very careful to not overheat the stem. It doesn't take much heat, and with needle nose pliers you can usually twist and pull and it becomes history... although there are a few that screw in, so always turn counter clockwise...
    The cracks could be repaired with some effort, but you might say I got lazy...
  • That basket case pipe must have served it’s previous owner well to have the stem chewed through, or they had sharp teeth and strong jaws like mine.  I can understand my jaw muscles from the workouts at the food table, but you would think it would also wear and dull my teeth🤔.  Call me “The stem crusher”.
    Nice job on the “spiff up” too👍🏻
  •      I have this old Peterson O2 house pipe that I refurbished awhile back.  I was somewhat dismayed at the amount of bowl below the draft hole.  It is bored at least 1/2” below the bottom of the draft hole.  I’m not sure if this was “cored” out buy a previous owner or owners, or actually a factory depth, as there is plenty of wood still under it.  When I smoked it a couple of times before, I had enough unlit dottle left in the bowl to fill one of my smallish pipes, not that I did...icky😖...too much waste for me.
         I decided, rather than fill the bottom with pipe mud, that I would make a kind of screen to keep the tobacco just above the draft hole.  I made it out of a piece of olive wood that I had from my pen making cut-offs.  I did not have a piece of briar large enough or I would have used briar.
         I am smoking it now, and it is working great.  It kind of makes a “double calabash”.  It has a rather large airspace below the olive wood “screen” and it has a deep Peterson System Well in the shank nearly the same size.  The “screen” is not very pretty, I made it pretty quickly, but it serves it’s purpose.  Of course...the pictures are out of order.
  • motie2motie2 Master
    @RockyMountainBriar
    There are little wire things that look like Tuo Cha that are available on eBay that accomplish the same thing.....
    Material: stainless steel 304 wire

    Mesh: 60 mesh *0.15mm wire

    Size:6mm (1/4") deep *12 mm diameter(1/2") .6 cm deep x 1.2 cm diamter

    Mold perfectly; just pop in place and push with pointer finger, the screen will expand to the perfect fit.


  • Londy3Londy3 Master
    @motie2, @KA9FFJ thanks for the clarification. I too don't need them. Sounds to me more like a marketing gimmick.
  • @motie2
    Yes, I knew they were available, it just seems like they belong in a “special herb” pipe or “crack” pipe, and not a tobacco pipe.  The olive wood was handy, I did not have to special order it🙂.

         As an extra benefit, the olive wood soaked up some of the moisture as well, kind of like the rock maple inserts in a Brigham pipe.  At some point I would expect the olive wood to fill with tars and no longer take on excess moisture, but that was not my intent when I made it anyway.  The pipe did smoke to ash to the “new” bottom and I did not have to dump out and waste a third of a bowl of soggy, nasty, tobacco dottle.  It did reduce the chamber significantly, but that is ok for me too because the O2 is a large pipe, it still has a decent chamber even with the plug and it wouldn’t smoke to the bottom before anyway.
         The original chamber is 1.94” deep, that is after I had to top the rim a bit, originally it was 2” deep and it is 0.8” in diameter.
         With the olive wood “screen”/ “plug” the bowl is still 1.2” deep, plenty of chamber for me.
  • @motie2
    I had to do the google to see what Tuo Cha was.  It sounds like my kind of tea, and the screens and my olive wood plug do have that shape.
  • motie2motie2 Master
    @RockyMountainBriar

     Be cautious. Order samples before buying any significant amount.
    https://www.uptontea.com/teas/c/pu-erh-tea/ is my go to.
  • edited May 2020
    I recently purchased this refurbished estate pipe from SPC.  It does not live up to my standards.  It still has a ghost, like most of the estate pipes I have purchased from them (damn Latakia😖), but the issue I want to deal with is the uneven stain from hand wear and over buffing/cleaning of the rim.  I realize they cannot re-stain estate pipes and still make a profit, it’s just too labor intensive and not desirable on collectors pieces at all.  I had to re-stain the Savinelli 320 EX I purchased from them awhile back, this BC Cobra is next on the list for a stain touch-up.  The stain on the whole rim, and part of this side where a right-hander would grasp it is wore off.  Like the Savinelli before it, it is not a collector’s pipe, so a stain job shouldn’t decrease it’s value (unless I screw it up royal).
  • motie2motie2 Master
    edited May 2020

    Jeff Gracik produces videos offering instruction on cleaning and refurbishing pipes. Here’s an example: Gracik - Cleaning Pipe Stems Without Power Tools

    Mike Glukler of Briar Blues offers similar videos - Briar Blues


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