NebraskaPeteGeek

Tag: “Briar pipes“

A Peterson Captain Pete Made in England Restoration

September 12th, 2025

Photographed and written by

John M. Young

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My affection toward Peterson pipes is hardly a secret, you could even say that I wear it on my sleeve. Though it is more literally on my hat.

That said, I have restored dozens of Peterson pipes and I always enjoy doing it even when it is more of a pursuit of folly trying to salvage a very abused old implement rather than refreshing someone’s dear old frien.The subject of this blog is a Captain Pete I found last May on eBay. I probably paid more for it that I’d like to admit and certainly more than what I would have 3 years ago. Regardless, after a short trip from Englewood, Florida the not so lovely old pipe arrived. The stampings were mostly clear and read “CAPTAIN (0ver) PETERSON” on the top left shank. I’m not sure why the Peterson stamp folks like their quotation marks but they seem to. The stem was stamped with a worn and paint worn-off circled C. On the right shank the stamp read “A PETERSON PRODUCT” over MADE IN ENGLAND with an offset 046. The country of manufacture (COM) stamp is what intrigued me the most. More on that in the “Background”. The photos below show the pipe prior to any work.

This pipe appeared to look rough. The stem was severely oxidized, I feared saving the logo would be difficult at best. The bowl had been reamed but not very well. There was a layer of lava on the rim which looked like it had been removed and redeposited. I think what was thinking is that this l pipe appeared to have been smoked a lot but kind of kept up and cleaned on occasion.

Background

Back on December 21, 2023 I wrote a blog about a Captain Peterson apple. That blog is linked for those interested. In that blog I said the following about the Captain Peterson line:

“I highly recommend the book The Peterson Pipe, by authors Mark Irwin and Gary Malmberg as well as a reading of pipedia.com’s Peterson pages. According to Mark Irwin and Gary Malmberg, the Captain Pete:

“This line’s name was derived from the nickname of Charles Peterson, known affectionately as “Captain Peterson.” The first issue, c. 1940-62, was in a smooth finish produced for Rogers Imports with a white stamped P inside C, or a circled P on the mouthpiece. CAPTAIN over PETE on shank, and a MADE IN IRELAND in a circle. English made versions show CAPTAIN over PETE on shank or “CAPTAIN PETERSON” and A PETERSON PRODUCT over MADE IN ENGLAND or LONDON MADE over ENGLAND. The second issue (1998-), features an XL bowl with Sherlock Holmes shapes and compact stems, in rustic or combination of smooth and rustic, with a nickel band between two narrow brass bands.” (Irwin and Malmberg p.295)” (A Peterson Captain Pete Restoration – NebraskaPeteGeek)

This example of a Captain Peterson is described above and likely dates from 1940-62 and was made in London. These dates can be further narrowed down by reading p.149-150 in The Peterson Pipe, where the London production of pipes is discussed at length. Here, Irwin and Malmberg say, “Apparently, the London factory did not order a MADE IN ENGLAND die until after the war. Any Peterson stamped with an English COM must be no older than the later 1940s” (Irwin, p.150). This would mean that this pipe dates from 1945-1962 as 1962 was when Peterson shuttered the London factory.

The Restoration

After the before photos the pipe made its way to the workbench and a clean denim piece.

I began work with the stem due to thinking that the stem would require the greatest amount of time. The cleaning was done with bristle pipe cleaners and 95% ethyl alcohol. The stem was very fouled with tar and smoking residue.

The stem has some tooth chatter on the bit above the button on both the top and bottom surfaces as the two below photos show in all of their poorly focused glory.

The bits of the top and bottom surface were filed with a small slat file to remove most of the chatter.

The stem was suspended in Briarville’s Pipe Stem Oxidation Remover solution and allowed to soak for 24 hours. This solution is lovingly referred to as deox.

The next day the stem was removed and rubbed with a coarse shop rag. This removed a great deal of the oxidized vulcanite and can be seen on the rag in the photo below.

The airway of the stem was again cleaned with alcohol dipped bristle pipe cleaners.

I was pleased to see that the logo stamped on the stem remained intact after the time in deox.

To further reduce the amount of oxidized vulcanite, I rubbed the stem with Soft Scrub cleanser on make-up pads. The oxidized vulcanite can be seen darkly coloring the pads.

The stem was oiled with mineral oil to keep the vulcanite from further oxidation.

The tooth chatter that was not filed from the bite zone was filled with black cyanoacrylate (CA, super glue). This was spritzed with a CA drying accelerator. The hardened CA was then filed with a small flat file to smooth and reshape the stem.

The shank of the pipe was wrapped with masking tape to protect the briar and allow me a handle while sanding. The stem logo was also masked for its protection. The stem was sanded with a series of sanding sponges from grits 400-2000. Between each sponge the stem was rubbed with mineral oil and wiped with a paper towel to remove sanding debris.

The sanding continued through the 3500 grit sponge with oiling and wiping as above.

The stem was buffed using blue buffing compound on a low speed buffer with a flannel wheel dedicated to the blue compound.

The stem was wiped of any residual buffing compound and the logo area cleaned with alcohol on a cotton swab. I used a white acrylic model paint to repaint the imprint of the logo.

The white acrylic dried quickly and was hand buffed with a soft cotton cloth to remove the paint from the stem outside of the stamp.

The sequence of this restoration had me a bit out of sorts, but it was apparently time for the reaming. The tools were gathered.

The Pipnet #2 blade was the only one that fit and did most of the reaming. Both the Smokingpipes Low Country reamer and the General triangular scraper were used but just for clean-up.

Below the reamed tobacco chamber can be seen.

The chamber was sanded with 320 sandpaper wrapped around a wood dowel. I saw no signs of damage within the chamber. The lava on the rim was softened with saliva and allowed to soak for a couple minutes.

The rim was then scraped using the edge of a sharp pocket knife blade. There were some rough spots on the rim but they looked superficial and easily removed with a light topping.

The stummel was taken to the sink for a scrubbing with a nylon brush and undiluted Murphy Oil Soap. The soap was rinsed with warm water and the stummel dried with a cotton hand towel.

I packed the stummel with cotton and saturated it with 99% ethyl alcohol. This was allowed to sit overnight.

The next day the cotton was stained telling me the treatment had worked.

The cotton was removed and was far dirtier than I was used to. I could have sworn that I had cleaned the shank, yet I had no recollection of doing it. Remember when I said the sequence of this restoration had me out of sorts? It was apparently worse than I thought.

The airway was filthy and tar infested. The good news was that the tar was very soft due to the extended soaking in alcohol. The scraping with a dental scraper was very productive. The cotton swabs eventually started to lighten as more of the tars were removed.

I cannot say if this was a superior order to use than my normal sequence; reaming the chamber, then, clean the shank airway then alcohol/cotton treatment is needed for ghosting of severe dirtiness. In this case it worked well. The softening of the tar did make for easier cleaning.

There were several small dents, scratches or pits on the surface of the stummel. These revealed themselves more and I had started sanding. I had covered the stamps with masking tape for their protection. For the fills, I applied small amounts of thin CA using a long narrow applicator on the CA bottle. Immediately after application I used a dust sanding sponge to sand the fill area. The sanding sponge supplied the briar dust to join with the CA and for a fill. This method only works if the spots to be filled are very small and the sander has total disregard for their sanding sponges as some of the CA and briar dust will certainly get on the sponge making it have nonabrasive spots. I wonder if I will ever learn to use a piece of sandpaper like I did before I had sanding sponges. The next three photos show the fills.

The stummel was then sanded with the full series of sanding sponges from 400-3500 grit. The stummel was wiped with a make-up pad wetted with alcohol between each sponge

I removed the masking tape and cleaned any adhesive left behind by the tape. I then worked the stummel with micro-mesh pads 4000-12000. Again I wiped the stummel between pads with alcohol on a make-up pad.

The stummel was coated with Before and After Restoration Balm and allowed to sit while I went out in search of a couple of evening Largemouth bass. This is also called my stroll with a pole and of course a pipe.

About an hour and a half later I returned and wiped the remaining Restoration Balm from the stummel with an inside out athletic sock. There is the photobombing fishing pipe lurking in the background. If you are curious it is a Peterson 127.

The pipe was taken to the buffer where a couple of coats of carnauba wax were applied.

I carefully dragged a knife blade around the beading to remove accumulated wax from the grooves. The final step was another hand buff with the microfiber polishing cloth then off to the final photo shoot.

This beautiful English made Captain Peterson 046 bulldog is a great example of post World War Two English workmanship. The walnut stain of the original pipe was maintained and was finished with careful sanding and just carnauba wax. The stem was deoxidized, sanded and polished to a gorgeous glossy luster. Though lacking any stunning briar grain the wood is solid and the few dents from wear were filled with minimal disruption to the original. The dimensions of the Peterson Captain Peterson Made in England 046 bulldog are:

Length: 5.71 in./ 145.03 mm.

Weight: 1.62 oz./ 45.93 g.

Bowl Height: 1.96 in./ 49.78 mm.

Chamber Depth: 1.65 in./ 41.91 mm.

Chamber Diameter: 0.73 in./ 18.54 mm.

Outside Diameter: 1.64 in./ 62.89 mm.

I do hope that you have found something here useful to your own pipe care, maintenance or restorations. If you like this sort of thing, please click the like and subscribe buttons. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

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Below are some photos of the finished Peterson Captain Peterson Made in England 046 bulldog.

I did not want to affect the stamps here, so the existing scratches were not sanded away like I would have preferred to do.
A Denicotea 072 Restoration

March 20th, 2025

Photographed and written by

John M. Young

I have said it before and I’ll say it again, “I blame Sascha Mertens for my Denicotea fascination.” Sascha is a pipeman from Germany and has become one of the few people that I communicate with on a near daily basis. When I asked him what shape this Denicotea is, he replied “Quaterbendzublin danish Style!

This thing is absolutely danish! Reminds me of an old Stanwell….” Hmm, “Quarterbendzublin”. That looks more like some Mayan word than anything I was familiar with but, I completely see what he was saying. I think I’ll just use the “072” though.

The previous owner was apparently not aware that they were not supposed to have a cake build-up in a meerschaum lined pipe or that wiping off the rim after a smoke is a possibility. Thus started the list of things to address with this restoration. There was one ugly fill on the left side of the shank that would have to be removed. The oxidation of the vulcanite would have to go. I was not sure how well the rim would clean-up, nor exactly what to do with the meerschaum part of the rim. Oh well, it will all get sorted out.

Background

Fortunately, for me, I have done a few Denicotea restorations. This makes the writing of this section easy. I can just recycle research from previous blogs. Yeah, I’m a Generation X slacker.

“Pipedia.org has a short article on Denicotea. I will include it here in its entirety:

“Willy Heineberg founded the company Denicotea in 1932 and began manufacturing and selling smoking accessories such as filters, filter inserts, cigarette holders and pipes.^[1] The company headquarters was initially in Cologne, but was relocated to Bergisch Gladbach after the Second World War.^[2]

Denicotea is actually the name of a silica gel filter, cigarette holders and care products for pipes and cigarette holders.

I still find it a bit confusing as Denicotea seems to be a company^[3] and a brand as well which is operated by COMPOSING-STUDIO GmbH^[4].

Brands

Adsorba

Adsorba is a fantasy series of pipes produced by Luigi Crugnola for the German market.

Aldo Morelli

Aldo Morelli is a fictional name. The brand Aldo Morelli has been registered for Denicotea on February 26th, 1992.^[5]

Depending on the different lines the pipes are made by Cesare Barontini, Gigi or Molina Pipe for Denicotea GmbH.

Stefan Petzuch points out this brand appears to have similarities to the Mauro Cateni pipe brand, in particular they are both fictional Italian brands by German companies, and both have the “HAND CUT” imprint on the stem as seen bellow. This may connect the Aldo Morelli brand to Gebr. Heinemann KG in Hamburg, who had registered the Mauro Cateni brand. Or perhaps there is a connection between Denicotea and Gebr. Heinemann KG, or perhaps these pipe brands simply used “Hand Cut” stems from the same source.” (Denicotea – Pipedia)

Interesting and weird are the two qualifiers that come to mind in reading that. The four makers mentioned in the article; Luigi Crgnola, Cesare Barontini, Gig and Molina are all Italian pipe manufacturers. Where does the MADE IN ENGLAND stamp on the example on pipephil.eu or the stamp on the pipe I purchased come in, I cannot say. I can say that I am not the first person to have little success researching the origins of Denicotea pipes. Dal Stanton, who is far more diligent in his background research than I, had a French made Denicotea. He traced its origins to the St. Claude area but not to a specific maker. Dal’s blog was posted on Steve Laug’s rebornpipes.com site. Here is the link to Dal Stanton’s blog post: https://rebornpipes.com/2016/09/29/nice-find-in-plovdiv-bulgaria-denicotea-deluxe-curling-bruyere-extra/”

Now for this Denicotea 072 or as my German accomplice calls it, a “Quaterbendzublin danish Style!”, the world may never know where, when or by whom this pipe was made. I wonder if the added mystique adds to the smoking pleasure?

The Restoration

Dang, that’s a good looking pipe. Even all dirty and sitting on a cleaned piece of denim at the workbench.

I started by lightly sanding the surface oxidation from the stem. I’m not sure what to call the mortise attachment piece of vulcanite that is glued to the shank. Maybe stem one, the below and stem 2 the attached?

The stem was skewered with a pipe cleaner to act as a hanger in the Before and After Extra Strength Deoxidizer (deox) and suspended in the solution.

Since this is a meerschaum lined pipe I relied on the Smoingpipes Low Country Reamer and the General triangular scraper for the reaming this very conical tobacco chamber.

Oh how I wish that someone had explained to the previous owner that meers could be washed out with warm water after a smoke and that cake is not a good nor necessary thing. Oh well, the scraping continued.

After the scraping and a bit of work with a 410 gauge brass bore brush, I used cotton swabs dipped in alcohol to clean the remaining cake from the meerschaum.

The lava on the rim was softened with saliva and scraped with a sharp pocket knife.

I cleaned the airway of the shank with several bristle pipe cleaners dipped in 95% ethyl alcohol. Cotton swabs also dipped were used to clean out the mortise.

The stummel was taken to the sink where it was scrubbed with undiluted Murphy Oil Soap and a nylon brush. The soap was rinsed with warm water and the stumel was dried with a cotton hand towel.

Back at the workbench the stummel was wiped with an alcohol wetted make-up pad. Once the alcohol had evaporated I wrapped the briar shank with masking tape to protect it from the sanding of the vulcanite part of the shank.

I wanted to preserve the logo as much as possible so a piece of Scotch tape was cut and placed over the logo. This proved tricky to sand as I didn’t want to round the edges where the vulcanite would meet the stem. I decided to give the rim top a beeswax coating to protect it from future lava and make the meerschaum more resistant to wear. I heated a small glass jar of beeswax in a pan of water on the stove top. This allows the liquid beeswax to remain liquid longer as the hot water allows the wax to cool more slowly.

The tobacco chamber was plugged with a cork. I picked up an assortment of different sized corks from Amazon and that has been much easier whenever I need to plug a chamber.

The meerschaum was heated with a heat gun then painted with liquid beeswax.

The beeswax cooled quickly and was then heated again with the heat gun. The cork remained in place. As the beeswax was remelted excess dripped off the stummel and was caught by a strategically placed tin.

The cork was removed and the rim was wiped with a clean dry paper towel.

Below is a photo of the newly rewaxed rim back at the workbench. Please ignore the photobombing S. Johnson pipe in the background.

The stem had been soaking in deox for a little over two hours. I removed it and let it drip excess solution back into the jar.

The stem was then vigorously rubbed on a coarse shop rag to rid it of remaining deox solution and some of the oxidized vulcanite.

Next the deox within the stem was cleaned out. Apparently I didn’t clean the stem prior to the deox dip. Darn old people…

The stem, both parts, were sanded with a series of sanding sponges from 320-3500 grit. Between each sponge I used Mark Hooovers new product, Hard Rubber Balm (HRB) rubbed on with my fingers and wiped off with a clean dry paper towel. Mark sent me a sample of the HRB and asked me to try it and give my impressions. So here they are, the HRB is thicker or more viscous than mineral oil. As such it tends to fold the sanding sponges more than mineral oil. A more careful wiping of the HRB from the stem with a paper towel lessens this. The fouled sponges are easily cleaned with a little bit of alcohol rubbed on with a finger tip then wiping them off on the denim surface protecting cloth. The HRB excels as a coating of stems after they have been restored. Since it is a heavier or thicker oil it should evaporate more slowly from the vulcanite. I really like how HRB works for preserving stems. How well it lasts over time is still undiscovered as I have only been using it for a couple of weeks but it looks like it is a solid competitor of Obsidian Oil and should actually last longer based on it’s properties.

The stems were then worked with micro-mesh pads in grits from 4000-12000. Again the HRB was rubbed on and wiped off between pads.

The stem was then taken to the buffer where I buffed it with white buffing compound on the dedicated white wheel.

The buffing compound was wiped from the stem and I cleaned the logo area with alcohol. I used a white acrylic modeling paint to repaint the depressions of the logo stamp.

The entire pipe was returned to the buffer where it was given several coats of carnauba wax.

The final step was a hand buffing of the pipe with a microfiber polishing cloth.

I think this Denicotea Quaterbendzublin Danish Style!, hmm, I just can’t do that. I think this Denicotea 072 turned out beautifully. The visual appeal is very much to my liking. The light weight along with the bend make it a very comfortable pipe to clench and the longer stem keeps the smoke out of my eyes. Though not uncomfortable in hand the pipe does not fit into my hand as well as many others. The rustications add character and seem perfect for the shape with the briar grain on the right side matching the lines of the rim. The stem polished up very well with its high gloss black accentuating the rustic mahogany of the briar. The dimensions of the Denicotea 072 are follows:

Length: 5.06 in./ 128.52 mm.

Weight: 1.42 oz./ 40.26 g.

Bowl Height 2.00 in./ 50.80 mm.

Chamber Depth: 1.60 in./ 40.64 mm.

Chamber Diameter: 0.67 in./ 17.02 mm.

Outside Diameter: 1.68 in./ 42.67 mm.

I do hope that you have found something here useful to your own pipe care, maintenance or restorations. If you like this sort of thing, please click the like and subscribe buttons. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover. This one is going in the personal collection.

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Below are some photos of the finished Denicotea 072.