NebraskaPeteGeek

Tag: how-to

A Emperor Limited Paneled Billiard Restoration

January 26th, 2024

Written and photographed by

John M. Young

It looks like I have returned to the 1940s and with another Emperor. I have restored an Emperor De Luxe (Emperor’s spelling), Supreme and now a Limited. I have to say that I was a bit flummoxed when I first laid hands on the Limited, it was huge compared to the Supreme.

I first saw this, I can’t say little beauty, big girl on eBay. No one was meeting the sellors opening bid. I waited until the last day and sent an offer. It was accepted and the Emperor Limited made the journey from warm Fort Worth Texas to the less warm southeast Nebraska. I would like to say that the United States Postal Service was prompt with the delivery of this girl. According to the tracking she was shipped on January 13 and to arrive on January 17. We were hit by a pair of 6 inch (15 cm) snow events around that time which dropped a total of 12 inches (30 cm) of snow. Notice I did not say snow fall. Falling typically refers to vertical displacement. These storms both delivered their snow horizontally (weird, I know). The package left Fort Worth then disappeared from the face of the earth. I checked with the local post office and they recommended waiting a couple more days. I messaged the seller, and he said that he’d look into it. The seller must have magical powers over the post office or have photos of postal employees in compromising positions because the next day the package miraculously arrived, skipping over both the Kansas City and Omaha distribution centers.

Anyway, opening the package led to another surprise – the HUGE Emperor Limited. I am at a loss as to what name I should give this shape. I cannot find an equivalent in any Emperor catalogs or advertisements. I guess, I’ll call it like I see it – large paneled billiard.

Here are some photos of the pipe upon arrival.

Now, before you go saying, “You paid money for that?” (The answer is a definitive “Yes”, by the way), you have to realize the historic significance of this piece. Ok, I made that up. It’s just an old pipe from an old maker that I thought looked cool.

For a bit of a review of Emperor pipes, feel free to take a look at the previous blogs about the De Luxe and the Supreme. I’ll just quickly say that Emperor pipes were made by the Empire Pipe company of Brooklyn New York during the 1940’s. According to one of their ads, below, they were made in various shapes and sizes and the buyer could specify the quality of the pipe; “”Standard”, “Deluxe”, “Supreme”, “Limited” or “Meerschaum-lined””.

(https://pipedia.org/wiki/File:EmperorKeystone.jpg)

Oh how I wish I could see that 16 plus page catalog. I am working under the assumption that this makes the “Limited” as one of their highest qualities of pipe.

The restoration began with a clean piece of denim on the workbench surface. I again compared the size of this pipe to another project, a Peterson 313 that is getting a new stem. I just couldn’t get over the size of this billiard.

Next the reaming tools were assembled.

The PipNet got to employ the #3 blade, while the General triangular scraper, Smokingpipes Low Country knife and 220 sandpaper wrapped wood dowel joined the party for the later stages of reaming.

There was a fairly well developed cake that was removed with the PipNet. Upon scraping and sanding of the tobacco chamber the interior had been well protected by the cake and showed no signs of any heat damage nor charring.

Next I removed the stem and scraped the calcium and oxidation from the surface. The stem also received a good rubbing with 0000 steel wool.

I tried to remove the “Keystone Cleaner”, AKA stinger but it remained quite firmly stuck. I then placed the stem into a container of OxyClean dissolved in water. I am unsure of the amount of Oxy dissolved in the water as this is an old solution and my old brain can’t remember how much I used. Next batch I make I will write it on the lid with a Sharpie. The stem was allowed to soak for a couple of hours.

In the meantime, I took the stummel to the sink for a scrub with Murphy’s Oil Soap. The Murphy’s was used undiluted with water and scrubbed with a medium bristle toothbrush.

The Murphy’s was rinsed with warm water and dried with a cotton dish towel. Upon returning to the workbench I decided that the charred briar around the rim needed to be removed.. I used a technique from a German Facebook buddy, Sascha Mertens, where a coating of Vaseline was applied to the rim and the charred wood was gently scraped with a sharp knife.

The vaseline does soak into the briar but will most likely be removed with the numerous alcohol wipes, sanding and micro-meshing in the stummels near future.

Next was a light sanding with the 400 sanding sponge. I did this to look for spots to fill. I only found one that I deemed worthy of a cyanoacrylate (CA, super glue) and briar dust fill job. It was a small pair of sand pits on the rear of the bowl. I used a fly tying bodkin to apply a small dab of CA to the pits and sanded with the 400 sanding sponge. The sanding sponge had plenty of briar dust which combined with the CA and filled the pit nicely.

It was time for some shank cleaning. One of my least favorite tasks. I dipped a cotton swab into 99% isopropyl alcohol and began scrubbing the airway in the shank. The first couple of cotton swabs usually just begin to soften the dried tars and smoking residues. Then the real scrubbing begins. This shank was no different. It was dirty and required quite a bit of scrubbing. I was reading a blog by Kenneth Lieblich where he was using Castille soap. Always looking for a way to improve, especially on jobs I’m not fond of, I ordered some. I took the stummel to the sink and poured about 5 ml of 95% ethyl alcohol into the bowl. I held the stummel at an angle to allow the alcohol to flow into the shank but not pour out. I then used a nylon shank brush to scrub the airway and allow the alcohol to dissolve the tars. I poured this dirty alcohol into a medicine cup.

I then poured a little of the Castille soap onto the nylon brush and scrubbed the shank with the soap. The soap was rinsed with warm water. I then repeated the alcohol scrub followed by another Castille soap scrub. I continued alternating between the alcohol and soap. When the alcohol turned dark brown from dissolved tars I replaced it with new alcohol. This alternating scrubbing lasted for three days. Okay, that is a slight exaggeration but it seemed like a long time. Every once and a while I’d go back to the cotton swabs or a piece of paper towel wrapped around a round needle file and check their color. Eventually the cotton swabs returned clean.

With that tack completed I retrieved the stem from the Oxy bath. I used a Scotch Brite abrasive pad with a dose of Soft Scrub to remove the softened oxidized surface from the stem. I then used make-up pads with more Soft Scrub to remove remaining oxidation. THe stem was then heavily oiled with mineral oil and allowed to absorb some of the oil.

It was now time to go upstairs and make a pizza. The breadmaker had been diligently kneading the dough and warming it to rise. The Italian sausage and red peppers needed a saute. Wait, this is a pipe restoration blog not the Food Network.

Now calorically satisfied, I returned to the Emperor. I again tried to remove the Keystone Cleaner. This time with a piece of denim wrapped around the aluminum and a pliers. Fortunately I remembered that these Keystone Cleaners were threaded and applied force in a counter clockwise fashion. Success!

The Oxy bath did little to clean the tars from the Keystone Cleaner so it went into an alcohol bath.

The stem cleaning was all about using alcohol dipped bristle pipe cleaners to scrub the airway of the stem. Mayn alcohol dipped bristle pipe cleaners and a nylon brush too. Eventually the stem too was clean. The Keystone cleaner was cleaned out using the same technique but started with Falcon Thin pipe cleaners rather than the bristle pipe cleaners. It did eventually graduate to the bristles though. The exterior of the Keystone Cleaner was finally cleaned using a dental scraper and some alcohol wetted 0000 steel wool to rid it of the tars.

With the stem cleaned out I started sanding it so see what kind of fill/rebuilding it would need. The 400 and 600 sanding sponges removed the rough surface and allowed me to see what needed to be restored.

The button was where I began. It had been chewed on and deformed. This would require some black CA rebuilding. I wrapped the newly sanded surface with clear scotch tape right up against the button.

Next I applied a line of black CA to the button. Once applied I rotated the stem so gravity would pull the wet CA download, surface tension held it onto the button so it did not drip. I used a CA accelerator spritz to quickly dry the CA. Immediately after the accelerator spritz I flipped the stem back over and used a sharp knife to cut through the still soft CA along the edge of the button.

The tape was then removed taking the cut away part of the CA with it.

Some of the CA had moved under the tape along the button edge. This was sanded with the 600 sanding sponge.

I applied a new piece of tape to cover the sanded stem and protect it from the file as I reshaped the button.

The button was then sanded with the 400 and 600 sanding sponges to smooth the rough spots of the newly built button. THe top of the stem had a couple of dents, from teeth, that I tried to remove by just sanding. I did not think they were deep enough to allow a good repair with the black CA.

With the stummel and stem rebuilt, I taped the stamps in preparation of the sanding. There were three, one on each side and the bottom.

I reassembled the stem and inserted it into the shank. I wanted to sand it together so as to not round any of the edges where the stem met the shank. The pipe was sanded from 600-2000 using the sanding sponges. I wiped the dust from the pipe with a dry paper towel between sponges. The sponges were wiped off onto the denim work surface to clean them of dust frequently. As can be seen in the photo below.

It was here that I decided to give the inside edge of the rim a slight bevel. I used a small wooden sphere wrapped with 320 sandpaper to sand a slight bevel. This was smoothed with the sanding sponges. I finished sanding using the 2500-3500 sanding sponges. Between these sponges I wiped the pipe with a very slightly wet-with-alcohol make-up pad. Once finished I removed the tape and cleaned any remaining adhesive from the stummel with the alcohol pad.

The pipe was ready for the micro-meshing. I used the 4000-12000 micro-mesh pads. Between each pad I wiped the stummel with a make-up pad wetted with alcohol and the stem received a drop of Obsidian Oil rubbed in by fingers and wiped with a paper towel.

I applied a coat of Before and After Restoration Balm to the stummel and headed off to bed. In the morning I hand buffed the remaining balm from the stummel and thought that it really looked nice.

I Polished the stem with Before and After Fine Polish by applying it to the stem with my finger and energetically rubbing it with a soft cloth. This was repeated with the Before and After Extra Fine Polish. The stem was looking far better than it did originally.

The final step was to apply several coats of carnauba wax with the buffer.

This Emperor Limited paneled billiard (no caps since it is not the official name) looks amazing. It is a very large pipe with a voluminous tobacco chamber. The briar reminds me of the Algerian briar used by Marxman and Lee, very soft and without a highly discernable grain. In the case of Marxman, I think, many of the pipes were heavily carved to make up for the lack of grain. The other thing about that type of briar is that it has a noticeable spice-like taste with a new or freshly reamed bowl. A taste that I think is like cinnamon and cardamom. I have yet to try this pipe with tobacco so the jury is still out on that. Overall this was a fun restoration of a brand that I am developing a real appreciation of. I do hope that you found something here that is useful in your restorations or have at least been entertained. If you like this sort of thing, please click the like and subscribe. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

Below are photos of the finished Emperor Limited paneled billiard.
A Winthrop Billiard Restoration

January 7th, 2024

Written and photographed by

John M. Young

This is not the pipe I set down to restore. I actually started a different pipe and got to a point where I did not have the materials I needed to finish it. That one will be a great story to blog about. Stay tuned. I wanted something to fill the afternoon and this Winthrop jumped out at me. I had never heard of Winthrop.

I searched the usual information outlets; pipehil.eu for logo leads and pipedia.org for maker information. Two strikes. I wasn’t “out” but I was running out of swings. I then turned to Steve Laug’s rebornpipes.com blog. He has been writing up restorations for darn near a dozen years. I will frequently search his site to see if he has restored a pipe and use his blog as a starting point for research. Steve had nothing on Winthrope. I’m going to call that a “ball”, not a strike. I wasn’t ready to return to the bench, yet. I searched the internet and found this lead: “RARE OLD VINTAGE ANTIQUE WHITCOMB’S WINTHROP BRAND CIGAR BOX – LABEL – TOBACCO.”

(Rare Old Vintage Antique Whitcomb’s Winthrop Brand Cigar Box – label – tobacco | #1844991015 (worthpoint.com))

Ball 2. I searched a bit for Whitcomb’s Cigars and found this:

(Antique Smoke the Winthrop Cigar Cutter Joseph Whitcomb & Co Springfield Mass 1800s Tobacciana Collectible Vintagesouthwest DMT – Etsy)

I’m calling that another “ball”. That put me at 2 strikes and 3 balls.

For my last swing I posted the following on pipesmokermagazine.com forum: “I am sure that there are folks out there who can enlighten me about Winthrop. I got this as part of an estate lot. Relatively thick walls, screw in tenon (similar to a Kaywoodie without the 3 or 4 holes), saddle stem. Photos of pre-restoration.

No mention of it in pipehi.eu nor pipedia.org. Heck, Steve Laug hasn’t even restored one.”,

Once again Briar Lee came to my rescue. Briar Lee, by the way, is a fine gentleman on the forums who is an absolute wealth of knowledge and a fellow Marxman pipe lover. Here is his response to my post:

“That font just screams Wally Frank catalog, 1940s. It was a style he used. [photo]

It is actually a Briarlee type stinger, it’s removable, and has a full aluminum disc mortise. [photo] There are three Winthrops listed on eBay tonight. [photo x3]

They look high quality factory pipes of the forties, likely a Wally Frank contract.

Lee could certainly have made those, but so could other New York City pipe makers.

That likely was a $2-3 pipe, with lots grain figure, in a catalog where a very good pipe was $1 to $1.50.” (https://pipesmagazine.com/forums/threads/can-anyone-tell-me-about-this-brand-winthrop.102598/#post-36957469)

Maybe not the exact manufacturer but, that is far better than my imaginative conjectures. And, sticking with my baseball themed analogy, the umpire says, “Ball 4. Batter, take your base”.

Here is the pipe that caught my attention as it appeared emerging from the “do me next” box.

The Winthrop didn’t look too bad for a 1940s pipe. Yeah, she had some scars from rough relationships but, don’t we all? I figured a good reaming, cleaning finish removal, maybe a dye-job, some sanding and she’d look like a brand new pipe. Well, newish, anyway.

I started to prepare to ream the tobacco chamber. I removed the stem and saw a very interesting stinger. Now, I am not a stinger fan, generally. This just looked to be a quality piece of work. Fairly heavy aluminum, well machined, good fit with the mortice. What’s this, it comes apart? Cool. Given, I had to use a pocket knife to get it to come apart the first time and the photo shows the cleaned-up version, I was initially impressed. I dropped the removable stinger into a medicine cup with some 99% isopropyl alcohol to soak. I then started running

alcohol dipped bristle pipe cleaners through the stem. That was an ADHD moment, there, I was supposed to be reaming the tobacco chamber.

Okay, back to reaming the tobacco chamber. I used the Scottie stainless steel reaming tool as the Pipnet tool has a broken #1 blade. The Smokingpipes Low Country knife and the General triangular scraper were used to further rid the chamber of carbonized material. The chamber was then sanded with 220 sandpaper wrapped around a wood dowel. THe chamber looked google with no evidence of heat damage.

I started cleaning the airway in the shank with cotton swabs dipped in 99% isopropyl alcohol. They came back looking dark. I then poured about 3 ml of the alcohol into the bowl and let it drain into the airway. I then used a nylon brush to scrub the shank interior while holding the stummel at an angle so the alcohol could dissolve the tars and remain in the stummel rather than staining another

pair of jeans by dripping it on my lap. After the scrub I used cotton swabs to scrub the airway. These absorb the loosened tar and remaining alcohol.

The photo is after the first 3 ml of alcoholI repeated the process with 3 ml of fresh isopropyl. This was done 3-4 times before the cotton swabs came back clean.

I then applied an even coat of saliva onto the rim and scraped the rim with a sharp pocket knife. I held the bladed perpendicular to the rim and lightly scraped away the lava.

With the interior and rim cleaned, I took the stummel to the sink for the Murphy’s Oil Soap scrub. The Murphy’s was used undiluted and scrubbed with a medium stiff bristle toothbrush. The stummel was rinsed with warm water and dried with a cotton dish towel. I returned the stummel to the workbench and wiped the bowl off with a make-up pad wetted with 95% ethyl alcohol. The ethyl alcohol removes an existing finish better than the 99% isopropyl alcohol. The pad came back with a good bit of color indicating that it was dissolving the old finish.

I continued with a fresh pad and continued until I was no longer seeing any color on the make-up pad. I then tried a make-up pad wetted with acetone – a little more color came off.

With the finish removed I could see a couple of spots that I needed to fill with cyanoacrylate (CA, super glue) and briar dust. Gave the stummel a light sanding with a 400 sanding sponge. This revealed a small pit on the end of the shank. I dug out the old fill with a fly tying bodkin. There were also several cuts in the bottom of the stummel that needed to be filled.

For the pit on the shank I pressed briar dust into the pit and placed a small drop of Thin CA onto the dust. Ist absorbed and set up almost instantly. I smoothed the fill with a 400 sanding sponge. The gashes on the bottom of the stummel were a little more difficult. I did not want to damage nor did I want to get any CA into the stamping. I placed a small drop of Thin CA into the gash and started sanding it immediately. The hope was that some sanding dust would get into the gash, mix with the CA and form a fill in place. I had to repeat this process a few times.

With the fills addressed I covered the stamps with painters tape and sanded the stummel with the 600 and 1000 sanding sponges. I thought that I might be able to use a dark brown dye then sand the stummel leaving a nice contrast stain and accentuating the briar’s grain.

I prepped the dyeing area and gathered the needed items. Fiebing’s Dark Brown Leather Dye, a folded pipe cleaner, disposable lighter and the duct tape wrapped styrofoam fishing bobber.

I used the folded pipe cleaner as an applicator for the dye. The fishing bobber was inserted into the bowl to stop dye from entering and give me a handle to hold the stummel. Most people use a wine bottle cork for the bowl plug/handle. I applied two coats of dye and flamed the wetted stummel with the lighter.

After allowing the stummel to dry for a few minutes I used a paper towel to wipe the excess stain from the stummel.

I returned to the workbench and spayed a make-up pad with 99% isopropyl alcohol. Holding the stummel in paper towels, I wiped the stummel to remove additional dye.

After the stummel had been wiped and dried, I began sanding with a 400 sanding sponge. I wanted to remove the outer layer of dyed briar leaving behind the areas that absorbed more dye. It didn’t work as planned, I probably should have used a black dye. Oh well, it’s still a lovely color of brown and is more like the original. I continued sanding using the sanding sponges 600-3500. Between each sponge I would wipe the stummel off with an alcohol dampened make-up pad. The dyed and sanded stummel looked like this when I was done with the sanding sponges:

The stummel still needed to be micro-meshed. I figured I would do the stem and the stummel at the same time. This meant that I needed to work to the stem.

The stem had quite a bit of teeth chatter or, maybe a previous owner liked to

smoke while waking during sandstorms. Either way it needed a good sanding and micro-meshing. The stem did not have any browning indicative of oxidized vulcanite yet when sanded the color was a yellow-brown like oxidized vulcanite – weird. I sanded using the sanding sponges from 600-3500. Between each sponge I applied a layer of mineral oil with my fingers and wiped it off with a paper towel. These new sanding sponges are excellent at getting into the corner where the button meets the stem. I almost forgot to tell you that I covered the stem logo with a piece of painters tape to protect the logo.

With both the stem and stummel now ready for micro-meshing I reapplied new painters tape of the stamps and logo. I started with the 2400 micro-mesh pad and moved through the whole series through the 12000. Between each pad I wiped the stummel is a make-up pad wetted with 99% isopropyl alcohol and the stem with mineral oil on my fingers wiped with a paper towel. The stummel

received a coating of Before and After Restoration Balm and was allowed to sit for about 30 minutes. For the final polishing of the stem I used Before and After Fine then Extra Fine Polish.

The polish was applied with my finger and vigorously rubbed with a cotton rag for each polish.

.

The last thing this old pipe needed was the final few coats of carnauba wax applied with the buffer. After the waxing I gave the stem another drop of obsidian Oil, hand buffed the stummel with a nanofiber polishing cloth and took some photos.

This old Winthrop Saddle Stem Billiard may have an unknown providence but it certainly did clean up nicely. The briar is thick, well drilled and though the grain isn’t great it certainly doesn’t hurt my eyes. The aluminum work of the mortise and tenon is well done and precisely machined. The stem material, whatever it is, proved to be hard to finish, never really taking on the ebony glow of high quality vulcanite or ebonite. Overall this is a very well made factory produced pipe. It will undoubtedly provide years of enjoyment for its next partner. I hope that you have found some of the techniques used here helpful in restorations of your own or were at least entertained. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover. Almost forgot again, if you like this kind of stuff please hit the like and subscribe buttons.

Below are some photos of the finished Winthrop Saddle Stem Billiard.