Photographed and written by

John M. Young

Just when you thought I had moved on from my fascination with pipes from the 1940s I throw another one at you.  I had been watching the auctions for a Ken after reading about them in the 1946-1948 Pipe Lovers Magazines for several months.  The difficulty was in finding one that had an intact condenser apparatus and was in the price range I found acceptable.  Complicated and delicate are two words that come to mind for the contraption within the stem.

Well, as you can see I found one that fit both of my criterion.  This pipe was originally purchased on June 8 of 2024.  When the box arrived my excitement was quickly dashed due to the wrong pipe was sent by the seller.  eBay messages were exchanged and the incorrect pipe was returned to the seller.  At this point I thought my search would have to start all over.  Fortunately the recipient of the Ken pipe returned his incorrect shipment quickly.  The seller was able to repost the Ken and I was able to purchase it again.  I felt a little bad for the seller as he had to pay for the return shipping but was glad he made it right with us buyers.  The correct pipe eventually arrived and waited in the queue for it’s spot on the workbench.  Here is what the Ken looked like upon arrival. 

Background

I’ll start with what drew me to want to restore a Ken in the first place, a full page ad from Pipe Lovers magazine January 1946: 

I especially loved the “Smokers’ Guild of America”, rather than the company name.  There is a union that I could support.

Here is a larger version of the Ken schematic diagram from Popular Mechanics 1946:

(File:Ken Ad 1946 Pop Mach.jpg – Pipedia).  Notice the patent number “Pat. 2242805” and the “A Prim Product”.  For comparison, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation calculator shows that a $3.50 pipe in June 1940 would cost you $77.96 in May of 2024 (https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=3.50&year1=194006&year2=202405).

According to Pipedia.org,

“KEN Brand Pipes are made by Prim Associates of America out of Chicago, Ill. The design is unique and somewhat complex and has a patent by Otto Turinsky.^[1] This patent was applied for in Dec. 1939 and granted in May 1941, Pat No 2,242,805. An ad in Popular Mechanics from 1946 shows the pipe costing $3.50 and shows Six Key features of the Ken Pipe along with a Money Back Guarantee! Stem is Lucite and the interior chamber contains various technical features to remove tar, moisture, burnt tongue and remove impurities.”  (KEN – Pipedia)

I searched through Google patents, advanced search and found the original patent from Otto Turinsky:

(1498380862798272946-02242805 (storage.googleapis.com)).  Perhaps Otto Turinsky was either very attorney averse or so innovatively clever as to make a device that rivals could not or would not try to copy thus freeing himself from all the trouble brought about by patent infringement litigation.

With only the smallest bit of conjecture I can safely say that the Ken in hand is a pipe made in Chicago, Illinois between the dates of December 30 1939, when the patent was applied for, and May 20 1941, when the patent application was granted.  That was a tough time to start production of a new line of pipes as World War Two would have nearly eliminated the supply of briar from the Mediterranean. 

The Restoration

I broke from usual and began cleaning without a clean denim piece for a work surface.  I guess I was just excited to work on this pipe after waiting so many months to finally have one.  The stem of the Ken had a scar from a battle with a cigarette, probably from a seedy bar down by the river.   

The interior of the stem was truly tar and yuck infested.  That should look like yellow acrylic rather than a black painted ceiling.

The patent diagram refers to the rounded cylinder as the “cup”.  The cup was a black caked mess and needed into an alcohol bath, stat.  Yeah, borrowing terms from hospital emergency room lingo makes me feel cool.

The stem was not accepting of the 95% ethyl alcohol so cleaning had to be done with something else.  I used Castille soap diluted with water to soften the old smoking deposits within the stem.

The contraption’s tar was softening with the alcohol.  I took it to the sink where I could scrub it with additional alcohol without making a mess of the workbench.

The aluminum was scrubbed with a nylon brush dipped in alcohol.  The tar was relinquishing its grip on the old aluminum.

I eventually could see that the cup was just slid onto an aluminum tube coming out of the shank.  I carefully slid the cup off and allowed it to soak further. In the 95% ethyl alcohol. 

Every few minutes I removed the cup and tried cleaning inside the cup and the exterior.  As you can see the alcohol was darkening from the soaking and scrubbing.

The aluminum cup was delicate feeling.  I did not want to exert very much pressure on it or it’s flanges.  I used pipe cleaners and cotton swabs with about ½ of their cotton removed to scrub the inside of the cum.

The inside of the cup was finally cleaned.

The exterior remained difficul to clean and was stained.  This surface required a bit more of an abrasive cleaning.  I lightly scrubbed it with 0000 steel wool dipped in the alcohol.

After soakin the stem’s interior was scraped with a dental scraper and scrubbed with various scrubbing tools; bristle pipe cleaners, small tube brushes, cotton swabs, a fy tying bodkin, etc…  Actually almost anything I could fit into the stem was used  to try to separate the tar from the plastic.

After the interior was looking better I used an emory board to flatten the cigarette burn.  I then applied a thin coating of clear Thin Cyanoacrylate (CA, super glue) to the depression in the center of the cigarette scar.  I was afrain to speed the drying of the CA as the CA drying accelerator that I use reacts less than favorably to acrylic.  I allowed the CA to dry at it’s own pace and smoothed the new material.  I had to reapply several times to get the depression filled.

The stummel was prepped for reaming and the tools were gathered.  The tobacco chamber war a bit too narrow for the PipNet #2 blade and the #1 blade remained broken.  Apparently it will not heal itself and return to work.  

The reaming was done mainly with the Scotte Stainless Steel Reamer Tool, scraping with both the General Triangular scraper the the Smokingpipes Low Country Knife was also done.  The chamber was sanded with 220 sandpaper wrapped around a wood dowel.  The chamber was taken to bare brian and no damage from heat was observed.

The stummel was then taken to the sink.  There it was scrubbed with undiluted Murphy Oil Soap and a medium toothbrush.  The soap was rinsed with warm water and the stummel dried with a cotton dish towel.

Returning to the workbench the stummels was wiped with 95% ethyl alcohol on a make-up pad.  Some color came off on the pad indicating that there had remained wax and/or finish remaining on the briar.

The rim was moistened with saliva and scraped with a sharp pocket knife.

I decided to give this stem an alcohol/cotton treatment as it still smelled of old tobacco residue and tar.  Cotton was stuffed into the bowl and shank.  Alcohol was added by a disposable pipette, approximately 10 ml.  The alcohol was allowed to sit overnight to work on removing the remaining residue.

The next day the cotton in the chamber appeared as the photo below shows.

Finally the stem and stummel looked fairly clean.

The stamps were covered with painters tape to protect them during sanding.

The sanding of the stem used sanding sponges 1000-3500.  The stem was wiped off with a make-up pad moistened with water between each sponge.

The sanding of the stummel was done with the same sanding sponges only from 600-3500.  Between each sponge the stummel was wiped off with a make-up pad moistened with 95% ethyl alcohol.

Th stem and stummel were worked with 4000-12000 micro-mesh pads.  The stummel wiped with the alcohol wetted pad while the stem was wiped with a water wetted make-up pad.

The stummel then received a coating of Before and After Restoration Balm and was allowed to sit for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes the excess Restoration Balm was hand buffed to remove the excess using an inside out athletic sock.

The pipe was then taken to the buffer fr several coats of carnauba wax.

I Though the pipe was finished yet there were still two things which bothered me slightly.  Number one was the “KEN” stamp on the top of the stem.  It needed something.  I decided to repaint the stamp with silver Rub’nBuff.

The second thing that I found bothersome was that the stem had a slight looseness that I didn’t like.  I thought that it would probably go away after the first smoke but what if I didn’t smoke this pipe?  I decided to give the stem a touch of beeswax upon the tenon of the shank.  This stem is actually a reverse mortise/tenon with the mortise being the stem and the tenon is the shank.

Molten beeswax was applied with a small paintbrush and allowed to cool.

The wax was then cut away using the Low Country Knife.  The tenon was then rubbed with a cotton cloth to smooth and wipe away additional excess.

Here is the stem with new paint and a tight fitting stem.  There, I was finally happy with it.

Well, I can mark off another 1940 pipe from the list of pipes that I wanted to restore.  In all seriousness this Ken Billiard turned out better than I expected it to.  The yellow stem had me worried.  I’ve seen photos of red, blue and black stems.  I think a red or blue would be easier to restore as the transparency of the stem would be less noticeable and the black would be easy mode.  This one looks pretty good with the yellow accenting the yellow tones in the briar quite nicely.  The nickel band looks good with the silver Rub’nBuff.  The internals cleaned up well and I learned about how this aluminum contraption is designed and how it’s supposed to work.  That was something that had really intrigued me about these pipes.  I have very mixed feelings about smoking this old pipe.  I want to know how the whole thing works but I’m not looking forward to cleaning it all out again.  Oh, you know I’ll smoke it.  The dimensions of the Ken PAT. APLD. SE areas follows:

Length:  5.72 in./ 145.29 mm.

Weight:  1.05 oz./ 30.00 g.

Bowl Height: 1.66 in./  42.16 mm.

Chamber Depth: 1.34in./ 34.04 mm.

Chamber Diameter:  0.74 in./ 18.80 mm.

Outside Diameter:  1.30 in./ 33.02 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.

Below are some photos of the finished Ken Pat. Apld. 1350 SE.