Tag: pipe restoration

A Kaufmann Bros. & Bondy (KB&B)? Churchwarden Restoration

November 23rd, 2023

Written and photographed by John M. Young

The first time I ever publicly wrote anything about pipe restoration was in a forum at SmokingPipes.com back on October 21 2022. I guess I was feeling pretty proud of myself and wanted to brag a little. I titled the post “You did what to a what with a what?” The following is that post in its entirety:

It was bound to happen: I finally got a Ropp cherry wood branch with an auction and no, that was not the pipe in the lot I wanted. Anyway, the old Cherry was kind of cute. I felt obliged to give her a little bit of love. A little bowl reaming followed by the old Murphy’s oil soap with a toothbrush routine and the obligatory removal of the electrician tape in front of the mouthpiece revealed a – dramatic pause – a cracked shank. Who saw that one coming? Hmm, how much obligation do I really have for this old girl? I mean, we just met…

Well, lets see how bad the crack is. Hmm, half an inch. Internet search for a ring shows that the Vermont Freehand boys are going to be in Las Vegas for a few days and this old Cherry needs a doctor “stat”. What else could I use? Hey, what is that old .357 cartridge doing in my pipe cleaning tool box? The caliper says that .375 would require a whole bunch of file work and sanding to make a ring. Hmm, last time I checked a .44 Mag case is wider than a .357. Wheels turning, let’s visit the reloading bench. Sure enough, a .44 is bigger than a .375 and would only require a little bit of filing and sanding. Hmm, now all I need is a son-in-law who is a plumber with a pipe cutter. Oh yeah, he’ll be home at 4:30. Snippity snap I have a .44 cal, I mean a brass ring for the patient. Doctor, I think she is going to pull through.

I hope you had as much fun reading as I did restoring this old Cherry. And for the record, she smokes pretty well.

From south east NE,

John

I am guessing that you can relate if you have purchased an estate lot or two. You get that pipe with tape around the shank right there at the mortise. You think to yourself, “I bet the previous owner just liked tape.” Yup, da Nile is a river in Africa. Then you carefully peel the tape off, certain that if you go slowly the crack will have healed over time, you continue, slowly, slowly.

Visions of Brad Pitt pop into your head. You continue undaunted, a little more. Then there it is in all of its eldritch horror. – a shank crack. You are sure that the crack is so large the previous owner probably fell into it and may still be trapped down there.

Okay, maybe I have a tendency to over exaggerate – the Nile is mainly in Egypt. But, the rest is exactly how I felt the first time I discovered a shank crack. Learning to deal with them allows our darlings to live again regaining some of their smokey glory. After having glued and clamped one successfully. I thought, “this isn’t so bad”. That first glue job is still together after well over 2 years.

Then you find another crack and try to fashion a band and that works out pretty well too. You try a few more and sure enough, shank cracks are just another little thing that we have to deal with. I still recommend checking to make sure the previous owner isn’t trapped in there before you glue and clamp it up.

That brings us to the pipe of the day, a lovely old KB&B churchwarden (?) with a metallic tape shank. Not just scotch tape for this girl, no sir. Real duct

tape. And under that tape, you guessed it – a shank crack. I failed to take a picture of just the crack so you get to see what I did to the end of the crack.

Sorry if that kind of ruined the surprise. I am getting ahead of myself. Let me start with the photos of the pipe when she arrived:

She’s a long one, coming in at just under 12 inches (30ish cm)an she had all of the things that you expect from an old pipe: Dirt and grime, a caked bowl, lava on the rim, an oxidized stem, dents and dings, dirty internals and a cracked shank. Now the title of this blog contains a question mark because the stummel is not stamped with the KB&B clover nor with KB&B anywhere. The only stamping on the stummel is the “CHURCHWARDEN”. There is no country of manufacture (COM) nor any shape number. So, “why are you calling her a KB&B?”, you rightfully ask. Because the logo on the stem matches the logo for Kaufman Bros. & Bondy from their pre Kaywoodie days.

(https://pipedia.org/wiki/Kaufmann_Bros._%26_Bondy)

It is also true that there were two KB&B seconds brands which also used this logo. The first is Dorset. Here you can see the same logo but in light blue.

(Do-Dq — Pipes : Logos & Markings (pipephil.eu))

The second is the Hamilton, here the logo is in yellow. The yellow looks to be the same as the first emblem pictured.

(H-Hd — Pipes : Logos & Markings (pipephil.eu))

Both the Dorset and the Hamilton are stamped with the KB&B cloverleaf. It does bother me that there are no other stampings on this churchwarden to verify this claim. According to the KB&B page at Piedia,

“The trademarks, for the inlaid cloverleaf and the cloverleaf with the KB&B initials inside, were issued in 1881.” (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Kaufmann_Bros._%26_Bondy)

KB&B had used the cloverleaf logo for many years prior to the origination of Kaywoodie and Yello-Bole.

This could have been an old stem that was slapped onto some no name stummel at any point in the previous century. I am not claiming that this is a true Pre-WWI or WWII KB&B and listing it up for auction. This is a pipe that I enjoyed working on and continue to enjoy smoking. As for the history of the piece, It may be lost to the mists of time.

To the restoration. I apologize in advance for the lack of step by step photos. This was another of my earlier restorations before I started proper documentation.

The first thing that I did was to remove the tape. I think I covered that ordeal pretty well earlier. The crack was approximately one half an inch (1.25 cm) long. Normally I will ream the tobacco chamber first but, I wanted to see to this crack. The tape must have been applied shortly after the shank had cracked and the owner applied a good amount of force when taping the shank back together. They had obviously enjoyed smoking this pipe and tried to the best of their ability to fix her up and get her back into the game. There was very little debris in the crack.

I started cleaning out the airway with cotton swabs dipped in 99% isopropyl alcohol. They were pretty dirty. I then poured about 3 ml of the alcohol into the bowl and held the pipe at an angle that would not dump the alcohol all over the workbench. I retrieved a small nylon shank brush. With the alcohol pooled up in the shank, I started scrubbing with the brush. You could feel the alcohol doing its job as the brush became more and more easy to move back and forth. I dumped the alcohol into a medicine cup knowing the color would be dark, it was. I poured another 3 ml of alcohol in and repeated the airway scrub. This time the alcohol came out more brown than black. I repeated the process again and the alcohol was more golden. Progress. After the third alcohol shank scrub I then was able to use the cotton swabs to finish cleaning out the airway. I figured that all of this alcohol would also be cleaning out and rinsing the crack as I was cleaning the airway. I used a longer bristle brush to work alcohol into the crack and clean it out as well as I could. I used the fine dental pick to see if there was anything else that could be removed. The crack appeared clean.

I started on the tobacco chamber next. I used the PipNet reamer. All the alcohol had softened up the cake nicely and the reaming went without any

issues. I gave everything a final scrape with the SmokingPipes Low Country Reamer. The final step was to use 220 sandpaper wrapped around a wooden dowel to return the chamber to bare briar and inspect for any damage. The interior of the chamber looked good and showed no signs of damage.

I then took the stummel to the sink for its bath. The bath is a serious scrub with undiluted Murphy Wood Cleaner and a medium stiff toothbrush. This

will usually remove the years worth of dirt and accumulated grime. Again the lava on the rim had also been softened by all the alcohol from earlier and it too scrubbed off nicely. The rim did look like it was in need of a topping as the years of use had given it a charred taper rather than a nice sharp edge. After the Murphy’s scrub the stummel was rinsed with warm water and dried with a cotton dish towel.

The stummel returned to the workbench looking clean and finish free. I started to rub down the stummel with cotton make-up removal pads soaked in 99% isopropyl alcohol. There did not appear to be any finish remaining on the briar. I wanted the wood to be completely dry before addressing the crack so, I set it aside and turned my attention to the long churchwarden stem.

Typically I would rub the length of a stem with 0000 steel wool and give it a soak for an hour or so in the Before and After Deoxidizing Solution. This stem was far to long to fit in the jar. Which meant that it would have to be done with Soft Scrub and cotton pads. The thought that made my finger start cramping in anticipation. I decided to make an OxyClean solution in a large ZipLock bag and soak the stem in the solution in an attempt at softening up the oxidized vulcanite. I put about a heaping tablespoon of OxyClean in about ¾ cup of warm water. Yes, I know, exact measurements are helpful. I figured that I’d let it soak for an hour then see how it was progressing.

The OxyClean soak did work at softening the oxidation. I set to work with the make-up removal pads and the Soft Scrub. Many pads later and a couple breaks, not of the stem but breaks for my hands, the stem was looking much better. I oiled the stem thoroughly with mineral oil and mentally prepared myself for the stem airway. Knowing how grimy the shank was I had kind of

https://www.piggypolish.com/channeling-scrubbing-bubbles/

been putting off the stem airway cleaning. I did hope that the OxyClean solution would have been like the scrubbing bubbles on the old commercials.

I got a medicine cup filled with about 5 ml of alcohol, a pipette for dropping more alcohol on the length of the pipe cleaner and a new bag of churchwarden bristle pipe cleaners. Long pipe cleaners work well if they do not get a bend in them. This means the you are pushing less than one centimeter at a time into the stem. It was a long and tedious process with many bent stems and additional drops of alcohol but I finally got one pipe cleaner through. I remembered seeing a

video somewhere about clamping the end of a pipe cleaner in a vice while holding the other end of the clamped cleaner and moving the stem up and down along the pipe cleaner. If I recall correctly the guy in the video was talking about polishing the airway. I did this with the churchwarden stem. I added additional alcohol to the top and slid the stem up and down on the clamped pipe cleaner. Several pipe cleaners later the airway was clean. The next job was to micromesh the stem. I started with the 1500 followed by the 1800 micro-mesh pads. These were both wetted with a couple of drops of water. After the 1500 I wiped the stem with Obsidian Oil before proceeding to the 1800. After the 1800 micro-mesh the Obsidian Oil was used again. The remaining pads were used in increasing numbers with Obsidian Oil applied between each pad.

The following day, after the stummel had dried overnight it was time to address that crack. To keep the crack from spreading I used the smallest drill bit I had and my Dremel rotary tool. I drilled a small hole at the end of the crack. This crack was wide enough that I thought J.B. Weld would be a better glue to use that cyanoacrylate (super glue). I then mixed the two part epoxy on a small plastic tray with a toothpick. I then worked the epoxy into the crack flexing it open and closed to allow the glue to penetrate the entire crack. Once i was satisfied with the coverage I used a small clamp to squeeze the sides together. To make sure there was no epoxy on the inside of the airway I used a couple of cotton swabs slightly moistened with acetone to wipe the excess glue from the airway. This was set aside to allow the epoxy to cure.

My next task was to cut a brass band. I thought that brass would look slightly better that the aluminum tape band that the pipe had on arrival. You my have noticed from the earlier photo of a few of my band projects they are made from spent cartridge brass. That was the source of my brass bands

prior to me actually buying several different diameters of brass tubing. In the case of this KB&B (?) I used a 44 Remingth Magnum spent cartridge (pun intended) as the donor. A pipe cutter was used to cut a piece that would cover the crack. The cutter is nice as it gives the brass a little bend to the cut end and softens the edge.

I allowed the epoxy to cure overnight before removing the clamp. The instructions say that the glue sets-up after 15 minutes but I wanted to make sure the the stress of the wood would not spread the still soft glue and widen the crack. The next day I removed the clamp and took a look at the glue seam.

It looked good. I sanded the excess glue on the outside of the stummel then sanded the area that would be under the band for a better fit. The band went on without glue as it was a very tight fit. I used a scrap wood block to press the band the final millimeters and t make it flush with the shank.

With the band seated all that remained was the final micro-meshing of the stummel. This process nearly the same as with the micro-meshing of the stem.. The difference was that rather than using Obsidian Oil between the micro-mesh pads I wipe the stummel with a make-up pad moistened with

99% isopropyl alcohol. After the 12000 micro-mesh pad and alcohol wipe I gave the stummel a liberal coating of Before and After Restoration Balm. The balm was allowed to sit for 30 minutes.

After the wait time I rubbed the remaining Restoration Balm off with an inside-out athletic sock. I did not have a buffer at the time of this restoration. I did have Renaissance Microcrystalline Wax. The wax was applied and allied to dry to 10 minutes. The wax was then hand buffed with a buffing pad. This was repeated two additional times.

I have enjoyed smoking the this old pipe many times. I certainly understand why the Germans call churchwardens “lesepfeife”, which means reading pipe. They do make wonderful reading companions. Other benefits include not getting smoke into your eyes when reading, not having to reach all the way to your face for a pipe and looking wizardly. No, not like Gandalf. In the J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth books Gandalf did not use a long stemmed pipe. He had a small clay pipe that he tucked into his robe. We can thank Peter Jackson for the image of Gandalf with a long stem pipe. I don’t think I will ever be certain as to the pedigree of this churchwarden. KB&B or not? I don’t think it matters one bit to the pipe nor the tobacco and guess not me either. Thank you for reading the rambling of this old pipe lover. If you have any insights to the origin of this churchwarden please feel free to leave a comment. If you like this sort of thing please click the “like” and or “subscribe” buttons.

Below are photos of the finished KB&B (?) Churchwarden.
A Restoration of a Doodler

November 20th, 2023

Written and photographed by John M. Young

The quest for a cooler smoke may lie at the heart of mans’ needs. Needs such as water, food, shelter, a mate, love, companionship, are there too. Okay, maybe not the “heart” but, at least the appendix or the spleen of mans’ needs. This quest has led to many unique inventions. One of these is Tracy Mincer’s Doodler. Tracy Mincer was the originator of the Custom-bilt pipes in 1934. Interestingly, the same year that Robert Marxman began the Marxman pipes company. The history of Tracy Mincer’s contributions to the estate pipes which we have available today can still be seen. I have a saved search on Ebay that alerts me everytime a Custom-built or Custombilt (the hyphen was used until 1946) pipes are added to Ebay. Today, thus far, four new listings have come up.

There is what sounds like a remarkable book about the Custombilt company by William Unger, Jr., Ph.D. titled, THE CUSTOM-BILT PIPE STORY. Pipedia has information at the bottom of their “Custom-Bilt” page that states the following:

“Available from the author (order from). 263 pages, plastic spiral bound, 87 illustrations: pipe photographs and reproductions of rare ads and catalogs. Chapter One: The Companies; Chapter Two: The People; Chapter Three: The Pipes; A carefully researched history of these increasingly collectible pipes, from their beginning, with Tracy Mincer in 1929, to their last manufacture in 1998. A guide to the names and distinguishing features of the many different variations. Reviews by Richard Esserman, and Tony Soderman.” (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Custom-Bilt)

The “order form” link takes you to http://naspc.org/books.htm which unfortunately is not currently functioning. However the site does say. “This page is currently blank – we are working on bringing content here, so stay tuned in the future.” (http://naspc.org/books.htm) So, I will continue to check the site in hopes of a functioning webpage. The reviews by the above gentlemen, Esserman and Soderman, are also quite interesting and make me wish I could obtain a copy of the book.

As for the history of the Doodler, Pipedia states that:

“After his loss of the Custom-Bilt name in 1953, Tracy Mincer‘s next production pipe was The Doodler. The pipe was turned for Mincer by the National Briar Pipe Co. beginning in the early 1950’s, and that company eventually purchased the pipe design in approximately 1960. After that time Mincer’s former partner Claude Stewart began making a line of pipes called the Holeysmoke which were largely identical to the Doodler pipes, and National Briar continued to produce the Doodler. The pipe’s design centers around a series of vertically drilled holes in a ring around the combustion chamber, meant to provide airflow and a cooler smoke.” (The Doodler – Pipedia)

In reading the Mincer page at pipedia, parts of this passage funny,

“in the early 1950’s, Tracy Mincer developed severe financial problems that caused him to stop making the Custombilt, and he lost the name. In 1952, Mincer began a new pipe, The Doodler, that due to the holes in the bowl had to made primarily in a billiard type shape in three sizes. In the early 1950s, National Briar was turning the bowls for Mincer. Based upon the documentation, it appears that Mincer made the pipe until the mid 1960s, when National Briar Pipe Co., Inc. began making and selling the Doodler.

Mincer died in 1964.” (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Mincer)

Not to make fun of the deceased but rather the writer of the piece. Death in 1964 certainly would cause one to stop making pipes in the mid 1960s. Even after his death the Tracy Mincer name was still used to market and sell pipes.

“Claude Stuart purchased the Tracy Mincer Pipe Company and began making pipes using the Tracy Mincer stamp. Stuart finished nearly all the pipes produced, mostly carved and textured bowls and the occasional straight grain. Claude made the Tracy Mincer Pipe Company a moderate success. Stuart became ill and in 1990 The Tracey Mincer Pipe Company went out of business. Currently, Jim Tedesco owns the Tracy Mincer name.” (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Mincer)

The stamping on my Doodler was the same as those pictured on the Pipehil.eu site:

(http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-t4.html#thedoodler )

This brings me to the conclusion that the pipe I have is a Doodler, profound, eh?. I cannot be sure as to when it was made since the years of manufacture were from 1953 -1960s. Mincer’s death in 1964 did not apparently end the production of Tracy Mincer’s pipes. I like to think that the pipe I own was an earlier version due to the carved gouges at the bottom of the stummel or heel. These are more reminiscent of the Tracy Mincer Custombilt pipes and may be a carry over from his experiences there. This of course is all just conjecture.

How did I come to own this particular Doodler? I won it on an Ebay auction. The pipe had piqued my interest and I had been watching auctions for a

couple of weeks. Finally I won the pictured auction. I know, big spender, right? Well, I am a big believer in the saying, “better luck than good, anyday.” The pipe arrived and I was quite pleased to see that the lighting in Ebay the photos were not very good and the pipe appeared far nicer than the photos.

This appeared to be a nice easy restoration. Actually, more of a clean-up. A clean-up with a stem restoration. I started with reaming out the tobacco chamber. There was minimal cake build up to remove. Sorry for the lack of photos – this whole process went so quickly I kind of forgot to document the it. After the minimal reaming I sanded the interior of the bowl with 220 sandpaper wrapped around a wooden dowel.

There was some charring or lava around the rim. I figured I would start with the Murphy Wood Cleaner and see what that revealed. The Murphys was applied to a medium stiff toothbrush undiluted. This was used to scrub the entire exterior, without the stem. As usual I was amazed at how much grime a pipe that looked so clean actually has. The deposits on the rim were just lava and came off easily with the scrubbing. I rinsed the stummel with warm water and dried it with a cotton towel. I returned to the workbench. The amount of rinsing was minimal and the bowl was spacious enough that I dried the stummel more thoroughly with paper towels. Getting into all of the spaces between the rings was tedious but easy to accomplish.

I did notice that the vertical holes drilled from the rim through the rings was not done with extreme care. Most of the holes were rough with slightly chipped edges. I figured a little bit of round needle filing would smooth them up a little bit making the final appearance more finished. I don’t think it made as much of a difference as I thought it would. Here are the before (left) and after (right) photos of the rim:

I then began the task of cleaning out the shank. The shank like the rest of the pipe was quite clean. I used cotton swabs soaked in 99% ethyl alcohol. The first couple came out as you would expect. The tars that had accumulated were quickly removed and the whole stummel had no old tobacco smoke aroma.

I turned my attention to the stem. The stem had obviously spent a good deal of time in someone’s mouth. There was teeth chatter, calcium deposits and an oxidation pattern suggesting frequent use. There were no deep dents

indicative of long periods of rough physical work while clinching a pipe between the teeth. I started imagining the owner of this Doodler sitting after dinner reading his paper while watching Leave It to Beaver, The Donna Reed Show, and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Before going off to bed he would tap the bowl on a cork knob in his ashtray then run a pipe cleaner or two through the stem. He would then carefully place his smoking buddy on a pipe rack and head to bed.

I used 0000 steel wool to rub away the calcium deposits and remove some of the worst oxidation. I then took the stem to the Deoxidizer solution. I ran a pipe cleaner into the stem from the tenon and left 3 inches to hang the stem from the edge of the jar. I figured that I would hang the stem in the solution for an hour or so.

Sidenote: I think that I have been remiss in explaining the source of the Deoxidizing solution. I use Before and After Extra Strength Deoxidizer from https://www.lbepen.com/shop-5. They have remarkable products mainly for the restoration of fountain pens. I am also a big fan of their Before and After Restoration Balm (for the briar), Before and After Fine and Extra Fine Polish (for stems).

While the stem was in the Deoxidizing solution I returned to the stummel. You may have noticed a slight crack on the top of the shank.

I worried that this might be a more significant issue and the stummel got all cleaned-up. I moistened a make-up removal pad with 99% ethyl alcohol and began to give the stummel a good alcohol scrub. The only thing that came off the stummel was a little bit of what appeared to be stain. It was very light and its absence did not seem to change the color of the briar. There was no finish to be observed. Bless you Mr. Mincer for not using a lacquer. The crack that looked so ominous when it was dirty, now appeared to be completely superficial. There were a couple of dents along the top of the shank. I decided not to fill these as I thought they went with the rough carved heel of the pipe and I really do not like to do fills.

I started the sanding/micro-mesh process with 400 wet/dry sandpaper wet with a few drops of water being very cautious near the stampings. After the light sanding I wiped the stummel with a make-up pad moistened with the 99% ethyl alcohol. I continued to use the 1500 and 1800 micro-mesh pad also wet with the alcohol wipe between micro-mesh pads. The 2200-12000 micro-mesh pads followed again with an alcohol wipe between each pad. When finished I gave the stummel a coating of Before and After Restoration Balm with my finger and thumb. I then switched to a baby toothbrush with Restoration Balm to work the balm into all the holes, rings and carvings. The stummel was then set aside to allow the balm to do its thing.

After about an hour I returned to the stem. I lifted it from the Deoxidizing solution and allowed it to drip most of the excess back into the jar. Nitrile gloves are recommended when handling the Deoxidizing solution. I then use a more coarse cotton shop rag to wipe the solution from the stem. It starts out feeling kind of tacky but as you rub the rag absorbs the solution and buffs away the oxidized vulcanite. I rub quite vigorously until the stem feels smooth and dry in the rag. After the outside of the stem was rid of the solution I used two absorbent pipe cleaners to run through the airway of the stem. Immediately after the deoxidizing solution is removed I dip my finger into mineral oil and give the stem a complete coating of oil. I then dip a pipe cleaner in the oil and run it through the airway.

The stem was ready for sanding, micro-mesh pads and polishing. The stem had no deep tooth chatter or bite marks. I was able to lightly sand with 400 wet sandpaper to remove the chatter quickly. The stem was then wiped with a layer of Obsidian Oil from my fingers and wiped off with a clean make-up pad. I then started the micro-mesh pads 1500 (wet) and 1800 (wet). Between each pad I reapplied a light coat of Obsidian Oil and wiped it off with a make-up pad. Those were followed with the remaining sequence of micro-mesh pads 2400-12000 with the same oiling and wiping between pads.

Overall I was very pleased to have been able to restore a piece of pipe

smoking history to its glory. It really is a strangely beautiful pipe. I don’t recall where but, I do remember reading that the whole Doodler rings and holes thing doesn’t really work. I have yet to try the old girl out. She has a place with a few other oddities of history up on the mantle. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover. If you like this restoration stuff please click the like and subscribe buttons.

Below are photos of the finished Doodler.
A Marxman Regular Apple Restoration

November 14th, 2023

Written and photographed by John M. Young

I remember when I first started down my pipe restoration path. I’d picked up an estate lot figuring that would be the best way to practice and hone my skills. Within the lot there was a dark dirty poorly grained small billiard pipe. The stamping said “MARXMAN”. It was quite nondescript. I immediately had an aversion to the name, as many of my generation might, Carl Marx was no hero of mine. I started researching Marxman pipes to find out more about this company which I hadn’t heard of. As I read, I became fascinated. Yes, many of the Marxman pipes were filled with fills, others so ugly that they were kind of cute, and there were the carved pipes of people (effigies that today would probably get you in trouble for being racist), animals and famous celebrities as well as the traditional pipe shapes. Indeed something for everyone.

The history of Robert (Bob) Marxman was also intriguing. To start a company at 29 years old and turn it into a successful business is impressive but to do that when the world is at war and the supply of your main material, briar, is cut off due to the war is even more impressive. Then to see the marketing; innovative, clever, good advertising all creating success. I saw parallels in Marxman’s business to things we do in restoration – like making the best with what you have. I also discovered that there is no book about the history of Marxman. There are great books that can be used to research Falcon pipes or Peterson pipes and web sites for Dr. Grabow and Custom-bilt pipes but alas, little to go on for Marxman. All we have for certain are the dates of a beginning in 1934 and a merger with Mastercraft in 1953. I guess that makes dating then easy. (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Marxman)

I have restored a number of Marxman pipes and find them fun and relatively inexpensive to practice with. At the same time some are my favorite pipes to smoke. The spigot and the chunky lovat, to the left, are great smoking pipes. The lovat is one that I would surely be ridiculed for if I tried entering her in a beauty contest.

This brings us to the Marxman Regular Apple, the topic of this restoration and the photo at the top of the page. This little darling arrived as many Marxmans do – well used. That is a polite way of saying beat-up and filthy. She had a cake so thick that only a tiny bowl of tobacco could be smoked. How she avoided a cracked bowl is amazing. This cake was equally as thick as the briar walls of the tobacco chamber.

The bright lights used in these original photographs actually make her look better than the normal room lighting. I could see very little grain of any kind.

Then there was the condition of her stem – all I could think of was that a teenager with a channel-lock had heard there was a $20 bill in the shank and he was going to be the first to retrieve it.

Of course the internals were in a condition that is expected of a pipe in this state.

Other than those issues this should be fun, although fun to a restorer may not be universally accepted.

Normally I start with a thorough cleaning of the exterior of the stummel. This time I started with the reaming of the tobacco chamber. I was actually afraid that it might just burst like a balloon cracking into several pieces. Okay, slight exaggeration, there. I began with the PipNet and the Smoking pipes knife. I soon realized that I did not want to put that much pressure on the handle of my PipNet.

I got out the Tsuge reaming blade and the Scotte adjustable reamer. I started opening up the chamber one step at a time and finished with the PipNet. The aftermath of the reaming was a pile of carbon cake that if properly sequestered will aid with global carbon control. The chamber was finally sanded with 220 sandpaper on a wooden dowel. The chamber looked good with no signs of any damage from excessive heat.

With the chamber reamed I turned my attention to reaming out the shank and draft hole. I used the draft hole reamer from the Scotte tool to clear the airway. It felt rather “greasy”. I took this to mean that there was still a thick residue of tar and yuck in the shank. I tried scraping the airway with a dental pick without much success.

To the sink. I took the stummel to the sink to scrub the externals with Murphy Wood Cleaner and a medium stiff toothbrush. Given, my hands still had carbon on them from the reaming but, wow. The dirt and grime that came off the stummel with the soap was impressive. It was still impressive with the second application of Murphy’s. By the third time I removed the years of accumulated grime. Now for the shank. I started that with the nylon bore brush with Dawn dish soap. The lather produced was dark brown. This was rinsed with hot water. The bore brushing with additional Dawn and rinsing continued several cycles. Finally the lather was not brown. I was sure that the entire stummel would need to be dried overnight with all of that exposure to water.

I returned the stummel to the workbench and proceeded to wipe it down with a make-up pad soaked in 99% ethyl alcohol. The pad removed little else from the stummel, just picking up a very slight brown tint, probably a bit of dye from the wood. I poured a couple milliliters of alcohol into the chamber and sloshed it about and allowed it to fill the draft hole with my finger plugging the mortise end. The alcohol will draw much of the water out of the wood as it is very hydrophilic. I poured the remaining alcohol into a medicine cup and used a paper towel to dry the remaining alcohol from the bowl. I then used a small round needle file to feel for tar in the shank. The needle file came back with tar embedded in the teeth. Hmm, lets try a little technique I came up with – wrapping/rolling a piece of paper towel around the needle file, dip the tip in alcohol and scrub the shank. It works and it allows you to put more pressure on than you can with a cotton swab. The tip end will absorb the tars and can be unwrapped, flipped over, rerolled for a clean side. After doing this repeatedly I finally made progress cleaning the draft hole.

Here is what the Marxman Regular Apple looked like after the scrubbing:

You can really see that there is some wood grain and some big dings and chips to the rim. To the topping table. This is actually just a new piece of 220 sandpaper laid flat on the counter. I sanded in a circular pattern until I had removed most of the dings. I rotated the stummel in my hand several times to keep the pressure even across the entire rim. There was still the chip. For that I sanded until the remaining chip could be removed by beveling the inside edge of the chamber using a wooden ball wrapped in a small piece of sandpaper. After the 220 sandpaper I repeat the process with 400 sandpaper.

The left photo is topped only while the lower photo is topped and beveled.

The sanding of the stummel was done starting with 400 wet dry sandpaper. I was careful of the stampings as to not remove any material from them. After the sandpaper the stummel was

wiped off with an alcohol soaked make-up pad. I then began using the micro-mesh pads. The most coarse pad I have is 1500. This pad was used with a couple drops of water on the pad. Between pads the stummel was wiped off with the alcohol dampened make-up pad. After the 1500 came the 1800, also with a bit of water. I continued up through the micro-mesh pads to 4000, wiping between each with the alcohol.

Once the stummel had been sanded and micro-meshed I gave it a coating of Restoration Balm and allowed it to marinade in the balm while I addressed the stem. I did not soak the stem in the Deoxidizing solution since I knew that it was going to be sanded extensively in order to remove the numerous dents and teeth marks from what appeared to be pliers. The cleaning of the stem began with the removal of the stinger. Stingers or “metal filters” are

kind of a misnomer as they hardly filter the smoke. They most likely allow a surface onto which water can condense out of the smoke and maybe some smoking particles will absorb into this water but, filter? They are usually press-fit into the stem. This one was quite stuck. I tried to soften the dried residue with alcohol and used a brass brush to clean it off. Eventually I wrapped the stinger in a piece of denim and pulled it out with a pair of pliers. I then dropped the stinger into a medicine cup with alcohol to soften the dried residue. Knowing how dirty the shank had been and not wanting to use hot water on the stem and risk discoloring it. I decided to use a technique with long churchwarden bristle pipe cleaners, a pipette with alcohol and a vice. You clamp one end of the pipe cleaner in the vice, thread the stem onto the

pipe cleaner, lightly moisten the pipe cleaner with alcohol (not dripping wet, just moist) then holding the free end of the pipe cleaner tight you vigorously move the stem along the full length of the long pipe cleaner. This can be repeated as many times as needed. After an alcohol soak the stinger cleaned easily and was re-inserted into the now cleaned stem.

I had to be careful not to sand the tenon end of the stem as I did not want to change the shape or size of the stem to make fitting with the shank unsightly. I used 180 sandpaper to roughly sand the problem areas. This rough sanding was smoothed and blended by lighter sanding with 220 followed by 400 sandpaper. This was a slow process and I was sure that the results would leave a stem that had waves along the surface where I had to remove so much material in order to erase the dents. Eventually I got to the point where I was happy with the look of the stem. I then proceeded to use the finer and finer grade micro-mesh pads. The stem was wiped down with Obsidian Oil between each of the different micro-mesh pads. When finished I could still see some of the dings from the abuse but overall I was pleased with the look of the finish.

With the stem in acceptable condition and the stummel well marinated, it was time to reassemble the renovated darling. I wiped the remaining Restoration Balm off the pipe and gave it a good rub with the inside of a cotton athletic sock. It always amazes me at how well the Restoration Balm breathes life back into a piece of dry briar. Truly amazing stuff. The pipe needed a few coats of carnauba wax applied via the buffer. After the buffer waxing I hand buffed the entire pipe with a microfiber polishing cloth to add that little extra shine.

If I were a professional restorer I would have been more inclined to strive for perfection. The only problem there is how perfect can a well used 80 year old pipe get? This one will most likely be either used by me as a work-in-the-yard/fishing pipe or it will be gifted to someone and I was quite pleased at the improvement. Either way it has returned to the task that it was originally made for: To be used to smoke tobacco and look darn good doing it. I hope that you can use some of the techniques that you see here in your own work, were slightly entertained or both. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

PS: Here are those books/websites I referred to earlier:

Back From The Ashes: Uncovering the Lost History of G. L. Hunt and the Falcon Pipe,

by Worth, K. A.

Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Back-Ashes-Uncovering-History-Falcon-ebook/dp/B006VOOFNC/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=falcon+pipe+history&qid=1699996641&sr=8-1 ($2.99 digital version on Amazon)

The Peterson Pipe: The Story of Kapp & Peterson,

by Mark Irwin and Gary Malmburg

Available at: https://www.smokingpipes.com/accessories/books/moreinfo.cfm?product_id=471478 (Still available from Smokingpipes.com, though not $2.99 it is a remarkable book)

Review of: THE CUSTOM-BILT PIPE STORY, by William E. Unger, Jr.,Ph.D

https://pipedia.org/wiki/Custom-Bilt

The Pipes of Sparta: Dr. Grabow, by Leigh Ann Henion https://www.ourstate.com/the-pipes-of-sparta-dr-grabow-tobacco-pipes-north-carolina/

Below are some photos of the finished Marxman Regular Apple.
A Yello-Bole Aristocrat Airograte Restore

October 30th, 2023
Written and photographed by John M. Young

I am not sure why I am drawn to metal pipes. I love the all-briar classics as well as the artisanal briar and exotic material pipes that are being produced by true artists. There is just something nostalgic about the old Falcons, Vikings, Kaywoodie Filters and this Yello-Bole that draws me in. Perhaps it is a childhood memory of the next door neighbor, Mr. Chase as he smoked his metal pipe smelling oh so good as he worked on his yard.

Over the summer of 2023 I came across this Yello-Bole. The Ebay listing showed a dull gray pipe with a nearly black bole. The starting bid was under $10. How could I refuse?

Screen snip of photo taken from Ebay listing

The Yello-Bole Aristocrat Airograte can be seen here in an advertisement from 1966.

File:Yello Bole AirOGrate 1966.jpg – Pipedia

Pipedia also states the following about Yello-Bole’s metal pipes:

“The Yello Bole Aristocrat Airograte: An Aluminum and wood pipe with a twist. This pipe doesn’t have a bowl per say, but more a briar cylinder that screws into the base of the body. At the bottom of the bowl is a metal grate, thus allowing air to be pulled through all the tobacco and reducing any chance of clogging. The lower bowl catches all moisture and tar reducing bite. These pipes can be had in a silver/chrome finish as well as a soft gold finish. The stem of these pipes has cooling fins up each side, and can be found in a straight or bent form.”
- Two Examples and details, courtesy Chris Rigol
Yello-Bole – Pipedia

I was the only bidder on this auction. Perhaps this should have told me something. The anticipation for the arrival of my prize was short and upon arrival I initially thought that this would be a quick and easy addition to my collection. Sure, it was oxidized and dirty but estate pipes usually are. Below are some photos of how the pipe appeared when it arrived.

Nothing too bad, right? Sure, the aluminum had oxidation, a bit of “lava” on the rim and the need for light reaming, no problem. The nylon mouthpiece looked good. As I began closer examination of the pipe my thoughts of “quick and easy” started to dissolve. Upon disassembly I said, “Wow, this bowl is really stuck to the aluminum.” The bowl had enough shellac to drown an entire Erica Arborea plant and what is that build-up in the bowl?

The gunk in the bottom of the bowl was just unsmoked tobacco. That came out easily. The aluminum reservoir was thickly coated in a dried smoke condensate of tar. The screen was dirty with tobacco and a good deal of tar. I assumed that the tar was also throughout the shank and stem as well. This looks like a job for some 99% ethyl alcohol. I first tried a bit of alcohol on a paper towel inside the reservoir. This did little other than making the paper towel dirty.

I decided that the shank/stem and aluminum screen needed to soak in the alcohol bath for an hour or so..

While the alcohol softened and started to dissolve the tars I began working on the wooden bowl. The bowl had a little bit of lava on the rim and a light cake build-up inside the tobacco chamber. I used the PipNet reamer and the Smokingpipes knife to clean out the tobacco chamber.

I then took the bowl over to the sink and used Murphy’s Oil Soap and a medium stiffness toothbrush to remove the dirt and grime from the bowl as well as the lava from the rim. After a rinse of warm water the bowl came back to the bench. I tried to remove the “shellac” from the bowl with a cotton boll soaked in alcohol. What I assumed was a thick coating of shellac turned out to be some other type of clear coating as this should have readily dissolved with alcohol had it been shellac. If alcohol doesn’t work then try acetone. Bingo, the clear coat was not clear at all but, red. After numerous acetone soaked cotton bolls I could see wood.

This also revealed the fills that the finish had concealed.

I decided to leave them for the time being and see what they looked like after the Restoration Balm did it’s magic.

After the aluminum shank had soaked for about an hour I removed it from the alcohol bath. The tars had softened and dissolved quite well. I began cleaning the reservoir with cotton bolls and cotton swabs soaked in clean alcohol to further rid the aluminum of it’s tar. This worked quite well. The screen was a different matter. Upon removing it from the alcohol bath and scrubbing it with alcohol soaked cotton bolls it still remained yellow with several screen holes filled with tar. I used the toothbrush and Dawn dish soap to scrub the screen. This worked on getting rid of the last of the tars and yellow color but many holes remained filled. I returned to the bench and used a fly tying bodkin to clear out the remaining “clogs”. After needling the screen clean I rinsed it with clean alcohol.

The draught of the pipe was remarkably clean. Perhaps the alcohol bath had worked better there or the previous owner was not averse to running a pipe cleaner through the stem. Either way the draught was cleaned out with bristle pipe cleaners soaked with alcohol.

The nylon mouthpiece was in quite good shape which was nice as nylon is not very easy to return to a pristine condition. All that was done there was to clean it well with the toothbrush Dawn dish soap and alcohol.

I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm (Lbepen.com) into the wood bowl with my finger tip. I allowed this to sit for 30 minutes. While waiting for the Restoration balm to do its work I took the aluminum to the buffer. I used white diamond buffing compound to clean away the oxidation from tha aluminum. All of the corners were tedious to work through but eventually a nice bright polish was seen on the aluminum again. After the restoration Balm had done what it does, I buffed the excess off with a cotton towel and was glad to see that the wood had some of it’s luster returned.

Here are some photos of the finished Yello-Bole Aristocrat Airograte:

As you can see the old girl has returned to some semblance of her factory fresh glory. I now understand where the term “Airograte” comes from. The screen, or grate, allows for the airflow. As this is a pipe that I planned to keep for my personal collection and use I did not spend time trying to make the nylon stem new again. Overall I am very pleased by how she turned out. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.
A Dr. Grabow Westbrook Restoration.

October 30th, 2023
Written and photographed by John M. Young

We all know of Dr. Grabow pipes and likely have our own opinions of them. Anyway you look at it Dr. Grabow pipes are an American icon. I do not feel the need to examine the history of the brand and am including links regarding history for those who are interested.

History:

Tobacco Pipes: https://www.tobaccopipes.com/dr-grabow-history/#:~:text=The%20famous%20smoking%20pipe%20brand,US%20patent%20number%201.896%2C800.

Pipedia:

https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Grabow

Pipedia timeline:

https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Grabow_Pipe_History_Timeline

Current Dr. Grabow:

https://www.drgrabow.net/

After I retired from being a high school science teacher for 32 years I started restoring estate pipes. As part of my education in the realm of restorations I came across the blogs of Seve Laug (https://rebornpipes.com/). I have to say how impressed I was at his knowledge and skills. Unfortunately my own knowledge and skills were quite undeveloped. Fortunately, ignorance is curable. Through the avid consumption of articles and practice restoring estate pipes I developed a passable set of skills of my own. I received this Dr. Grabow Westbrook as part of a “grab bag” of pipes for restoration from Steve Laug’s partner, Kenneth Lieblich (kenneth@knightsofthepipe.com).

The Westbrook series began in the mid-1950’s. I have to admit that I was drawn to them because of the orange spade. Amazingly, my attraction to them was shared by Dr. Grabow aficionados and according to Dr. Grabow Models (Series,Line) Names Through the Years: “WESTBROOK (c1955? to about 1985 or so) — One of the earliest RJR pipes and very sought after even today, long after the special offer program stopped.” https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Grabow_Models_(Series,Line)_Names_Through_the_Years

So either I accidentally chose a good one or there are a lot of folks who like orange.

This old Westbrook looked dirty and well worn or, as my father used to say “rode hard and put away wet”.

Upon reaming the bowl with a PIPNET I discovered that the previous owner liked to scrape the bowl with a sharp tipped knife. There was a hole all the way through the briar. The edges did not appear charred so I figured he was just a scraper. The next step was to clean away the years of accumulated dirt, oils and grime. This was done using a medium stiffness toothbrush and Murphy’s Oil Soap. Since the pipe was rusticated I also used a brass brush, 12 gauge shotgun bore brush, with the oil soap to get the “lava” from the rustication on the rim and the deeper grooves. The following two photos show the hole after the pipe was cleaned and reamed.

At this point I was faced with a decision. Should I:
1. Scrap the whole restoration and use the pipe as salvage/parts.
2. Fill the bottom of the bowl with J-B Weld and top that with a “pipe mud”.
3. Drill out a regular hole in the bowl and make a briar plug and fit it to the hole.
I have a thing for old Dr. Grabow pipes and Westbrooks in particular, so option 1 didn’t seem very good. I had used the J-B Weld method with pipes that had suffered the scrapings of misguided owners before and had good results but, never with a hole all the way through. I had never tried to fashion a plug so, I went with the “let’s make a plug” method, option 3. Maybe I could also build some new skills.

Not having access to a drill press I tried drilling out the hole by stepping up larger and larger drill bits with a hand drill. This worked ok until I got to the final bit, ⅜ inch. The final bit chipped the briar making the hole irregular. Hmm, does this warrant the purchase of a drill press? Anyway, I can always fill rough spots.

It was time to find a suitable plug doner. I had an old no-name bullnose that I had previously used for a piece of briar and the bottom looks to be nice and thick. Four cuts later I had the beginnings of a plug.

Shaping of the plug was done with small needle files of various shapes and sand paper. This did lead to cramping of the hands. The small notch that you can see on the second photo below was the original draught hole. I kept it intact as a reference point to line up with the Westbrook’s draught hole.

Eventually the plug was fit as well as I was going to get it. I put a bead of J-B EWeld around the sides of the plug and fit it into place using the draught groove to align it to the Westbrooks draught hole. The inside looked good.

It turned out that the plug was not quite thick enough to completely fill the hole on the bottom of the pipe. This led me to do some creative fill work.

I had had enough hand cramping and fiddling with small pieces of wood. At this point I decided to make a slurry of clear J-B Weld mixed with briar dust from other restore projects. I filled in the remaining hole with this slurry and allowed it to dry for several days. Eventually it became hard enough to file and sand.

During the drying I had plenty of time to address a very used and abused stem. The good news with the stem was that the orange clover leaf Dr. Grabow logo lined up perfectly with the shank.

I neglected to take pictures throughout the restoration of the stem. I started by carefully scraping the worst of the calcium deposits and oxidation with a sharp knife. After that I used a wet/dry 220 sandpaper with a light touch to remove the oxidation. I then dropped the stem into Before & After Extra Strength Deoxidizer (For Sale | La Belle Epoque (lbepen.com) for about an hour. After removing the stem from the deoxidizer I let the stem drip much of the chemical back into the container. After the drip dry, I vigorously rubbed the remaining chemical with a cotton rag and ran pipe cleaners through the draught hole. As soon as I had removed all the deoxidizer with the rag and pipe cleaners I applied a coat of mineral oil to the stem and ran a wet-with-mineral-oil pipe cleaner through the stem. To repair the hole chewed through the mouthpiece, I used a piece of plastic cut from a plastic container. Here are a couple of examples with different pipe stem for scale:

I coated the narrow part of the plastic with petroleum jelly and inserted it into the mouthpiece. I then used STARBOND black cyanoacrylate (super glue, abbreviated CA) to build up the missing material. The CA does not adhere to petroleum jelly. I will usually do a light coat of CA and spray it with STARBOND Accelerator to get it to dry almost instantly. Repeat as necessary to fill in the missing material. The repaired spot is then filed with a fine flat needle file and sanded with 220 then 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper. After the sandpaper, I used micromesh pads with grits 1500-12000. Obsidian Oil is used on a cotton cloth between each micromesh pad. The final polishing was done with Before & After Fine Polish and Extra Fine Polish (Lbepen.com). The finished stem looked good.

After the J-B Weld had completely cured and hardened I was able to shape it with a file and sandpaper. The J-B Weld/briar-dust patch was significantly darker than the existing briar.. Fortunately the rustication allowed me to conceal the patch with a few cuts made with a cut-off wheel on the Dremel MultiPro and applications of Fiebing’s Light Brown Leather Dye blended the patch fairly well.

I admit to not being a woodcarver nor having the best tools for the job. It did however work well enough for this old Westbrook and my approval. Due to the rustication of the pipe there was minimal sanding to be done. I did lightly hit the high points with the 3200 and 4000 micromesh pads. After that light sanding I wiped the whole pipe off with 99% ethyl alcohol. I rubbed in a liberal amount of Before & After Restoration Balm (Lbepen.com) with my fingertips and let it dry for an hour. I Rubbed away excess balm and buffed the bowl with the inside of a cotton athletic sock. The final treatment of the wood was a light coat of Decatur Pipe Shield No Buff Wax applied with my finger and worked into the rustication with a toothbrush. The wax was allowed to dry for 30 minutes then was buffed off with a shoe-shine brush.

Below are some photos of the finished pipe:

She may not look as good as she did when she left the factory but she smokes very nicely and has many years and many bowls of tobacco in her future. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

John