Photographed and written by
John M. Young
I have always thought that rooting for the underdog was an American characteristic. This is probably a very flawed thought as I am an American and the vast majority of my life experiences are with other Americans. Given, I taught English as a Second Language (ESL) science in a large urban school and had students from many different countries. The fact remains that most of my life was spent with American culture and Americans. Well, it turns out that psychologists have studied this rooting for the underdog and actually have theories for it. One article I read, Decision Affect Theory: Emotional Reactions to the Outcomes of Risky Options, by Barbara A. Mellers, Alan Schwartz, Katty Ho and Ilana Ritov found that;
“Emotional responses also depend on probabilities and unobtained outcomes. Unexpected outcomes have greater emotional impact than expected outcomes” (https://www.jstor.org/stable/40063228). So what does all this nonsense have to do with a pipe? The subject of this restoration is a terribly beaten up Peterson Donegal Rocky which I thought to be barely salvageable. In other words, this poor Pete was a major underdog. Below are some photos of the Donegal Rocky prior to work done:
I think you can see what I mean by an underdog. This pipe was a mess. The rim was severely charred and had extensive lava deposits on the remaining rim. There also appeared to be lava on the mortise. The rustications were filled with dirt and grime. The tobacco chamber still had tobacco in its cake constricted chamber. The stem was oxidized, calcium deposited and chewed on. The stem also wouldn’t correctly seat. All of these factors made me consider just depositing the old pipe in the trash then I thought why not root for the underdog and see what I could do with what I had.
Background
In a previous restoration blog I used the following: “As much as I love the history of the Kapp and Peterson company and Peterson pipes, I will not get into that other than give you resources to read the history for yourself. I will delve into the Dunmore, or Dunmoor line of pipes at greater depth.
For a great history Mark Irwin and Gary Marlburg’s book is a must read for a Pete Geek.
(Available at https://www.smokingpipes.com/accessories/books/moreinfo.cfm?product_id=471478) Given the price is a bit high but worth every penny for a Peterson aficionado.
The next site is pipedia.org’s History of Peterson by Jim Lilley (Peterson – Pipedia)
Lastly the pipephil.eu site for all things logo: Peterson: historical pipes — Pipes: Logos & Markings (pipephil.eu) They also have a few other links to things like the Peterson timeline and P-lip information.
Now to the stuff regarding this pipe: A Peterson Dunmore. I refer to Mark Irwin again here and his blog, Peterson Pipe Notes. I can wholeheartedly recommend the free at
https://petersonpipenotes.org/ Yes, you will get emails but only for things like the weekly blog post and occasional Peterson pipe drops (like the Peterson Pipe Notes Pipe of the Year) or offers for cool Pete Geek merchandise.
Once again I use Mark Irwin’s Peterson Pipe Notes as a primary source for this pipe. His Blog “148. The “Rocky” History of the Donegal Line” (https://petersonpipenotes.org/tag/peterson-donegal-rocky/) is a wonderful explanation of how the line originated and changed over the years. I include it here in it’s entirety, with permission of the author (personal email).” (https://scimansays1787.com/2024/07/02/a-peterson-donegal-rocky-106-billiard-restoration/).
I recently acquired for study an amazing NOS (new/old stock) Donegal Rocky 01s with its box, sleeve and brochure. Hallmarked with a Celtic lower-case n for 1979, it’s a first-year release of this marvelous ‘short dutch’ bowl shape and convenient reason to take a look back at the long history of Peterson’s iconic “Donegal Rocky” line.
For nearly thirty years, from 1947 until 1975, the line continued uninterrupted, black rusticated finish with fishtail mouthpiece and sterling band.
from the 1976 Associated Imports Point-of-Sale Brochure
Then in 1976, just a year out from their Centennial celebration, Peterson (in an expansive mood) pushed the Donegal up a notch, giving the line a P-Lip. The 1976 engraving doesn’t show it, but you can just glimpse a new, deeper rustication in the (still black) 1978 Associated Imports chart:
This rustication was done by a carver in Dublin, Paddy Larrigan told me this past June in Sallynoggin. The artisan did all of Peterson’s fantastic rustications from the period: the classic “Pebble Rustics,” the early Sherlock Holmes rustics, the Bond Street of Oxford Premier Systems, and the sterling-band P-Lip Donegals.
And that’s where this 1979 01s comes in handy, because we can see with much greater clarity the rustication as well as the details of a “Donegal Rocky” at its pinnacle of engineering and finish:
If I were more dedicated, I’d smoke this pipe a few dozen times with and without the stinger and give you a report on what purpose it serves. I wonder if the craftsmen at the factory installed the stinger to approximate the effect of the older bone tenon extensions routinely attached to Classic Range Dublin & London, Classic and Premier lines? With or without the stinger, the pipe smoker should enjoy the benefits of the “Sub-System,” which I talk about at length in The Peterson Pipe. As it is, I’ll leave that to someone else, and happily report their findings.*
Here’s the COM stamp, showing Peterson’s love of quotation marks (seen also in the “SPORTS” line) as well as a closer look at the stain and rustication technique:
Sometime between 1978 and 1980 the sterling band was dropped to a nickel band and the P-Lip abandoned in favor of the Donegal’s traditional fishtail, all of which may (or may not) indicate a lessening in the quality of the rustication.
Seen above from the 1981 Mark Twain brochure, the sterling band resurfaced, this time with the line’s first change in stain color to what some of us have in our rotations or remember: the contrast brown over black (seen in the dutch 339 hallmarked for ’81 below). The catalogs indicate some fluctuation from sterling to nickel bands on through the Late Republic era (1969-90) into the Dublin era (1991-2018), with the sterling being used (as happens so often with Peterson lines) in conjunction with a P-Lip in the 1997 catalog, but also in that year available with a nickel band and fishtail.
The dublin 120 seen above is from ’94, and as you can see, while the rustication technique is nearly identical to that of the ’81 dutch billiard, the stain color has changed for a third time to burgundy-over-black, which seems to have been the standard during most of the early Dublin era.
Sometime near the beginning of this century the Donegal was down-graded again to its original “Product” or gateway status by a nickel band and fishtail mouthpiece as seen in this B7, and while the stain remains the same, it looks less craggy:
Things would grow steadily worse in the following years, however, as the gawdawful pineapple rustication took hold, so that by around 2010 the Donegal was reduced to the etchings seen on this B39:
With the return of in-house rustication earlier this year, things are looking up for the Donegal, at least just a little, as you can see in this current 80s:
The finish and the rustication are, so nearly as I can tell, identical with that used on current rusticated SH pipes, so that’s something, right? I don’t think I’d call it a Rocky anymore, but at least it still has a vulcanite mouthpiece, a plus.
As for the future of the line—or the name—I couldn’t hazard any guesses. In the ideal Peterson of my imagination, the line would assume the craggiest crags, sharp textures and brilliant obsidian finish of the last batch of Rosslare Rusticated pipes, along with—of course—a vulcanite P-Lip. In the meantime, just to have it around, as one of the bedrock Peterson lines for almost 75 years, will do.
Thanks go out to Mark again. Now, as for this Donegal Rock; the rustication and the color fit the late 1990s-2010, pre-”gawdawful pineapple” phase. The quote describing it best is “Sometime near the beginning of this century the Donegal was down-graded again to its original “Product” or gateway status by a nickel band and fishtail mouthpiece as seen in this B7, and while the stain remains the same, it looks less craggy:” This included the burgundy-over-black dye, the nickel band and the fishtail mouthpiece. The rustication is difficult to describe due to the worn nature of the pipe but it is definitely of a hand carved nature and not that of machine made look. Overall, I guesstimate this pipe to be from the 1990s-early 2000s. This makes it a more recent pipe but one that has seen a great amount of use and abuse.
The Restoration
Vivid mental images of how this pipe might turn out filled my head as I placed it on the clean denim piece.
I began with an initial sanding of the stem to remove the surface oxidation. TO maintain the crisp edges of the stem I wanted to keep it attached so the shank was wrapped in masking tape, protecting it from the sanding.
Once sanded, I removed the stem and examined the tenon. The below photo doesn’t do the layer of grime justice. The tenon was encrusted with smoking residue and tar.
I used a sharp pocket knife to scrape the end of the tenon and started cleaning it with a 95% ethyl alcohol dipped bristle pipe cleaner.
Several additional alcohol dipped pipe cleaners and a good deal of nylon brush scrubbing the stem airway was clean.
A pipe cleaner was inserted into the tenon to act as a hanger suspending the stem in Before and After Extra Strength Deoxidizer (lovingly referred to as deox).
The edge of the mortise was as crusty as the tenon had been. I have seen thick lava deposits on a rim but not on a rim this bad before. I softened the crust with saliva and let it soak for a couple of minutes and scraped the surface with a sharp pocket knife.
I gathered the reaming kit; PipNet, Smokingpipes Low Country Reamer and General triangular scraper.
I initially thought that one the #2 and #3 blades of the PipNet would be needed. Wrong. The #4 blade was also put to work.
After the #4 blade there was still scraping to be done with the General.
The tobacco chamber was sanded with 220 sandpaper to bare briar. There was some slight charring of the interior of the chamber. This was not severe and I thought that a bowl coating would suffice to protect the briar.
Next came the shank cleaning. I began with scraping the walls of the mortise with a dental scraper. The scrapings were thick and filled with cotton fluff from pipe cleaners. Well, I assumed that was the source of the cotton even though this pipe looked like it had never seen a cleaning nor a pipe cleaner.
The stummel was taken to the sink for a scrub with undiluted Murphy Oil Soap and a nylon scrub brush. The amount of grime scrubbed from the stummel was impressive. The soap was rinsed with warm water and the stumel dried with a cotton hand towel.
Looking at the freshly scrubbed and dried stummel I could see quite a bit of grime remaining on the mortise, within the rustications and on the rim. Another scrubbing was done with undiluted Murphy’s and a brass brush. The rinsing and drying were done as before.
Back at the workbench the stummel was wiped with a make-up pad dipped in 95% ethyl alcohol. The alcohol lifted a red dye from the briar.
The scrubbing revealed the damage to the rim much more clearly.
Possible remedies came to mind. Plan A – was to cut a wedge of briar from another pipe. I had one of nearly equal chamber diameter.
This idea would glue the edge onto the existing rim, fill the seams with cyanoacrylate and briar dust, shape the wedge to match the lines of the 999 shape, carve the new briar to match the pattern of the existing briar then dye the stummel. This plan would produce a finished product that was a true restoration. The plan was also drought with issues. My greatest concern was with the gluing of new briar to the old briar. I thought that I could pin this briar patch in place to make it more secure. This plan sounded like it would take many hours of tedious work, though fun.
Plan B – cut the rim on both sides to match. This would give the stummel a forward canted look. The new rim would require re-texturing. This plan also completely changes the original shape of the pipe and would make this a salvage rather than a restoration. This plan would only take a fraction of the time of the previous plan as well.
I went with Plan B. If this worked it would produce a fine working pipe, one that would be perfect for knocking around while changing the oil in the truck, fishing or doing yard work and I’m lazy.
I used a Dremel with an abrasive sided cutoff wheel to cut the non-charred side of the stummel.
I tried to match both sides and used the abrasive side of the wheel to flatten the rim.
This did accentuate the out-of-round tobacco chamber. I then started cleaning the shank with numerous cotton swabs dipped in ethyl alcohol and more scraping with the dental scraper.
The draft hole was scrubbed with a nylon brush and numerous bristle pipe cleaners.
The tars of the airway were persistent and I thought maybe an alcohol cotton treatment would better soften and remove them. The tobacco chamber and shank were stuffed with cotton and 95% ethyl alcohol was added with a pipette until the cotton was saturated.
Below is a photo of the saturated cotton. This was allowed to evaporate overnight. As the alcohol evaporated it would hopefully dissolve some of the tar and deposit it into the cotton thus removing it from the walls of the airway.
The stem sat in deox for 4 hours. I removed the stem and allowed it to drip some of the excess solution back into the jar.
Below you can see the stem on a coarse cotton shop rag.
The shop rag was used to vigorously rub the remaining solution from the stem. This rubbing removed the solution and a good deal of oxidized vulcanite.
I then scrubbed the stem with several cotton make-up pads sprinkled with Soft Scrub cleanser. The below photo shows a general progression of reduced oxidized rubber removal. The stem looked much better. I had talked to Doug Bisbee of dk Metal Pipes (https://www.dkmetalpipes.com/dkmetalpipe) earlier in the week. Doug does amazing work restoring Kirsten pipes. We discussed how he restores the vulcanite stems using only a buffer rather than the sanding and micro-meshing that I had always used. I thought this would be a good time to attempt a similar technique with my existing equipment. Doug uses Airway buffing wheels rather than the felt wheels I have. I have not invested in these wheels yet but am considering trying them out. An issue is that I would need to get a new ¾-1 horsepower variable speed buffer as well as the wheels to properly use them.
Using what I already have I worked the stem with my buffer and the red abrasive.
I followed this with the white compound on the dedicated white wheel and produced a nice finish on the stem.
The next morning I returned to the stummel. The cotton was stained with smoking residue removed from the briar.
The cotton was removed and I continued cleaning the airway/mortise with alcohol dipped cotton swabs. This process started out similarly to the day before but quickly improved dramatically. The discoloration of the cotton swabs below show that the remaining tars were much more easily removed after the alcohol and cotton treatment.
The bristle pipe cleaners in the draft hole showed a similar result.
I used a couple different carving bits in the Dremel rotary tool to get the texture to match the Donegal Rocky rustication.
It was time to try matching the Peterson dye. I thought that I would start with a black undercoat topped with a dark red. Fiebing’s Leather Dye was the product of choice. Folded pipe cleaners acted as my applicators while a wine cork wrapped in several coats of masking tape provided a plug to keep the dye from the tobacco chamber and a handle.
The black Fiebing’s was applied and flamed with a lighter.
The black was wiped with a paper towel and allowed to dry for about 10 minutes. It was then taken to the buffer and buffed from the highspots.
The remaining buffing compound was wiped from the stummel using an alcohol wetted make-up pad. Below is a photo of the black dyed , buffed and wiped stummel.
Next, the stummel was dyed with the dark red Fiebing’s.
This was flamed and allowed to dry for an hour.
The pipe was starting to look more finished.
I wrapped the shank with masking tape to protect it during the nickel band polishing. The band was polished at the buffer with white compound.
The stem looked good but I wanted it to really look good. I hand buffed it with Before and After Fine Polish on a soft cotton rag.
The Fine Polish was followed by the Before and After Extra Fine Polish buffed by hand with the same but a clean spot with the same soft cotton cloth.
For the bowl coating I used maple syrup applied with my fingertip to the interior of the bowl. Before starting a thick pipe cleaner was inserted into the draft hole to keep the syrup and carbon out of the hole. Once the syrup was applied I opened a capsule of carbon powder and dumped it into the bowl. The bowl was covered with a 2 inch wide piece of painters tape and shaken vigorously for several seconds to distribute the carbon powder.
The tape was removed and the remaining powder dumped. Below is a photo of the new bowl coating.
The bowl coating would take a couple days to dry completely. The rustications of this pipe were worn fairly smooth with use. This allowed me to use the buffer to apply several coats of carnauba wax to the stummel and to the stem. The final step was to hand buff the pipe with a microfiber polishing cloth.
This is not my first Peterson Donegal Rocky restoration but it was the first time I attempted a white background for the before and after photos. I am still learning camera settings and photo editing for the white. Feel free to comment on background preferences. As for the pipe, I think it turned out about as well as it could have. I like the craggy appearance and feel of the pipe and the rim re-rustication. The 999 shape is a favorite of mine. The burgundy and black contrast stain does come close to matching the original dye and I think it still works . I was quite happy with the oxidation removal from the stem and the black vulcanite polished up nicely. The nickel band looks bright and well polished. I am sure this will be a great smoking pipe but will have to wait a couple of days for the coat coating to thoroughly dry. The dimensions of the Peterson Donegal Rocky 999 areas follows:
Length: 5.66 in./ 143.76 mm.
Weight: 1.58 oz./ 44.79 g.
Bowl Height: 1.42 in./ 36.07 mm.
Chamber Depth: 1.17 in./ 29.72 mm.
Chamber Diameter: 0.90 in./ 22.86 mm.
Outside Diameter: 1.65 in./ 41.91 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 Peterson Donegal Rocky 999.
NebraskaPeteGeek 