Photographed and written by

John M. Young

The story and mystique of Custom-Bilt or Custombilt pipes and their inventor, Tracy Mincer, are things of pipe legend.  I have to admit to having only restored one Custombilt pipe and it was a pipe actually made after the death of Tracy Mincer in 1964.  My only Custombilt was a Wally Frank ere pipe probably made in the 1970s (that restoration can be found here:  https://wordpress.com/post/scimansays1787.com/3262).  Although, I also did restore a Doodler.  Declaring that pipe an actual Tracy Mincer piece would be fraught with uncertainty (https://wordpress.com/post/scimansays1787.com/369)  This pipe was older and wore the following stamps  Custom-Bilt on the left shank, IMPORTED BRIAR on the bottom and a circle on the lower right shank.  Below are some photographs taken prior to working on the pipe.

As you can see it was a rusticated pipe typical of Mincer Custom-Bilts.  The size was smaller, what I would call medium sized.  The most glaring issue was the chipped mouthpiece which would require some creative repairs.  The tobacco chamber had a significant cake build-up indicative of a well used pipe.  This was also evident in the lava flowing onto the rim.  There was also the expected dirt and grime ground into the rustications. This was going to be fun.

Background

The standard starting point for researching a pipe typically includes pipedia.org.  The query of Tracy Mincer, originator of Custom-Bilt, will take you to this brief entry:

“Tracy Mincer started the original Custom-Bilt pipe company in 1934. In 1946, the name was changed to Custombilt after Mincer began an association with Eugene J. Rich, Inc. There were some big changes in advertising and distribution. The slogan “AS INDIVIDUAL AS A THUMBPRINT” began at this time as well.

In the early 1950’s, Tracy Mincer developed severe financial problems that caused him to stop making the Custombilt, and he lost the name. n 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. Based upon the information provided, Mincer seemed to always have money, production, distribution and other problems. Mincer was probably a terrific craftsman but a very poor businessman and administrator. To me, Mincer sounds like your typical small business entrepreneur who always knew what was right and if you disagreed¼problems. Mincer always seemed to be on the brink of going out of business, not meeting payroll and so on.

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.

These interesting examples bellow are pipes made with the Tracy Mincer stamp. If you any additional information about these pipes, or can otherwise add to the history of this interesting pipe man, please add it here, or send it to sethile.pipes@gmail.com, and we can add it for you.” (Mincer – Pipedia).  

There is a book written by William E. Unger, Jr.,Ph.D titled “As Individual As A Thumbprint”: The Custom-Bilt Pipe Story.  This book appears to be self published by Dr. Unger at The Graphic Touch, of Columbus, Ohio.  Printed in 2001 and bound with a black plastic spiral, the book states that the entire contents are “All rights reserved…without permission in writing from the author”.  Dr. Unger passed away January 1, 2013 (obituary:  https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/dispatch/name/william-unger-obituary?id=12197453) and the book is no longer in print.  This unfortunately means that I will not be including any quotes from the book.  We’ll see how I get around that, I guess.   I got lucky and purchased a copy from eBay for under $30 (with shipping) earlier this year, after watching several copies sell for what I considered astronomical prices.  The book is a remarkable piece of work and is the definitive history of the Custom-Bilt pipe.  The research that Dr. Unger put into getting the story correct is amazing.  Fortunately there were several past employees, friends and relatives associated with Tracy Miller and the company that were able to give interviews and explanations to the inner workings of the company.

In regards to the stamps on the pipe in hand, I will speak to what I have found in Unger’s book, without quoting any of it.  The first thing that needs clarification is the Custom-Bilt vs. Custombilt name.  I’ll paraphrase William Unger here, the first stamps used by Tracy Mincer were “Custom-Bilt”.  These were used from 1938-1946 definitively and less definitively prior to 1938.  You could, perhaps, find reference to this in the book on page 91.  There, I think that should give me legitimacy and keep any lawyers at bay.  Next we examine the IMPORTED BRIAR stamp on the bottom of the pipe.  Unger states that he has inspected a large number of Custom-bilt pipes and that about ½ of them do not have this stamp.  He declares that he is at a loss to explain either their absence or presence  This lack of explanation might be seen towards the bottom of page 114.  The final stamp on this Custom-Bilt is the geometric circle stamped on the shank.  Certainly these stamps have some utilitarian meaning.  Nope.  Unger declares that he is not able to explain any system where shapes such as circles, triangles, stars, rectangles, half moons or even trapezoids have any systematic meaning.  This may or may not be seen on the top of page 114. 

Pipephil.eu does allow quotations with proper referencing and shows nice examples of the above-mentioned geometric stamps.

(Cos-Cz — Pipes : Logos & Markings)

The Restoration

The photos don’t show it very well but I didn’t feel too bad about the stains on the denim in comparison to the dirtiness of this pipe.

The first step was to gather the remaining tools:  The PipNet, Smokingpipes Low Country Reamer, General triangular scraper and 320 sandpaper wrapped wood dowel. 

The #2 and #3 blades of the PipNet did their work beautifully with little need for the other scrapers.  

The tobacco chamber was sanded to bare briar and showed no signs of any damage.

The shank was cleaned out by running the Kleen-Reem drill through the airway.  The drill had to be cleaned out several times as the tars from the airway filled the grooves.  95% ethyl alcohol was used with the nylon shank brush, bristle pipe cleaners and cotton swabs to clean out the yuck.

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

There remained some ground in dirt and grime in the rustications and the rim did not clean-up as well as I like so a second scrubbing with the Murphy’s was done.  This time with a brass brush.  That worked a bit more aggressively to remove the external yuck.

Again, the stummel was rinsed with warm water and dried.

Back at the workbench the stummel was wiped with a makeup pad dipped in 95% ethyl alcohol.  The wiping removed a bit more of the accumulated grime but the briar looked much better.

The stem was quite dirty and required a good number of bristle pipe cleaners dipped in 95% ethyl alcohol to clean out the airway.

The stummel was given a coating of Before and After Restoration Balm and allowed to sit for over an hour.

After the break I returned to the stummel and wiped the remaining balm from it with an inside out athletic sock.

Also during the break I came up with a plan for repairing the chipped section of the button.  I planned on using the Dremel tool and the bit I use for cutting a new slot in a mouthpiece.  The below photo shows the bit.

The next photo is the bit in reference to a piece of 2 mm brass rod.

The goal was to use the Dremel to cut a channel for the brass rod to fit into spanning the missing section.  Below you can see the brass rod cut to fit into these grooves.  The piece of green plastic is a piece of a lid that I cut to act as a dam, preventing glue from seeping into the airway. 

I used cyanoacrylate (CA, super glue) to fix the brass rod into position.

To make sure the brass rod did not emerge through the new button material I ground the brass down using the same Demel bit.  The photo below shows the tapered brass after grinding.

With the brass rod in place and held at its opposite ends with CA, I planned on building up the missing material with black two part epoxy.  To prevent the epoxy from adhering to the dam, I coated it with petroleum jelly and reinserted it into the airway.

The epoxy was mixed on a piece of plastic.  I accidentally got more of one part than I intended, thus the usable part of the mix in the half below the fly tying bodkin in the below photo.

The epoxy was applied to the stem thickly enough as to rebuild the missing button.

The shank of the pipe was wrapped in masking tape to protect it from any sanding of the stem.  Since the area to be replaced was the underside or bottom of the button, I let gravity pull the curing epoxy earthward.  This allowed the “drip” to thicken the button where I wanted more material.

After 2 hours I removed the dam.  The button looked rough but the epoxy had provided enough material to be reshaped into a new button.

After curing for about 2 hours the epoxy had assumed its shape and was no longer flowing.  It did remain soft though.  Soft enough for me to cut a nice straight edge with an Exacto knife.

The epoxy was allowed to cure for an additional 4 hours.  After this time it was hard enough to allow me to file and sand the button to an appropriate shape.

The below photo shows the slight color difference of the black epoxy prior to it being finish sanded, micro-meshed and polished.

The stem was sanded with a series of sanding sponges from 400-3500 grit.  Between each sponge I rubbed the stem with mineral oil and wiped it with a paper towel.

The stem was then worked with micro-mesh pads 4000-12000.  Between each pad the stem was rubbed with Obsidian Oil and wiped with a dry paper towel.

With a surface as rusticated as this I opted to apply Renaissance Micro-Crystalline Wax instead of carnauba.  The wax was applied with a baby toothbrush and allowed to dry for a few minutes.  I then took it to the buffer and buffed it with a clean flannel wheel.  

The stem received several coats of carnauba wax from the buffer.  The entire pipe was then hand buffed with a microfiber polishing cloth.

Overall, this circle stamped Custom-Bilt turned out beautifully.  I have a new appreciation for Tracy Mincer’s work.  The pipe is smaller than I expected a Custom-Bilt to be but it has thatTracy Mincer look with its deep rustications and hefty wall thickness.  It is lightweight and feels great in hand.  I am happy with the stem rebuilding but not with the quality of the vulcanite.  There seem to be tiny inclusions in the rubber.  These are readily available under very bright light yet not noticeable with normal room light.  I think they are due to the recycling of tires for rubber during the war years of World War Two.  I can certainly understand why the pipes have attracted a following, even 80 years after they were made and 60 years after Tracy Mincer’s passing.

The dimensions of the Custom-Bilt are:     

• Length:  4.89 in./ 124.21 mm.
• Weight:  1.28 oz./ 36.29 g.
• Bowl Height:  1.70 in./  43.18 mm.
• Chamber Depth:  1.36  in./ 34.54 mm.
• Chamber Diameter:  0.79 in./ 20.07 mm.
• Outside Diameter:  1.49 in./ 37.85 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 completed Custom-Bilt Circle Stamped pipe.