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Tag: Wally Frank

A Wally Frank Opera Restoration

December 23rd, 2023
Written and photographed by John M. Young

This little Wally Frank came to me via an eBay auction recently. I feel a strange attraction to the oddities and this one is a bit odd. Firstly, the oval shape. Secondly, there is the wood itself, definitely not briar. Thirdly, there is the stem, oddly rounded. The second and the third “oddities” indicate the age of the pipe. I am going out on a speculative limb here and say that this old girl is from the World War II years.

Here is what the Wally Frank Oval looked like upon arrival:

Now let me address the points made in the introduction. Wally Frank was a tobacconist who started his career in the 1930s. I will use pipedia.org’s first paragraph to set the stage for the company,

“Wally Frank, Ltd. was one of America’s oldest and most respected names in pipes and tobaccos, beginning in the early 1930’s. Wally Frank operated a chain of tobacco stores in New York City (the flagship store was in Lexington Avenue) and had a vast catalog business for pipes and pipe tobaccos. Their numerous private-label pipes were made by many makers, including Charatan, Sasieni, Weber, and many others. Wally Frank, Ltd. also owned the Pioneer brand of meerschaum pipes, made from both Turkish and African meerschaum. In addition to importing pipes, he had many pipes made in his own name and also employed pipemakers like Peter Stokkebye, Svend Bang, and Ed Burak (who later became the owner of Connoisseur). As a result, each Wally Frank pipe must be individually evaluated on its own merit.” (Wally Frank – Pipedia)

I found a very interesting “Wally Frank story” from 1992. While the piece has no annotations and a few points in the article appear to be creatively written it does provide a very fun read of the history of the company. (A&MG_V4_I1.pdf (pipedia.org)). This is not the first Wally Frank pipe that I have blogged about. If you are interested in the previous blog, here is the link – https://wordpress.com/post/scimansays1787.wordpress.com/735.

I called this shape an Oval as I transferred and labeled the photos. There is no shape chart for Wally Frink pipes as Frank was not so much a manufacturer. He was a tobacconist who bought, imported and sold pipes. I correct the name Oval to Opera. The following describes the Opera.

Opera

Castello: ‘Castello’ Opera

The Opera is a pipe shape that, in profile, often resembles an Apple, but the sides have been compressed for a more slender overall width, creating an oblong chamber — though some renditions feature a standard circular chamber. The shape was designed for formal occasions to fit comfortably in the breast pocket of a jacket without disrupting the suit’s lines.

(https://www.smokingpipes.com/smokingpipesblog/single.cfm/post/the-many-shapes-and-styles-tobacco-pipes)

With the shape of the pipe established I will turn to the wood of this Opera. It does not appear to be Mediterranean briar. The pipe is natural or unstained and has the characteristics of Mountain Laurel. Mountain Laurel is a species, Kalmia latifolia, is in the same family as our beloved briar yet from North America. Steve Laug, of Rebornpipe.com, did a wonderful blog about alternate woods used in pipe making. I will link his blog here for those interested in the history of the plant in the Second World War.
- Two Alternative Pipe Woods – Robert M. Leverette
(https://rebornpipes.com/tag/mountain-laurel-pipes/#:~:text=There%20were%20at%20least%20three,Pipe%20Works%2C%20owned%20by%20D.%20P.)

I have a nice example of a Mountain Laurel pipe. It is stamped as “World’s Best Briar” which was Trapwell’s marketing ploy used during the war years. Here are photos of the Trapwell:

Notice the absence of bird’s eyes that are common in Mediterranean briar.

Lastly I referred to the stem as being different from modern pipes. The shape and the material are not like today’s stems. There are pieces or bits of metal in the rubber. This belies the fact that during WWII a great deal of rubber was going to the war effort. Here is a quote indicative of the times, “Likewise, vulcanite for stems was either rationed or forbidden, so that many, if not most of the pipes produced during the war were equipped with horn stems (horn is a very comfortable material, but is easily cracked).” (WWII Phase – Pipedia). Now, that quote was from England regarding Dunhill’s

production. The United States also had rationing and supply issues as well. I believe that the bits of metal in the stem were from recycled tires being used for other rubber products, in this case a pipe stem.

So here we have what I think is a 1940-1950 Wally Frank Opera made from North American mountain Laurel and recycled rubber. During the early sanding of this pipe I emailed Steve Laug about dyeing the wood and expressed my concerns, “I feel that might be near sacreligious.” In the end I did dye the pipe as you will read, below, and it improved the appearance significantly.

Normally when restoring a pipe I will begin with the tobacco chamber. In the case of this Opera the chamber had never been fired. Step one – easy mode. After the chamber I will move on to either a Murphy’s Oil Soap scrub or cleaning the airway in the shank. Step two and three – easy mode. After the scrub the pipe would normally return to the workbench for the wipe

down with an alcohol wetted make-up pad. I did this and very little color was present on the pad. So I repeated it with a pad moistened with acetone. The alcohol is on the left pad, acetone on the right. Neither solvent removed any stain, indicating that this was indeed an unstained piece of wood. The alcohol pad probably removed years of dust and maybe some surface wax applied at the factory.

Next, I started sanding the dents and ding this stummel had received over the years. I noticed a tiny hairline crack at the rim. The crack did not appear to

advance more that a couple of mm. I thought it best to use a drop of cyanoacrylate (CA, or super glue) to reinforce the area. Other dents were removed with 400 sandpaper. There was one other dent that was too deep to sand and one additional pit. Both were filled with CA and wood dust provided from sanding.

I attached the stem to the stummel to allow sanding them together. Before starting I taped the stamp with painters tape to protect the stamp from sanding. I started sanding around the button with 400 wet dry sandpaper. It would look good, I’d wipe it off with a clean paper towel and then work a drop of Obsidian Oil onto the surface. The stem appeared to absorb the oil. By the time I had tried to wipe off the excess oil the rubber would look black but nearly dry. The strangest part was that all of the sanding seemed to be in vain. The stem still appeared to have a rough surface with tiny cracks seeming to run perpendicular to the length of the stem.

I repeated the process with the entire series of micro-mesh pads. Between each pad I would apply a drop of Obsidian oil and wipe with a paper towel. I then used Before and After Fine Polish followed by the Extra-Fine Polish. The following photos are after the micro-meshing and polishing:

I am pretty sure if I had this on a t-shirt which said “Polished, WTF?”. I would sell out at a pipe restoration conference.

I continued with the stummel and the micro-mesh pads 1500-3600. Between each pad, I would wipe the stummel with an alcohol dampened make-up removal pad. Then proceed to the next pad. Needing a break from micro-meshing I and wondering how to address the stem issue moved on to coloring.

I decided that the stummel needed some color. I did not want to go too dark and settled with Fiebing’s Light Brown Leather Dye. One of the tips Steve Laug gave me was to heat the stummel prior to staining. The remaining dye gear is shown in the photo. A clean pipe cleaner was used as the applicator

and the lighter to flame the dye setting it into the wood. I first heated the stummel with the heat gun until it was too hot to hold the wood. I applied several coats of the dye to the stummel. With the first two the alcohol of the dye evaporated very quickly the third coat did allow me to flame the stummel with the lighter. I was worried that I had gone far too dark

with the stain. I allowed the stain to dry for 2 hours. I used an alcohol wetted make-up pad to remove excess dried dye from the stummel. I repeated this two more times. I then started to micromesh the stummel with the 2400 micromesh pad. The pad would quickly fill with dyed wood dust and was cleaned from the pad with a toothbrush dipped in alcohol. I removed the most heavily dyed wood from the surface revealing a slight contrast stained stummel. It was a great improvement over the original very blonde/bland grain of the natural wood.

I continued through the micro-mesh pad series from 4000-12000. Again , between each pad I would wipe the stummel with an alcohol dampened make-up removal pad.

“What to do with that stem?” kept running through my mind. I thought I would try an experiment on the bottom of the stem. I scrubbed the surface clean of any oil with an alcohol wetted pad. I then used a paintbrush to paint Clear Thin CA onto the surface. This was allowed to set and cure. I then repeated with a second coat to smooth the depressions in the first coat. The brush idea was not a good one as the brush gave a puff of magic smoke and set up within seconds of the first coat. After the CA had hardened, I used 400 sandpaper to smooth the CA. This was wiped with a dry paper towel. I then worked through the micro-mesh series. Between each pad I wiped with an alcohol dampened pad. Here are a couple of photos of the result. Much better than the polished version but I could still see the tiny fractures in the rubber. You can also see two of the small metal pieces in the rubber, Let’s just call them glitter.

I decided to repeat the whole process with the top surface. I repeated everything with the top surface with the same result. Great improvement over the original surface but still the tiny fractures were visible.

With the stem and stummel finished all that remained was to give the whole pipe a few coats of carnauba wax at the buffer. The wax brought the grain of the wood out even better and seemed to mask the stem fractures. After the application and buffing of the wax I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth.

This pipe while beginning in easy mode soon progressed into something a bit more complex. If any readers have insights as to working with rubber with these characteristics or flaws please feel free to mention it in the comments. I would love to hear how others have dealt with issues like this. The staining turned out well and my experimental CA fills of tiny fractures in the stem seemed to work. I have no idea what the long term effects will be. If you have found this helpful and or entertaining please click the like and subscribe. Thank you for taking the time to read the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

Below are some photos of the finished Wally Frank Opera.
A new old stock (NOS) Wally Frank

December 5th, 2023

Briar Wind-capped Horn Restoration

Written and photographed by John M. Young

Wally Frank is a most enigmatic (AKA: crazy cool) figure in the history of pipes. A world traveler in search of briar, pipes, pipe making artists and craftsmen, a businessman, a marketer, all fascinating. This print ad illustrates what I mean. Here we see Castello pipes advertised with the Weber Guide to Pipes and Smoking and Wally Frank Natural Unvarnished pipes all on one page.

(File:Castello Ad.jpg – Pipedia)

“Why is that so interesting?”, you ask. Frank “discovered” Carlo Scotti, founder of Castello and imported his pipes to America. Weber, one of the largest pipe manufacturers in America and Weber’s book telling you everything about how to smoke a pipe. Weber was also a major producer of Wally Frank pipes. And his own Wally Frank brand. All on one lovely Wally Frank ad page. Sounds like an empire builder to me.

One of the best stories of Wally Frank’s career is the “discovery” of Carlo Scotti. I quote from Hacker’s The Ultimate Pipe Book:

“In 1952 Wally Frank, the famous East Coast tobacconist, was on a buying trip in Italy and came across Scotti’s pipes. He liked them and wanted to import them into the U.S. Unfortunately, there was a problem:Scotti’s “white line” trademark looked almost identical to the trademark Frank was using for his “White Bar” line of pipes. The solution was obvious. Scottie would simply change his logo. The two men sat down in the warm Italian sun and came up with the idea of drilling a hole in the “near side” of the stem, interesting a small piece of crumpled silver foil, and sealing it over with clear Lucite. A legend was born and even today some collectors insist that every Catello pipe has a diamond in it… or at worst, a rhinestone. But perhaps it is best to leave both the clear Lucite and the image intact, for the superb craftsmanship and the smokability of the Castello is really what constitutes the true value of a pipe.” (pp. 255-256)

Hacker, Richard Carleton. The Ultimate Pipe Book. Autumngold Pub., 1984.

One of my favorite Wally Frank’s marketing ideas was the “Pipe of the Month Club”. Here is the order form from http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-w1.html

The date on the form is difficult to make out but, I think it is 1947. $1 in January of 1947 is equivalent to $13.91 in January of 2023 (https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm). Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to get a new pipe every month for $14 dollars today?

The first paragraph about Wally Frank from Pipedia pretty much sums up Frank’s contributions to our hobby:

Wally Frank, Ltd. was one of America’s oldest and most respected names in pipes and tobaccos, beginning in the early 1930’s. Wally Frank operated a chain of tobacco stores in New York City (the flagship store was in Lexington Avenue) and had a vast catalog business for pipes and pipe tobaccos. Their numerous private-label pipes were made by many makers, including Charatan, Sasieni, Weber, and many others. Wally Frank, Ltd. also owned the Pioneer brand of meerschaum pipes, made from both Turkish and African meerschaum. In addition to importing pipes, he had many pipes made in his own name and also employed pipemakers like Peter Stokkebye, Svend Bang, and Ed Burak (who later became the owner of Connoisseur). As a result, each Wally Frank pipe must be individually evaluated on its own merit.

(Wally Frank – Pipedia)

That brings me to the subject of this blog post. A unsmoked Briar Wind-cap Wally Frank Horn pipe. I have little idea as to when this pipe was produced. I gather from forum posts that the pipe of the month club died away in the early 1960’s yet, no one had any verifiable sources for that. I’d like to think that this pipe was a pipe of the month yet I also have no verification. I can say it is a unique looking pipe and my descriptions will be “individually evaluated on its own merit.”

I don’t remember exactly how or when this pipe came to me. It was most likely part of an estate lot which bid on and won via an ebay auction. I tried looking back through my “purchase history”. Unfortunately, the photos after about a year do not seem to be archived. Here are the photos of the dusty and dirty horn:

The pipe, though dusty, looked as though it had never been fired. The stem was oxidized and had no evidence of any contact with teeth. “This isn’t going to be a restoration”, I thought to myself, just a cleaning.

That is where I started. Cleaning. I took the horn to the sink and used undiluted Murphy’s Wood Cleaner on a medium stiff bristle toothbrush. The Murphy’s lather changed to a slight gray color as it removed the dirt and dust. The Murphy’s was rinsed with warm water and the stummel was dried with a cotton dish towel. I then wiped the surface with a cotton make-up removal pad moistened in 95% ethyl alcohol. I hoped that this would loosen and remove any dirt remaining as well as tell me more about the finish on the briar.

The pad became pink with the red dye that was used to stain the briar. The dirty spots on the pad are from me using it on the threads of the wind cap. The removal of stain with the pad indicated there was little finish to worry about.

The stem did not appear to have enough oxidation to warrant a bath in the Deoxidation Solution. I used Soft Scrub on a make-up removal pad and vigorously rubbed the stem.

After the scrubbing the stem was oiled with Obsidian Oil. I took both parts of the pipe to the bright light to assess the best course of action and for some photos.

In this photo you can still see the lathe chuck marks inside the tobacco chamber.

The stummel had one spot with an obvious fill. This fill was not a good color (too pink) match to the briar so it had to go. The stem looked like it had tiny pock marks all over the surface. I did know it was just from age, oxidation, poor quality vulcanite or a combination of those.

First thing I addressed was removing the old fill material. It was fairly soft and canme out with little effort. I used the dental pick and fly tying bodkin for most of the removal and scrubbed the hole with a brass wire brush.

With the old fill removed I started working on the stem. I reassembled the pipe and wrapped the shank with scotch tape to avoid scratching the briar with the sandpaper or micro-mesh pads. I worked the stem’s surfacewith 400 wet day sandpaper wrapped around a small foam block. I then used the 1500 micro-mesh pad dry. After the pad I wiped the stem with a dry make-up pad and applied a drop of Obsidian Oil with my fingers. I wiped the excess and used a wetted 1500 micro-mesh pad. After this pad I wiped, oiled and wiped the stem again. I then proceeded to the 1800 micro-mesh pad also wetted with water and then the 2400 pad dry. In between pads I continued to wipe, oil and wipe excess.

I then prepared to work of the fill. I used Brown cyanoacrylate (CA, super glue) and briar dust for the new fill material. I dipped the bodkin into the CA and got a small drop. I placed the drop into the hole, took a pinch of briar dust and pushed it into the glue wetted hole. I used the flat side of the dental broad dental pick to force the dust into the hole. It set-up nearly immediately.

I then used a flat needle file to remove the material new fill until it was smooth to the surface. I very light touch with 200 sandpaper revealed that I still had a couple of low spots in the new fill. I repeated the CA and briar dust. At this point I removed the scotch tape and cut two pieces of painters tape to cover the stampings. I figured that any sanding and micro-meshing from here out could be done to both the stem and the stummel.

The new fill was then filed and sanded to smooth. The sanding would be blended with the sanding and micro-meshing.

I did not need to use the 1500 nor 1800 micro-mesh pads on the stummel. I used the remaining series, 2400-12000 on the stem and stummel. Between pads I would wipe the briar with a make-up pad moistened with 99% isopropyl alcohol and the stem with a drop of Obsidian Oil on my fingers wiped with a dry make-up pad. When finished with the micro-mesh pad I applied a liberal coating of Before and After Restoration Balm to the briar and a coating of Obsidian Oil to the stem.

I let the balm and oil do their magic to the pipe for about an hour. After the hour had passed I wiped the entire pipe with an inside-out athletic sock to remove the remaining balm and oil. The pipe was looking very reshreshed. The last step was to take it to the buffer for several coats of carnauba wax.

This was a fun restoration of an unusual old pipe. I have no idea how the horn shape smokes. My fear would be that the top inside of the tobacco chamber would get too hot and be prone to the risk of heat damage. Or perhaps this shape is meant to be used while reclining in a hammock enjoying a pipe on a warm summer day. That is a delightful image. If you enjoyed this kind of thing please, click the like and subscribe. I thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

Below are photos of the finished Briar Wind-cap Wally Frank Horn: