Cutting a New Acrylic Stem for a Vintage RBC French Briar Bulldog

It’s always fun to come across an old pipe brand I’ve not heard of before, and even better if I get to work on a representative pipe. This RBC branded cased Bulldog came into the shop for a cleanup and a new stem and, unlike many pipes of this vintage, it was destined to be put into its new steward’s regular rotation rather than a collection.

As you can see from these images, the pipe arrived in pretty good estate condition. The briar was dirty and the brass rim cap and shank band needed some help to recover their lost lustre. The stem that came with the pipe was an obvious DIY replacement. It was far too thin for the pipe and was simply jammed unceremoniously into the shank.

Inside the lid the case is marked with a round “RBC” logo and the words “French Briar”. The pipe’s shank is stamped “French Briar” over an illegible logo over “Redmanol”. According to this entry at Pipephil.eu,

“RBC” on the band stands for Reiss Bros & Co (founded in 1865, importers and wholesale dealers) who marketed the model in the USA. One of the brothers, Isaac Achilla Reiss, resided in Paris and did the buying there.

– http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-a6.html

A bit more digging revealed that Reiss Bros & Co was based in Chicago. Illinois, USA. That explains how this French briar pipe, likely made in St Claude, made it to North America. The pipe’s date of production can be estimated with a bit more research. Redmanol was invented in 1913, and in 1922, Reiss Bros & Co merged with the Premier Briar Pipe Company to become Reiss-Premier Co. The logo on the pipe case is pre-merger, so the Bulldog on the table here can confidently be dated to between 1913 and 1922.

Now that I had some idea of what I was working with, I removed the undersized stem that came with the pipe and had a look at the shank face, where I discovered a crack in the lower right quadrant. It was completely hidden under the brass shank band, but would need a bit of attention to make sure the crack did not creep further up the shank.

This pic shows the state of the original threads cut into the shank mortise. They were really worn down.

Before I got ahead of myself, I took a minute to run a few pipe cleaners dipped in 99% isopropyl alcohol through the shank. I was pleasantly surprised to find it already clean. I also wiped the briar down with alcohol on a cotton pad to remove the dirt, grease and old wax. A bit of mineral oil wiped over the briar helped refresh the wood and bring out some nice looking Birdseye grain.

I used a bit more alcohol to soften the glue holding the band onto the end of the shank. With the band out of the way, I could see the extent of the crack underneath.

Toi stop the crack from reaching further up the shank, I drilled a tiny 1mm hole at the crack’s terminus.

I added a drop or two of CA glue in the hole and along the crack and clamped the crack shut until the glue took hold. I allowed the CA glue to cure, then sanded off the excess and glued the brass shank band back in position.

After discussions with the pipe’s steward, a plan of action was made to restore this Elder Statesman to active service. To make the pipe more user-friendly, it would be converted to a standard push tenon arrangement. The threads in the shank were already so worn, so I simply removed what remained using an appropriately sized drill bit.

The new smooth mortise was matched with a new Delrin tenon, turned to diameter on the lathe. A quick test fit produced a snug-but-not-too-snug fit.

To minimize the drilling in the face of the new stem, I used my tenon-turning tool to reduce the stem end of the new tenon to 7mm diameter. Sizing the tenon while it was mounted in the shank allows the stem to fit flat against the shank without a gap between the tenon and stem face.

The stummel was now ready for a new stem, and for this pipe I had been asked to hand cut a stem from Red Amber Acrylic rod that would mimic the missing original Redmanol stem. Acrylic is significantly harder to work than Ebonite, so this would be an undertaking. After cutting a section of Acrylic rod to rough length, I mounted it in the lathe and drilled the airway.

This is a multi-step process that starts with a 1/16″ centre drill to make a pilot hole for the 1/8th inch drill bit that came next. The rod was drilled about 3/4 of the way down its length to a spot where I would transition the airway from a round bore to a flat V shape at the button.

A 9/64″ taper point bit is used next to taper the airway to a point, followed by a long 1/16″ drill bit that completes the rough airway from the point drilled in the previous step through to the button end of the rod.

Before removing the rod from the lathe, I used a 7mm drill bit to create a mortise at the stem face to accept the Delrin tenon.

A bit of epoxy bonds the tenon into the stem face. The lathe makes a convenient clamp to hold the tenon in position while the epoxy cures.

When the glue was dry and the tenon secure, I removed the proto-stem from the lathe and used a small round cutting bit in the drill press to cut a rudimentary slot at the button end. The masking tape on the rod helps to level the rod in the jig. As you can see, the cutting wheel jumped a bit on the hard Acrylic, but I had left a bit of “grace room” when I cut the rod to length. This gaff would be smoothed out during the upcoming shaping of the stem.

A test fit of the stem gave me the result I was hoping for – a light-tight fit of the stem face against the end of the shank. Notice the guide lines running lengthwise down the stem. These provide a visual reference for the location and size of the airway (the taped lines) and the points of the diamond shank (marked in silver Sharpie) and are essential for maintaining the stem geometry as I worked to cut a diamond shape out of the round rod stock.

I then began the very lengthy process of cutting the facets of the diamond taper stem profile, starting with large, coarse files and moving through progressively smaller and finer files to finesse the shape.

Have I mentioned that Acrylic is much harder than Ebonite? While it makes a long-lasting and beautiful pipe stem, Acrylic also takes a lot of effort to shape and doing so produces a lot of very fine dust, so a respirator is definitely recommended, as is taking frequent breaks to avoid fatigue-related goof-ups.

This series of images shows the progress as I cut the rough shape into the rod stock.

After establishing the facets of the diamond shank, I began cutting the taper and roughing in the button. Here again I used masking tape guides to keep the stem symmetrical.

After about 5 hours of work with the rough files (done in short stages over several days), the acrylic rod was definitely beginning to look like a pipe stem. The goal now was to continue to refine the shape to fit neatly into the pipe’s original case.

After another hour of filing, the stem was very close to its final dimensions so I moved to shape the rough-cut slot and refine the button. As this pic shows, I stopped filing when the stem reached a thickness of 6mm in the bite zone ahead of the button. Final sanding and polishing would further reduce the stem to a comfortable final thickness of just over 5mm.

One might be tempted to think that sandpaper wouldn’t change the stem all that quickly, and while it did take some time, a single session of hand sanding to 320-grit made a noticeable difference.

The rough-cut slot was deepened to a V shape using specialty slot files and the shape refined refined with needle files and sandpaper.

Final sanding was done with wet sandpapers in 800 and 2000-grit to prepare the stem for final polishing on the buffing wheel.

Before taking the pipe to the buffer, I wanted to make sure it fit the case properly, and to do that I needed to introduce a fairly deep bend. I slipped a pipe cleaner through the stem’s airway, then warmed the Acrylic over the heat gun until it became pliable. The softened Acrylic could then be bent to fit the case. I let out a small victory cry when the case snapped shut over the new stem. After a total of 8 hours of filing and sanding, I was ready to put this project to bed!

All that remained now was to take the finished pipe to the buffer where I gave the entire pipe a good polishing with both Red Tripoli and White Diamond polishing compounds. A few light coats of Carnauba wax added shine and some UV protection for the refreshed pipe.

The end results, shown in the pics below, were well worth all the effort. This World War I-era French briar Bulldog has come a long way since it arrived on the bench. Cleaned and polished, the refreshed briar shines and shows off that Birdseye handsomely, while the new hand cut Red Amber acrylic stem could easily be mistaken for the original Redmanol stem (though the slotted bit and Delrin tenon give it away as a modern replacement).

I really enjoyed working on this early 20th-century RBC Bulldog. After all, how often does a restorer get to put a 100+ year old pipe back into active service? The pipe has been returned to its steward where, with some proper care and feeding, it should provide steadfast smoking companionship for decades to come.

I hope you enjoyed following along on this rather special restoration project. Until next time, Happy Piping!

Here’s the finished pipe.