Repairing a Broken Shank on an Ashton Sovereign

This post is a bit of a change of pace, as we’re not dealing with a stem replacement. In fact, the stem on this Ashton Sovereign XXX Saddle Billiard was in excellent condition when the pipe arrived at the shop. The problem, obvious to all in this initial series of images, was the shank, which had snapped off just behind the factory shank band – ouch!

The crack avoided the stamps on the left shank of the pipe, which read “XXX” in an oval followed by “Ashton” over “Sovereign”.

The stamps on the right shank didn’t fare quite as well, but the markings are still legible, reading “Made in” over “England” and “22”.

Luckily, the crack was a clean break, and there was no missing briar. After cleaning things up with a bit of 99% isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs, I applied some thin CA glue to the damaged area and glued the shank back together. Despite my best efforts, there was a tiny ridge at the join that I’d need to address later.

Glue alone would not be sufficient to hold the shank together. I needed to add some mechanical reinforcement or the repair would fail. To accomplish this, I needed to expand the mortise to accept a sleeve of fresh briar positioned across the crack on the inside of the shank.

The torque from a drill would simply break the glue joint holding the shank together. To hold everything in place while I drilled out the mortise, I used a pipe clamp, cushioned with several wraps of hockey tape. This pic shows the setup. As you can imagine, opening the mortise is a delicate operation. My lathe chuck is too small to hold the stummel for this procedure, so I drilled very carefully using a hand held drill. I may have held my breathe a tad here!

With the shank prepped for the repair, it was time to make the briar sleeve. I keep a few blocks of briar in the shop for just such occasions, and cut a roughly one inch long piece from which to make the sleeve.

I took care to orient the grain in the new briar such that it ran the length of the sleeve, which will be perpendicular to the grain in the pipe’s shank when the sleeve is glued into place. This makes a much stronger repair, similar to the way plywood is made with the grain of each layer laid perpendicular to the last.

After cutting the sleeve to the correct diameter, I first drilled a pilot airway right through the block, then opened the airway to create a new, smaller mortise.

A quick test fit in situ on the lathe told me the sleeve would fit well.

To install the new briar sleeve, I mixed up a bit of two-part epoxy which I applied to the outside of the sleeve before sliding it into place in the shank.

This pic shows the new briar sleeve installed in the shank. It is fully seated into the enlarged pocket I made for it, spanning the crack at all points.

I set the pipe aside to give the epoxy time to cure. When I could handle the pipe again, I revisited the exterior of the shank, adding a layer of CA glue to the crack to fill any small gaps.

Again I left the pipe to rest while the glue cured completely, then used a flat needle file and sandpapers to level the repair flush with the surrounding briar. A wrap of tape on the shank contained the sanding to the affected area and protected the stamps from further damage.

When I was happy with the exterior of the shank, I refinished the repair using a stain pen that matched the original finish.

Now on the home stretch of this repair, I reduced the original stem tenon to fit the new, smaller mortise and mounted the stem for the first time. As you can see in this image, the new mortise wasn’t perfectly aligned to the original stem, which created a gap between the shank and stem face.

To close the gap and get this pipe on its way back to its steward, I needed to replace the original tenon with a new one made of Delrin. To get started, I cut the old tenon off the stem and drilled the stem face to accept the new Delrin tenon.

Here I was thrown a small curveball – drilling the stem face caused the briar Dot to fall out of the Ashton logo. Doh!

So it was back to the lathe with another scrap of briar, from which I turned a small briar dowel.

Once sized correctly, I glued the new briar Dot into the stem with a dab of CA glue.

Then, finally, I could get on with the tenon replacement. After turning a length of Delrin rod to the correct diameter, I drilled an airway through the rod and fit the tenon into the shank of the pipe. After a bit of adjustment to get the stem lined up properly with the shank, I roughed up the end of the tenon and used some more epoxy to glue the new Delrin tenon into the stem face.

I let gravity and a bit of masking tape keep the stem aligned with the shank as the epoxy hardened. I left the pipe standing upright in a small vise overnight to give the epoxy full time to cure.

When I returned to the pipe the next day, I carefully twisted the stem out of the shank and chased the airway with a drill bit to clear out any excess glue. A quick bit of work with some sandpaper smoothed out the logo repair and prepped the acrylic stem for final buffing.

I could then take the completed pipe to the buffer for a run on both the Red Tripoli and White Diamond wheels. This removed the last of the sanding marks and brought up the shine. A few layers of Carnauba wax added more shine and a layer of UV protection.

The finished pipe is fresh, clean and, most importantly, back in one piece. Though a thin scar remains as evidence of the break, the reinforced shank and realigned stem are solid and ready to provide many more years of trouble-free smoking companionship for its steward.

Thanks for joining me on this shank repair adventure. The position of the break made this repair slightly trickier than if the pipe had broken closer to the bowl, but we got there in the end and I’m quite pleased with the end result.

Until next time, Happy Piping! Here’s the finished pipe.