Plugging a Whopper of a Burnout on a David Jones Hand Made Pipe

David Jones was an American pipe maker who began making pipes in 1986. As his Pipedia entry reads,

Since 1988, when I began selling, I have shipped more than 2000 pipes. These pipes are handmade from extra quality plateau briar. I purchased a lot of briar in the early years. Thus I have maintained briar stocks far beyond my immediate needs. This means that I do not have to wonder about the provenance of my wood. My briar is stored in a controlled environment for several years, then brought into the shop for final curing 5 to 7 years before use.

Each pipe is carefully hand shaped. Internal drilling of both the shank and the stem features tapering at the mortise and stem tenon as well as the lip, for just the right draw and smokeability. The stem logo is a mother-of-pearl dot. Each pipe is marked with my signature, handmade, USA, grade and year of manufacture. All pipes are handmade by me from design to final buff.

My grading system consists of a hand rusticated finish followed by five smooth grades. All shapes are also made in XL and Colossal sizes.

Commissioning a hand made pipe from an artisan pipe carver is always exciting, and the pipe is often special to its steward due to the personal relationship that develops between artisan and patron. David Jones passed away in 2021, making the subject of today’s restorations all the more precious.

As you can see in this initial series of images, the pipe is a big one (Jones only worked in XL and Colossal sizes) but appeared well cared for overall – until you come to the last picture.

And here is the reason the pipe was sent to me – it has suffered a burn-out right through the rear wall of the bowl. Ouch! The extent of the damage is hard to see in the pic below. A large, conically-shaped chunk of briar has been eaten away – quite a feat, given the especially robust chamber walls on this pipe – nearly 3/8″ thick!

After some back and forth with the pipe’s steward, it was decided that the burnt briar would be replaced by a plug of fresh wood. I’ve done this more than once, but never with so large a plug. As you can see in this pic, after opening the burn-through to find solid briar all around, the hole was about an inch in diameter.

This shot down the chamber from above give a better sense of the extent of the heat damage. The burn-through was literally the tip of the iceberg, with damaged briar flaring inwards from that penetration point.

The pipe’s steward had kindly cleaned the pipe before sending it in, so I could get right to work on the repair. This series of images shows the process of shaping a tapered plug to fit the hole. A slice of briar somewhat thicker than the chamber wall was cut from a larger block, then shaped on the sanding wheel into a circle.

A test fit showed that the plug was the right size. As you can see, I made sure the new briar would extent all the way through the wall of the chamber to fill as much of the damaged area as possible.

Happy with the fit of the plug, I mixed up some Original Formula JB Weld epoxy, slathered it onto the edges of the plug, and pushed the plug into position. I also pushed some of the epoxy into the gaps around the inside edges of the plug to make it easier to smooth out the chamber wall later. It looked a bit of a mess at this point, but that wouldn’t last. I carefully set the pipe aside to rest overnight while the epoxy cured completely.

The following day, I came back to the pipe and, using a sanding drum mounted on my rotary tool, I removed as much excess epoxy from the chamber as I could while also shaping the inside face of the patch to match the curvature of the chamber. A tool like this can very easily get away from you if you let it (I ruined a practice pipe years ago doing this same job), so it pays to be diligent and keep a firm grip on the tool.

As you can see in this pic, I also levelled off the exterior of the plug, getting it close to the surface of the rustication.

With the rough work complete, I switched to a small round carving burr to introduce some texture to the fresh briar. The goal here is to get as close as possible to the original texture so the repair disappears once the pipe is refinished.

Inevitably, there were some deeper depressions around the edge of the briar patch when I was finished rusticating. To build these areas up, I mixed thick CA glue with briar dust to create a filler paste, which was then applied to the damaged areas.

I again left the pipe to rest while the filler cured, then gently went over the repair again with the carving burr to blend everything together. The big test of my rustication was applying a fresh coat of black leather dye. Not too shabby!

A wipe of mineral oil after the dye had dried helped to set the new finish and inject some moisture into the briar.

At this point, I mounted the stem to the shank, only to realize that the heat that had eaten through the bowl of the pipe had also deformed the stem tenon. leaving the stem at an odd angle, and quite loose in the shank. So I cut off the damaged tenon and prepped a new one, made up in-house from a short section of Delrin rod.

After widening the airway in the stem face to accommodate the new tenon, I glued everything up with a bit more epoxy. Gravity and some masking tape held the stem in position while the epoxy cured overnight.

Now on the home stretch of this repair, I chased the airway through the stem with a drill bit to clear any excess epoxy, then applied a bowl coating of maple syrup and activated charcoal powder to the chamber walls. The purpose of the bowl coating is twofold – it dresses off the chamber after the repairs and also provides a slightly grippy surface onto which a new protective cake layer can form.

Applying the coating is very easy – after inserting a pipe cleaner to keep the charcoal out of the shank, I wiped a few drops of maple syrup around the interior of the chamber. I added about a tablespoon of charcoal powder to the bowl, then covered the top with a bit of cardboard before giving the pipe a good shake to distribute the charcoal evenly around the chamber. After a minute or two of shaking, I dumped out the excess charcoal and allowed the coating to air dry until firm.

This pic shows the chamber after applying the coating. The darker section is still damp, but otherwise, the pipe is looking great.

When the bowl coating was well and truly dry, I took the finished pipe to the buffer for a quick polishing and a few coats of Carnauba wax. This David Jones briar has seen some things no pipe should be exposed to, but it came through its reconstructive surgery with flying colours. It has been returned to its steward and been put back into regular service. With a little care and maintenance, this restored fitful of briar should perform well for many years to come.

Thanks for following along on this rather extensive pipe repair journey. I hope you found it as engaging to read as I did to repair.

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