I was presented with this gift by fellow piper and blogger David Wilson of Home Grown Hobbies at the last pipe club meeting a few weeks ago. He had found this Brigham stummel at an antique shop near him and thought I could do something with it. The semi-finished briar is a Brigham Sportsman circa… Continue reading Re-Stemming an Unsmoked 1980’s Brigham Sportsman Author
I haven't paid all that much attention to corn cob pipes; I generally find briar and meerschaum more compelling materials from which to create a smoking companion. This time, however, I felt like changing things up a bit. I’d had this old cob for some time, acquired as part of a jumble sale purchase. I’d never… Continue reading Rescuing a Derelict Corn Cob Pipe
Dal Stanton has provided a detailed tutorial here in the use of a Dremel/rotary tool to buff and wax pipes. This is something every piper should know. If you've got a Dremel, you've got a buffer!
By all accounts, the Danish Fancy pipe boom of the late 1960s and 1970s caught the great English pipe house of Dunhill unprepared. Dunhill was unable to produce the new Freehand shapes in-house, so if the firm was to capitalize on the surging demand for Danish pipes, it would have to look elsewhere. The answer came… Continue reading In Praise of International Cooperation – Cleaning Up a Large Harcourt Grade D Freehand by Preben Holm for Dunhill
I came across this Chacom 296 Canadian pipe at a local antique market, and though it was in rough shape, it had a few things going for it in my mind. First was the unique leather pipe case it came in that featured a snap closure just like Grandma’s change purse. The case is unmarked,… Continue reading Restoring a Cracked Chacom 296 Canadian
I’ve been sitting on this restoration for a while, mainly because it took some time for me to come to grips with the pipe’s pedigree. The pipe in question is a Stanwell Collectors Piece, a special series of pipes issued during the company’s “Regd. No.” era (roughly 1948 – 1970) and apparently quite rare in… Continue reading A Rare Find – An Early Ivarsson Pickaxe Stanwell Collectors Piece
This is another of my recent antique fair finds. I added this Post-Patent Era (1956-69) Brigham Executive (3 Dot Vertical) 609 Apple to my bag along with the pair of Brigham Norsemen I wrote up last week. It was a good hunting trip! The Brigham Executive grade of pipe, pinned with 3 vertically aligned Dots,… Continue reading Refreshing a Post-Patent Era Brigham Executive 609 Apple
Tim has written a great, easy to follow tutorial on stem repairs here. I use basically the same method when dealing with damaged stems,and wanted to share Tim’s write-up here.
Things have been crazy busy around here the past month, its a little calmer now so I have some time to put up a few posts. Last week A friend messaged me to put together a quick tutorial on stem repair, specifically patching a bite through hole at the bit end. I’ve been re-stemming most pipes so I had a few that would fit the bill. I focused on the patch repair and not so much on the entire stem as I said its out of the junk box so the stem is far from done but I think what lies below will help. Sorry it took so long to put up.
Before getting started I cleaned the stem inside and out with EverClear, pipe cleaners and makeup pads.
Next I roughed up the area to be repaired with a flat needle file and 220 grit sandpaper, cleaning the area once…
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I picked up this pipe at a local antique market for not much money. I think the condition of the piece had scared off more than a few potential buyers, so the seller was happy to make a deal with me. The pipe had been well and truly enjoyed by its previous owner - the chamber… Continue reading Cleaning Up a Well Used Comoy’s The Everyman 533 Panel Billiard
PLEASE NOTE: This article was first published in 2016, using the information available at the time. While many details of the article still hold true, readers should consider it a legacy publication, superseded by the publication of my book, Brigham Pipes - A Century of Canadian Briar, in the Autumn of 2023. -- Charles Last… Continue reading Brigham Pipes – A Closer Look at Dots, Dates and Markings
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