Amber has been prized for its beauty and workability for thousands of years. Used in the creation of jewelry, trade goods and once believed to have magical and medicinal properties, Amber also made its way into the pipe making world as a stem material. Unfortunately, Amber, while beautiful to look at, isn't a really good… Continue reading Crafting an Acrylic Amber Stem for a 1924 K&P Meerschaum
In somewhat startling contrast to today's pipe collecting and preserving mindset, there was a generation of pipe smokers who saw their briars as mere utility objects, tools for capturing and delivering the smoke from all-days blends. Bowls were cleared of dottle and ash by knocking them against the closest convenient surface, chambers were rarely, if… Continue reading Salvaging the Rim of a Very Knocked About Brigham 1-Dot
A client from the Greater Toronto Area sent me a few pipes for work not too long ago. Among them was a very large JM Boswell Jumbo Bent pipe that the client really enjoyed smoking but was a rather imposing pipe visually. As this first series of images illustrates, Jim Boswell wasn't kidding when he… Continue reading Lightening a Heavy Looking JM Boswell Jumbo Bent
Anyone who has taken a look through past posts here or on other pipe restoration blogs will know that stem replacement is one of the most common repairs, and with good reason. The stem is where the (Vulcanized) rubber meets the metaphorical road for pipe smokers. Stems are regularly dented or bitten though by teeth.… Continue reading Tutorial: Let’s Replace a Stem!
Merchant Service pipes were made famous in the late 1930s and 1940s by superstar entertainer Bing Crosby, who was a fan of the simple yet elegant pencil shanked billiards originally produced by Herbert Merchant Inc. Herbert Merchant died in 1944, and original production of Merchant Service pipes seems to have stopped sometime in the early… Continue reading Repairing a Merchant Service Pencil Billiard
Bjarne Nielsen (1941-2008) left a promising career at the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1973 to launch his own pipe making company and enticed few other pipe makers away from Prebem Holm's workshop in the process. Bjarne's Danish Freehand pipes became popular in the USA while his more traditional shapes caught on in Germany.… Continue reading A New Stem and a Cleanup for a Bjarne Handmade
Jobey pipes have been around in one form or another, made by one company or another, since about the end of World War I. The predominant appraisal of Jobey pipes over the years is that they were "good pipes for the price". Jobey made pipes in mostly classic shapes sold at low to midrange prices,… Continue reading A Gentle Restoration and New Link for a Patent Pending Jobey Extra Poker
Most of the time when clients bring me their pipes, they want me to make them look new again, or at least get close. Other times, like with today's project, I am asked to create something very different. The pipe on the worktable today is a brand I'd never come across before. The rather large… Continue reading Let’s Make A Vintage Style Cased House Pipe!
Dunhill began using Bamboo for some of their pipes near the end of, or just after, the Second World War as an alternative to hard-to-source briar. Details on the first use of bamboo shanks by the English marque are a bit hazy, but the series is included at least as far back as the 1951… Continue reading Repairing a Seriously Cracked 1960 Dunhill W59 Whangee Bamboo Apple
Hi, everyone. It's mid-Summer so I thought I'd take a little break from restoration posts and instead do something a little different this week. I recently had the pleasure of speaking to Fraser Moss of the Prairie Piper YouTube channel about my ten years operating DadsPipes.com and my book, Brigham Pipes - A Century of… Continue reading Interview with Prairie Piper YouTube Channel
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