I was contacted by a pipe friend a little while ago to see if I would be interested in sprucing up an estate pipe he had recently won on eBay. Of course I said yes! The buyer was quite excited about this project - not only is it his first Dunhill, but it's also a… Continue reading Refreshing a 1965 Dunhill Bruyere 660 F/T
My wife took me out for a birthday lunch a week before Christmas. We had a lovely meal and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering a local antique mall looking for pipes. I came home with a few briar goodies to add to the refurb box, one of which I could not wait to… Continue reading Stem Repairs and a General Freshening for a “Made by Millville” Full Bent
I had a bit of work done in the garage (aka my workshop) recently, including the installation of a most effective heater to prevent my pipes, tools and supplies from freezing in these cold winter months. While I was tidying up afterwards, I decided to sift through my boxes of pipes waiting to be restored.… Continue reading Resurrecting a Forlorn 1990’s Brigham 241
Hi folks. I've got another Brigham restoration for you today, this time a 1960's 5-Dot Shape 76 Tulip. I was lucky enough to acquire this briar in a box of assorted pipes a while back but it's been stuck at the bottom of my refurb box for a while. In comparison to the 1990's Brigham… Continue reading Reviving a Slightly Downtrodden Post-Patent Era Brigham 576 Tulip
For many Billiard lovers, there is no pipe quite as billiard-y as an English Billiard, and this Comoy's Guildhall 28 is a prime example of English pipemakers' mastery of this classic pipe shape. The Comoy's Shape Chart published on Pipedia.org identifies the Shape 28 as a "Billiard, Straight, Medium". In practice, this translates to a… Continue reading Freshening a Pre-Cadogan Comoy’s Guildhall 28 Billiard
I’ve worked on several Stanwell Brazilia series pipes over the years. The series name and inherent character come from the shank extensions made of, in the early days, genuine Brazilian cattle horn or, more recently, of faux horn made of acrylic. Of the two versions, I prefer the look and feel of the genuine horn.… Continue reading Repairing Stem and Shank Troubles on a Reg’d No Stanwell Brazilia 21
This Brigham 4-Dot was a surprise gift from my daughter, who came across it at a local antique fair. She got a good price on it due to its rather rough condition, which she figured I could remedy without too much trouble. I brought the pipe to the worktable to assess the scope of the… Continue reading Bowl and Stem Repairs for a Brigham 489 Bent Acorn
This pipe was sent to me for repairs recently. At first glance the Peterson Aran 50S Rustic Poker on my worktable looked to be in pretty good shape – the stem had a few tooth dents, but was not oxidized, and the stummel was clean. Even the deeply rusticated rim was free of lava deposits.… Continue reading An Internal Shank Repair for a Peterson Aran 50S Rustic Poker
Black pipes present the pipe restorer with a slightly different set of challenges than those faced when refurbishing a briar finished with the more common “woody” brown and red stains. The vast majority of black pipes to come across my worktable have been of the “opera pipe” style, finished with an opaque black or “ebony”… Continue reading Dealing with the Particular Challenges of Restoring a Black Pipe
I picked up this Bent Bulldog as part of a random lot of estate pipes quite some time ago. I dug it out of the box after Christmas, and have been working on it in between other jobs for the last several weeks. The pipe was in a certain amount of distress when it came… Continue reading Repair and Rustication of a No-Name Algerian Briar Bent Bulldog
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