As many of you know, Brigham pipes are famous for their filter system composed of an aluminum tenon/filter holder and a tubular Rock Maple filter, or "distillator" as the company calls it now. I've made up replacement stems for many Brigham estate pipes, but this was my first time doing so for a Brigham Freehand.… Continue reading Re-Stemming a Brigham Footed Freehand
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
Here is another pipe from my Iqaluit piper’s collection – a striking Blatter Panel Horn. It didn’t need a lot of work, but I though you might enjoy seeing the pipe for its own sake. The pipe arrived on my worktable in very nice estate condition. Even through a layer of dust and grime the… Continue reading Refreshing a 2009 Blatter Select Panel Horn
This refurbishment is in many ways one of the more interesting of my recent pipe projects. First off, it was an eBay purchase made by a client in Taiwan who had the seller in the USA send the pipe directly to me here in Canada. The owner also sent me a wish list of work he… Continue reading A 6mm Filter Conversion and Complete Face Lift for an Indelux Old Root Duncan Series Billiard
This pipe was sent to me for stem work to address some deep tooth dents. The rest of the pipe was in excellent estate condition, and arrived already cleaned (!), which meant I could focus on the work requested. Here are pics of the pipe as I first saw it on arrival. As you can… Continue reading Repairing Deep Tooth Dents in a 1940’s Dunhill Shell LV1 Straight Brandy
Like many collectors, I feel a little jolt of adrenaline every time I add a new pipe shape to my growing array of Brigham pipes. That jolt gets bigger when a new shape comes in a mid to high grade pipe like this Brigham 4 Dot. The pipe arrived on my worktable in decent estate… Continue reading Quick Refresh of a Brigham 454 Smooth Bent Pot
Just before Christmas I received a very generous gift from my pipe friend in Iqaluit who has been sending me his Blatter pipes for refurbishment. Along with a tin of pipe tobacco and an assortment of cigars, the box contained two Blatter pipes – one whole but in poor shape, and one stummel missing its… Continue reading Restemming a Blatter Bros Make Selected Freehand
By far one of the most popular of pipe shapes is the classic diamond-shanked Bulldog, in either straight or bent versions. In the Brigham catalog, these are Shapes 16 and 26, respectively, but they are not the only pipe shapes labelled as Bulldogs by this producer. Also on the list are the Shape 25 Squat… Continue reading Rehabilitating a 1980’s Brigham 217 “Round Bulldog”
This large pipe came to me for refurbishment in the latest lot from a fellow piper living in Iqaluit, Nunavut. I’ve worked on quite a few pipes for him over the last year, and this particular Blatter proved to be quite a challenge. To begin with, as you can see in the pics below, the… Continue reading A Thorough Scouring and a New Tenon for a Robert Blatter Signature Select Dublin Freehand
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