Every so often, I receive a pipe for restoration that has been worked on before at some point in its past – sometimes professionally, but more frequently by a well-meaning piper attempting to save a cherished smoking companion. This Bari Pearl is a good example of the latter category. When I brought this bamboo-shanked Bent… Continue reading Repairing an Old Repair on a Bari Pearl 7080 Bamboo Bent Billiard
I was contacted by the owner of this little Clifton Apple to see if I could get the pipe into smoking shape again. I asked the piper to send me the patient and when it arrived I took the following set of pics to record its initial condition. As you can see, the briar stummel… Continue reading Shank Repair and a Refresh for a Clifton 132 Straight Apple
This Falcon pipe was sent to me recently for a bit of a cleanup by a DadsPipes reader. It is, somewhat surprisingly, the first metal smoking pipe I have worked on since beginning my little venture into estate pipe restorations, so I was keen to get at it when it arrived. The design of the… Continue reading Cleaning Up a Falcon FDH Dublin
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
