Today I’m working on the second pipe I found on my birthday pipe hunt. This one is a classic Bent Billiard by Seville. Here’s what it looked like when I brought it to the worktable. . As you can see from the pics, the pipe needed a bit of spit and polish. The finish (a splotchy mosaic of black, dark brown and red dyes) was … Continue reading Reviving a Seville Convertible Bent Billiard made for Racine & Laramie
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 to the worktable. The stem had broken at the shank … Continue reading Repair and Rustication of a No-Name Algerian Briar Bent Bulldog
I thought I’d squeeze another pipe onto the DadsPipes Store shelves in time for the Holiday buying season. This Stanwell is one of the last survivors of the Danish Lot of 30 or so estate pipes I purchased about a year and a half ago. It had been sitting in the refurb box for quite some time as I prioritized other projects ahead of what … Continue reading Creating a Churchwarden from a Stanwell Rustic Paneled Horn
This is the second of six Blatter pipes sent to me for refurbishment. Of the lot, this Canadian is the owner’s admitted favourite, and I can see why. The long, elegant shape is rather appealing, and the amber acrylic stem on this pipe is quite eye-catching. The pipe hit the worktable in very nice estate condition, with light tooth chatter on the stem, some darkening … Continue reading Repairing Old Fills in a Blatter Canadian
I was recently sent a box of six pipes for refurbishment from a gentleman in Iqaluit, Nunavut. All six pipes were made by Blatter & Blatter, Inc of Montreal, known at one point in the firm’s 100 year history as Blatter Bros. Established in Montreal in 1907, Blatter & Blatter has remained, by choice, a small, family-owned pipe producer, currently putting out about 300 pipes … Continue reading Freshening a Blatter One Dot Zulu
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 1980s. It is stamped only with “Brigham” over “Canada”. No … Continue reading Re-Stemming an Unsmoked 1980’s Brigham Sportsman Author
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 in the form of a contract with the Preben Holm … Continue reading In Praise of International Cooperation – Cleaning Up a Large Harcourt Grade D Freehand by Preben Holm for Dunhill
