exploring the art of tobacco pipe restoration
I missed last Friday’s post so I thought I’d push this one out a bit early. Posts will be spread out a bit over the next lonthnor so to give me time to work on the Brigham book. I hope their quality makes up for the lack of quantity! – Charles Not long ago, I…
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This pipe is another one of those that has been languishing in my refurb box for quite some time – long enough that I can’t remember exactly when or where I acquired it! High time to give it some attention. Here is how the pipe looked when I brought it to the worktable. It was…
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I have had this late-1960s or very early 1970s Brigham 3044 Oversize Billiard in my box of refurbs for at least the last year if not longer. I’ve checked on it several times over that period, but I’ve never been able to tackle the work it needed until now. The problem has not been a…
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The work on this pipe has been started and stopped several times over the last few months, repeatedly sidelined in favour of more pressing repair jobs. It’s been so long, in fact, since I started working on it that it took me quite a while to find (most of) the pictures. This series of pics…
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I recently wrote about replacing a broken tenon and called it one of the most common pipe repairs. Today’s post is about another – a cracked shank. For many pipes, a cracked shank can be easily and permanently repaired by installing a shank band over the damaged briar. An external band like this is essentially…
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Amid all the work I’ve been doing on other people’s pipes lately, I try to squeeze in one of my own where I can. This Brigham 206 has been waiting patiently for a little love for quite a while, so I decided that it was time to give it some attention. The series of pictures…
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I’ve worked a lot on other people’s pipes lately, so thought it was high time I cleaned up an estate from my own box of Refurbs-in-Waiting. In this post I am working on a pretty Jobey Virgin Prime 345 in a Bent Pot Sitter shape. As you can see from this series of pics, the…
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The pipe on the worktable today is a good example of how Brigham made good use of old stock left over from discontinued product lines. I think this practice was very much in line with Herb Brigham’s penchant for tinkering with pipe shapes and his son Michael’s focus on efficiency and cost-savings in the 1980s.…
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Here is another pipe from the box of repairs I’ve been working through recently. This time I’m working on a lovely Peterson Christmas 2012 B11 with a very unfortunate issue – a long crack running up the bowl. Ouch! Here is the pipe as it looked when I first brought it to the worktable. I…
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The Coronavirus pandemic is keeping most of us in self-isolation, and I am no exception. While I am missing my usual wanders through antique shops, I have a fairly full box of estate pipes to work on while holed up. This Brigham 354 is one such pipe, acquired as part of a larger eBay lot.…
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