A Tale of Two Dunhills

[earthbound]

Just picked up two Dunhills on the bay for a great price. One, a sandblasted bent billiard, has a substantial crack in the bowl. The crack is wide enough that I'd consider this a gap more than a crack. The second is in fine condition but the white spot appears to be falling out/ heavily degraded. I'm planning on drilling out the deteriorated white spot and replacing it. On the cracked pipe, I'm going to attempt a fill and band procedure. Has anyone ever banded a bowl before? My plan is to use 303 stainless and machine a very thin band that will fit over an undercut on the top of the bowl. Perhaps brass? I've got a lot of large stock available for this kind of thing and I think this would be a fun project. If anyone's interested in seeing the process I can document it with photos. Thoughts/ input?

EDIT: Fixed Capitalization in Title

 

[mau1]

Shows us some pictures please.

 

[shanez]

@didimauw here on the site did a cracked bowl repair after removing someone else's band that turned out fantastic. I'd suggest reading his repair threads before you get started.

And yes, pics please.

 

[mau1]

Pinning might be a good option depending on the crack/gap.

A Crack Pinning Tutorial

Pipe forums and other discussion groups are full of posts asking about crack repairs, especially to pipe bowls. Bowl cracks are generally the result of either accident, abuse or neglect – acc…

dadspipes.com

 

[didimauw]

@didimauw here on the site did a cracked bowl repair after removing someone else's band that turned out fantastic. I'd suggest reading his repair threads before you get started.

And yes, pics please.

Ha, thanks Shanez!

The Dunhills always get abused the worst for some reason....

 

[trouttimes]

That's because Dunhills get used a lot ?.

 

[earthbound]

Interesting idea with pinning. I did plan to drill out the ends of the cracks and put briar pins there to prevent the cracks from propagating. Perhaps thats overkill?

 

[mau1]

Brass pins not briar pins. Then cover the drill hole opening with briar dust and glue mixture, sand and stain.

 

[jpmcwjr]

How to place a photo in a post:

If it's on your computer, you can drag it into the REPLY Box directly, or to the Image box (see below) after opening the dialogue box. If you are LINKING* to an image, click on the Link button and paste the URL into the box that opens. The symbol to LINK is the right hand symbol on the upper left of the box. (Looks like a tilted infinity sign.)

No need to resize, as the server will do that for you. Choose full size image, not thumbnail.

* Photos from many—even most—websites can be displayed by copying the image's URL, usually by Control-clicking onna Mac; or right-clicking on Windows, selecting the URL (often stated as "Copy Image Location" or similar words), then copy/paste that into the window.

 

[earthbound]

So I got the pipes in yesterday and the bent billiard really needs some love. The mortise is badly out of round and will need reaming to a larger size. The tenon on that pipe also seems to have virtually eroded away on the ID. I think I'll have to straighten the stem, re-tenon it, and fit it all back up in addition to repairing the crack. This is a ton of work but I'm up for the challenge. The straight apple is in good condition. It just needs the white spot replaced.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Photos, please!