Hello all,
I recently stumbled across the forum and saw these beautiful pictures of restored pipes, so I decided to try this myself. I bought this pipe off eBay for almost nothing, and was pleased to see what bad shape it was in when I received it. I figured that the worse the pipe was, the more I'd learn when restoring it.
I took the following, basic measures I learned on here:
-Reamed the bowl
-cotton ball and alcohol treatment
-used OxiClean, Magic Eraser, and bleach on the stem
-Alpha Abrasives on the stem
-Murphy's Oil Soap on bowl
-I even heated the stem in water and bent it, let it harden, and then heated it again back to straight just so I'd have the experience before trying it on a more expensive estate pipe in the future.
And of course I cleaned the shank and stem endlessly until pipe cleaners came out clean. I need to purchase a shank brush. Probably the thing that surprised me the most was how long it took to get the cake off. There was a ton of cake on the bowl, and it took two sessions with the reamer and careful use of a pocket knife to get it all off.
I did take more pics than this, but they are on my wife's phone. The stem was quite oxidized when I got it, but I made it worse by (as I described above) bending it and unbending it just to try it. A bent stem wouldn't have worked on this pipe, but I figured it would be better to try it for the first time on a pipe I paid $5 for than on a pipe that I spent a lot on.
On the bowl, I just removed a little of the stain/finish with alcohol to even it out (it had some ugly flat spots) and then used Paragon Wax. I was thinking about sanding it down and restaining it, but I thought it looked OK like this. The finish fades to a more matte appearance after the wax sets for a while, but here it is with a fresh coat:
I know this humble restoration is nothing compared to some of the masterworks I see here, but I was really happy with how it turned out, and it is all thanks to the wealth of information here! I had a really fun time working on the pipe, as I've never really worked with my hands in my life and this is totally new to me. Actually, I only smoked a piped for the first time about 8 weeks ago, so it's doubly new to me.
Looking forward to smoking the pipe this weekend!
I recently stumbled across the forum and saw these beautiful pictures of restored pipes, so I decided to try this myself. I bought this pipe off eBay for almost nothing, and was pleased to see what bad shape it was in when I received it. I figured that the worse the pipe was, the more I'd learn when restoring it.
I took the following, basic measures I learned on here:
-Reamed the bowl
-cotton ball and alcohol treatment
-used OxiClean, Magic Eraser, and bleach on the stem
-Alpha Abrasives on the stem
-Murphy's Oil Soap on bowl
-I even heated the stem in water and bent it, let it harden, and then heated it again back to straight just so I'd have the experience before trying it on a more expensive estate pipe in the future.
And of course I cleaned the shank and stem endlessly until pipe cleaners came out clean. I need to purchase a shank brush. Probably the thing that surprised me the most was how long it took to get the cake off. There was a ton of cake on the bowl, and it took two sessions with the reamer and careful use of a pocket knife to get it all off.
I did take more pics than this, but they are on my wife's phone. The stem was quite oxidized when I got it, but I made it worse by (as I described above) bending it and unbending it just to try it. A bent stem wouldn't have worked on this pipe, but I figured it would be better to try it for the first time on a pipe I paid $5 for than on a pipe that I spent a lot on.
On the bowl, I just removed a little of the stain/finish with alcohol to even it out (it had some ugly flat spots) and then used Paragon Wax. I was thinking about sanding it down and restaining it, but I thought it looked OK like this. The finish fades to a more matte appearance after the wax sets for a while, but here it is with a fresh coat:
I know this humble restoration is nothing compared to some of the masterworks I see here, but I was really happy with how it turned out, and it is all thanks to the wealth of information here! I had a really fun time working on the pipe, as I've never really worked with my hands in my life and this is totally new to me. Actually, I only smoked a piped for the first time about 8 weeks ago, so it's doubly new to me.
Looking forward to smoking the pipe this weekend!
