Kaywoodie Flame Grain 99B Restored

ssjones

Moderator

Staff member

May 11, 2011

18,439

11,344

Maryland

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• Sep 5, 2014

• #1

I own and enjoy several Super Grain Kaywoodies from the 30's, late 40's and 60's. This is my first Flame Grain, which I believe was made in the late 1940's or early 1950's. I did a restoration article on the Reborn Pipes blog:

http://rebornpipes.com/2014/09/05/kaywoodie-flame-grain-99b-restored-pre-1955/
Before:

After:

 

P

plateauguy

Lifer

Mar 19, 2013

2,412

21

• Sep 5, 2014

• #2

Beautiful job, Al! This is one of my all time favorite pipes, glad someone else enjoys them too.

 

agnosticpipe

Lifer

Nov 3, 2013

3,345

3,484

In the sticks in Mississippi

• Sep 5, 2014

• #3

Great restoration! I love old Kaywoodies, although for some reason I don't seem to have very many. Gonna have to do something about that!

 

danielplainview

Lifer

Mar 30, 2014

2,853

78

wv

• Sep 5, 2014

• #4

Nice work. Great looking bulldog.

 

irish

Lifer

Aug 12, 2011

1,121

6

Texas

• Sep 5, 2014

• #5

Great Job as usual Al. That is a good looking Kaywoodie. I bet it makes a great smoker. :puffpipe:

 

voorhees

Lifer

May 30, 2012

3,834

939

Gonadistan

• Sep 5, 2014

• #6

Lovely work Al. Your article confirms the age of my Kaywoodie meer. It has the same large ball 4 hole stinger.

 

tuold

Lifer

Oct 15, 2013

2,133

166

Beaverton,Oregon

• Sep 5, 2014

• #7

Beautiful results! (Isn't it amazing how some people let that much buildup accumulate in the bowl?)

 

sidious

Starting to Get Obsessed

Jan 30, 2014

194

0

• Sep 6, 2014

• #8

I wish I could do work like that. That pipe looks great!

 

shaintiques

Lifer

Jul 13, 2011

3,615

228

Georgia

• Sep 6, 2014

• #9

Beauty, love it. I'm a sucker for bulldogs.

 

antbauers

Part of the Furniture Now

Jul 12, 2013

675

0

• Sep 6, 2014

• #10

As always, nice job and great taste. Very nice!

 

ssjones

Moderator

Staff member

May 11, 2011

18,439

11,344

Maryland

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• Sep 6, 2014

• #11

Thanks guys. That one was one of the most difficult shanks to clean that I have encountered. I spent the better part of an hour with brushes and alcohol. I never got it completely clean, but apparently good enough. I smoked the pipe this morning with no funky ghosting.

 

ssjones

Moderator

Staff member

May 11, 2011

18,439

11,344

Maryland

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• Sep 6, 2014

• #12

Mr. Can has a very nice Super Grain churchwarden available!

 

papipeguy

Lifer

Jul 31, 2010

15,778

35

Bethlehem, Pa.

• Sep 6, 2014

• #13

Nice job cleaning that up, Al. Someday you'll have to show me your technique for cleaning rims so nicely.

 

ssjones

Moderator

Staff member

May 11, 2011

18,439

11,344

Maryland

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• Sep 7, 2014

• #14

There was one issue with the pipe that I did not fix on the first attempt, and just corrected. The stem insert was off by a hair and not square to the diamond shank of the briar. This left a little ridge that I could feel and it can be seen in one of the "before" pictures. Steve Laug said some inserts could be moved into position with a pair of needle-nosed pliars, which I attempted, but was unsuccessful. He also suggested trying a little heat (it was difficult to heat with damaging the briar). This was nerve-wracking trying to grab the thin metal edge and not damage the briar.
I looked thru my auto tool box and decided that perhaps I could remove the insert with a set of screw-extractors. This bit did remove the insert. I had to clean and then grease the insert threads which worked! Thanks Steve for the encouragement and advice!

 

xrundog

Part of the Furniture Now

Oct 23, 2014

737

1

Ames, IA

• Oct 26, 2014

• #15

Oh yeah, the RiffRaff pipe. NOW I know who you are! Nice job on that one.

 

mrenglish

Lifer

Dec 25, 2010

2,220

72

Columbus, Ohio

• Oct 26, 2014

• #16

That is practically night and day. Great job on the restore.

 

mso489

Lifer

Feb 21, 2013

41,210

60,459

• Oct 26, 2014

• #17

Handsome restoration. A good case against cake building, to my mind. That was back when the Drinkless feature

on Kaywoodie actually lined up the bit perpendicular to the shank. Now you have to employ a hair dryer to soften

the glue and hope the re-hardened glue holds the job in place. Kaywoodie does make some push-bit briar pipes,

if you can find them.

 

ssjones

Moderator

Staff member

May 11, 2011

18,439

11,344

Maryland

postimg.cc

• Oct 26, 2014

• #18

@mso489: The stinger was correctly oriented to the stem, it was the insert in the shank that needed adjustment.
@xrundog: There is a member "riff raff" here, but I'm "ssjones" on this forum, "riff raff" on all other platforms.

 

bent1

Lifer

Jan 9, 2015

1,151

3,020

64

WV

• Jan 9, 2015

• #19

99b is my favorite pipe & shape. congrats!

 

buroak

Lifer

Jul 29, 2014

1,867

14

• Jan 9, 2015

• #20

An amazing restoration and helpful step-by-step for those of us with Kaywoodies to restore. The large-ball stinger on yours marks an early Flame Grain. I have seen some that may be a few years older, but not many. Also, any bent Flame Grains I have seen lack the really early stinger design, so yours may be about as old as it gets. As late as 1952 Kaywoodie advertised their Flame Grains as being made from 200-400 year-old Albanian briar. You have a beautiful and old piece of briar in your stable of pipes.