...and here she is finally finished! The crack as you could see was real bad. Years of smoking had discolored the wood as well as "softened" the edges of the crack so it no longer matched evenly or closely. The heat and moisture trapped under the tape for all those smoking years had caused the shank to swell a bit to as well as darken the shank.
(What follows may be painful to you expert craftsmen, but I don't have a woodshop etc!)I carefully removed the tape by hand and exacto blade. I next used my dremmel tool to remove the majority of the cake, careful not to damage the bowl (I didn't!) I cleaned the interior and exterior of the pipe with good ol' American whiskey! After freezing the pipe in the freezer to unlock the stem from the half of shank it was "welded" to, I soaked the stem in bleach and polished with extra fine steel wool. I covered the club symbol with vasoline to protect during bleaching. Next I again used my dremmel to sand down the shank so both sides matched better including the circumference. This removed a good portion of the darkened area I noted above along with some decent areas, but it had to be done IMO. Once happy with the results, I super glued the shank back together and began fine sanding until it was as smooth as I felt I could get it. I then took 3 shades of furniture stain markers to duplicate the grain/stain etc of the original. When I was happy with that, I waxed her up (not before she had a day or two of smoking tho!!). I cleaned the 4 hole drinkless with steel wool.
She smokes real nice! As far as I can tell she is from the 1930's (4 hole) but some sources say 4 holes appeared occasionally up to the 60's. The only markings that survived the heat and moisture under the tape are Ka....die, St...ard and what appears to be an 18. Only the 8 is clear and what looks like a partial 1 could be anything...
Thanks for looking!
