My rustication technique

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wannashmooze

Lurker
Jan 21, 2014
39
1
I would like to share my rustication technique since its easy and requires only tools that everyone has lying around. It takes some elbow grease and time to get it right, but the results are very nice.
I bought a cheapo estate pipe, smooth dublin shape. It was super gunked up and had a dull green oxidized stem. I used a swiss army knife saw blade to chew into the briar all over the pipe until all the parts that I wanted rusticated were done. I marked out areas to not rusticate before I started and left the rim and maker's mark intact. I also left a thin rim near the tennon so the stem would still fit in flush against the briar.

After rusticating, I stained it with a combination of shoe dye, dark furniture polish, and carnauba wax and used a flame to melt the carnauba into the crevices. I then soaked the stem in bleach overnight to remove the oxides, sanded it, and polished it with my dremel and some red rouge polish.
I'm still working on deghosting, it has a mild remnant of lakelands living deep inside.
I also never heard of this pipe's maker, so if anyone knows anything about PortoBello pipes I would appreciate any knowledge about the pipe. It is stamped Porto Bello Imported Briar France 28.

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gtclark

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 3, 2013
512
3
Wow! I never would have thought to use a saw blade - it looks very professional - well done!

 

wannashmooze

Lurker
Jan 21, 2014
39
1
Basically using the belly of the saw blade to dig into and chew up the surface. I pushed fairly firmly to get the teeth in, then used a twisting and rocking motion to rusticate. The Briar was much easier to work than I expected, the while process took about 3 hours, then I did the stain and waxing.

 

blueeyedogre

Lifer
Oct 17, 2013
1,552
30
Damn that look good. I tend to do most of my mods with my swiss army champ but never thought of doing that.

 

taerin

Lifer
May 22, 2012
1,851
1
Your very good with your hands, a word of warning, vulcanite stems are permanently damaged by bleach, best to carefully sand them instead, making sure you don't make the button and shank out-of-round or too rounded. I know Mike @ BriarBlues uses 45 mins of 50% diluted with water bleach, that doesn't seem so bad, I've heard of people using undiluted bleach for hours and hours, which is so very bad. I'm with nsfisher in there's nothing wrong with sandpaper, it does not change the chemical composition of the pipe and it gets the job done quickly enough.

 

timely

Part of the Furniture Now
Jan 23, 2012
765
2
A short video of this process would be wonderful and helpful, to me.

 

wannashmooze

Lurker
Jan 21, 2014
39
1
A video...hmmm that means I need to pick up another estate to rusticate. I'l see if I can come up with an excuse to give in to the 'ol PAD....

 

martiniman

Part of the Furniture Now
Apr 6, 2012
885
2
Super job, thanks for sharing.

Next time click some pic throughout the process....
Cheers.

 
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