All great suggestions and very much appreciated. A lot of the pipes are to far gone to save. These I'll keep for myself to practice on. If they become good smokers it'll be a bonus for me to learn from them and have an extra pipe to smoke. For now, I'm doing this all by hand until my tool repertoire grows. All things in time. I really like the dowel and sand paper deal. I started with that and the results are getting better. To do it by hand before I push a drill bit or grinding stone through there is helping me to understand the mechanics I'll be dealing with. It would really be a shame to destroy any of these pipes. Refinishing stems is fairly easy for me now. As for the bowls, using a pipe reamer, salt treatment and retort is fairly simple too. As for really restoring old briar, on the other hand, that's a whole new world.