First Go at Major Surgery

[Sobrbiker]

I didn’t do a “step by step” pictorial, but this evening I fixed my Ropp J07 that suffered a catastrophic event Tuesday.

I decided to give installing a stainless sleeve a go, and measured everything up. I had .4” to chamber on the bowl piece, and .6” inch of space from shank break to mortise on the other side,
After receiving my 3/16” od stainless tubing from Amazon, I freehand drilled .38” on the bowl piece and .55” inch by hand with a 13/64 bit.
I cut a .9” piece of tubing, roughed up the outer surface and dressed the ends. After putting a section of pipe cleaner semi saturated with butcher block conditioner in bore oftube to keep epoxy from getting in airway, some two part expoxy was mixed up. A light coat to exterior of tube and interior of voids was applied and everything reassembled.
For wasn’t perfect, but that was from freehanding the drilling.
After it setup, I cleaned excess glue from exterior (which I wiped with mineral oil prior to avoid any epoxy from getting buggered on the outside).
I wet sanded the slightly uneven joint from 320 to 600 grit.
This is where I made the rookie mistake of worrying about stamping and didn’t keep shank lines true in a spot or two.
I stained it with some cut Feiblings dark brown until it was close enough, cleaned it up and rubbed in a few coats of Howard’s BBC (an emulsion of mineral oil, beeswax, and caranauba wax.
Good enough for the work pipe it is, and a nice learning project.




Thanks to all the folks that share their expertise so rank amateurs like me can muddle our way through stuff!

 

[Joe H]

That was a handy bit of pipe repair! I'm glad you decided to fix it (and share the details). I hate to see old favorites get tossed without at least an attempt at salvage. With the metal tube in there you can tap out dottle to your heart's content. Well done!

 

[georged]

Fit wasn’t perfect, but that was from freehanding the drilling.

Yup.

If even a thousandth of an inch off axially or laterally, the fit will be screwed.

The only way to avoid that is to glue the shank together first, then ream and insert the tube.

Full explanation and demo here:

Reattaching a Briar Shank (wood to wood)

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[Sobrbiker]

Yup.

If even a thousandth of an inch off axially or laterally, the fit will be screwed.

The only way to avoid that is to glue the shank together first, then ream and insert the tube.

Thanks George, I’ve devoured almost all your content multiple times and understand and appreciate the engineering concepts you laid out.

I’m not presenting this by any means as a “look at me, I’m an awesome pipe repairman”, quite the contrary.
This was more of a “can I achieve a functional fix on a $50 pipe with what I’ve got on hand” before I even think of amassing the tooling and dedicating the time, money and effort to thinking it may be something I want dive into, since I have a disorganized, impatient mind.
The entire process was done from start to finish while mama was cooking spaghetti and sauce while bs’ing with a friend, and would’ve turned out better if the tube Amazon dropped off was the od they said it was (or I didn’t trust it to be and measured it before I and sourced a better bit.
But knowing what I know now from this practical experience, if I have to do it again “properly” I’m sure with more time and prep I’ll be able to do the job at least at a level above quite a few of the social media “pipe repair” guys, and that makes me happy.

Sorry if I didn’t lay out my expectations going in, but I can say that they were exceeded.

And again, thank you for sharing your expertise and methods. You are a helluva craftsman and will continue to inspire my journey.

 

[Sobrbiker]

Overall the axial alignment came out pretty good. The crack is visible for sure, but for less than the postage to send it out for a real repair, I’m happy.
The real test will be if it doesn’t gurgle/whistle and if it survives me whacking it against things

 

[woodsroad]

What? No belt sander?

 

[Sobrbiker]

What? No belt sander?

I fear if I had one it would have ended up a toothpick

Just using cut strips of wet/dry in a shoeshine fashion allowed me to fall into over focusing and dipping a waist where it shouldn’t have one.

I will make a georged hammock sanding setup if I carry on.

 

[Auxsender]

Very cool! Thanks for sharing.
I LOVE my J07 and I hope you’ll get to continue to enjoy yours.

 

[didimauw]

I love all of this. Im especially proud that you did it to a beloved J07.

Thank you sir.

 

[mortonbriar]

Good for you! Now how does it smoke?

 

[Sobrbiker]

Good for you! Now how does it smoke?

Had a couple smokes today and it smokes well. The inner diameter of the stainless tubing is just over 1/32” smaller, but doesn’t hinder the draw that I can tell so far.