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ofafeather

Lifer
Apr 26, 2020
2,769
9,044
50
Where NY, CT & MA meet
Coming off of a recent thread - I hate fills. Some pipes are more fill than pipe! That said, it got me think about these pipes I have waiting to get rid of that have many fills. This one Hollycourt pipe that is a really cool panel Dublin with some decent grain has half a dozen fills on the back of the bowl that stare you right in the face when you smoke. I recently got a set of furniture stain touch up pens and thought I would mess around and see if I could do anything to make them do better. Here are the results after a few minutes of tinkering. Someone could probably do better with paint and some grain blending skills but this worked ok I think. Not high grade but now I might consider keeping around. 6E47D701-84B8-4719-83C5-FDA114AE6CB7.jpeg493EA3BC-6D3F-4396-A0D5-93B027785541.jpeg
 

BROBS

Lifer
Nov 13, 2019
11,765
40,026
IA
Coming off of a recent thread - I hate fills. Some pipes are more fill than pipe! That said, it got me think about these pipes I have waiting to get rid of that have many fills. This one Hollycourt pipe that is a really cool panel Dublin with some decent grain has half a dozen fills on the back of the bowl that stare you right in the face when you smoke. I recently got a set of furniture stain touch up pens and thought I would mess around and see if I could do anything to make them do better. Here are the results after a few minutes of tinkering. Someone could probably do better with paint and some grain blending skills but this worked ok I think. Not high grade but now I might consider keeping around. View attachment 76402View attachment 76403
Looks good. I do this too. For some reason. Either old fills fade, lose the finish off only the fills, or the rest of the pipe darkens but the fills do not. Whatever the reason it’s pretty easy to darken them a bit to even out the color. Now you can smoke that one but not cringe when you look at it. ?
 

anotherbob

Lifer
Mar 30, 2019
15,678
29,400
45
In the semi-rural NorthEastern USA
Wait how common are fills? I've only seen one on any of my pipes. Right on the bottom of the best one. It's funny sometimes you judge something as you are reading and then you see the thing they're talking about and you realize they where right the whole time. Example you see someone talking about fills on a pipe and how much they ruin the experience and then you look at the picture and say "yeah that would ruin things for me too."
 

Searock Fan

Lifer
Oct 22, 2021
1,862
5,217
U.S.A.
Back when I used to make pipes I found it very frustrating when I would have a nice straight grain working and all of a sudden there would be a small defect. Usually a little crack of "eye brow". Of course this ruins it as far as making a smooth.... or does it?

After a lot of though I had a light bulb go off in my head. Why not, I've never seen this done but I'll try it. Here's the short version of what I did. Took an old piece of junk 14k gold jewelry and filed off some dust particles. Then I mixed the gold dust with some slow drying clear "Zap-a-gap" glue and worked it into the flaw to make a fill. Let it dry a couple of days, then finished it off with the usual sandpaper and buffing. If I do say so myself, it looked pretty cool.

Here's the thing,,,, you can't do it if there is only one fill in the pipe, that just looks weird and screams "defect". To create a "look" there needs to be several scattered around. So, if there was only one or two natural flaws, I would create some more in strategic locations and fill them too.

I made several of these over a few years period and they sold like hot cakes, and for a good price too.
 
Last edited:

Searock Fan

Lifer
Oct 22, 2021
1,862
5,217
U.S.A.
It you have a pipe with visible fill that bug you, you might try this.

Assuming your reasonably handy with tools. Look on line at the Castello video that shows them putting a "Searock" finish on one of their pipes. Make yourself a little tool like they use and you can carve the pipe and then stain it with alcohol based leather dye.

If the video link below won't work just search Google videos for "Castello pipes factory". puffy

 

mingc

Lifer
Jun 20, 2019
3,976
11,065
The Big Rock Candy Mountains
Coming off of a recent thread - I hate fills. Some pipes are more fill than pipe! That said, it got me think about these pipes I have waiting to get rid of that have many fills. This one Hollycourt pipe that is a really cool panel Dublin with some decent grain has half a dozen fills on the back of the bowl that stare you right in the face when you smoke. I recently got a set of furniture stain touch up pens and thought I would mess around and see if I could do anything to make them do better. Here are the results after a few minutes of tinkering. Someone could probably do better with paint and some grain blending skills but this worked ok I think. Not high grade but now I might consider keeping around. View attachment 76402View attachment 76403
Nice job!
Back when I used to make pipes I found it very frustrating when I would have a nice straight grain working and all of a sudden there would be a small defect. Usually a little crack of "eye brow". Of course this ruins it as far as making a smooth.... or does it?

After a lot of though I had a light bulb go off in my head. Why not, I've never seen this done but I'll try it. Here's the short version of what I did. Took an old piece of junk 14k gold jewelry and filed off some dust particles. Then I mixed the gold dust with some slow drying clear "Zap-a-gap" glue and worked it into the flaw to make a fill. Let it dry a couple of days, then finished it off with the usual sandpaper and buffing. If I do say so myself, it looked pretty cool.

Here's the thing,,,, you can't do it if there is only one fill in the pipe, that just looks weird and screams "defect". To create a "look" there needs to be several scattered around. So, if there was only one or two natural flaws, I would create some more in strategic locations and fill them too.

I made several of these over a few years period and they sold like hot cakes, and for a good price too.
I like the gold fill look! Very classy. Like those Japanese crockery glued back with gold.

Strangely enough, a prominent gold tooth is NOT considered classy. Weird. ?