1938 BBB Silver-Mounted Poker Restoration [Pic Heavy]

[wizhunter]

You are one Talented guy Piffyr, that pipe looks amazing,i looked at the rim in one of the first pictures and thought it would never clean up,i have turned away Grabows (that i really want) because they have had rims that actually looked better than the one you have done.I would love to be able and confident enough to do work such as yours...Bravo.
Wiz

 

[barepipe]

Beautiful job man! That looks great.

 

[ssjones]

Gorgeous, I can't wait to see the Comoy's for those stems!

 

[achtman]

They look straight-edged to me. The cartouche is supposed to be the same for both sets of letters, though. As for the distance between the letter and the edge of the cartouche, I just never can tell. Your eyes are usually sharper than mine, though!
I've seen so many look-alikes for Os and Ps, that I tend to go with what I think is the age of the particular design. Here's another Birmingham O that I'm fairly certain is an older pipe (i.e. 1913/14). I don't believe that BBB was making amber-stemmed, cased meers as late as 1938, but can't be sure. To my eyes, it just looks like it's an older pipe.

Hi Wes, since both of them are my pipes, and I've actually had a chance to look at them, let me put in my two cents.
I don't think I could tell the difference between the shape of the O used in 1918 or 1938. And BBB was making pokers that looked identical to this shape in several sizes back in the 1912 catalog. So it could be 1918. But the slot in the button looks too modern. It is not orific or semi-orific or anything like the slots in any of my older BBB's. And the button looks very modern as well. Anthony has included pictures of the slots in both the pre- and post-pictures.
If you need pictures of other BBBs from the interim period, there are some pictures of my older BBBs on Pipedia under BBB.

And if this works, here are some photos

My old BBBs. Bottom row is port 1940
Now if this were a Dunhill, I probably wouldn't be as sure because as far as I can tell their slots looked modern back in 1923. But my feeling about BBB is they were sort of slower.

 

[cynicismandsugar]

Amazing work! And that pipe is gorgeous. 8O

 

[achtman]

Gorgeous, I can't wait to see the Comoy's for those stems!
Al

Hi Al,

here is a glamour teaser from the three Comoy's. I'll let Anthony post the other pictures because it was his work.
Comoy's Extraordinaire 499

Mark

 

[ssjones]

That 499 looks incredible

 

[piffyr]

That 499 looks incredible

That's not even its good side, Al.
Coming soon...

 

[theloniousmonkfish]

Top notch work on a stout beauty. Wouldn't expect any less.

 

[danielplainview]

Good lord! That’s a stunner.

 

[cynicismandsugar]

I can't stop coming back to this post to sneak another peek at that poker. You did an outstanding job, sir.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Hell, yeah. Extraordinary!
Was the stem loose in the mortise? Do you think the cracks were perhaps caused by drying over the years?

 

[sablebrush52]

Anthony, that is just such a stellar job. And what I really appreciate is the level of expertise you show in every piece and the careful and sensitive respect for the materials and surfaces. There are a lot of guys who can make a pipe look pretty, but there aren't many who can repair structural damage, and THAT'S what a restoration is. It's not just applying rouge to the corpse.

If we had an applause emoticon I'd be posting it. Well. we do. but it's kinda lame. Stellar, just stellar.

 

[piffyr]

Was the stem loose in the mortise? Do you think the cracks were perhaps caused by drying over the years?

No to both.
Being a military mount, the stem has a continuous taper. So, it would just continue to seat further and further in until it either bottomed out or the silver cap split. The latter being far more likely than the former.
The shank was doomed to failure from the day the pipe was born. The wood is whisper thin at the very end shank and doesn't have a lot of strength on its own. That may not have been a problem if there had been firm surface-to-surface contact between the shank and the inside of the cap for support, but that wasn't the case here. There was a small gap between the two at the end that allowed the wood to expand beyond its tolerance. If you've ever used a wedge to split a log, same concept. Filling in that gap prevents that sort of movement in the future.

 

[danielplainview]

Back for a second look.
Jesse is right. Your eye for detail is second to none.
I’m still trying to figure how you get the inside of the stems jet black when they are so badly oxidized like this one.

 

[georged]

I’m still trying to figure how you get the inside of the stems jet black when they are so badly oxidized like this one.

 

[danielplainview]

^ witchcraft

 

[piffyr]

^^ patience

 

[georged]

 

[danielplainview]

Dang it. I knew I was doing it wrong.