A Newbie Obsession in Collection/Restoration

[JeremyL]

Title shortened and edited for capitals.

The story begins when I went to check out the former house of a good friend. It's on 30 acres in Sheridan, Oregon. Her (long-ago) ex still lived there... until his passing a couple years ago. A horrible man, he lived alone and after his death the house sat empty. I happened to be nearby and snuck in to poke around. A total mess, but I did notice a pipe rack and several pipes. I snapped some photos to share with her and left. She recognized one or two of the pipes as one she had bought him back in the 70's. To this day I regret not snagging the pipes. Nobody would ever notice, and I am 99% sure they were tossed when the property was sold, the trees all clear-cut, and the property put back up for sale. A very sad story.

Fast forward a year and I find myself in Vienna, Austria for a couple months poking around the classifies. Within a few weeks I have collected a handful of old estate pipes. I was hooked! After 2mo I have collected ~50 pipes, most in decent shape but all needing some cleanup. And some nice stories to go along with some. And LOTS of time 'wasted' learning about the various pipes of yore, and restoration methods.

I'm back in the US of A now, and still trying to collect, but I have started my restorations. I don't have a buffer setup yet. I'm still moving around a bit after 9yrs of being a nomad, so I'll get one when I get settled and shine up any pipes I have cleaned up to this point.

Anyway, this will be an ongoing post where I shall share pix of the pipes I've collected as I get them cleaned up. I will occasionally puff away at one (I do not expect to become a habitual smoker, but as I did with cigars, I expect I'll enjoy once in a while. I grew up on a farm in Kentucky, where we grew tobacco. I was a 7yr old boy sitting on the back of the tractor planting the little plants with my siblings, so there will forever be a place in my soul for the stuff. I plan to keep the pipes I like the most, and sell the ones I am not particularly drawn to. My wife will eventually enforce some level of "enough pipes!".

I hope you enjoy!

 

[OzPiper]

Yes, please.
Love to see some pics of your haul.

 

[JeremyL]

The first cleanup is a Red Point "Old Briar" billiard. I chose it as one of the easiest of the cleanups since it was not in bad shape. The stem had some decent oxidation and a bit of chatter. I did my best to lift the chatter with candle/bic and it got most of the way. Sanding and micromesh did the rest. Obsidian oil should keep it pretty nice for a while. The bowl was pretty clean but I sanded it smooth with 320grit. It seems to have a factory coating on the inner walls. I did give it a light 320gr sanding/topping on the top to clean up some scratches. I didn't try to remove the stinger - just soaked in in alcohol to clean it up. Following Steve's methods of RebornPipes I cleaned the stummel with Murphys before going thru the series of micromesh, and then a treatment of Before & After restoration balm. This will be my "standard method" unless something dictates otherwise. I do have some Restoration Balm I plan to use on it, but I will wait until I get the buffer I think. It already has a nice finish just from the Balm.

I couldn't find much on Red Point, but the tales suggest its from Austria which makes sense as I bought it in Vienna, from a nice woman selling some of her grandfathers pipes.

 

[JeremyL]

I can post a couple pix showing the whole collection. I took them as I was collecting. I expect it will be fairly slow-going to get thru the cleanups. Maybe I'll pick up the pace as I get seasoned.

My first purchase - and perhaps one of the best with a Hardcastle and a Savinelli Punto Oro. I ended up going back to this guy - selling his brothers pipes after he passed - and getting a few more.

The rest you'll have to wait to hear about as they get restored . Gotta keep some suspense going. Of course feel free to ask for more pix/info of any specific pipes that catch your eye.

 

[rokerdepipe]

New life for the old pipes…good for you. This is great stuff!

 

[jpmcwjr]

Nice haul, and good resto.

Suggestion: When you do a restore, photo(s) of the before as well as after.

And avoid white backgrounds unless it's a Meer!

 

[sablebrush52]

You have a very nice collection of pipes, Kaywoodies, Bjarne, Stanwell, etc, and they look great! Enjoy!

 

[Sobrbiker]

Very cool!
Let me know if that Bari heads for the market

 

[JeremyL]

Very cool!
Let me know if that Bari heads for the market

Possibly at some point, but it's one of my fav's so I'll probably hang on to it for a while. I keep a spreadsheet of all my pipes and I'll put your name by it. It's stamped "Mandarin" 8537 and is already in great shape.

 

[JeremyL]

Nice haul, and good resto.

Suggestion: When you do a restore, photo(s) of the before as well as after.

And avoid white backgrounds unless it's a Meer!

Thanks. I did take a couple before but they really don't show much. It was in really good shape except a bit of chatter and some moderate oxidation. I can show more up-close 'before pics' in the future if that's desired.

Oh, I also gave it a cotton-ball deghosting soak. It had a very mild sweet tobacco scent that I kinda liked, but figured I'd try and remove that. Smells of lovely wood now.

I think the white shows the up close pipe pretty well (as in the restored pics), but the collection photos are indeed hard to see against the white. Mostly I need better lighting. I actually noticed there are only 48 pipes show, and I have 52... so I need to reshoot anyway. Not sure how that happened.

 

[OzPiper]

I actually noticed there are only 48 pipes show, and I have 52... so I need to reshoot anyway. Not sure how that happened.

Easy to do when you have more than a handful

 

[kcghost]

You did a nice job getting those back in smoking shape!!

 

[Uguccione]

Amazing collection, congratulations!

 

[JeremyL]

Pipe #2 is a Adsorba 'Bruyere Extra'. It is stamped with shape '11' and is one of two 'twin' pipes I bought from a very nice man in Vienna. He was selling his small collection of pipes from his brother. Adsorba is an Italian made sub-brand of Denicotea, made for the German market. Made for 9mm filters.



(I need to find a nice object to include in these photos, like Steve does with a seashell.)

This pipe was well-smoked and thus probably a good smoker. The finish was dull and it has a few fills, but no dings or dents except a little on the rim. Fortunately it was one of the few of the collection that the owner did not use a butane 'cigar' lighter on - 1/2 his collection was VERY burnt-thru on one edge of the bowl.
(Stay tuned as I did buy one of these to send thru the topper/chopper process).

It had a pretty decent carbon buildup inside and lava on top. I used the pipnet and 220gr sandpaper to clean out the bowl - tho I didn't 'fully' clean out the carbon. I need to collect some better sized dowels and such, so I will likely go over it a little more before put this on the (future) polishing wheel.

The couple rim spots without lava are actually where there is some sort of urethane coating remaining... I couldn't remove it with acetone so I decided to sand it off rather than going with harsher chemicals. The stem was fairly heavily oxidized, but otherwise in very good shape. Stem and Stummel went thru the series of micromesh pads, with the stem receiving Obsidian oil and the briar getting a nice soak in Before & After balm.

Given what I started with I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Per pipedia, the brand is nothing fancy... you can tell the bowl is a bit offset, and not perfectly round. But it's a nice enough pipe and sure to be enjoyed.
The twin is in progress and will be posted soon.
Before Pix:

 

[MilesDavis]

If you still do not have a "buffer setup", I would recommend purchasing a Dremmel, some cloth buffing wheels and bars of polishing compound (Tripoli, White Diamond, Carnauba Wax). I have an old first generation Dremmel and it's served me well through roughly 300 pipes.

 

[JeremyL]

I have a dremel - in storage... but I'll go with a full wheel setup. But not until I stop moving around... which could be a while. I would get one now but I don't want to lug too much around until I'm more situate. It's not a cost of complexity issue, just space.

 

[JeremyL]

Next one done is the 'twin' for the last one. This Adsorba is a shape #10 (v/s #11 before). The stem was more oxidized (sorry - forgot to take a photo beforehand). I decided to do an oxi-bath of 30% of 3% hydrogen peroxide in water. This is basically the same as oxyclean but without the cleaner. I happen to have some hydrogen peroxide and I don't have any oxyclean... and this is probably the last pipe I'll do for a while with heavy oxidation (not for lack of having any - but I want to experiment with the Before&After product and I'm not ready to set that up.

I will say I don't think the oxy did a lot. Maybe it 'brought the oxidation' to the surface, but it still took a fair bit of sanding to remove it.

Anyway, this one was in a little better shape overall than the last. A little less cake and while it had a fair bit of lava on the rim, it didn't have that urethane coating so a very light sanding with 400gr cleaned up the rim nicely.



I think it cleaned up quite nicely - and I decided on my 'prop' for photos... a pocketwatch I recently picked up.
I do like the grain on this one a bit more. Some pretty birdseye coming through.



Here it is with it's twin. Since this owner said this was the collection of himself and his brother (I think more his brother) I like to think of them happily smoking away together with this pair.



Hope you continue to enjoy the pic's.
--J

 

[Sobrbiker]

Next one done is the 'twin' for the last one. This Adsorba is a shape #10 (v/s #11 before). The stem was more oxidized (sorry - forgot to take a photo beforehand). I decided to do an oxi-bath of 30% of 3% hydrogen peroxide in water. This is basically the same as oxyclean but without the cleaner. I happen to have some hydrogen peroxide and I don't have any oxyclean... and this is probably the last pipe I'll do for a while with heavy oxidation (not for lack of having any - but I want to experiment with the Before&After product and I'm not ready to set that up.

I will say I don't think the oxy did a lot. Maybe it 'brought the oxidation' to the surface, but it still took a fair bit of sanding to remove it.

Anyway, this one was in a little better shape overall than the last. A little less cake and while it had a fair bit of lava on the rim, it didn't have that urethane coating so a very light sanding with 400gr cleaned up the rim nicely.

View attachment 334689View attachment 334690

I think it cleaned up quite nicely - and I decided on my 'prop' for photos... a pocketwatch I recently picked up.
I do like the grain on this one a bit more. Some pretty birdseye coming through.

View attachment 334692View attachment 334691View attachment 334693

Here it is with it's twin. Since this owner said this was the collection of himself and his brother (I think more his brother) I like to think of them happily smoking away together with this pair.

View attachment 334694View attachment 334695

Hope you continue to enjoy the pic's.
--J

Very cool

 

[JeremyL]

Next up - and likely last for a while as I'm packing up for my next nomad-trip (destination unknown)...

A Jean Claude pipe I picked up in Vienna. This was part of the remnants of a large collection a lady was selling. Someone got to the really good stuff before me, but this and a few others were worthy. Made in Italy of Olive wood. It was in quite good shape overall, just a bit dirty.


A bit of lava on the rim which I scraped and lightly sanded. I sanded chamber a bit but decided not to go down to bare wood. The acrylic stem had a it of scratching that I buffed out with the top-6 micromesh. I cleaned up the briar with a few rounds of murphys, then sanded thru the micromesh pads and gave it a coating of balm.