Amphora Apple Restore

[railman]

I had been looking for a cheap pipe to attempt some restore methods on and a few weeks ago I came across an Amphora apple in an antique store for $8.

The pipe wasn't in too terrible shape to start with so it was a good one to begin with. Just some mild oxidation on the stem, some tar buildup on the rim, and shallow scratches all around the bowl. I started by reaming back to nearly to bare wood and doing a deep clean and alcohol/cotton ball treatment. I used Walker Briarworks stem restore product to remove the stem oxidation. Since I wanted to get some practice with staining I decided to remove the original stain with a soak in isopropyl alcohol (which also made removing the gunk on the rim easy). The bowl was sanded with micro mesh pads and then restained and buffed.

It's not a perfect job but for a first attempt I had pretty good results. The next step will be give it a test smoke, but even if it doesn't smoke worth a damn I at least learned a few things, and learned for quite cheap!

 

[mau1]

I think you did quite a nice job. What are the stampings on the pipe? I have a couple Amphora's and they are really decent pipes.

 

[mau1]

Just a bit of information regarding Amphora...I pulled this from a different thread:
joeman wrote "at some point (I don't know the year), Amphoras were no longer made in Holland...they were acquired by Dr. Grabow, and from that point on, Amphoras were made in Sparta, NC. You can spot a Sparta-made Amphora when the upper half of the 'A' in Amphora is solid (filled-in) white. Also, the Sparta-made examples will not have 'Holland' stamped on them. Shape numbers for Sparta-made will typically be 800 series numbers. This info will at least confirm whether you've got a Holland or US made Amphora.

 

[mau1]

It looks like Douwe Egberts" (Dowe Egberts Tobacco Company, the factory which produces Amphora tobacco).

 

[railman]

Unfortunately the A on the stem was almost completely obliviated (in bright sun at the right angle I can see a faint A) however this one is stamped “Holland” on the shank, as well as genuine briar and the shape, Xtra-727.

 

[trubka2]

Edit (got cut off): Looks great, I think. Nice work! I'm just getting started on learning basic restoration (only on crusty 5$ pipes for now!), and I'm still not very good at dealing with stem oxidation. There's always some green peeking through. It looks like that Briarworks stuff really worked well for you - that stem is looking sharp. Is that in addition to soaking in Oxyclean and sanding/buffing, or can it do that all on its own? If so, man, I gotta get some of that stuff!

 

[railman]

Thanks, the stem on this one wasn’t too bad so the stem restore worked pretty well on it, though it certainly took some time and effort. Much more oxidation and I think buffing or possibly micro mesh would be required to at least get the majority off. I follow up with an application of obsidian oil which gives it quite a bit more gloss.

 

[dmcmtk]

Looks good, I'm betting it's going to be a good smoker also.

 

[celticbrewer]

This is awesome! What did you use to stain it?

 

[seanv]

Looks good

 

[scloyd]

You did a fine job. Well done.

 

[pappymac]

We were up in West Monroe, LA last week visiting the Antique Alley up there. (Skipped the Duck Dynasty facilities.) One of the junktique shops had an Amphora pipe unsmoked and complete with the box and pipe sock priced at $50. It wasn't stamped made in Holland so it must have been one of the Sparta, NC models.
I passed on it.
I also a Ben Wade Danish freehand that was in terrible shape. The stem chewed up, bowl looked heavily smoked and I saw at least two spots that looked liked it was about to burn-out. They wanted $98 for it. I passed on it also.

 

[railman]

Thanks everyone! I used Fiebings Dark Brown and Buckskin leather dyes. I applied a coat of dark brown, sanded, applied the buckskin, did a very light sanding, and then applied a light coat of dark brown again and did another very light sanding. Probably not the most efficient way to stain but I got it to look the way I wanted.
Pappymac, yes I’ve seen some pretty ridiculous prices in antique stores for pipes that are about one smoke away from disintegrating, but some people sure seem to think they’re valuable. That and Prince Albert tins, if I’ve seen one I’ve seen a thousand in these stores, but somehow they’re all “rare” and valuable.