Bowl Rim Residue After Cleaning

[jeremyh]

Hi folks,
I just bought my first estate pipe off ebay to try my hand at some light restoration. I got this Guido del Vecchio for a song. Not sure what shape you'd call this... not quite an oom paul, is it? Bent billiard? It's quite big, and has a beautiful butterscotch acryllic stem.




I am pretty stoked. So I'll go out tomorrow and get a reamer and some other supplies at the tobacconist. But tonight I thought Id get to work cleaning the stem with an isopryl alcohol-soaked pipe cleaner. So far, so good. Then I decided to remove the gunk off the bowl's rim:


I started off using spit and a rag, but it didn't seem to make much difference, so I moved to an old toothbrush, and finally the alcohol and the rag. I've only just now read that rubbing alcohol should never get near the briar. Oops. So now there appears to be some yellowish-white residue in the grooves of the rusticated finish. 8O


Any ideas what this is, and how to fix it? Thanks in advance, friends.

 

[gmwolford]

Alcohol can lift stain,too. You may be seeing a lightening from lifting some if the color. Saliva and Q-tips/rag/soft toothbrush are the safest options IMO. Use will recolor the area so it shouldn't be a long term problem.

 

[gmwolford]

BTW, it doesn't look too bad so it may not need renamed; a salt/alcohol treatment may be all she needs. And it is a good looking pipe you nabbed!

 

[nsfisher]

Your ok mate, congrats on the fine new pipe. By the time you smoke it 1/2 dozen times, the rim will look like that anyway. Fill er up with ur fav. baccy, lite er up, sit back, relax, and........enjoy

 

[jeremyh]

thanks for the reassurance, friends. I'll be sure to do a salt/alcohol treatment. This bowl tastes like someone sprayed lysol into it! :X

 

[pstlpkr]

Welcome Jeremyh!
Good looking pipe. I have a couple of pipes very similar to yours.

Looking at the photo, I don't think that most of that is "residue".

I think it looks more like some mild scorching. (IMHO)

You could refinish the pipe, but I think that would be drastic.
As for the "residue"... That's a simple matter.

You need two bodily fluids (saliva & elbow grease), a Q-tip, and a little patience.

Wet the Q-tip with saliva, and apply some elbow grease.

And with a little patience that "residue" will be easily removed.
::

 

[rodserling]

Very nice pipe. As with most things in life, easy does it. If it's not ghosting (smelling of some previous tobacco) a gentle scraping around the inside with a semi-blunt round ended knife should be sufficient. It's desirable for the a bowl to have a carbon covering (cake) on it's inside - perhaps 1mm thick. don't bring it down to bare wood.

With an Oom Paul, the stem is bent at a ninety degree angle and the bowl is more oblong (I'm smoking one now!). I'd describe your pipe as a half bent.

Happy smoking.

 

[tbradsim1]

Jere what I do for my Plateau top estates is take a bristle cleaner, I have the tapered and they are somewhat thicker on the end than the regular , I fold the thick end about an inch back I then moisten the bristle with spit and use the double ends around the plateau like a wire brush with finger putting pressure on top, it will turn brown, flip over and go again, when that side is spent I take cutters , snip off, fold over again, moisten and go again, it will really clean the plateau, works for me. The old cajun