How do I Repair My New Lee?

[Briar Lee]

I won a $5 bid on this beautiful 5 point star Two Star Lee, but it needs repair.

When it comes I’ll see how deep that crack is, but my first thought is this is a job for a super glue and a clamp, with appropriate prayers to the pipe Gods.

Before I glue it I’m going to see how deep the five pointed stars were inlaid. The second era, five point stars, I believe were the high water mark of Lee production.

This may have happened because of over enthusiastic tightening of the stem, or worse, maybe it’s “welded” shut and the stem cracked from trying to unscrew it.

A $5 Lee is a bargain, if I leave it as is.

It’s a great decorator, if nothing else.

Any suggestions on how to best fix this, will be much appreciated.

 

[kcghost]

You need a top flight repair guy to work on this one. Someone like @georged. Unfortunately he isn't available. There are 4-5 guys who might be able to repair this but I am not sure. May if you didn't care how it looked after the "repair" is done you could try someone else.

 

[condorlover1]

Briarville, Northern Briars

 

[didimauw]

A 5 dollar pipe is a great practice pipe!

Super glue and clamp it! But clean the whole entire area first.

Oh and clever idea to look deeper at those stars!

Practice pipes are the best!

LHS Sterncrest Zombie Restoration :: Pipe Repair and Maintenance

Late last week I ordered 3 pipes off the 'bay. There was no information about them and the pictures were terrible. But I had enough in my paypal account. The BIN price was 28.00 so I figured hell why not? I buy the pipes that no one wants, and try to bring them back to life. As with my other...

pipesmagazine.com

 

[orlandofurioso]

JB-Weld is much stronger than super glue .
So is a good slow setting epoxy :

Stewart-MacDonald Epoxy - StewMac

High quality clear and black epoxies.

www.stewmac.com

Glue it and clamp it

 

[saintpeter]

Hose clamps work well unless you glue the clamp to the pipe like I did.

 

[OzPiper]

There's a reason why a $5 pipe is $5. ?
It'll probably cost more to buy the fixings to repair that.
But I've bought ones like that to practise on.
Good luck fixing that. Once you're done, new lesson learnt. ?

 

[Briar Lee]

My Lee arrived today and the gold stars are deeply inlaid. The crack was just from age, not abuse. After gluing and clamping and a very light clean up, this Lee is just a dynamite good, sweet, cool, smoker and a loooong shank small Dublin I’ll enjoy a lifetime, and then somebody else will love it.

Forget about Lee being the best pipe in the world. The 5 point star era Lee was the finest pipe ever wrought by the hand of man, in the universe.

The last quarter inch of this over 60 year old pipe was bare briar. When I smoked it all the way to ash the smoke got sweeter when it reached bare briar.

How in this world, did Lee cure that briar the way he did?

 

[OzPiper]

Hyperbole not withstanding, that's a job well done

 

[Briar Lee]

Hyperbole not withstanding, that's a job well done

It’s impossible to not engage in outlandish and rapturous praise of a Lee pipe after cleaning one up and smoking it.

The Two Star was the lowest grade in 1955, and by then cost $10, or $100 today.

Set aside the fact Lee pipes had naturally sweet tasting bare briar, from some curing process the entire world would duplicate if they could.

And it is a virtually handmade, from the best materials, utterly perfect piece of the pipe maker’s art.

I could see jeweler’s gold to the bottom of the crack on those gold stars.

How did Lee do that?

I can’t imagine a duplicate stem for a Lee with such craftsmanship.

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

Looks like a good solution!