No-Name Rhodesian Refurb

[piffyr]

A few of you might remember the Wally Frank bullmoose that I refurbished a while back. When I posted it, a forum friend commented that he had a no-name rhodesian that obviously shared some DNA with the pipe. He had lovingly dubbed it, "Humpty Dumpty," and asked if I would like to take it on. Well, with a name like that how could I resist?
The pipe wasn't without flaws when it arrived, but most of them where congenital. I took an immediate disliking to the stem, which was roughly shaped and too fat and rounded at the button end for comfort. Other than that, there were just a couple of tooth impressions and a chunk out of the button face that needed to be taken care of. The stummel had a couple of annoying, bright pink fills on the left side of the shank and a few dents and scratches in the rim, but was otherwise undamaged.
Here's what the pipe looked like when it first hit the bench:

 

[piffyr]

After cleaning the soot from the rim, I could see a couple of charred areas on the inner chamfer. I attempted to remove them completely, but the charring went deeper than I had expected. I didn't want to increase the chamfer angle severely. So, I took it down to solid but still darkened wood and hoped to blend those areas in with the grain later.
I picked all of the putty out of the fills and refilled them to better match the final finish. One area in the rustication at the bottom of the bowl was absolutely huge. You can see it as a light colored area in the photo of the pipe's underside. Still, a fill is a fill. It's almost impossible to get a perfect match, especially in smooth areas. The new fills blend much better than pink, hellspawn putty though.
Something had to be done about that stem. So, I flattened the taper and sharpened the edges a bit. Not so much that it would make the stem completely foreign, but enough to add some comfort and give it a little more "bite". It's never going to be the most comfortable stem, but it's better than it was.
Here's the finished pipe:

By the way, I really didn't need anything more than to work with that stem to know that this pipe came from the same place that the Wally Frank did. It has the same rubbery appearance and chunky bits of solid rubber in the mix (a couple can be seen in the photos of the top of finished stem). However, This one didn't seem to have any metal in it. The sanding dust is black and extremely clingy. I felt like a West Virginia coal miner while working on it. Despite that, these stems don't seem to polish up to quite as deep of a black as most. The material is definitely a vulcanized rubber formula, but my guess is that these have a much higher sulfur content than typical vulcanite. On a positive note, they don't appear to discolor over time.

 

[aldecaker]

Another nice resto. I love seeing these old clunkers brought back to life. Makes your avatar pretty fitting! One thing I'm curious about, though. We've seen cross-section sawings of old, heavily used pipes, and the darkening from within gets nowhere near the surface of the wood. With a finished pipe, handling should not darken the wood from the outside. So do the fills themselves fade, or did they stand out that atrociously when the pipe left the factory?

 

[jazz]

I too enjoy these threads. It is a much more appealing pipe now that before.

 

[agnosticpipe]

Wow! Nice restoration. I am not usually fond of this pipe shape, but I do like the restoring of old low grade pipes, and that one is quite nice for it's type. Good job! :clap:

 

[cossackjack]

Very nice restoration of the slot & refurbishing the charred rim.

 

[piffyr]

@aldecaker -- The putty is more brownish in color when it's first applied and not nearly as obvious. It's fairly moist when it's fresh though and it continues to dry for years after it's been used as a fill. So, you'll sometimes see them lighten in color, shrink, crack, and even fall out over time. It also may be that the tint in the putty isn't very UV-resistant.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Very nice work; you ended up with a beauty.

 

[papipeguy]

Very nice work..

 

[gloucesterman]

Beautifully done. Your restos always pay close attention to the details and the craftsmanship is impeccable. Well done.

 

[piffyr]

I've had a lot of good teachers, @gloucesterman.

 

[mayfair70]

Beautiful !

 

[danielplainview]

Another masterpiece. Beautiful work as always. :worship:

 

[fnord]

You did a swell job dancing this lady as close to the edge as you could go before a fatal push.
And your work on the fills was amazing.
Fnord