Picked this up at the antique store...

[obihann]

I was at the antique store getting the girlfriend a birthday gift and noticed a rack of pipes. Most of them seemed to be in rough shape and the stem was falling out of the bowl, but I picked up one that looked kinda nice. Written on it is city club briar imported italy... I'm sure its just a cheap thing and not even that old but it looks a lot cooler than my two missouri mearschaums lol..
pic
I'll try to upload a better image when I get home tonight, can anybody give me some details on it?

 

[mluyckx]

No idea on the pipe. Sorry mate... nothing on Pipedia nor pn PipePhil.
But it looks like a nice little pipe you got there. Hope she's a good smoker. Enjoy the find :puffpipe:

 

[barkar]

Enjoy..you won't know until you smoke it.

 

[obihann]

Question... What is the best way to clean it up before the first smoke? I'm not looking to restore it (yet anyways) but just get it a little fresh for the first bowl. Would some rubbing covering a pipe cleaner in rubbing alcohol and passing it through the stem and bowl a few times do the trick?

 

[mluyckx]

Obihann: I would absolutely do that as a minimum. I would want to sanitize it at least.
1) Running bristle cleaners soaked in alcohol through the stem until they come out clear. Then regular fluffy ones to dry it out. Wipe down the outside of the stem really well with alcohol as well.

2) Depending on the inside of the bowl, I would at least have a little wipe down of the inside of the bowl with a rag or paper towel, once again soaked in alcohol. Salt or Cotton Ball treatment would be even better to get rid of some potentially funky old smells and flavors in the bowl.

3) Let is sit out to dry for several hours before smoking.
Remember, you don't know where that stem has been or what was smoked in that bowl ;-)

 

[mluyckx]

HerbineDave: Yep.. thanks for posting that link. It's what I do for a full restore as well and it has worked great.
Obihann: I had to look for a pic on one of my restores, but here's an example of what you may get out of the stem during cleaning ;-) Just saying'... you may wanna do this before you decide to puff it ::

 

[ejames]

You can save a lot of pipe cleaners by using a shank brush,available at 4-Noggins and elsewhere.

I have two small jars for alcohol. One I use with the brush,dip the brush,scrub a while, rinse brush,scrub some more. When shank or stem is pretty well gunk free I switch over to the clean jar of alcohol and pipe cleaners and Q-tips.

The first jar can be used to clean many pipes,when it starts to look like strong coffee or tar I dump it and refill.

 

[bigmike]

@ejames: I pretty much use the same method but I find that, after a few uses, filtering the jar of alcohol through a coffee filter cleans it up pretty well and I get several more uses out of it.
Just being thrifty as I hate to waste perfectly good alcohol............. :D