What should I apply to my pipes to restore the original shiny look? Some sort of polyurethane coat?
+1 on the carnauba/buffing wheel. I was using a Dremel to apply carnauba, which works, but the buffing wheel is way better. Mine was 50 or 60 from Harbor Freight and it works great.
On a side note, until recently I was only putting carnauba on the pipes I've made/refurbished (it's not that many). Recently I started applying a thin coat of lacquer first, then the wax after that. I think it looks a little better and might hold a shine a little longer, maybe. Some guys are opposed to using lacque, maybe because it's made of bug goo which sounds gross. There's a bit of a learning curve btw. I just sanded/stained/lacquered/waxed this one today:
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Hello gerryp, that was my guess and I wrote a comment yesterday but didn't yet post it....Oops...I meant to say shellac. I'm not using lacquer, and don't plan to.