Refinishing a Chacom smooth black briar??

[tpicking]

My smooth black Chacom started life as a highly polished, jet black eyecatcher, but over the years some of the black finish has started to wear down, and brown briar is being exposed on the areas of the bowl that I make most hand contact with.
It's always been one of my favorite pipes, and I'd really hate to ruin it by trying to refinish on my own without asking for advice/help first.
I'm guessing I start by stripping the old finish off, but I'm sure there even are good and bad ways to do that. And then what kind of stain/finish should I use to get back the high gloss jet black finish?? I'm guessing that the heat of a pipe bowl would be pretty tough on most stains.

 

[lifeon2]

I would think a good black leather dye and a solid carnuba polish would be the thing but yeah wait for the experts to chime in.

 

[schmitzbitz]

To remove old finish, my preferred method is to actually submerge the entire bowl in Isopropyl Alcohol for several hours, then remove and lightly scrub (or sand, depending on how much stain I want to pull out) the surface. I may repeat this a dozen times until I get the effect I need.

Seeing as you want to restain black, you can probably get away with doing this once, simply to remove the surface grime and old wax, and to smooth out any deep scratches that may have developed.
As for staining, I haven't attempted to create the jet black finish, so I'll leave that to someone else.

 

[ejames]

Getting a nice shiny black finish is not easy. Check out this topic over at the pipe makers forum.

http://www.pipemakersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=4462&p=37965&hilit=dress#p37965

 

[topd]

I can't add any advice on staining, but I know a good way to get 'dents' out. This works great on wooden gun

stocks also. Heat up an iron (yes, your wife's iron she uses on your shirts) and get a very damp wash cloth.

The dent is just compressed wood.... put the wash cloth on the pipe, then hold the iron to it until the dent

rises. This won't work on a scratch, where there is 'missing' wood, just 'compressed' wood.

 

[tpicking]

I have an update. One site suggested that I might be able to bring the original finish back with black shoe polish. Tried that, didn't work.
So I decided to bite the bullet, and strip and refinish it. (Do you have any idea how hard it it is to take sandpaper to your favorite old pipe???) I have it sonded down to a very fine sandpaper, but I need to go out and get some extra fine emery paper so it ends up with the super high gloss I like.
But the interesting twist here is that when I wiped the bowl with alcohol after I sanded it to clean the surface, the grain on this critter is gorgeous!! Forget the jet black - it's going to get a medium-light wood stain.
TP

 

[topd]

Cool! I love unfinished briar!

 

[schmitzbitz]

Topd; thats a great trick - works on stems with bite-marks too (although you may want to use a soldering iron rather than a clothes iron for finer work).
tpicking; I would suggest looking for a micromesh kit, I found one at Lee Valley Hardware for less than $10 with an assortment of pads between 1000 and 12,000 grit. They stand up to abuse much better than emery paper (or cloth), and can be used wet or dry (and washed after use). Biggest bonus though? That little bit of cushion is a god-send when you're spending hours polishing your briar.