Restoration with Minimum Kitchen Tools (Pic Heavy)

[mluyckx]

So,

As I had a lazy afternoon yesterday and was a little bored, I decide to try my hand at restoring some estate pipes I had laying around. Note that this is my first true restoration. I didn't want to wait for the micro-mesh to come in and all that stuff, so I looked around the house and the list of available tools was:

1) Kosher salt from my kitchen

2) Everclear from my regular cleaning routine

3) A ton of cleaners, both bristle and regular

4) A solid knife, which I used to ream the bowls

5) A magic eraser

6) A little bit of Carnauba car polish and olive oil for finishing up the bowls and stems

7) Lots of old rags and towels.
So.. here goes.
When you have bowls like this:

Stems like this:

Stingers and tenons like this:

With time, patience, the simple tools above and a lot of elbow grease, you can end up with this.
The finished Picadilly Bent Bulldog, which really turned out quite nice and I can't wait to have a smoke in it.

A Seville Dublin, A Granhill Billiard and a Divonne Billiard

A close-up of the Dublin. I really like the way the grain came out, although it does have some fills and chips

And a close-up of the Granhill. That bowl is really deep.

I know it's not the perfect restoration, which is why I didn't start off with my Hilsons or Petersons, but overall, I'm quite pleased with the results.
So yes, you can revive a pipe without expensive tools and lots of machinery.
EDIT:Pics fixed

 

[mluyckx]

Should be there now Mike. I took them out because they just came out huge. So I went out. resized and reposted the links.. Hope it worked ;-)

 

[tokerpipes]

They turned out very nice.

 

[olderthandirt]

Those cleaned up well Mick. I know that took a lot of the elbow grease as that's pretty much the route I take with my restores.
Think your pleased with the results now (you should be)?

Just wait till your Micro Mesh arrives and you go over the stems with them. You'll be dancin'! (-:

 

[wildcat]

Nice work!

 

[mluyckx]

I am indeed quite pleased with this first pass. I had some lessons learned, which is why I started with less expensive pipes. I admit I was scared of breaking the stem on that Bulldog when I tried to take it off. It wouldn't even turn. That thing was so crudded up, it was disgusting to be honest. But after clean-up the tenon fits perfectly and passes a cleaner. The drill hole is at the top of the shank, with a little moisture trap, so the cleaner doesn't pass all the way through, but it's got a nice open draw. I also really liked that dunhill shaped one.
One question I have is the type of carnauba to use. Which may seem like a dumb question.
The one I had in my garage wasn't perhaps the best thing to use since it was a car wax with carnauba. Kinda left a bit of a smell. But it got the gunk of the outside and polished up pretty nice. I'll see in a week whether the smell lingers, but I wanted to go through the motions with pipes that were about $5 a piece more so than with a Pete. If I messed it up, not necessarily a big loss. I'll clean them up some more when I get the real stuff in.

 

[mluyckx]

i want to get a buffer in hopes of making restorations easier.

that's what my right arm said :rofl:

 

[marmal4de]

For some reason I thought this was going to be a picture by picture tutorial

 

[mluyckx]

marmal4de: I can do that.. great idea...
But there is already a really good step-by-step on the stem clean-up process using Oxyclean and the magic eraser on this site.
You can read it here: http://pipesmagazine.com/matchstickman/pipe-smoking/from-stem-to-stern-pipe-stem-restoration-with-no-buffing-wheel-or-power-tools/
This describes exactly what I did, except I didn't have the micro-mesh and used some olive oil to polish up the stem.

 

[tslex]

Love that Pucadilly bent bulldog. Let me know if you ever grow tired of it.
Your restore techniques are the same as mine, by the way. I don't do enough pipes to warrant a whole new universe on my workbench, so I take the same approach.

 

[pipedisciple]

Great job,I wish I was that talented. ::

 

[jaysin]

Nice Job absoutly lovely

 

[smokenscotch]

Great job, great looking pipes!

 

[shawn]

Great job!

 

[ssjones]

Nice work Mick with a minimal investment in supplies! They came out real nice.

 

[nsfisher]

Nice job mate! You done a much better job than I do on my pipes, very impressive.

 

[mluyckx]

Thanks for the compliments... And sad news... I just opened my little travel bag and I didn't pack the picadilly :crying:

I could have sworn I did, but nope. Oh well, now I gotta wait till Friday to smoke it... It's gonna be a long week. At least I packed a tin of Sunday Picnic. Good stuff !

 

[ssjones]

Man, I hate forgetting something pipe related when I'm out of town.

 

[mluyckx]

So finally I decided that the Picadilly would stay and not be sent off. Basically, GL Pease's article about lingering ghosts made me give it a shot because this pipe did have a bit of a residue smell to it. Not bad, just sweet like cherries, which is not my thing.
So I loaded it with Haddo's delight. As a matter of fact, two bowls of Haddo's in a row. The first one required several relights, but because I reamed all the way down to the wood, I wasn't all that worried. It had a bit of a "funky" swisher taste for the first half, but got increasingly better. Ever had cherry rum ? Well, neither did I until I smoked this. Now I can say I have and trust me when I say, not a good idea. :rofl: But it started to disappear more and more. So, since I had nothing better to do, I just reloaded it with more of the same.
The second bowl was lots better. Got the smokey, rum, almost prune like flavor I associate with Haddo's about halfway through the second bowl. Didn't quite make it to the bottom, but I noticed the bowl is having a nice black char and believe it or not, it's having the beginning of a small cake on it.
It looks like this one will stay in the rotation. Probably a good little aro pipe. For the original $9 and some slow grease, I'm as happy as can be.
So, never give up on an estate. You may find yourself with a nice little smoker in the end.

 

[ejames]

Looking Good! You might want to pick up some Halcyon and Paragon pipe wax. If I was gonna get just one I'd get the Halcyon as the Paragon cannot be used on rusticated pipes. I like it on stems though. A small jar will do hundreds of pipes and is easy to use. No buffer needed.