Wow!! I purchased a Peterson System Standard pipe in a lot of 14 pipes. It was either unsmoked or barely smoked. Although the alcohol-soaked pipe cleaner came out of the stem sparkling clean, I went ahead and put it down the draft hole. When I pulled it out, I was in shock. STAIN, STAIN, STAIN!!!! Yikes! More pipecleaners and more stain. Finally, I decided to just pour the alcohol into the bowl and let it soak for 30 minutes. I dumped it out onethis paper towel. Really, this isn't acceptable, Peterson. Hopefully, the guy I bought this from has had it awhile and Peterson has changed their production, as was suggested in an earlier post was in the plans.
Oddly enough, this was on the heels of cleaning up a Stanwell bent, which had gobs of uneven and overly-thick red-orange stain, similar in tone to the Peterson. It looked to me like the previous owner probably ended up with stained fingers, based upon the blotchiness in the area where you'd hold the pipe. I used acetone-soaked paper towels to remove the excess and was amazed at how it kept coming off. It took me about 15 minutes to remove what I deemed to be the excess stain. It almost seemed like Stanwell was using the stain like a semi-transparent paint, rather than a stain. The result was a pretty cheap-looking pipe. After removing the excess stain, wet-sanding with 1500 grit paper and a dab of camellia oil, various stages of micro mesh, Tripoli buff, and carnauba, I think it's a handsome and rich-looking pipe. It's hard to understand how a company could be so careless in the finishing step. It devalues the pipes greatly, IMHO. Here's the redone pipe.
