Stem bleach test

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owen

Part of the Furniture Now
May 28, 2014
560
2
Last night I took an old dirty, and broken vulcanite stem and cut it into four pieces, then put these in jars containing:

Water

25% Bleach

50% Bleach

100% Bleach Soaked for four hours. Brown gunk leaked out into the bleach solutions and not the water. Roughly the same amount in each.

p1010932-600x450.jpg


From right to left increasing strength.

They dried overnight and this morning left a white powder coating on the stems but not on the freshly cut edges. I gave them a quick going over with wet and dry then polished with Savinelli stem polish giving each a fairly even attention.

With the exception of the pure water which has polished up still green/brown the others have come up pretty much the same. That is almost black.
I did this to better understand the process ready for trying it on some of my nice pipes.

Owen

 

ejames

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
3,916
22
I bleach heavily oxidized stems using a 50-50 ratio. After removing them from the bleach I wash them inside and out with warm water and soap then rinse well. Length of soak varies by the amount of oxidation.

 

fnord

Lifer
Dec 28, 2011
2,746
8
Topeka, KS
Owen:
I should probably follow Mister Ed's lead. He is, hand's down, one of the best damned pipe resto guys who actively participates on our little bitty footprint here at http://pipesmagazine.com/forums
I use a 75/25 bleach soak and whale the tar out of my green stems with an assortment of micromesh pads. Just keep washing & rinsing and you'll be fine.
Believe me, pal. If I can do it, anybody can.
Fnord

 
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