The Most Awful Smelling Wally Frank in the World

[MartyA]

I bought this estate Wally Frank pipe off ebay for cheap with the intention of turning it into a churchwarden. (Yeah, I'm old, and I do weird stuff sometimes.) The pipe was much darker than the pictures, which was fine with me, and marked "Wally Frank Ltd" "Natural Sun Cured" and "Second" probably on account of the really bad fills.

Like most any other used pipe, I first removed the stem, which was stuck in seriously badly and came out with a longish metal tube, (the flat spot in the pic is where I grabbed the tube with pliers to remove it from the stem,) scraped out most of the old cake leaving a thin coating, cleaned it out with stiff bristle pipe cleaners, and dumped the bowl full of Kosher Salt and 190 Proof Everclear. After about a day, the salt had turned very dark, so I did the same thing again. The next day, I dumped it out, ran some more pipe cleaners through it, and then took a small sip of air through the shank. YUK!!! OMIGOD!!! THE MOST SICKENING, BRACKISH, BLAST OF ANYTHING I'VE EVER HAD IN MY MOUTH!!!

I almost turned around and dropped it in the wastebasket, but I figured there was nothing to lose, so I scrubbed it out with bristle pipe cleaners soaked with Everclear, gave it another blast of salt and alcohol, and came back the next day. I didn't put my mouth on it this time, but a quick sniff told me I hadn't improved things much. I again scrubbed it out rather violently with pipe cleaners and Everclear, and this time I pulled out an old tubular filter... It may well have never been changed... At first, I thought I was pulling out deteriorated wood because it had taken on that color. At least I was maybe getting somewhere.

This time I filled the shank along with the bowl with salt and Everclear and gave it another day. Then I did the same thing twice more. The smell was letting up. I figured there was a point of diminishing returns on the salt thing, so it was time to try something else. I made a little funnel out of card stock, and for the next few days occasionally ran some hot air through it with a low power, arts and craftsy hot air gun. Now I was getting somewhere. I brought it upstairs where it's warmer and let it air out a few days. MUCH better now.

 

[upnorth1]

Did you try flushing it with hot water? Hot water can really soften up and remove a lot of gunk.

 

[OzPiper]

Dirty shanks is where the is.
I use small drill bits, jewellers screwdrivers, picks, shank brushes, hot water flushes to clean the shanks out.
Much more time consuming than cleaning up a caked bowl

 

[MartyA]

EPILOG

I mentioned I intended to turn this thing into a churchwarden... I like to sit outside with a book, (when it's over 50 degrees F) in a swinging chair and smoke my pipe, so I smoke churchwardens almost exclusively.
This pipe had an oval shank, which I didn't realize. I don't have the tools or the skills of a pipe maker, so with a round stem I can just chuck the tenon into my electric drill and shape the stem down with a sanding drum on my Dremel tool as it spins, but this one I'd have to shape down with sanding blocks. This was kind of tedious, but after a few days on and off I got it done to my satisfaction.

My new Wally Frank churchwarden now smokes, and tastes, great! Very happy, which is why I posted all this.
Yeah, it looks kinda weird, sort of like trying to look taller by strapping stilts onto cowboy boots, but it does what I want it to do.

 

[Scully]

I do all the same things everyone else here does. I use the alcohol/salt process too, however, I had a couple of old darlings that were just plain bad. I used a 50/50 mix of activated carbon/coarse salt, and Everclear, topped it up a couple of times, and let it sit overnight. The next day I cleaned it as you normally would, and it actually smelled pretty good, very slight odor. It set in the rack for probably two weeks, and I checked again, and... almost no odor at all that time. I've used carbon in water filtration, and in some applications where odors were an issue and I figured I had nothing to lose, so It seems to have worked for me.

 

[kcghost]

As the saying goes "You pays your money and you take your chance". It didn't cost much to acquire your pipe though.

 

[Scully]

kcghost: you got that one right. I acquired an old Peterson #207 Pot, for $20 CDN. She's a big ol' beast and she need TLC; but after a restoration effort, she's my favourite "Big Fat Mama'.... Speaking as a blues musician of course.
She smokes real fine, and after some research and an email to Peterson; they told me it was made between 1942 to 1947. I was going to sell it, however; I think it's found a permanent home here in Calgary.