JCinPA
The Lather Maestro
Well, in addition to his incredibly generous LE Pipe PIF, @Whisky had sent me a couple of estate pipes to play with to try my hand at restoring them. I am trying to do this one all by hand. I could set up a poor-man's buffing station with my DeWalt variable speed corded drill in a vise with some cotton wheels, but I'm hoping I won't need them. There are some indentations in this pipe, that I am pretty sure are original, that I may try to steam up, and then I may need to polish the stummel on a wheel, but I may leave them alone.I have not decided yet. Some Halcyon II and some paragon wax are inbound, and I have microfiber cloths on hand, so maybe I can keep this project to hand work.
So far, I have removed the stinger from this Hardcastle billiard and the stem is soaking in Oxiclean now. I scrubbed the stummel with Murphy's soap and a soft toothbrush, then rinsed and dried it. Adam was kind enough to ream this for me because I don't have reamers yet.
Next I tried to get the char off the rim with Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, but no progress there. I have some micromesh pads inbound I will try later.
Next, I cleaned out the airway in the stummel with alcohol and bristle cleaners. I also followed @RookieGuy excellent example and had a bowl of Carter hall in a MM cob with a cup of Donut Shop coffee.
That done, I plugged the airway in the stummel with a folded pipe cleaner and stuffed a couple of cotton balls into the bowl, and filled with alcohol. Of course, I got it all over the bowl, but dried that up with paper towels pretty quick and I think I can get away without staining it later. Letting the bowl soak and the stem soak in their respective liquids, and I may get after it again tonight.
I suspect the magic eraser will clean up the stem pretty well, but I will likely have to wait for the micromesh pads to shine it back up again. Hopefully it will take the char off the rim as well.
The nice thing about this is, as Adam told me, I can learn without ruining a valuable pipe. I'm certainly having fun! I suppose, since it is a lesser pipe, I should probably try my hand at steaming out the dents. I may then have to do some stain or get the buffing wheels, but what the heck, If I'm gonna learn, may as well learn on this! I'm not experienced enough to date this pipe, but I suspect it was after Hardcastle was sold to Dunhill and it was the Dunhill seconds line.
Thank you, Adam! I'll post progress photos as I move along.
So far, I have removed the stinger from this Hardcastle billiard and the stem is soaking in Oxiclean now. I scrubbed the stummel with Murphy's soap and a soft toothbrush, then rinsed and dried it. Adam was kind enough to ream this for me because I don't have reamers yet.
Next I tried to get the char off the rim with Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, but no progress there. I have some micromesh pads inbound I will try later.
Next, I cleaned out the airway in the stummel with alcohol and bristle cleaners. I also followed @RookieGuy excellent example and had a bowl of Carter hall in a MM cob with a cup of Donut Shop coffee.
That done, I plugged the airway in the stummel with a folded pipe cleaner and stuffed a couple of cotton balls into the bowl, and filled with alcohol. Of course, I got it all over the bowl, but dried that up with paper towels pretty quick and I think I can get away without staining it later. Letting the bowl soak and the stem soak in their respective liquids, and I may get after it again tonight.
I suspect the magic eraser will clean up the stem pretty well, but I will likely have to wait for the micromesh pads to shine it back up again. Hopefully it will take the char off the rim as well.
The nice thing about this is, as Adam told me, I can learn without ruining a valuable pipe. I'm certainly having fun! I suppose, since it is a lesser pipe, I should probably try my hand at steaming out the dents. I may then have to do some stain or get the buffing wheels, but what the heck, If I'm gonna learn, may as well learn on this! I'm not experienced enough to date this pipe, but I suspect it was after Hardcastle was sold to Dunhill and it was the Dunhill seconds line.
Thank you, Adam! I'll post progress photos as I move along.