Pipe Resoration - My Method

I thought I'd pass on the process I developed to restore my pipes.
My strategy was to buy pipes that needed restoration on eBay for decent prices. Depending on the type of pipe and demand, I found "decent prices" to be around $20-60 for GDB/BBB. Freehands were a little more pricey, generally ranging from $45-90 for something in decent enough condition to be worth restoring. Bidding is most competitive for Petersons. In fact, I watched many current production pipes that are easy to find brand new go for over retail?!? on eBay auctions. For the most part, I bought my Peterson's new (large selection for well under $100 including sterling banded) or I used saved searches to obsessively watch newly listed Buy it Now auctions. I also did ok on a few "best offer" BIN auctions.

The basic criteria I used for pipe selection is the stem could not have any missing plastic (i.e. chunks missing from the mouth piece) but any amount of oxidization was OK. I wanted a crisp mouth piece. Some wear is OK, but I don't like them when they have been buffed down into nubs, and it can't be corrected. With GDB specifically, I definitely prefered the original stem, and the logo had to be present.

The bowls had to be in restorable condition, which is subjective, but basically no cracks or nicks/cuts deep enough to go through the stain. I spent anywhere from 2 - 4 hours on each pipe. This is definitely a skill in the category of "a nice skill to have for yourself that nobody will want to pay you for." Just an aside, I found "restored" pipes on eBay to be quickly done, and I worried about shortcuts they may have made. I preferred to get the pipes as they were found (nasty), or just lightly cleaned enough to be in "sellable condition," which makes sense. They may ream the bowl and buff the whole pipe, which is reasonable. Not "restored" just "cleaner".

Just a note, I started with cheapie pipes and built confidence before I tried this on anything of any value.

Phase 1: Stem restoration


After a lot of trial and error, I came up with this sequence of steps:

* Rub the stem down with grain alcohol (Everclear) or 99% rubbing alcohol to remove any wax and kill germs.

* Use an exacto blade to cut out a small piece of masking tape to cover any logos. It's really just there to remind you not to sand the logo...

* Mix a few tablespoons of Oxyclean "Free" (no perfumes) with a few cups of hot (not boiling, 150-160 degrees) tap water (this is a strong solution.)

* Soak the pipe for 10 minutes in the hot solution. Use a timer, because you don't want the Oxyclean to mess the plastic up, make it brittle, etc


* Rinse with very hot tap water (inside and out) and rub dry with a paper towel. At this point, it is probably still heavily oxidized, but should be easier to work with.

* Cut a small easy to work with rectangle of 1200 Grit Silicon Carbide wet/dry sand paper (I found it at Harbor Freight)

* Dip the stem and paper in the oxyclean solution to wet, and lightly sand. Remember, you don't want to reshape the stem or dull the edges. Go with the countour and don't "press down".

* Keep on going and going, occassionally dipping the stem and paper back in the solution to rewet and rinse off the brown sludge.


* You will occassionally need to replace the sandpaper with a new piece. The sandpaper dulls by design, so that you are essentially using a finer and finer grit as you sand. This is great towards the end, but you'll need new fresh pieces at the start.

* The tip of the mouth piece is a little trickier. I use a hook & pick set (i.e. dental pick) to gently scrape at the corner without cutting down into the plastic. Once you carefully and gently get all the crud out of the corner, sand with more paper or steel wool. Remember, you don't want to dull the edges, so do your best to not wear them down. Photo below shows the pick I use to get in the corners. Also note how dull black (but clean) it looks at this point:


* When I think I'm done, I dry the stem off with a paper towel and dump the oxyclean (now a nasty brown mess). I use a spiral bulb (flouresent) desk lamp to see if I removed all the oxidation. For some reason the spiral bulbs make the brown spots light up. Make a fresh batch of hot oxyclean and finish up any spots missed.

* Now is the fun part, buffing! I created a makeshift buffer out of a hand drill and bench vice. I found good 4" buffing wheels at both Sears and Northern Tool. I like the flannel wheel best for waxing from Sears, and a stiffer yellow wheel from Northern Tool for stems and briar.


* To mount the wheel to your drill you will need an arbor. I made my own out of a 5/8" bolt by grinding down the end to mount in the drill. The disadvantage is you have to be really careful not to let the edge of the bolt nick your workpiece. I did, once, but not twice....


* I got a good bar of brown tripoli from my local Woodcraft store. Start up the stiffer wheel and dip the bar into the buffing wheel to coat it. (There are plenty of you-tube videos on how to do this)

* Buff the entire stem moving slowly and steadily. Avoid edges (especially the mouth piece), we will do those next.

* Get out your trusty dremel and put it on the lowest setting possible. I got a set of cloth polishing wheels at Harbor Freight for cheap (Item # 66104). Same drill, dip the spinning wheel into the tripoli bar for a few seconds to load it. Get the harder to reach spots with the deliberate intention of not dulling edges or messing up any logos.


* Wipe down with paper towel and alcohol to remove any left over tripoli and dry off. Test under the spiral light again and see if you missed any spots. Repeat buffing as necessary, taking your time and not rounding corners. If you make it perfect the first time, you shouldn't ever need refurb this stem again as long as you keep it waxed.

* Once you have the stem how you like it, wipe it off with alcohol to get any left over tripoli. At this point I clean out the inside with pipe cleaners and alochol until the pipe cleaners come out clean (This step takes a long time)

* Now change to the soft flannel buffing wheel. I got a quality bar of carnauba wax at WoodCraft for around $5. Same idea as before, load the wheel with wax. The wheel should turn slightly yellow to tell you it has wax on it. Buff all over the stem moving slowly. You don't want to press into the wheel during this step, just let stringy ends of the cloth wax the stem. Maybe put the surface you are waxing 1/8" into the wheel. Wipe stem off with a soft cloth, and wax again.

* At this point your stem should be completely black and glowing as it was when it was brand new.


I'm tired of typing but I'll come back later and update this thread with Phase 2: Bowl restoration

Awesome instructions and pictures. Thanks!

thank you so much for this! VERY imformative.

Yes, outstanding! Thanks for writing this up and including pics!

That's a great process, thanks for sharing. Will watch for phase 2 !!

Great info so far, Chris. Your finished pieces speak highly of your expertise. I'll be watching and learning.

Great tutorial! Makes me want to restore a pipe or fifty...

Phase 2: Bowl Restoration

This is a Shamrock (Pre-Republic Peterson 2nd). It's really not in that bad of shape, but is good for this post because it has a metal (nickel) band to work around and the rings at the top of the bowl. The nickel band is very scratched up. It's not obvious in the photo, but the stem does have some oxidation spots showing up under the fluorescent bulb, and the stem has scratches probably from somebody doing a lazy job of sanding on it. I will refurb it with the above process. The bowl has a few factory? fills, which I can't do anything about. It looks like it has been buffed a thousand times with many soft edges, but I will do my best not to dull them any further.

"Before"



* Refurb the stem and set aside (see first post)

* Wipe down the entire bowl with alcohol to remove any previous wax

* Tape up the metal band, and put some tape over any stampings. You don't want to wear these down.

* Stuff some paper towel in the bowl to keep things (wax, steel wool filings) from falling into it.

* "Sand" the bowl with #000 steel wool. Sort of turn the bowl in your hand while giving slight pressure. Go all over the pipe as evenly as possible. Press too hard and you will be going too deep into the wood. Press too lightly and you are not doing anything at all. Just remember, you can always remove more stain/briar, but you can't put it back once it's gone. Lean to the side of going too lightly and spending more time. It's also tempting to rub in one spot where there is a nick or scratch. Avoid doing this, because you will create a light spot where there is less stain than the rest of the bowl.




* Wipe down with alcohol to remove any metal filings.

* Buff all over with the stiff yellow wheel using brown tripoli. I tend to push into the wheel more so with this step than the waxing step. You want to really smooth things out, but work slowly. Keep the bowl slowly moving across the wheel. I have to fight off the urge to "Fred Flinstone" it and push too hard.


Notice in the picture the string at the top of the wheel sticking straight up. I was one-handing it to take the picture while it was running

* Feel around to see if you created any sharp edges. Give them a quick buff if they feel to sharp. Repeat until the feel just right.

* Remove the tape from stampings. Very (very) lightly go over these areas with the steel wool. Buff with the wheel very conseratively. I tend to try to get the areas with stampings to match as closely as possible to the surrounding areas, but I'll leave it a little rougher so I don't dull the stamping.

* Load a dremel wheel with brown tripoli and put on the lowest possible speed setting. Get as close to the stamping as possible to the stamping without touching it. Also hit it any other tough areas, small scratches, etc. Go over the entire bowl again very lightly with the large yellow buffing wheel just to smooth everything out.

CAUTION with the dremel ... it is easy to slip or get too close and the spinning metal collet will nick your briar! Careful...

* Wipe down with alcohol to remove any remaining tripoli.

* Remove the tape from the band, and put tape at the edge of the band to protect the briar. Using metal polish, clean up the metal. The cloth should turn black. Now switch to a new dremel wheel, and load the wheel with white diamond polishing bar. Buff, but use your own judgement on any stampings. They will be worn down before you know it. I avoid them, but get as close as I can with the dremel. Give it another cleaning with the metal polish to remove any remaining white diamond. The cloth should come off relatively clean.


Notice how much polish is on the paper towel. It is WAY too much and I do it everytime.
It gets everywhere, just make sure not to get any on the bowl.



* Remove the tape from the briar and change to the large soft wax wheel. Load the wheel with wax, and go over the entire pipe including the metal. Definitely go over the metal very lightly, or you may turn your buffing wheel black.

* Buff with your microfiber cloth. The cloth pictured below came with my cell phone touch screen protector. It's the same thing that they sell to clean glasses lens with at Walgreens.

* With a soft bristle toothbrush, brush any wax or other left over gunk out of nooks and crannies

* Wax again and hand buff.

My observation is that this process with lighten the stain just a hair. The more aggressive you are with the steel wool, the more apparant it will be. On the other hand, it really brings the grain out and gives the pipe a mirror smooth finish. In the cases of less expensive pipes, you probably have just given it a more expensive finish than it came with originally.

Sorry I can't take better pics, but here is the after:

Excellent, thanks for sharing!

This is brilliant--I've bookmarked it and will use it as a reference. I'm used to refinishing by hand, but have been wanting to learn how to speed up the process. This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you Chris!

Ok, one more... I had been watching this one for a while. It's a Preben Holm marked "Delight." It showed up real nasty. I've been slowly sanding on it each night after work for about three days. I did have to go down to 200 grit on the stem to cancel out the bite/chew marks, and worked my way back up to 1200 grit to get it back to smooth.

Before:



After:

Nice restoration

Great tips in there!! I use 0000 steel wool and have found no perceptible change in color after polishing with tripoli and carnauba much like you mentioned. Very light pressure is paramount with all abrasives. I will try the oxiclean treatment next time I am cleaning stems. Thanks.

That looks great. Is the process any different for shining up rustication and sandblasted finishes?

I've done two sanblasts and ended up skipping the tripoli step which really is more to smooth out the wood and bring out the grain. After the carnauba buffing I noticed there was built up wax in some of deeper pockets. For the larger spaces I used a dremel wheel, and went over the whole thing with a toothbrush. They turned out pretty well, but I'm thinking there must be a better way.

I added a step on the Preben Holm and very lightly used #0000 steel wool in between three carnauba wax buffs. I was happy with how it turned out and will continue it when doing maintenance waxes. I got the steel wool at Woodcraft. It was two white scouring pad looking pads.

Thanks Chris, this is awesome and I think I'm going to give it a go on a pipe I'm expexting soon from ebay!

Great tutorial! Thanks for sharing.

No problem. I'm happy with my collection. Next pipe project is to build a display case, but I'm finishing out my solar array first, so probably a few months away.

Erik Nording was in town yesterday at my LPS and I wanted to get my Nording freehands signed but had to work.

Wow, I have several Nordings, that would be cool to get them signed. Too bad you missed him. Probably doesn't come to CA.

woow thanks for this, right in my fav bar XD