In the morning I removed the stem from the deoxidizer and wiped off the excess deoxidizer from the surface of the stem with a paper towel. I cleaned out the airway in the stem with pipe cleaners and alcohol to remove any remnants of the bath from that part of the stem. The photos below show the stem after the soak and rub down.
The oxidation was pretty much gone and what remained would be easily dealt with. The tooth chatter on the top and underside of the stem is hard to see in the photos, but it is present. I sanded the stem with grit sandpaper to remove the tooth chatter on both sides of the stem as well as the oxidation that remained in the angles of the saddle stem. I heated the stem with a heat gun to straighten out the bent end.
I liked the straight look on the stem better than the slight tweak that last pipe man had put in it. I polished out the sanding scratches and marks in the vulcanite with micromesh sanding pads — wet sanding it with grit pads and dry sanding it with grit pads. I wiped the stem down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I buffed the stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I brought it back to the table and sanded it with the final three grit pads. After the final pad I gave it a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry.
I sanded out the burn marks on the rim with grit sandpaper to remove them and smooth out the surface.
I worked on the inside edge of the rim to bring it back to round. When I was finished I polished the rim top and edge with micromesh sanding pads — wet sanding with grit pads and dry sanding with grit pads. I was able to polish out all of the scratches in the rim top and edges. I used a medium brown stain pen to restain the rim and inner edge of the bowl to blend it in with the rest of the bowl.
The burn marks are invisible now and the polished rim top looks pristine. I hand rubbed it with my fingers and wiped it off with a soft cloth. It really began to have a deep shine in the briar. I buffed the bowl with a soft cloth to polish away the remaining Restoration Balm. I put the stem back on the bowl and worked the pipe over on the buffing wheel using Blue Diamond to polish the bowl and shank.
I buffed the bowl with a light touch so as not to get any of the buffing compounds in the grooves of the rustication. I buffed the stem to raise the gloss on the vulcanite. I buffed the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. The medium brown stains on the rusticated bulldog shaped bowl works well with the rich black of the vulcanite stem. The polish and the reworking of the stem material left this a beautiful and well-made pipe. The dimensions of the pipe are: I will be adding this one to the rebornpipes store shortly if you are interested in adding it to your collection.
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It will make a fine addition to the rack. If you are interested email me at slaug uniserve. My brother sent me a pipe that is a shape I have had two previous times and always sold or gifted. It is a Bullmoose or a Scoop shape. Tracy Mincer did a great job with this shape and it is one I have never seen repeated as chunky as he did them. This one was stamped on the right side of the shank with the words Custombilt over Imported Briar. The pipe was solid but dirty. The stem would not push into the shank and the grooves and trails in the briar were dusty.
The bowl had a thin, uneven cake in it and the lava overflowed slightly onto the rim leaving a thin coat of tars and oils. There were some dings and dents in the smooth parts of the pipe and the finish was worn. There were some fills in the grooves that showed through the worn finish. Overall it was in good shape. The stem had tooth chatter on the top and bottom sides with a few deeper tooth marks near the button.
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The photos below show what the pipe looked like when I started working on it. I took a few close-up photos of the bowl rim, front and back views and the stem to show what I had to deal with in the restoration of this one.
Custombilt Pipes
The stamping gave me a bit of information on the date of the pipe. The one word Custombilt stamping rather than the Custom-Bilt stamping would help to pin down the date a bit. I decided to pause a few moments and do a bit of reading to help narrow down the date. I looked on one of my go to resources — Pipedia. Here is the link to the article: Under the heading, Custom-Bilt History is the following information. Bill meticulously details the start of the Company, how it was financed, the changes in the original ownership, how the company distributed its product, the manufacturing process, certain patented items, and other interesting stuff… In , the name was changed to Custombilt after Mincer began an association with Eugene J.
From this information I am pretty sure my pipe is made after the change in and before Tracy Mincer lost the name in the early s. It has the characteristic Mincer like rustication patterns and shape. It could very well be from the Rich era of the brand. I went to work cleaning up this old timer. I was able to clean out the rustication and the grooves with this method. I rinsed the bowl under warm water to remove the soap and the grime. The first picture shows the soap on the bowl and the second through the fifth picture that follows show the cleaned and dried bowl.
You can see the putty fills in the grooves. Fortunately all of them were in the grooves and not in the smooth portion of the bowl. I scrubbed out the airway in the shank, mortise and stem with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs until they came out clean. I thought about using the retort but chose not to on this pipe as it smells sweet and clean.
I find that this sponge removes the grime and leaves the rim intact with no briar removed.
reclaiming old and worn estate pipes
I worked it on the sponge until it was clean and then used a cotton swab and alcohol to clean up what remained. I sanded the stem with grit sandpaper to remove the tooth chatter and deeper tooth marks as well as the small gouges and oxidation on the vulcanite. With the internals of the shank and mortise cleaned I was able to put the stem back in place. I reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and took the cake back to briar. I used a Black Sharpie Permanent Marker to stain the rustication patterns on the bowl and shank.
Once I finished with that I wiped the bowl down with alcohol to soften the black and prepare the surface for the contrast stain. I warmed the briar with a blow dryer and then stained it with Feibings Dark Brown that I had thinned with alcohol 1: I applied the stain and then flamed it with a lighter to set it. I repeated the process until I got good coverage. I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the wheel to give it a shine and even out the stain coat. The next photos show the bowl at this point in the process. The contrast of the dark in the grooves with the brown really gives the briar a bit of pop.
I was careful with buffing around the stamping as I did not want to damage the pristine stamping on this pipe. With the bowl done I turned my attention to the stem. I wet sanded with grit micromesh sanding pads until the majority of the scratches left behind by the sandpaper were gone. I rubbed the stem down with Obsidian Oil.
I dry sanded it with grit micromesh pads and gave it another coat of oil. I finished by sanding it with the grit micromesh pads and giving it a final coat of oil.
Custombilt Pipe | eBay
I set it aside to dry while I worked on another pipe. I buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond to raise the shine and then gave the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfibre cloth to deepen the shine.
I love the finished look of this old timer and the feel of the hefty bowl in the hand. In my opinion it turned out to be a beautiful pipe. The next pipe in the lot that I refurbished was the top pipe in the centre column in the photo below. It was a Custom Bilt like billiard. It is stamped on the left side of the shank Custom Made and on the right side of the shank Imported Briar.
That stamping tells me that it is an American Made Pipe. I cannot find any information on the stamping on the internet but will continue to look and see what I can find. The pipe was dirty. The bowl was badly caked — meaning that the cake was very crumbly and uneven. The bowl was out of round as can be seen in the photo below.
I would need to ream it out completely to reshape the bowl.