Almost Finished One. A Great Learning Experience

[da'rum]

A fun learning experience had.

Had four pipes given to me they were all cheapo's and not in great shape. They all had an orange stain that screamed I'M BLOODY UGLY! like this



So I sanded and dremelled a couple finding fills and pieces of what I can only guess was shrapnel. Which lead me to the idea of rustication which I did (attempted) to hide the flaws in the timber.









So I ended up just about finishing one this morning and I'm happy with the way it turned out. It is far from perfect, I rushed it causing a bit of sloppy cutting but as the pipe is to stay with me and was merely a guinea pig I'm not that worried.









So you can see that the stem/mouthpiece was severely oxidised as well so I soaked it in oxypower and ran the dremel buffing wheel over it.



An improvement but I need to buy some micromesh to really do the job properly....I'll get around to it....one day.

The other pipe above is currently drinking in some polish and I'll buff that out tomorrow.

Cheers

[Capn Jimbo]

A magnificent post...


...if I do say! I think you're being a bit hard on yourself. The thing about rustic - is that it's supposed to be well, rustic. And this is. I find something very warm and attractive about this pipe as you have recreated it. The final coloring works very nicely. And there's something to say about knowing it's not only rustic - it's YOUR rustic, by you, for you. That's special.

As far as the stem goes, my stems looked just as bad. What worked for me was a very long soak in Oxyclean, followed by a scrubbing with Magic Eraser, also with one of those women's fingernail files that have 4 different grits on one. Get the one that has the finest grit on it - it's probably the equivalent of 400 to 1200 or so and wet sand the stem. They sell here for maybe $3 or $4. Even some wet sandpaper would do.

After that, all you need is a little polishing and waxing, you'll be shocked. Of course the micro stuff is nice, but more expensive, while the nail files are sold everywhere and do very well indeed.

Again... great post and photos, nice read, thanks...

[da'rum]

Thanks Jim and thanks for the mouthpiece tips I'll give it a go.

Cheers.