Celius Root Pipe Refurb

Posted on November 20, 2017 by thecashkeepers

I must admit that I had never heard of the Celius Root pipes before I found this one in a large group of pipes I had purchased. When I first held it, I could tell that it was a nice pipe and it felt good in the hand. After doing some research, it turns out that I was right, it is a nice pipe line. This one says “Celius Root Denmark Pawn 19”. The stem was the main part that needed love but the bowl was already pretty good. Here are the before pics:

Stem
To get rid of the oxidation and the tooth marks, I wet-sanded the stem with 500 grit, 1000 grit, and 1200 grit. I then cleaned the inside of the stem with pipe cleaners and high proof vodka. The stem is finished up with a buffing of red tripoli and a buffing of carnauba wax.

Bowl
The bowl really didn’t have a lot of cake build up so I just did a light reaming. The reaming revealed a couple of crags inside the bowl and those drive me crazy. To get rid of the crags, I used a professional grade bowl coating on the inside to make it all even. Then I used some q-tips and brushes with vodka on the inside of the shank to clean it up. The crags on the rim all seamed pretty good without any burns or cake so I left it the way that it was. The bowl received a very light buffing of carnauba wax on the bottom side of the shank where it was smooth.

Here is the finished product:

Thank you for looking and feel free to let me know what you think of the finished product!

Weber Meerschaum-Lined Refurb

Posted on November 14, 2017 by thecashkeepers

I have had this pipe hanging around for at least a couple of years. I keep seeing it but get distracted by other pipes/jobs. I had a friend contact me yesterday about finding a groomsman gift and he specifically asked about meerschaum or meerschaum-lined pipes. Awesome! The perfect opportunity to finally get this pipe cleaned up!

Here are the before pictures:

Stem
I wet-sanded the stem with 500 grit, 1000 grit, and 1200 grit. This process helps remove grime and oxidation off the stem. I didn’t get a picture of it, but this stem did have an extra metal part on the tenon. I used steel wool on the metal part. Scrubbed the inside of the stem with pipe cleaners and vodka. The stem gets finished with a buffing of red tripoli and a buffing or carnauba wax.

Bowl
I lightly reamed the cake build-up off the inside. I was very careful to not hurt or damage the meerschaum-lining. Some of the lacquer/stain was coming off of the bowl already, so I decided to remove the stain completely. I sanded the outside of the bowl with 500 grit, 1000 grit, and 1200 grit. I then lightly sanded the top of the meerschaum-lining to bring back some of it’s original white color and smooth it out. The bowl gets finished with a buffing of red tripoli and a buffing of carnauba wax.

Here is the finished product!

Thanks for looking!

Savinelli Ed’s 506 Italy Pipe Refurb

Posted on October 30, 2017 by thecashkeepers

I found this “Ed’s” pipe in one of the lots that I purchased recently. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out who “Ed” was or why he had his own pipe line. But I noticed that it also had “506 Italy” next to the “Ed’s”. The more I looked at it, the more I thought that print looked like the Savinelli print. Sure enough, upon VERY close inspection, I found one of the Savinelli logos on the stem. It’s the logo that they used on some of their seconds lines that included a line and a star.

After thorough research on Pipedia and PipePhil, I was unable to turn up an definitive information. So in the end, I am not sure if this pipe was made for a specific shop or if it was made as a seconds line. In either case, it’s a pretty cool Savinelli. Check out the transformation below!

Before Pics:

The Stem
I used my usual method of wet sanding the stem with 500 grit, 1000 grit, and 1200 grit. This part of the pipe takes me the most time so I do that first. I was very careful to leave what was left of the line/star logo on the side of the stem. I finished by buffing with red tripoli and then carnauba wax.

The Bowl
The first thing I went to on the bowl was getting out the nasty buildup by reaming the bowl. After that, I sanded the top of the bowl. I started with a low grit of about 200 because the buildup was bad. I then went to 500 grit, 1000 grit, and 1200 grit to top it off. It looked as if the previous owner had took out a couple chunk of the inside of the rim when reaming long ago. To help even those out a bit, I took some 500 grit sandpaper and used my finger to help round it out a bit. I didn’t completely smooth it out because I hate leaving a chamber more oval than round. That’s all personal preference of course! I finished up by re-staining the top of the bowl. The bowl also got a quick buff of red tripoli and carnauba wax.

Here is the finished product:

Thanks for reading! Let me know if you liked the way the pipe turned out or if you have any information regarding “Ed’s” pipes from Italy!

Wellington Pipe Refurb

Posted on September 13, 2017 by thecashkeepers

This pipe came to me from a friend who had purchased it online. He asked that I make it clean and beautiful again. It was a pleasure to work on this one. I did ask his permission to remove the stain because I could tell it had some beautiful grain underneath. Here are the “before” pics:

Stem
I used my usual method of wet sanding the stem with 500 grit, 1000 grit, and 1200 grit. This part of the pipe takes me the most time so I do that first. I was very careful to leave the logo and the “Wellington” name on the top of the stem. I finished by buffing with red tripoli and then carnauba wax.

Bowl
The first thing I tackled was removing the stain from the bowl. This take a little while but I follow the same process that I do for the stem to remove the stain and leave a smooth, silky finish. I topped the bowl with the same sanding grits. Then the bowl was reamed and sanitized with vodka to remove cake and carbon. I also went ahead and cleaned/sanitized the shank at that time. The metal cap on the shank has a couple small hairline cracks which made it loose on the shank. I cleaned the inside of the metal cap and reattached in to the shank. Once the debris was removed from the bowl I used a professional grade bowl coating to take care of a couple of imperfections on the inside. The bowl is finished the same way that the stem is, a buffing with red tripoli and a buffing with carnauba wax.

Here is the finished product: