311. Paul Combs, CPG on Repairing the House Pipe Stem of an 1898 Dutch Billiard
The 1898 Shape 4 came to me with a broken off bit tip, location of the missing piece unknown, and the previous owner(s) had affixed a part of another bit in its place with some glue and a metal band. The bone tenon extension was still on the bit and fully intact and the Peterson’s Patent stamp on the back of the bit was present but so faint that my camera barely picked it up. The bowl was actually in good condition, just dirty with substantial carbon buildup. Using the intact bit from another house pipe as a guide (the 1918 Deluxe) I aligned them visually and determined that the missing end must have been close to 2 inches long. I masked off the patent stamp on the back of the bit to protect it while I worked and removed the tenon extension. I slowly heated the bit with the heat gun and when it was soft gently straightened it out for the next step. Measuring with the digital calipers I could see there was just enough room in the airway for a 6mm diameter threaded joiner – this would allow a 4mm passage through the joiner, which being this close to the tip (I hoped) would not significantly disrupt the airflow as the bore continued to reduce to 1.5 mm at the tip. I would have preferred to place the joiner right where the original break was, but due to the taper of the bit the top and bottom airway walls were paper thin at this spot, so I decided to remove about an inch of material from below the original break in order to move to a slightly thicker part of the stem walls for the repair – I could make up the lost length by leaving more length on the tip I was adding. I prepped the facing of the bit and made up an aluminum joiner (6mm – 0.75mm pitch) using a threading die (no single point thread cutting this time around). After running a matching tap into the airway, I mounted the threaded joiner into the bit with Extra Strength rubber reinforced Black CA. One of the things was also clear at this point was that, measured side-to-side, the original air channel was not quite in the center of the bit. I would have to deal with that later – since I intended to smoke this pipe, a straight airway was (slightly) more important to me than perfectly straight outward appearance. I went through some old Peterson P-lip bits and found I had a one with the length and width and height needed to face up to the original with enough material to shape it down to match. It was a nice wide saddle bit, a bit oxidized but otherwise completely sound and just long enough. I prepared the ‘donor’ bit by heating and bending it straight, mounting in a holding fixture in my lathe and cutting it off square just a bit over length.…