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Public Service Announcement
SYSTEM DAY 2025 IS COMING
Wednesday, September 3^rd.

I began celebrating the day of the final System patent in 2018, because to me it represents one of the Great Days of Kapp & Peterson history.  Since then, it’s grown to such an extent that while it probably hasn’t eclipsed today’s International Bacon Day celebration (yes, it’s a thing), and while hardly anyone outside our community has heard of it, we love it.  The best thing is, if you want to join us on this most auspicious day of the Peterson year, there’s no fees, no fuss, no credit ratings–you don’t even have to buy a new Pete (despite what Chris Lauer says). No, all you need is to select one of your own Peterson Systems from the rack and smoak it.  If you like, of course, you can go large by adding a Merit Badge or even get your Certified Pete Geek certificate by simply following the Official Entry Instructions at the end of this post.

My Bittersweet Tale of
Elijah Robert’s Einstein 12B Patent

As we approach System Day 2025, I’ve got a really special Patent System to share with you this morning: the 12B, the very shape used in the “Chip of the Old Post” advertisement and smoked by Albert Einstein, that Thinking Man non pareil.

Those who read a lot of fiction or watch lots of film know there’s three basic endings: the happy ending, #1, where the hero rides off into the sunset and all is well; then there’s the tragic ending, #2, where everyone dies (literally or metaphorically); finally, there’s the “zero” ending, #3, where you scratch your head and think, “I wonder what happened later?”  I’d like to say my story this morning has a happily-ever-after ending, but even though no dogs died (see #2)  and there was pipe smoking (see #1), it’s still more or less a rolling doughnut (see #3).

The actual story unfolded over several weeks, but in the interests of your patience and my carpal tunnel, we’ll just touch bases of the plot triangle: establishing conflict (pipe as received),  rising action (sterling band and mortise), first conflict (stem), second conflict (bowl), turning point (chamber), climax (chamber restoration), falling action (completion of restoration) and resolution (pipe as smoked). I won’t say you’ll need a box of tissue, but you might get out your bottle of sympathy (in the large economy size, please).

Establishing Conflict (Pipe as Received)

This is a 1^st Quality 12B. The shape confirmation is easy, since it’s just a matter of laying it atop the matching image in the new 1906 catalog.

When Elijah sent me his Patent 12B, he had recently received it back from a professional whom I admire. He had asked for a bowl polish, lightening the bowl color if at all possible; a chamber re-coat; and a stem polish. Here’s what he saw:

I was puzzled by several things, since this was a pro restoration—the splotchy surface of the bowl, the bare wood on the rim, the black sticky spot inside the chamber, and the meteor shower on the stem.  These are things I’m usually competent to repair, however, so with the usual ifs-ands-buts doomsday scenario agreement, agreed to take on the project, promising to send intel and photos requesting Elijah’s input whenever I encountered a problem.

Rising Action (Sterling Band & Mortise)

It’s worth looking at the disassembled pipe and stem.  Notice the vast Patent reservoir, the width of the mortise, and how wide the tenon had to be on the stem. Remarkable. These details also create the unique look of the iconic Patent pipe. This is a 1^st Quality pipe (there’s no “2” or “3” shank stamp), yet there’s also no bone condenser as we would expect.  Nevertheless, note the original and best vulcanite condenser engineering: it’s stepped and conical (you can read about the reasons for that in the earlier posts devoted to System engineering).

The band was in pretty good shape, with only a few small bumps. Sterling accumulates scratches like dog hair on a flannel shirt, but to be at least 135 years old, these weren’t bad. I suspect it may have been previously buffed, as part of the HM letter seems too light.

Before & After

While it’s never a good idea to buff an old nickel ferrule or band (ask me how I know), with a sterling band, as long as one take good precautions around the stamping, some of the most egregious scratches can be removed.  If the ferrule or band is not particularly scratched, or if you don’t have a buffer, just use a quality silver polish, my favorite being Simichrome, the bicyclist’s friend, which I always use just before the Tour de France (I didn’t say I ride, I just said I use it about then).

The band features the distinctive “N” hallmark for 1908 and was fairly scratched up.  I’m always bemused by professional restorationists who overlook this easy restoration.  Taping over the stamping and the briar, of course, takes a minute. And remembering how soft the sterling is (it easily bends if you’ve ever had one come off the shank) is also helpful.  Then remembering not to use white diamond compound, but a jeweler’s compound like Fabulustre, when gently going over the stamping. I made my fair share of blunders early on, but it’s really not a difficult fix.

What I sometimes forget about are how deep the scratches can be.  In the present instance, while the “after” is a vast improvement to the “before,” there’s still some scratches that I couldn’t (didn’t) remove.

First Conflict (Stem)

Learning to deal with vulcanite stems is a lot like learning to deal with old British sports cars.  You can either set fire to them with a blowtorch or get down to the business of loving them in what one of my favorite theologians calls “all their recalcitrant particularity.” I prefer the latter, not merely because it accords with the Gospel, but because vulcanite is, in fact, the original and best stem material. In my opinion.

Getting even an old, oxidized vulcanite P-Lip stem back to black isn’t the issue here.  The issue, as you can see in the three photos above, is that the pock marks or meteor shower aren’t something that were applied from without, like blows from a fall or splashes of some acidic material.  Nope. These go all the way to the bone and are from the original molding. I know this because of three judicious attempts at sanding them out. Going deeper didn’t alter them one bit—they were air bubbles from the molding process itself.

It would appear that quality control, brothers, isn’t a new problem.

Second Conflict (Bowl)

The next conflict in our rising action was the bowl. I’ve done a lot of bowl work over the years, and while I don’t always get it perfect, I’ve got enough of my mother’s DIY mojo (she was a famous stain remover / sander / refinisher in her day and I think I must’ve inhaled more noxious fumes by ten than most people who worked in a paint factory back in the day.

I’ve lightened bowls from various eras with a fair degree of success, sometimes amazingly so, revealing warts, root marks, fills, burn marks and all the other detritus dark stain is there to cover.

After removing the final top finish the previous restorer used, I went to work with isopropyl alcohol. Aside from removing the gloss, there was almost no difference.  So I went on to another tactic I’ve often used with success: sanding the bowl, beginning with 400 grit and then working back up to 12K.  Masking off the all-important Patent stamps (which are faint to begin with, as so many early stamps are), I went to work. But however much I sanded, the wood didn’t get any lighter! I also tried denatured alcohol and mineral spirits, being careful in each case not to get the chemicals inside the bowl and to thoroughly rinse the outside, following each chemical with isopropyl for further cleaning.

I suspect the darkness has do with whatever organic dyes Kapp & Peterson used back in the Patent days, but wow—it must go to the bone.

Do you think there was a black under stain?  Then a dark brown? You can see there’s some fascinating grain here. What did they stain those Patent bowls with? Anybody? Anybody?

At the end of all this, I hand rubbed some LaBelle Époque Pen’s Restoration Balm into the wood to give it some badly-needed restoratives. After some slow buffing on the wheel, I finished with a top coating of carnauba wax. The final result does show the grain, unlike the previous finish, but is still virtually the same shade.

Turning Point (Chamber)

Here we are at last to the dark night of the soul—I mean bowl.  Chamber. Whatever.

The chamber had a bowl coating made of maple syrup and activated charcoal (seen back in one of the initial photos above), which I removed with warm water. I know opinions vary on this, and I don’t want to tread very hard on anyone’s cherished beliefs, but my masters trained me to believe that maple syrup, like honey, has a lot of sugar in it. Sugar burn. Sugar make hot. Sugar not good for chamber. So that’s why we look to something else that’s non-toxic—say, gum arabic powder like K&P uses—to mix up a pre-carb.

This is what I found: a poxy mess.  Or rather, an epoxy mess. It looks like the chamber had suffered some major damage at one point and was nudged back to life with epoxy.  Like the maple syrup, opinions vary here.  Some believe there’s no problem smoking tobacco in an epoxy-lined bowl. I tried to remove the epoxy.  And tried.  And tried.  I sanded it with everything I could think of, and might have tried a blasting cabinet if I’d had one.

Climax (Chamber “Restoration”)

After first application of pipe mud, the divot in the back chamber wall remained.

The second coat of pipe mud created a flat surface.

After consulting with Elijah, all I could think of doing was line it with pipe mud, then top that with the K&P pre-carbon. The pipe mud, as it’s made of cigar ash, yields a cigar ghost which will die after a six or seven bowls and isn’t even particularly noticeable if you’re smoking anything other than virginias.  The K&P pre-carbon should have helped assuage this problem, as well as work with the pipe mud to create an organic chamber wall.

Falling Action (Completion of Restoration)

And this is all I could do. It does look a little better, but it’s not what Elijah and I had hoped.

Resolution (Pipe as Smoked)

So the 12B Einstein made its way back home to Elijah, and—it didn’t really smoke very well.  I wasn’t at all surprised.  Maybe it’s the pipe mud, and after a dozen or so smokes the flavor will settle down.  Or maybe it’s something about that epoxy lining? Like I said at the outset, no dogs died in this restoration (cheers) and pipes were smoked during the work (applause), but it really hasn’t ended the way we’d hoped (puzzled silence; audience walking silently out of the auditorium).

Time for Pie

A recent Gigi apple pie

After any movie or the completion of listening to an audiobook, we always circle the wagons at my house and, if there’s pie, discuss what we’ve seen.  If there’s no pie, there’s always something great from Gigi’s Bakery. Here’s the final synopsis:

1. The bowl is only marginally lighter than it was originally, although softer in appearance as all the previous top coatings have been removed, allowing the grain to come through in good light.
2. The stem has a higher gloss than previously, but still possesses the meteor showers, which are actually deep bubbles into the stem.
3. The band has had most of its scratches removed, although I was careful not to buff the band stamps.
4. The epoxy chamber coating could only be partially removed. It was, however, leveled out. A a new “safety lining” was installed, a base coat of pipe mud topped with K&P’s pre-carbon mixture.
5. It really doesn’t smoke very well.
6. There’s really only one thing left to do—

THE TAMPER EVENT

LANCE DAHL CPG sends a photo of an amazing meer with his tamper. A 307, right? Nope. Lance writes, “It is Turkish Meerschaum hallmarked ‘P’ 1981. It is slightly larger than a 314 & not near as big as a 307. It’s the same size as the 312 & X220.”

THE NPG (NEBRASKA PETE GEEK, aka JOHN M. YOUNG CPG) is the first to send me a photo of his 02BB POY w/the Pewter Tamper. Ye gods! The blast on this is fabulous.  And what a great combination–the tweed bag & pipe rest.

OFFICIAL ENTRY RULES

This year’s theme is “Have what you like; like what you have.” Charles Mundungus and Michael Sparks will expound on that next week. If you want to be first on your block, here’s how:

Pick One and One Only:

• Have what you like (in a nutshell, what do you collect?)
• Like what you have (in a nutshell, what do you companion?)

Write the Obligatory Explanation, of not more than 250 words.

Send the Obligatory Photo,  which can include a smokin’ selfie or not, as you wish.

Caveat: Only Peterson System and Sub-Systems are eligible for inclusion in this post.

• A “System,” by definition, is any Peterson pipe that includes a reservoir and graduated-bore stem with a P-Lip.
• A “Sub-System,” by definition, is any Peterson pipe that includes a P-Lip, graduated bore stem. Thus, the X61 P-Lip Celebration is a Sub-System, as are most of the Sherlock Holmes releasess. Sometimes in older “Peterson Product” bent pipes one will encounter a F/T with a reservoir. This, too, qualifies as a Sub-System.

To be included in the System Day 2025 post, entries must be received no later than midnight CDT Monday, September 1^st.

CATCH & RELEASE

AVAILABLE: PPN 05B pipe, new in box. $158. Email Paul Combs CPG at pmcerc@msn.com.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
—attributed to Albert Einstein

this week’s post brought to you on
THE SLOW TRAIN