430. Reclaiming an Around the World 107 Chubby Billiard
PSAs
The New Era 39THIRTY caps all shipped out yesterday! Hooray, and thanks to all who participated and waited ever so patiently for this project to reach completion. I still have 9 caps that need homes, if you missed out and are wanting one: six in the Irish Tricolor style (2 S/M, 2 M/L, 2 X/L) and two in the Ebony (L/XL). Don’t forget that a Merit badge awaits (or your CPG if you don’t have one) if you’ll send a photo of the cap when you get it. You don’t even have to be wearing the cap. To order drop me a line at petegeek1896@gmail.com.
Zippo is shipping the lighters out this Thursday, so they should be in the mail to all who ordered by the end of the next week. Fun fact from Zippo: “because of the high value of the sterling base model our engineers run a test sample on our high polish chrome model to make sure that the imprint will pass our quality standards before we run them on the sterling model.” Merit badge / CPG for all who send a photo. We’ll hold off on running those pix until you get your PPN pipes, just in case you want to snap a photo of the pipe & lighter together.
Reclaiming an Around the World 107 Chubby Billiard
by D. H. Billings
In Steven King’s The Shining, Jack Torrence is an occasional pipe smoker. Considering his murderous tendencies, though, we’re guessing that he abused his pipes like this one had been.
Like pretty much every pipe smoker in the digital age, I peruse eBay on a regular basis. Generally, I strike out. Everything is either retailers selling what I already own, rare finds that are $400.00 above my budget, or pipes that are absolutely junk. This time, however, I couldn’t believe my eyes: a Peterson 107 (Germany) from the Around the World collection for less than $40.00.* It was in pretty rough shape – the stem didn’t fully push in, the rim was coated in carbon build up, the band was both pushed up too far, and misaligned – but the bones of the pipe looked good. Maybe it was the condition, maybe it was messed-up search terms, maybe it was the fact that the auction was ending at an odd time on a Wednesday night, but the price never went up – allowing me to swoop in with a last-minute bid to buy the pipe. The only question was if the charring was only on top of the rim or if the wood itself had been burned.
The first order of business upon arrival of the pipe was to see about getting the band off the stummel. It had been turned so that the engraving of the Brandenburg Gate was upside down, shoved up on the shank, and had about 1 mm of briar showing between it and the stem. Thinking that the band had been reglued, I tried heating it up in order to loosen the adhesive; this did not work. I retried this a few times with my heat gun, but each time I got the same result. Then… it hit me that whoever had shoved the band up on the shank probably didn’t think to use glue and that contraction of the wood would probably be more effective than heating everything up.
The Brandenburg Gate, now right side up
I immediately threw the stummel into the freezer. After a few minutes, the band slipped right off without any issue. The original adhesive was still there, but there was nothing else. Next order of business was to remove the excess char and to examine the rim. My tools for this were simple: spit and paper towels. As Chuck Stanion wrote back in April 2021, saliva is more effective for cleaning pipe rims than basic water thanks to the enzyme α-amylase – which helps break down food starches before we swallow our food, but also acts as a solvent for smoke residue.
Initially, the carbon build up came off the pipe with ease. A little bit of saliva on the paper towel, some elbow grease, and the carbon just came right off… until it didn’t. As it turned out, the briar itself was charred. Dammit.
Like the Killarney line, the Around the World series has a hard top coat. I had previously had bad luck trying to remove such a finish years ago, but I did my due diligence this time around, found a Charles Lemon Dads Pipes post detailing the restoration of a Killarney 65 and quickly realized that I needed to use acetone – not alcohol – to remove the finish. This made quick work of removing the top coat by way of wiping it with an acetone-soaked paper towel. I was then able to sand both the stain and the charring off with a high grit paper before then again using acetone to get the last bit removed. A quick reaming out the bowl, and I was good to let the pipe air out. Thankfully, after the reaming, the pipe didn’t smell like it needed the salt and alcohol treatment.
After letting everything air out, I wanted try to get the stain close the orange-red that the pipe originally had. To try to do this, I mixed Fiebing’s Red and Orange together, dipped a pipe cleaner into the mix, and applied an even coat over the entire pipe. As I was limited in the amount of orange I could use, it came out a touch more of a dark red than I was hoping for, but it still had the same general feel as the original finish. A quick once over with flame to fix the stain, and I set the pipe to the side.
At this point, I turned my attention to the stem. As it was heavily oxidized, I had previously thrown it into a bleach and water bath before taking my daughter to gymnastics. Upon our return home, I removed the stem from the bath, rinsed it off, and let it dry out while applying the stain to the pipe. Doing the bleach bath allowed me to sand the oxidation off with ease. Before I polished everything up, I drilled out the airway utilizing the same method as in my YouTube instructional video using my T-handle since this was a vulcanite stem.
After the drilling, I put a buffing wheel on my drill, buffed the stem with tripoli polishing compound, then polished it with pure carnauba wax. Since the stain had dried by this point, I also buffed the stummel with tripoli in order to remove any excess dye off the pipe before re-attaching the band.
(For the sake of clarity, it should be noted at this point that I have two separate buffing wheels attached to two separate drill bit adapters: one for tripoli and other abrasive polishing compounds and one solely for carnauba. This allows for easy switching between tripoli and waxing.)
Reattaching the band was rather simple. I mixed my preferred epoxy that I already had on hand, spread a thin coat inside the band, pushed it into place, wiped off the excess that came out the back side near the mortise, and let it sit overnight.
The next day, I buffed everything with carnauba wax, bringing the pipe to a wonderful shine. Not perfect, as there is still a couple issues here and there (most notably a burn that takes the chamber slightly out of round at the rim and a deep scratch in the band that cannot be buffed out), but definitely a pipe with a new lease on life.
*Ed.note: The Around the World Collection debuted in 2011. According to the updated Quick Reference guide from the Best of PPN, it’s a “Warm red-gloss smooth finish line, F/T mouthpiece with nickel band engraved with an iconic image representing K&P’s most important markets: Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Russia and the US. The box originally featured a presentation sleeve.” If you have a set of all 10 countries, drop me a line!
HELP COMPLETING AN SPD COLLECTION
Mike Austin CPG has been assembling a complete St. Patrick’s Day collection for quite a while now and he’s getting close, as you can see:
Mike is on the hunt for the 2001, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2017. If you’ve got one for sale or trade, or have seen one, drop him a line at subgunner@cox.net.
… and way cool pipe case, Mike!