DIY

Taking up where we left off in the first part of “Coloring Natural Sandblast and Rusticated Pipes,” I’ve come to see the big difficulty in how to color a natural sandblast or rusticated Pete was simply in getting my definition right. With that done, there are really only two methods of coloring it. Again I must thank Prof. John Schantz, who was amazingly patient in his tutoring, but I also want to thank everyone who expressed their enthusiasm for natural sandblasts and rusticated pipes and those who sent photos demonstrating that love.

Arnaud J. CPG sent several photos of his natural virgins to refresh our memory this morning with the goal of coloring a natural rusticated or sandblasted Pete:

David Enrique Dunhill 120 LC

 

Dunhill Tanshell 1964

Savinelli 506

Definition

* As much as we admire natural smooth Petes (of whatever era or line), these are not what we’re talking about when we’re talking of engaging in the coloring of a natural briar pipe.  Smooth naturals darken gradually in a fairly gradual and even unnoticed way.

* As much as we adore the Barley finish, Petes treated with this finish will darken all on their own without any help from us other than smoking the pipe.  Depending on the grain, blast, and coating, these will very closely approximate what we’re striving to do for ourselves, but without any effort (beyond smoking them) on our part.  Of course, they lack an uncoated, bare chamber, leaving out a big part of the magic process of enjoyment, as it’s the flavor of the uncoated chamber that aficionados adore.

* The type of participatory coloring we’re talking about is the same in its desired end and method as that practiced by the Peterson meerschaum smokers of old (i.e., before K&P’s calcinated meerschaums of 1965 put an end to the glorious coloring process).

* Josh Burgess’s use of the phrase purely natural is therefore part of the key. We’re talking about coloring a “purely natural” finished Peterson. To date, there are have only been four lines released that are purely natural: the Rogha, the Burren, the Supreme Sandblast, and the DeLuxe Natural Rustic.

* The other half of the key is taken not only from those who smoke natural briars, but from those who in the past and present smoke non-calcinated (unhardened) meerschaums. As Prof. Schantz taught me in one of his several tutorials, these pipes must be colored from the inside out.

 

Coloring From the Inside Out

 (detail from the 1906 “Chat With the Smoker” on meerschaum coloring, showing how inserts are used on those pipes)

The goal here is three-fold, and without John’s help, I wouldn’t have understood the process.

* First, to color a natural Pete correctly. By “correctly” I actually mean two things. First, I want to avoid the ugly grays and (to me) dingy looks that naturals can get along the path to to their ultimate tonal beauty.

* Second, to bring out the most beautiful contrast possible, whether whatever the grain of the bowl may be. Painting a natural with mineral oil will darken it and remove the gray but not bring out the true beauty of the briar’s grain as well as sandblasting or rustication.

* Third, use the “inside out” process implied in coloring meerschaum pipes from the beginning and in Italian natural virgin pipes from the beginning.  The reason the Italians have never put bowl coatings in their natural virgins is twofold. As I’ve noted elsewhere in the blog, the uncoated chamber allows the oils, heat, and moisture of the tobacco to saturate the bowl in a natural way. An uncoated chamber also delivers from the beginning and, many will aver, deliver the best flavor.

N.b.  The rationale against leaving a bowl uncoated is the risk of burnout.  Pipe makers will also say that an uncoated bowl is less likely to sell as it’s less aesthetically pleasing, except of course there are those pipemen who seek these bowls out–and will find them, usually in artisan makers like Castello and Cavicchi, although there are many.  Among these we may number like Prof. Schantz, who always remove the bowl coating before smoking a new pipe.

 

Methods

The Carpenter Method 

The first method, named after Terry Carpenter CPG, stands at one end of a continuum.  It was Terry, I think I may have said last time, who first got me thinking about the darkening process of a virgin pipe a few years back at the Chicago show, and it’s the method he and I’m sure many others use.  We were sitting outside with our girlfriends Trease and Gigi one morning smoking, and Terry had an amazing Burren Large Tank which he really liked and had been smoking on almost a daily basis.

“Photo one,” writes Terry, “is my Burren L. Tank in 2018, just after I purchased it.  Photo two is what it looked like after a month of daily use (once a day for the entire month).  Photo three is from a couple of days ago.”

Arnaud J. CPG follows the Carpenter Method, or nearly.  He writes, “My personal method for smoking my virgins: I don’t take any special precautions except to have clean hands. I don’t wax them before smoking to color them more quickly. I do clean them regularly with a soft toothbrush, which is also used to shine the waxed  sandblasted or rusticated pipes in my rotation, which means there is still just a bit of wax on my virgins, but in tiny quantities.” There’s nothing difficult in following this method except, as you can see—and this is a big “except”—smoke the pipe–and perhaps clean them as Arnaud does.

One thing worth pondering here, because ours is the Age of Collector Smokers, is that that most pipe smokers have such a large rotation that they’ll never get the results Terry or Arnaud have seen, whereas those in the late 19th and early 20th century who invested in a Peterson meer very probably dedicated themselves to their pipe’s coloring and consequently may not have had a large rotation.  I’m still much closer to the Smoker than the Collector end of the spectrum, but  even so, looking at my notes for my Rogha, XL5 and Supreme sandblast, I see that I don’t smoke these pipes for months at a time.

(Chasing a rabbit.  I don’t know whether this is really true or not, but my old friend the late Jorgen Jensen told me that if a pipe is kept reasonably clean, there’s nothing like smoking it to make it smoke better.  Jorgen was a confirmed collector, keeping his Pete rotation at something under 30 pipes, but he was able—being a “House Smoker” and not confined to the outdoors or a piping shed—to smoke for much of the day, which meant he smoked those 30 pipes several times a month. In fact, he told me that when he got a new Pete if it smoked poorly, he would smoke it exclusively until it decided to behave.  And it always did, he said with a smile.)

 

The Schantz Method

The second method, named after John Schantz CPG, stands at the other end of the continuum. “In my thinking,” writes John, “mineral oil will really darken a pipe and since it is thinner than beeswax, it will penetrate from the outside deeper.  That is not the goal here.”

First, white beeswax. “The goal—at least in my opinion—is similar to how pipe smokers have always wanted to color a meerschaum: from the inside out.  I’m not exactly sure why beeswax works so well on both meer and briar, but it does.  It’s been used on meers forever.  It doesn’t penetrate as deeply as mineral oil, and it doesn’t seal the pores of briar. From my own experiments, mineral oil seems get the outside dirty, and ultimately I believe it will close the pores too tightly.

We want, instead, the porousness to be on the inside, as that’s where some of the moisture gets pulled out of the smoke.  That’s also the reason why—incidentally—we give a briar a little “me time” to dry out between sessions.

To repeat from last time, I use white beeswax because it won’t color the briar artifically like yellow beeswax.

My mix is about half and half, with some butcher block condition, which contains white beeswax, carnauba, and a bit of mineral oil.  I don’t put on my mix that heavily.  I use a toothbrush to just get enough to apply a thin coat and get in the grooves.  At room temp, my mix can be softened by rubbing.  It’s just a bit more solid than what a beard balm would be.

Second, carnauba.  Carnauba is very hard and seals out the grunge, dirt and grime on your hands.

Beeswax + carnauba.  Now that Halcyon II is no longer being made, John’s recipe calls for equal parts of white beeswax and carnauba with a bit of butcher block oil, as he says above.

I tried this three or four times and couldn’t get anything but a hard block of wax. I’m sure those with better chemistry and cooking skills will have no trouble with John’s recipe, but I had to figure out another way.

I followed John’s rationale and the ingredients he recommends: white beeswax followed by carnauba over it.

As I already had new bags of white beeswax pellets and carnauba flakes on hand, I nuked some of each in ramekins in the microwave and let them harden in the fridge.  Beeswax, it turns out, is not quite as hard as a carnauba puck, but very nearly.

Here’s the XL5 and the 9S before the process.  You’ll see both have been smoked several times:

Just to be transparent, I hadn’t applied anything to either bowl.  I do rub them down with a microfiber rag after smoking them.  And of course, they have absorbed the oils of the tobacco through untreated chambers as well as the oils of my hands.

I my my small Foredom buffer with the 4″ pads instead of my Glorious 1952 Sears Craftsman, but only because I didn’t have two clean pads to fit the Craftsman and I was in too much of a hurry to stop and order them. I know–“fast like an ass…”!

The beeswax went on with no more difficulty than carnauba.  Since these bowls are gnarly, I heated them with the heat gun a bit after applying each wax to enable me to work the wax in with a natural bristle nail brush (and a clean toothbrush where the nail brush wouldn’t reach in the bend between the shank and bowl), then after they’d dried rubbed each bowl with a clean microfiber towel.

The darkening, as you can see in the photos below, turned the briar the same color as the old smooth natural pipes that various pipe makers used to sell in the 1950s and ’60s: darker than bare wood, but still very clear.

The darkening process on the 9S, which I’ve smoked quite a bit more than the XL5, had already begun, but the end result it quite pleasing and I’m thinking the pipe’s “natural” beauty will really begin to blossom now.

 

The XL5 surprised me. I really like the result and while there this grade of bowl lacks the grain filaments of the Supreme, it’s going to be a lot of fun to see how it darkens as well.

 Conclusion

Based on the smoker’s engagement a natural rustic or sandblast creates, I think there might be a place for this type of Pete, at all tiers, from the Burren-type to the Supreme. Wouldn’t it be fun to have an Aran, for example, in a natural rustic? But no matter the range or final finishing up to the white-soaped higher grades to the Supreme blast, we’d be given the opportunity to enjoy the flavor and engagement this type of pipe offers.

 

 

John Miller CPG. John writes, “Thanks to your article I have renewed interest in my unfinished Peterson pipes. Beautiful! A couple of old toothbrushes worked best for my applications of the waxes. Old (laundered) crew sock for rubbing out.”

Mark: “God leads every pipeman by a different path,” as Juan de la Cruz said, and whether it’s the Terry Method or the Schantz Method, the goal is to enjoy a natural Pete and what it has to offer.

Mike Loehsl CPG sent in a photo of the Peterson pipe rack he built at Chesapeake Pipe & Cigar in Annapolis, MD.  As you can see, he’s got some amazing Petes there.  I’ve asked him to send along more photos of some of these hard-to-find gems, but until he does, you can reach him at (443) 949-9004 or visit the web site at http://www.chesapeakepipeandcigar.com.

 

 

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