Irish-made pipes

I am honored to repost Charles Lemon of Dads Pipes's restoration of the B.P.L. carved shamrocks pipe featured in my last post. I sent it to Charles because of his amazing skill in restoring vulcanite mouthpieces, and this one needed substantial work, well beyond my current skill set. Now that Peterson has, at least for the time, ceased being able to provide replacement vulcanite P-Lip mouthpieces (which have never at any time been easy to source), Charles's willingness to share his knowledge has become of some importance to all Pete Freeks. Charles is a great teacher for the home restorationist, as I think you'll find when you follow his restoration, making it easy for beginners to learn important skills. He has inspired me to tackle a grisly-looking chewed P-Lip sitting on my workbench. If all goes (reasonably) well, I'll share the results with you in the not-too-distant future. I have Charles's B.P.L. pipe for sale on eBay this week HERE, proceeds to Dads Pipes for taking on this commission. I received an email from Peterson pipe aficionado Mark Irwin of Peterson Pipe Notes recently, with a request for some help restoring the stem on an intricately carved bulldog shaped pipe. The brand is a new one for me. As Mark explained in his note, the fellow who owned the tiny BPL (Briar Pipe Line) shop in Dublin, Ireland outsourced bowls from Peterson, then hand-carved and stained them for sale in the Shannon Airport. He included these pics of the pipe, which is clearly a Peterson 80S clone, showing both the Shamrock & Harp carving motif and the extensive damage to the button end of the stem. I have relied on Mark’s intimate knowledge of all things Peterson many times while working on estate Petes, so I was only too happy to be able to help him in return. Soon enough, the pipe arrived here and I had a chance to look over the patient firsthand. As you can see in this series of pics, the stummel, though in need of a cleanup, was in good shape under a layer of dirt and grime. The stem, however, had really been chewed on by its previous owner. The pipe is stamped “B.P.L” on the left upper facet of the diamond saddle stem, and “Irish” over “hand Carved” in block letters on the left shank. The right shank is marked “Made in Dublin” over “Ireland”. The markings are a bit uneven in depth, and the stem logo was clearly stamped at least twice, which was destined to cause problems down the line. The Oxyclean soak I use to deoxidize vulcanite stems can be hard on paint-filled stem logos like this BPL stamp. In an effort to protect and preserve the logo as much as possible, I dabbed a thick layer of petroleum jelly over the stamp before popping it into the Oxyclean bath. While the stem soaked, I worked on the stummel, first reaming the chamber of a light cake layer using sandpaper…