One of my four sisters likes to shop flea markets, street fairs, antique/collectible and junk shops. She recently found a Royal Danish 991R which she gifted to me as a restoration project. In researching the pipe, I’ve found that it is a Ukulele shape designed for Stanwell by Sixteen Iversson. Royal Danish is one of the “seconds” brand of Stanwell pipes. The pipe is stamped “Made in Denmark” so it was made production was moved to Italy in 2009.
With a heavily caked bowl and a dark, dirty orange oxidized stem, I knew it would take a few days to clean. The bigger problem seemed to be a badly beaten and abused rim. It looked like someone had taken a pocket knife and scrapped the inside of the rim until it was razor sharp. It also smelled liked someone had stored a mothball in it.
Cleaning the Bowl
My first step was to start removing the excess cake from the bowl. I do this with a small pocket knife with a ground down tip and edge. If you are new to restoring pipes, I suggest buying a good reamer. Once most of the cake is removed, I switched to 180-grit sandpaper wrapped around my finger, This gives me more control to evenly remove more of the cake. When it was almost down to the briar, I changed to a 400 grit to smooth out the remaining cake. Even though the bad smell was still there, I decided not to go all the way to bare wood.
The next step was to do the alcohol treatment using a cotton ball instead of rock salt. You can use rock salt but I like the results from cotton balls better. I use a pipette to soak the cotton with grain alcohol. This allows me to soak the cotton without getting any alcohol on the outside of the bowl. I let it set for a day.
Following the alcohol treatment, I packed the bowl and mortise with damp coffee grounds for another day. I then dump the grounds and rinse the pipe with warm water. I then let it sit for a day to dry out. The damp coffee grounds can be effective in removing any remaining smells from the estate pipe. Sometimes I’ve even bypass the alcohol portion and used just the coffee grounds.
Fixing the Rim
The rim condition had me worried at first. In places, the rim edge reminded me of a cigar punch. I considered cutting down the bowl height, but didn’t want to reduce it too much. Instead, I decided to try sanding it instead. Using a 320-grit sanding sponge on my work table, I inverted the bowl over it. Pressing down and rotating the bowl slowly started removing the edge. After removing less than 1/16th inch of briar, I had a smooth rim. I did think about applying some stain but left it natural instead.
Cleaning the Stem
My method for cleaning stems really depends on the amount of oxidation present. For heavily oxidized stems I add two tablespoons of Oxyclean to a pint jar of hot water. I drop the stem or stems into the jar and then let it sit for about an hour. After removing the stems from the jar, I dip bristle pipe cleaners in the Oxyclean solution and run them through the airway to remove all remaining tar. This usually takes anywhere from 3 to 10 pipe cleaners before I’m happy. As a final step before smoking, I rinse the stem in running water and then dip soft pipe cleaners in grain alcohol and run through the stems.
After the Oxyclean softens the oxidation and brings it to the surface. I dip a 3600 grit micro-mesh pad in clean water and start working on the stem – basically doing a wet sand to remove the oxidation. Keep rinsing the pad out and with time the oxidation gets lighter. I step up to a 4000-grit pad and continue wet-sanding the stem. After that I use dry pads ranging from 6000, 8000 and 12000 to start bringing back the shine.
For a final polish on the stem, I turn to my variable speed buffer. Mine has two 6-inch buffing pads which are changeable. I have a stitched pad on one side I use for applying carnauba wax and a loose pad on the other side I use for a final polish. When I don’t use the micro-mesh pads as described above, I have a stitched pad I use with the green buffing compound I buy from Mark Tinsky.
To some, some of my cleaning and restoration method may border on overkill but I’ve always been satisfied with the results.
© J. Gibson Creative Services. June 2018
