Another Pipe Resurrection - Brigham Sportsman

**KarlMaldensNose** · 08-09-2012, 09:55 AM

Nice work, Jack! In the last pic, it looks like the stem has some sort of tubing on it... not the standard rubber softie bit, though. It looks thinner and a lot more comfortable, as I find the softy bits to be too bulky. What is it?

**jdto** · 08-09-2012, 10:17 AM

Originally Posted by KarlMaldensNose

Nice work, Jack! In the last pic, it looks like the stem has some sort of tubing on it... not the standard rubber softie bit, though. It looks thinner and a lot more comfortable, as I find the softy bits to be too bulky. What is it?

It's heatshrink tubing. It was alright, but it wears out really quickly and also tends to sort of bubble up. A blast with the heatgun will snug it back up, but that gets annoying. I use a softie bit now, which isn't the greatest, but at least stays tight and doesn't require pulling out the heatgun after every smoke.

**Uncle Jackie** · 08-11-2012, 02:10 PM

Well done!

**packersfan117** · 04-02-2013, 06:13 PM

Originally Posted by conroygc

Jack, really nice work. I can't believe that grimy old pipe cleaned up that well.
I've been wanting to restore an old pipe, but I've held off due to the expense of the resto supplies.

You don't need a lot, just a reamer, bristle cleaners, sandpaper, patience, polish, kosher salt, and everclear.

**sychodelix** · 04-03-2013, 07:35 AM

Wow, that thing was uuugly when you first got it, but looks great now. Nice job!

**KarlMaldensNose** · 04-06-2013, 03:45 PM

Originally Posted by sychodelix

Wow, that thing was uuugly when you first got it, but looks great now. Nice job!

+1 The patience he must have, huh? I just got an estate Brigham with a similarly damaged stem end. I wish I had Jack's resolve and resourcefulness but instead of reconstructing the bit with epoxy like he did, I will probably just have a new stem made, which is unfortunate because it probably won't have the Brigham dots, which is part of its charm, IMO.

@Jack,
You mentioned that you gave the stem a "bleach 50/50 treatment." What is that?

@Jason,
On the fence about about burley? Try some of these: Aged Burley Flake, Old Dark Fired, 3P's, Irish Flake, JackKnife Plug, Stonehaven, Silver Flake, Dark Strong Flake/Dark Kentucky, Kendal Kentucky, Dark Flake Unscented, Dark Plug, Stormfront, Revor Plug, Mick McQuaid Plug and Warrior Plug. I've tried only about half of them, and all but ABF, KK (all Burley) and Stormfront (Burley-cigar leaf) are Burley-Virginia blends, but most of them boast many reviews that mention them being responsible for opening up people to the joys of Burley.