You Gotta Love It When a Plan Comes Together

So there I was, the Friday before Fathers Day.  Came home from work to find a box had come for me in the mail.  I'd been waiting on a four digit Kaywoodie Carburator  I had recently won on Ebay so there was no doubt about what was in the box.

I tore into it with the unbridled exuberance that only a new pipe or tobacco shipment can bring.  To call the pipe unimposing would be the understatement of the century.  It was downright hideous and talk about a cake!  I doubt I could get half a Marlboro full of tobacco into this thing and it's a medium billiard.  I knew by looking at it that once the years of mistreatment were taken away and all the goo was leached out of the bowl and scrubbed out of the shank, this was going to be an absolute killer smoke.  Pipes just don't get smoking chambers the size of your pee hole by being a bad smoke or a poorly designed pipe.  No doubt in my mind this pipe was going to ROCK!

The exterior of the bit I would have to say was the easiest part.  Don't get me wrong, it was oxidized but not extremely so.  Other than that most things that could go wrong did (rusted out stinger, ridiculous carbon cake, overturned step etc.)  Structurally though, the pipe was pretty sound (no cracks or gaping dents).  I found it quite remarkable that with a cake that thick, the simple act of smoking had not split a huge crack in the bowl.  Most of that night and most of the day on Saturday was spent fixing this old classic up.  I finally got the bowl to where I could actually stick a finger to the bottom.  After that, several waves of salt and alcohol were employed.  While the salt and alcohol cured (eventually turning the salt a very tarry, thick and foul smelling UPS truck brown color) I went to work on the stinger.  I can only compare it to a sunken ship or ditched airplane that has been in the ocean for 40-50 years.  It was at least 3 different colors but the predominant one was an old rust orange that would have easily passed for algae or an off color lyken.  Brasso has never failed me and today was no exception.  A paper towel, some Brasso and elbow grease and about 30-45 minutes and the stinger probably looked as shiny as the day the pipe was made back in 1936.  I've never had to do the Salt and Alcohol Treatment more than once but I did it three times on this pipe waiting at least 12 hours in between.  They got progressively less gummed and by the third one after about a 16 hour cure, the salt was just a little off white.  A scrub of the shank was equally challenging and went through quite a few bristle pipe cleaners.  By Sunday morning it was down to the fine detaling.  Closely inspected the entire pipe and ran another plethora of pipe cleaners through it until a fuzzy one would come out totally clean from anywhere in the pipe.  I shined up the bit with polishing compound and the briar with neutral shoe polish and presto it looked beautiful.

My weekend could not have ended any better.  By dinner time on Fathers Day I was out by my pool on a very hot Florida Summer day with a cold Bud in one hand and a beautiful pipe full of Prince Albert in the other.  This pipe really did clean up beautifully and it could almost pass for a brand new pipe.  The more I smoke this pipe the more I like it.  Almost as if it were thanking me for returning it to its former glory by being the best smoke possible.  Old Kaywoodies like this are just like some ugly old mongrel dog you run across at the pound and barely manage to save from euthenasia.  He's ugly and no one wants him but you just saw something special about him.  In return he becomes your best friend and constant companion.  Without a doubt this plan certainly came together.

This weekend I have no pipe projects but the weekend after that, I should have a four digit in hand that I just won tonight.  The adventure continues.