Steaming out a dented pipe rim.

1st attempt at steaming dents out of a pipe rim.

The poor pipe was a Guildhall by Comoy's that dates to the 70's or 80's.



I hate to admit it, but many years ago I was the denter (I don't think denter is even a word)... I used have a ashtray with one of the cork knobs to tap the ash out with. I removed it, because I could not figure out why you would want something flammable in an ashtray. Only later did I learn that you were supposed to gently tap the pipe on the the cork....


Using steam to raise dented wood fibers is a common repair technique used on both furniture and pipes. I found two helpful links on steaming out dents on the Pipe Smoker Forum, I'm sure there is information in other places as well.

http://pipesmokersforum.com/forum/index.php?/topic/6280-success-with-steaming-a-dent/page__p__97981__hl__dents__fromsearch__1#entry97981

http://pipesmokersforum.com/forum/index.php?/topic/4298-hole-dent-stem-fix/page__p__68654__hl__dents__fromsearch__1#entry68654

Warning! This post chronicles what I did to repair this pipe. The repair was not perfect, in fact, I even burnt the rim some. This was a risk I was willing to take with my pipe. I am not a qualified tobacco pipe repair person. This post is for entertainment purposes only!

The dented rim. 

I figured that some of the wax and tar would need to be removed to somewhat expose the wood allowing the steam to penetrate the wood fibers. I wanted to remove as little wood and finish as possible so I used very fine 1500 grit paper and gave the rim a very light sanding.

Very light sanding with 1500 grit paper.

The lightly sanded rim. I actually don't think I removed much, if any wood. Note the lower part of the rim is faded, this was not the result of anything done today.....

I thought I would wet the dents first and give the water some time (5-10 minutes) to soak in.

Water sitting on the dents.

Many people use an iron as the heat source and I might have been better off using one? I reasoned that I wanted to heat as little of the rim as possible so I thought I would try a soldering iron. You can't really see this tip in my photo, but is was a chisel tip with flat sides like the upper tip in this photo. 

I saturated a folded paper towel, placed it over the dent, and pressed the iron on top for 1 to 2 seconds to generate the steam. Each spot got 4 or 5 quick applications.

Soldering iron and wet paper towel.

Note the clear lines where the dents were. The grain really did rise, but notice the burn spot on the right most side of the rim. I think I missed the wet paper towel.....

OK, the steam did raise the dents and I burnt part of the rim. I'm not sure if I missed the paper towel or just held it there too long and it dried all the water... Live and learn...

I let the rim dry for awhile and gave the rim and the whole pipe a VERY light sanding with the 1500 grit paper and then cleaned the whole pipe up with some alcohol before buffing with carnauba wax.

Ready for buffing. The tissue in the bowl to prevent wax dust from getting into the bowl. Note that the wood and stem shank are somewhat dull from the light sanding.

OK, it looks better, not great, but better..

All finished. The first thing I noticed was the light area on the rim (lowest part of the rim in this photo). I thought I did this, but I actually think is was faded by the sun. But the faded area is also the only region that has the dark stain in the grain. Not sure what's going on here.

The dented rim before. 

Rim after dent removal.

Here is the whole Comoy's Guildhall, all polished up and ready to go!

Another close up of the repair, faded region, and burn (the burn mark is at 2 o'clock on the outer rim).

The repair was not perfect but looks better than when I started. The two dents, especially because they were aligned, would catch my eye and remind me of my bad pipemenship... You can still pick them out in these photos, but keep in mind that most of these pictures are larger then the pipes actual size. Under normal lighting and without magnification the pipe does look fairly good; I figure that after being smoked a few times the rim will darken and mask some of the fading.

Photo of the pipe taken inside. Under normal lighting the faded stain on the rim and remnants of the dents are not nearly as noticeable.