Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Kaywoodie Standard 95B and Richard's pipe tool

Kaywoodie Standard 95B

     While in NJ last weekend my wife and I visited the Golden Nugget flea market (known as the "Nugget" by locals). We made it there on Saturday morning, evidently Sunday is the big day. If you're in NJ the Nugget is worth going to. Its a mix of antiques and other odds and ends. I only found one vendor with some pipes and picked up this very sad looking Kaywoodie for 3 dollars. It's stamped "Standard" and 95B (shape number). I know nothing about Kaywoodie pipes (here is a good Kaywoodie link) other than they are very common and not worth all that much, but I figured I needed to pick something up while I was there and it seems hard to go wrong for three dollars. The stinger has 4 holes which seems to indicate the pipe is Pre 1960's ?.
I didn't realize that the aluminum collar was supposed to stay on the shank, although the stinger was so stuck I don't think I could have removed it in any other way.

Very darkened rim on a Kaywoodie 95B.
Big time gunk on the stinger.


This pipe needed a serious cleaning. The singer and shank were so gummed up I'm not sure that the pipe would have had a draw (I wasn't going to try).  Removal of the treaded collar that screws into the shank took about a day of soaking in alcohol, heating, cooling, and twisting.... Cleaning the gum out of the shank took what seemed like a box of q-tips; the stem took almost a pack of bristled pipe cleaners.... Unfortunately, I put the treading collar on the pipe to bring it back to Ohio, and couldn't get it back off when I got home, prevented me from running a drill bit through the shank to remove some of the hardened gum which would have been a real time saver.

Here it is mostly cleaned up.

Some burn marks and dents remain, but the pipe is much better than before.



Not visible in the "after" photos is a deep tooth mark on the upper surface of the bit. I don't think I can sand it out completely without weakening the stem to the point of failure. More work is needed on the stem, but I'm going to see how the pipe smokes before investing more time in it.

I also picked up a little pipe tool/knife for 4 dollars (Richard's made in Sheffield England). It had some rust spots and scratched blade (some kind of bizarre sharping accident I think). 

Richard's pipe tool. Hey, who's that in the background...


I like the streetlight in the logo.

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