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Irish Pipe Dad, 9880 Garvey Drive, Philadelphia, PA (2025)

08/08/2025

Lastly is another opportunity to grab a cheap Dunhill pipe. This one is a 1979 Dunhill #315, Shell Briar Group 3 with a fishtail stem. However this poor pipe was apparently someone’s favorite as it was smoked to the ends of the earth! Some extremely overzealous sanding attempted to remove some darkening on the bottom along one side of the bowl. This inturn created a divot. In addition the walls were worn very thin at the top, requiring material added to them. With all work considered pipe can now labor on until it’s called home…US100CONUS

08/08/2025

Looking to rehome a 1965 Dunhill Prince Shell Briar, beautiful finish, Group 4, fishtail stem, US300CONUS…

08/08/2025

Looking to rehome a 1948 Dunhill #36 Root Buyere Patent Pipe, beautiful finish, spring fl**ge inner tube w/patent stamp, Group 4, tapered stem, Billiard style….Very rare pipe….US500CONUS…

08/08/2025

Looking to rehome a 1944 Dunhill #186 Shell Briar Patent Pipe, beautiful finish, inner tube, Group 4 tapered stem, Billiard style. US285CONUS

08/08/2025

Looking to rehome a 1991 Dunhill #4103 Buyere, beautiful finish, Group 4, tapered stem, Billiard style. US385CONUS…

08/08/2025

Looking to rehome a 1990 Dunhill #6103 Buyere, beautiful finish, inner tube, Group 6, tapered stem, Billiard style. US425CONUS…

01/10/2025

Happy Friday everyone hope this finds you doing well. I know it’s been a while since I posted. My health has been causing issues for the past two years. But now hopefully everything is good .
A friend of mine Elton Steven reached out to me about a Peterson pipe he recently acquired. It was a rare post car Republic Peterson 405S Prince. They were made around 1979 and not in production long. He stated the pipe looked good but had a burn mark in the bottom if the bowl.
I recieved the pipe and confirmed the bottom of the was starting to burnout. Luckily it did not burn all the way through….so I got to work. I cut a plug of briar to fit the bottom of the bottom. I then epoxied it into the pipe. Afterwards using a Dremel with a shaping bit I cleaned up the inside of the bowl.
Next I turned my attention to the stummel. Cleaning and wet sanding the outside, I was able to remove just about all of the burnt spot. Final sanding then color and finish coat.
Lastly was the stem, Elton really wanted to keep the Peterson “P” on it. So I cleaned out the stamp and applied color. After that I proceeded to clean and restore the stem. When it was finished the stamping was still there and looked good. Hope you enjoy…!!!

01/16/2022

A friend of mine reached out to me recently about a very common problem amongst pipers. Apparently one of his furry family members took a liking to one of his pipes and basically used it as a chew toy. He wasn’t sure if there was any way to save it. He sent me some pictures and “I said send it along!”
When he packaged it he also sent along another pipe in which the acrylic extension had cracked. When I got them, I just laughed looking at the pipe the dog got. It was a Savinelli Trevi 320 and thankfully was a rusticated version. The other was a custom pipe a with a hairline crack down the extension.
I tackled the Savinelli first and with a case like this the only thing to do is fill and replace the lost briar. This is basically done over a period of time by filling with C/A glue and briar dust. Luckily with this pipe, fidos chewing was just on the outside of the pipe with no damage or pe*******on to the bowl. So really it boils down to cosmetic work. So after several days of this process it finally started looking like a pipe again. So I started final shaping then rusticated the pipe over again tying the repairs and undamaged parts of the pipe together. Then stained the pipe, buffed it out and put a final gloss coating on the pipe.
At this point I turned my attention to the other pipe. I sanded the extension and discovered it was not acrylic but actually horn. So I fixed the crack with some black C/A glue and clamped it. After it dried, I sanded it and tested the stem…boom! It cracked again. So at that point I discovered two things. One that the horn had dried and shrunk and that the stem hole and tenon where no longer the same size.
So back to the glue, clamping and sanding routine. At this point I took some calipers and measured the tenon and stem opening. Tenon was 7mm and the opening was 6.5mm. Ok so I took a 7mm drill bit and vise grips and ran it through the extension and cleaned out the hole. The test fitted the stem and Bingo!!
Next I applied some mineral oil to the extension and wet sanded it into the horn with 1200/2800/3000 grit micro pads reapplying the oil with each pass. Then after wiping it down, I applied some restoration balm from Mark Hamilton to the horn for extra protection.
I am happy to say that both pieces are now done awaiting a bowl coating on my bench and the will be out that door next week. I told me customer both pipe should be fine, but that he should probably invest in few more chew toys for the dogs to prevent any future mishaps again….

12/14/2021

Afternoon to everyone. For those who follow my page I restore and repair pipes. I used to work pretty much exclusively for Val but since his passing I am going to try and strike out in my own. I want to put everything under my handle is Irishpipedad….hence the site name change.
I also have a lot of estates that I will be working on fixing and cleaning to sell here on my site. I want to be able to provide estate pipes that are clean, work well and are affordable, so people can buy them.
Please bear with me as the changes come. While it maybe slow it will eventually happen. So I look forward to dealing with you all for your repair and restoration needs, or by possibly selling you a new used pipe for your collection.
Until then stay safe, stay healthy but above all stay smokey!…Slainte!

10/06/2021

Evening to everyone in the Shire tonight. Thought I would share with you a gentleman’s pipe that he recently sent me to work on for him. His Peterson Killarney 408 developed a bubble in the finish that popped and he wanted to know if I could re-finish the pipe. I said sure send it along.
When I received the pipe, the only defective issue that In could “see”, was the pocked mark in the finish he spoke of. However if you address just what you see, it can come back to bite you in the arse!
As I started to wetsand to remove the finish coat, I could tell it was gonna be a total refinish, as the final coat was very thick. I believe the thickness of the final coat might have lead to the imperfections that cropped with the pipes finish. So I switched to a more aggressive grit of wet sandpaper to cut through the finish. Once I felt I was sufficiently through it, I switched back to a finer grit, as not to remove the contrast stain or any of the nomenclature.
Once I was happy, I wiped it down with alcohol, let it dry, then started recoloring the pipe. I went with Feiblings Red to match the original as much as possible. The factory finish is a tad darker, which might be a tint added to the stain or final finish itself. However I confident that buffing with tripoli after the stain dries would help to tone it down.
When the pipe was dry, I buffed out the color and as I thought, it came out very nice. The next step was to wipe the pipe down with a tac rag and apply the finish coat.
I have experimented with finishing my pipes several ways and came about my current method for one simple fact….it works with both smooth and rusticated finishes! The product that I use is a lacquer based friction polish. For those who don’t know, a friction polish is typically used by people who woodturn. The coating is applied to the finished piece while on the lathe with a rag…and then spun at low speed. The friction of holding the rag against the piece applies the finish, sets it and gives the piece a nice high gloss.
I usually allow my final finish to dry for several hours before buffing it out. The finish coat should be thin, not gloopy. So you must also take care while buffing it out since you can “burn” right through it.
The pictures detail the journey of the pipe. I hope the gentleman is as happy with when he gets it, as I am with the final product…Slainte!

05/06/2021

I wanted to share with a recent score of mine an Ascorti New Dear pipe. I saw it languishing on eBay with not much action. It was a carved pipe with a lot of detail, however it had a cracked shank. And apparently at one time it had worn a repair band which left a nasty stain on the wood.
I first addressed the cracks to ensure the shank was secure. After that I worked on the stain around the shank. Unfortunately after much labor the results that came forth were disappointing, so I decided to rusticate the shank.
After cleaning out the bowl, I notice the chamber floor was much lower than the airway. This can not only lead to a poor smoke, but can also be a sign of over zealous scraping of the bottom of the bowl, which wears away the briar and leads to burnout.
I than used a mixture of epoxy to raise the chamber floor back up. After it dried I sanded and will bowl coat it. Next I turned to final finishing. I gave the whole pipe a coating of dark brown, then removing it where I wanted. I then used light brown on the exposed areas. After buffing it out with Tripoli, I put the final coat and polished the stem.
All and all I was happy with the results and now have my first Ascorti pipe in my collection purchased for the sum of $48 including shipping.

Irish Pipe Dad

08/08/2025

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