First time restoration attempt. How'd I do?

racinghoss · Mon Mar 04, 2019 12:24 pm

I snagged this beat to hell Grabow on eBay for $5, including shipping. *I forgot to take "before" pics, so screenshots of the eBay ad will have to do.

racinghoss · Mon Mar 04, 2019 12:29 pm

After:

racinghoss · Mon Mar 04, 2019 12:30 pm

racinghoss · Mon Mar 04, 2019 12:32 pm

Lessons learned:

I burned a spot. I'm sure you'll point it out.
I left the minor tooth chatter untouched. I should've tried the candle trick. After all, this was an experiment to learn on.

Question:. Would restaining it have covered the numerous fills?

Houtenziel · Mon Mar 04, 2019 1:57 pm

racinghoss wrote: ↑Mon Mar 04, 2019 12:32 pm Lessons learned:

I burned a spot. I'm sure you'll point it out.
I left the minor tooth chatter untouched. I should've tried the candle trick. After all, this was an experiment to learn on.

Question:. Would restaining it have covered the numerous fills?

Looks a whole heck of a lot better! Great job. Restaining would lessen how much you see them, but you'd have to use a stain that was pretty dark to get them to disappear entirely. If the rim damage bothers you, you could put some sand paper around a block of wood, top the pipe a tad, and then bevel the inner rim with a piece of sand paper.
The only other thing I can offer is on the stem - I think everyone rounds the edge of the stem that meets the shank their first few times. To prevent this you can sand with the shank masked off, or you can do what I d0, and find a couple thin plastic washers that I put over the tenon and stick back into the pipe. Even an old bread bag plastic clip thing works well(actually I still use them sometimes).
Like so:

racinghoss · Mon Mar 04, 2019 2:04 pm

Hmmmm... I did sand the top of the rim, alot, with a block. The damage looks alot better, but I didn't want to take a full cm off the top. I didn't think of beveling the inside. What damage is left doesn't really bother me, but that's a neat trick I'll keep in mind. Thanks.

I didn't even realize I'd rounded the stem! Thanks for that too too!

racinghoss · Mon Mar 04, 2019 2:06 pm

Maybe I should send it to Fr_Tom and let him build up a good rim cake! That'd hide the nicks!

Mon Mar 04, 2019 2:10 pm

racinghoss wrote: ↑Mon Mar 04, 2019 2:06 pm Maybe I should send it to Fr_Tom and let him build up a good rim cake! That'd hide the nicks!

I am NOT a fan of the topped bowl. If I can tell it has been topped, it bothers me. Having said that I have bought a few knowing that they had been topped by a drunk monkey from the pictures. Rimcake will hide a lot of damage, and once I can't see the topped bowl, the memory of it gets slowly erased from the memory banks.

Houtenziel · Mon Mar 04, 2019 2:11 pm

racinghoss wrote: ↑Mon Mar 04, 2019 2:04 pm Hmmmm... I did sand the top of the rim, alot, with a block. The damage looks alot better, but I didn't want to take a full cm off the top. I didn't think of beveling the inside. What damage is left doesn't really bother me, but that's a neat trick I'll keep in mind. Thanks.

I didn't even realize I'd rounded the stem! Thanks for that too too!

Rounding happens to the best of us.

The first 3-4 pipes I did were about 5 times worse due to me using the thick soft micromesh sponges.. they looked like fancy Danish bits when I was done..

That thing looks great, and I would smoke that sucker. I agree on the topping, since when you take too much off the profile of the pipe changes and it looks funny(I hate heavily topped pipes, almost as much as tiny pointless fills).

MikeDennison · Mon Mar 04, 2019 2:20 pm

Great job, sir! Looks fantastic!