Stain off the stummel looking for the cause.

[TimGeorge]

That's good stuff, Todd. Thanks.

[mredmond]

Indeed. Now I understand why my pipes are never as shiny as I think they should be.

Thanks!

- Micah

[CedarSlayer]

The posts on this thread regarding finish, are superb. Thank you so much all of you who have contributed. As a someone fairly inexperienced in pipe making this was just what I needed to know at this moment.

As far as securing dyes, I have a very reliable method that I have used repeatedly with great success. I don't think it is entirely appropriate for pipes, but with some modifications I suspect it will be. I do a lot of odd woodwork, but, once again, my pipe specific skills and experience are limited.

My method for securing a potentially staining water or alcohol soluble dye is to melt a wax coating into the surface so that some penetration is assured. Here is an example of my using dark cherry coolaid to dye a small white oak handle and afterward boiling it in a homemade waxing compound. http://toolmakingart.com/2008/08/04/imp ... ratch-awl/ I have used this method extensively with great success.

I suspect that carnauba well buffed, will tend to be heat driven into the pipe and do a good job of sealing most stains. From what I know about wood, I would suspect that this would be about the best natural polish that you could use for a pipe.

As the pipe was described, a micro fracture in the stummel could have held a damp pocket of stain and easily have been driven out by the heat of the first burn. If this is the case, then this would have been prevented if the pipe had spent a while resting on a shelf before delivery. Unless the following possibility happened.

He might have cleaned his pipe first. Using rum, vodka, scotch or whatever other whiskey appeals to them is a very common method of pipe cleaning and sanitation. Most instructions will tell you wet a pipe cleaner with it, but I would not be surprised if any random and isolated pipe smoker decided to fill the bowl with spirits and even let them set there for a while. A bowl no damper to the touch than the tobacco being used, could well have hidden a pocket that would turn to steam and drive out the cooler moisture, sending dye with it.

In any case a repeated friction buff of wax would have probably prevented these issues. Carnauba is tough stuff.

Bob

[ToddJohnson]

Hey Bob,

While I appreciate your very thoughtful reply and respect your obvious familiarity with other things wood, I think the potential factors you cite for the leeching of the stain, are unlikely to have played much of a role: heat, a micro-fissure full of wet stain, the pipe being soaked in spirits, etc. These are simply not things that happen with pipes or, so far as I have ever seen, pipe smokers. Similarly, as you note, the methods you're using for dying other wooden objects--boiling in a waxing compound, for instance--simply aren't applicable to pipes. Carnauba, when properly applied to a pipe, is less than a few microns thick. Also, briar is extremely dense, and when sanded to ~500 grit has no real "pores" into which liquid carnauba could be forced. I think if you stick to any of the several lists of procedures posted here, you should have pretty good luck, though.

Todd

[KurtHuhn]

It should come as no surprise that I agree with everything in Todd's post. Briar is a very very different wood than everything else I've ever touched. The only thing I've ever worked into a shape, that has come close to how briar works, is aluminum.

[CedarSlayer]

I appreciate the heads up! I have a few chunks of briar now, but I am continuing to work with other woods until I am comfortable with the forms, so I will remain somewhat ignorant for a while to come.

It is considerably cheaper to mess up a chunk of firewood than it is to mangle briar, so until I am quite comfortable with producing several classic forms consistently, I plan to continue working with ash, oak and mesquite. Mesquite is quite far from being an inexpensive wood, but it is still a bargain when compared to the price of briar. After I cut off the extra chunks of briar for shaping a pipe, I will then do a few experiments with small chunks. Mostly with finishes. I doubt that permeating a briar with wax is the ideal in any case. I have read that the Dunhill pipes received an oil cure in the early years, and inferred that hot wax could also manage some permeation.

White oak is fairly impermeable, that is why it is used for barrels, but it is a bit permeable which is why it is used for whiskey barrels. In order to penetrate white oak, I melt the wax into turpentine to increase it's penetration. The last thing I want to do to an innocent briar however is to use turpentine on it.

The unique qualities of briar are part of what has lured me into pipe making. Few woods produce the ranges of grain that you can find in briar.

Bob

[TRS]

In regards to the wiping of the pipe with alcohol, are you guys who do it wiping immediately or letting it set a bit first?

Edit: I've tried this a few times and always wiped as quickly as possible after applying stain; I'm assuming it wouldn't do much, if any, good to let the stain set for a few minutes...? Kinda defeats the purpose I'd guess? But I always end up taking a good bit of the wet stain off, or it dries quicker than I can get to wiping.

[ND Pipes]

This will happen if you buff the pipe first and then apply stain (without sanding in between). It may look fine, but as soon as someone's hand sweats on it, the stain will come off.

Rad's method is great for an even, pretty finish on most shapes. If you're going for higher contrast, however, or if you're doing something that is nearly impossible to buff the stain off of uniformly--like a full bent or something very intricately carved--you might want to try this:

1. Sand to 220 on the wheel.
2. Wet the pipe. If there are still scratches, return to step 1 and repeat. If there are no scratches move on to step 3.
3. Sand with 400 on the wheel. This wheel should be soft and leave few to no facets.
4. After sanding on the wheel with 400, sand by hand with a worn out piece of 400 (or you could use 500).
5. Apply the dark stain until it's basically opaque.
5. Buff the dark stain off evenly using brown tripoli. If there are any remaining scratches, buff them out now.
6. Sand again using the same piece of worn out 400. You should be wearing a cotton glove on your non sanding hand or the sweat from your hand will reanimate the stain dust and put color back on the pipe. This is the most important step to achieve high contrast, so sand carefully and evenly.
7. Stain over the dark stain with a lighter stain (I usually use Yellow) and try to do it in one single pass. Do not overlap your strokes if you can avoid it or you'll lift the dark stain and create one uniform mottled color. You don't want that.
8. Take the same pipecleaner, dip it in a little shellac that's been cut with alcohol and apply a single coat of shellac to the pipe. You can let it set up and dry, or you can wipe it off. If you wipe it off, though, you'll lighten the color significantly.
9. With a different tripoli wheel that's very lightly charged with compound, buff the pipe lightly. You should not remove any color, here. It should just give the pipe a nice even shine.
10. Buff with white diamond.
11. Buff with wax at around 650 RPM's. If you buff at a higher speed with wax, you'll need to buff with a clean wheel afterwards to even the finish.

*Steps 8-11 must be done while wearing gloves or you'll never get a deep glossy finish.

TJ

TJ - this is great - thank You... (i tried it partially (the pipe is not finished yet))...
i would like to know - when You applying the wax - do You press briar harder onto the wheel (when using it with 650rpm's) or lighter...
thank You...

[ToddJohnson]

This will happen if you buff the pipe first and then apply stain (without sanding in between). It may look fine, but as soon as someone's hand sweats on it, the stain will come off.

Rad's method is great for an even, pretty finish on most shapes. If you're going for higher contrast, however, or if you're doing something that is nearly impossible to buff the stain off of uniformly--like a full bent or something very intricately carved--you might want to try this:

1. Sand to 220 on the wheel.
2. Wet the pipe. If there are still scratches, return to step 1 and repeat. If there are no scratches move on to step 3.
3. Sand with 400 on the wheel. This wheel should be soft and leave few to no facets.
4. After sanding on the wheel with 400, sand by hand with a worn out piece of 400 (or you could use 500).
5. Apply the dark stain until it's basically opaque.
5. Buff the dark stain off evenly using brown tripoli. If there are any remaining scratches, buff them out now.
6. Sand again using the same piece of worn out 400. You should be wearing a cotton glove on your non sanding hand or the sweat from your hand will reanimate the stain dust and put color back on the pipe. This is the most important step to achieve high contrast, so sand carefully and evenly.
7. Stain over the dark stain with a lighter stain (I usually use Yellow) and try to do it in one single pass. Do not overlap your strokes if you can avoid it or you'll lift the dark stain and create one uniform mottled color. You don't want that.
8. Take the same pipecleaner, dip it in a little shellac that's been cut with alcohol and apply a single coat of shellac to the pipe. You can let it set up and dry, or you can wipe it off. If you wipe it off, though, you'll lighten the color significantly.
9. With a different tripoli wheel that's very lightly charged with compound, buff the pipe lightly. You should not remove any color, here. It should just give the pipe a nice even shine.
10. Buff with white diamond.
11. Buff with wax at around 650 RPM's. If you buff at a higher speed with wax, you'll need to buff with a clean wheel afterwards to even the finish.

*Steps 8-11 must be done while wearing gloves or you'll never get a deep glossy finish.

TJ

TJ - this is great - thank You... (i tried it partially (the pipe is not finished yet))...
i would like to know - when You applying the wax - do You press briar harder onto the wheel (when using it with 650rpm's) or lighter...
thank You...

Use a very soft hand and press the pipe only very lightly against the wheel. Use only a minimal amount of wax. If you have the capability to adjust the speed of your buffing motor, you may want to apply the wax to the wheel at around 850-1000 rpm's because it's very difficult to get wax onto the wheel at 650 rpm's. Once you've applied it to the wheel, adjust the speed down to 650 and then apply it to the pipe.

TJ

[ToddJohnson]

With respect to "wiping the pipe down with alcohol" after staining it, I don't know who does this, and I can't imagine why it would be a good idea. This is only going to yield a muddy finish. Where did you see that recommended?

TJ

[TRS]

With respect to "wiping the pipe down with alcohol" after staining it, I don't know who does this, and I can't imagine why it would be a good idea. This is only going to yield a muddy finish. Where did you see that recommended?

TJ

Rad, Briarfox and prosmoking mentioned it on the previous page. When I was searching through older posts some months ago someone else had recommended it to even out your staining, which is why I had originally started trying it. All I've found it to do so far is really lightening the stain and taking off a bit more than I'd like....

[ND Pipes]

Use a very soft hand and press the pipe only very lightly against the wheel. Use only a minimal amount of wax. If you have the capability to adjust the speed of your buffing motor, you may want to apply the wax to the wheel at around 850-1000 rpm's because it's very difficult to get wax onto the wheel at 650 rpm's. Once you've applied it to the wheel, adjust the speed down to 650 and then apply it to the pipe.

TJ

TJ - thank You so much - i can do that.... for applying carnauba i am using a wheel mounted horizontaly on a drill press so it would not be a problem to shift into a first gear (i believe it is 850rmp's)... thank You so much....

[TreverT]

What I would still like to find, after 12 years doing this, is a reliable way to produce an even dark stain on a really complex shape without having to go back and retouch bright spots, high spots, etc. Think I've tried (and invented) at least fifty different custom sanding bits for the Foredom over the years, but still never can quite get the one-pass result I would like, which is to say, an evenly dark stain without retouching. Can't stop staining at 500, because final sanding and buffing will just take off the even stain color and leave a light finish with stained grain only. The problem is that the final stain coat needs to be locked down pretty firmly (to keep from rubbing off on edges during handling), which means the pipe can't be sanded to any high grit, but dark stain in lower grits tends to make every scratch VERY visible after buffing and glossing (Meaning, if you sand to 500 and apply stain, then lightly buff and wax, you'll usually have a visible tracework of 500 grit scratches all over the surface). But, buff the scratches out with white compound and there goes the top layer of stain, leaving you with the "stain in grain only" look again. You can get away with this if the final stain color is something light, but if it's dark, it really amplifies the 500 grit scratchwork...or else you buff hard enough to remove the scratches, and the top color goes away.

If anyone is curious, I'm referring specifically to the hassles of sanding & staining some of my Halloween pipe shapes, where I might be applying a black understain, buffing that back, re-sanding, and want to apply a dark final stain.... but of course, every move or angle of the buffing will leave *some* edge or surface bright-spotted and requiring careful re-staining and retouching to even it out. PITA.

So far the closest I've come to workable solutions is one that is a total trade secret (and is only workable with certain final stain colors) or melting carnuba onto the pipe and hand-rubbing it in, to avoid the buffing stage entirely and dodge the hot spot issue.