Refurbishing stems with a logo/stamp

[tritrek]

Hello All,
from time to time one needs to repolish the stems of his pipes, or maybe a stem of an estate pipe that has a logo on it (P on Petersons, etc...).
It is pressed into the stem and painted white (most often). My problem is that when you polish the stem it just disappears, e.g. the white paint gets "polished out" from the stem. Are you aware of any process that avoids this annoying fact or a way to protect a logo while polishing? Thanks!

[Frank]

Hello All,
from time to time one needs to repolish the stems of his pipes, or maybe a stem of an estate pipe that has a logo on it (P on Petersons, etc...).
It is pressed into the stem and painted white (most often). My problem is that when you polish the stem it just disappears, e.g. the white paint gets "polished out" from the stem. Are you aware of any process that avoids this annoying fact or a way to protect a logo while polishing? Thanks!

This is a bit time consuming, but it works for me. I use a scriber to deepen the original logo. I then use white acrylic paint (if the logo is white) to fill the logo. At this stage it looks a bit messy, but when the paint is dry, I sand off the excess which leaves the paint only in the logo. After progressively finer grits, I buff to a shine.

[tritrek]

Sounds great, thanks! i think a fine dremel bit would do...

[Frank]

Sounds great, thanks! i think a fine dremel bit would do...

I hope you have a very steady hand or the dremel bit will run all over the place. Let us know if you have success with the dremel.