pipemakersforum.com

What I'm planning might be the first time anyone's ever done it. (To a reasonably valuable collectable pipe, anyway).

I like classic Dublins and have a number of them, so when I spotted a decent Dunhill 848 in good condition at the St. Louis show this past weekend I nabbed it. (They're semi-scarce)

Its only problem was somebody was asleep at the switch back in 1959 and cut the bowl slightly wonky. (The top line of a proper Dublin bowl should always be exactly perpendicular to its center axis, and this one wasn't. The front was too high.)

It sounds like a nitpick, but such things bug the shit out of me. For some reason whenever I look at a classic with a shaping error that's all I see. Because it was something I could set right, though, I bought it anyway.

I can hear the collecting world's purists howling already.

Anyway, that's it. A slightly strange situation that I thought this board might get a kick out of. Shoving a perfectly good rare-ish old Dunhill into a disk sander isn't something you see every day.

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The first pipe is another 848 with the correct bowl rim angle, and the second one is the soon-to-be patient:
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Are you going to straighten the shank lines while you're at it? [FACE WITH STUCK-OUT TONGUE AND WINKING EYE]

No matter. I'm sure ebay bidders wouldn't mind too much.

Speaking of shanks, it appears that the length of your patient's shank is longer than the "good" one. I was under the impression that fixed tooling produced the stummels. Were production workers free to make adjustments on their own? Or was there a change in the design at some point? Or???

While you're at it, that shank does look wonky as hell.
I don't see anything wrong with fixing up an old factory pipe, they are by no means unique pieces, they came popping out of copying machines, the fact that guys get all wet when they see a white dot on a stem doesn't mean it's an invaluable piece of art

I have a Celsius Queen that had one side wall thicker than the other. It drove me crazy, it is otherwise a nice pipe. After looking at it for a year, I took a file to it and evened up the bowl, then refinished it.
I am happy now.
DocAitch

Dunhill shanks always have some "pencil grind" to them because of how they were leveled. The bloat on this one from too much bowl/shank joint tightening is ugly, but (obviously) can't be fixed completely because of the nomenclature. It's top line might be tweakable, though. If the necessary flattening/straightening can be blended invisibly I'll do that, too. (I have to do some experiments to see how light will reflect off a cylinder that's been modified that way... the cure might be worse than the disease)

As for the different shank lengths, that's Dunhill all the way. Stummels turned out whatever length they turned out (dictated by block size, I imagine), and the stem was cut to accommodate. Meaning the stem-shank ratio varied quite a bit, but the overall length of a shape number was consistent (usually to within 1/8").

DocAitch wrote:I have a Celsius Queen that had one side wall thicker than the other. It drove me crazy, it is otherwise a nice pipe. After looking at it for a year, I took a file to it and evened up the bowl, then refinished it.
I am happy now.

You, sir, understand.

W.Pastuch wrote:...a white dot on a stem doesn't mean it's an invaluable piece of art

How DARE you, Sir!

FWIW, that rim angle would drive me bonkers, too. So would the bulge in the shank, though.