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I recently had one of my pipes come back to me. Produced in February 2017, I was happy to get it back-I really liked it while making it..
Unfortunately, last summer while I was at my outside smoking station, it fell to the ground un noticed, and I shifted my heavy teak chair right on top of it, crushing the mortise area of the shank.
It has been sitting on my desk in its forlorn condition since then.
I finally was able to repair it satisfactorily using a modified version of the J Alan Military Mortise kit.
1) Blurry photo of the pipe Feb 2017

2) Post Crush Injury

3) Because of the nature of the damage, I did not think that I could get epoxy (my preferred adhesive) into all of the cracks, so I elected to use a thin CA glue which would spread into the fine cracks by capillary action. I taped around the shank with electrical tape mainly to cushion the briar and clamped it with a C clamp after gluing.

4) This glue job had to be reinforced, but the shank has a reverse taper and cannot be fitted with an external band. It would have been possible to fit a shank adornment with a lot of finagling getting the stummel lined up for turning, but I elected to use a method inspired from the J Alan Military Mortise kit. A pilot of Delrin is in the mortise. The pilot was turned to the ID of the 1/2” piece of toothed brass tubing. The toothed brass tubing was turned by hand to produce the recess for the brass reinforcing ring.

5) Cutting the reinforcing ring on the lathe. Because of the taper and narrow mortise wall, this has to be short-about the same as the thickness of the tube wall.

6) Ring and recess.

7) The pipe was cleaned of excess glue, given a light sand blast, re stained and waxed. The end of the shank was sanded and re finished.


Except for the screwed up stamping, The pipe looks very close to its pre crush condition.
R/
DocAitch

Nice repair there, lucky you had enough material on the shank.

caskwith wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 5:13 am Nice repair there, lucky you had enough material on the shank.

Yes. The fact that the 1/2” tubing would just fit between the mortise and the external surface was what made the repair possible.
The minimal tolerances made hand cutting the recess necessary.
I was pleased that I could cut it by hand, I had previously used my drill press and clamp for this task.
DocAitch

Sweet.

Your inner repairman is starting to emerge.

Soon, you will categorically reject the merest thought connected with making new pipes, and spend all your time doing repair work. And all your sleep time dreaming about it.

This is your future.

Do not resist. Happiness awaits.

George,
After doing this repair, I split the shank on a beautiful Ruthenberg blast while replacing the stem. I am contemplating several ideas to restore its functionality, but am afraid that its collector value is markedly reduced. I am going to purchase it from its unhappy owner (who was going to sell it anyway)
I am going to be very careful about accepting repairs in the future.
More for you.
DocAitch

I took on a repair job recently for a customer, I normally refuse all repair work (on pipes I didn't make), partly because it's badly paid annoying work and of course the issues with payment, postage etc. Because he is a local guy and very persuasive I caved and said yes, of course I soon wished I hadn't, right ball ache of a job and not worth the money in the end, but it made him happy and hopefully will encourage a future sale.

LatakiaLover wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 9:47 pm Sweet.

Your inner repairman is starting to emerge.

Soon, you will categorically reject the merest thought connected with making new pipes, and spend all your time doing repair work. And all your sleep time dreaming about it.

This is your future.

Do not resist. Happiness awaits.

As I read this, I pictured you swinging a pocket watch back and forth in a "You're getting very sleepy" sort of way.