Houten - The Finale!

After base ebony stain, ready for final stain and finishing

Worked this week to complete Houten and finished on Saturday evening.  I will most likely give it a proper buff at Wayne's but for now I am happy enough with the results to post pictures.

With the stem complete, the last step was finishing the stummel.  I had the base ebony coat on for the contrast look I was trying to achieve.  After polishing and prepping for the actual contrast color, I mixed the red stain solution and donned my rubber gloves.  Wet the rag with the red stain and went to town on the stummel!  After it dried, another buff and then check the finish color.  Far too light, almost pink.  Bummer. Re-mix the solution with a touch more red, some orange and a bit of silver/grey.  Re-applied and the color started to come into hue.  Dried, buffed, re-applied.  I think I did this 4 or 5 times before the color was as I liked it.  But wait, what's this?!  I had a dent on the left side of the bowl I hadn't seen!  Ah, the aggravation!  I tried the 'steam' method to remove it, but that helped very little.  Grrr....  All that and I now have to sand the finish around the dent.  Oh well.  Sanded, reapplied the ebony and red stains and matched it up to the rest of the finish.  No harm, no foul.

Now for the final polish before applying wax.  I guess I should back up a bit.  I recently went to Harbor Freight and snagged a 'polishing kit' with two 3" buffing wheels that fit into a drill.  I used one to buff with the 'red tripoli' polish to prepare for stain and one to try out for applying carnauba wax on some other restoration pipes I am doing to check its usefulness.  I was very satisfied with the results for both wheels, but now had a problem.  I need a third wheel for applying 'white diamond' polish as a final polish before going for the wax.  So, I stopped my work for a while and took a trip to Menards.  Had a hard time finding any polishing wheels, but finally found an employee to direct me, to the hardware section.  Three aisles in, voila!  A flannel polishing wheel.  This one needed a separate arbor, and I was on my way.

Back home, I had promised to help a new neighbor move in after I returned.  That didn't take too long and I was back to pipe work.  Chucked up the new white diamond wheel, buffed, and how did the pipe shine!  Thrilled about the shine I went headlong into applying the wax.  Starting with my Dremel and a felt wheel I applied the wax, almost smearing it on.  Moved in sections around the pipe, applying and smoothing.  After the whole stummel was waxed, I took the wax buffing wheel I mentioned previously and 'dry buffed' for the final gloss.  And wow did it gloss!

I removed the little bit of stain inside the smoking chamber and final sanded it and wiped the whole pipe with a buffing cloth.  Now to the pictures!  These are quick snapshots I took to post on CPS and here, I will be taking better shots for my website after the final buff on Wayne's lathe.

I am very pleased with the color and contrast, I was trying to match the combination of black and red in the cumberland stem, and I think I got it!  The flame grain is warm and flows over the pipe nicely.  The birds-eye grain on the bottom of the bowl and shank is fantastic!  Two pipes in and I'm hooked!

Until the next pipe making experience, happy piping!