Polishing

[ZeroContent]

Is there some where to keep your pipes polished without having a buffing wheel and what not?

 

[skaukatt]

Has anyone tried a product called Life-O-Wood? It is a wood furniture polish in liquid form. I have seen a guy with a Youtube video who uses it and I bought a bottle but I don't want to start using it on my pipes until I get some feedback about the product - ie: I don't want it to clog up the pores of the briar. Same applies to other products like Old English Wood Polish, Murphy's Oil Soap, Pledge etc...

Short of a buffing wheel and carnuba which I do not own, I use a "Briar Pipe Wipe" (I'd swear it was Pledge Furniture Polish) impregnated cloth on my pipes after every smoke which makes them really shine up nicely.

If anyone has info on Life-O-Wood and other methods let us know.

Lou

 

[flytyer]

I use Briar Pipe Wipe also...keeps them looking great

 

[ZeroContent]

Where can you get that? I don't see it on smokingpipes.com

 

[NeroWolfe]

Well...Here is an OLD OLD OLD tip to polish smooth pipes: Use one of your fingers and wipe the outside of your nose where it is oily, or the top of your head if you are a baldy like me, and then rub it over the outside of the bowl. If you have really oily skin (like me) you can even rub your pipe bowl on your skin where it is oily. Do this a few times and then use the palm of your hand to "buff" it. You will be surprised how welll it works.

 

[flytyer]

Cup o joes has the briar pipe wipe.

 

[Jar]

Let me, please, say something on polishing in general, of course with reference to polishing briar pipes bowls surfaces.

From certain point of view there are two main ways of conducting the polishing procedures: one is known to us buffing, and it is somehow a continuation of grinding, using more and more delicate medium - like polishing materials/pastes, known also as polishing waxes - so called tripoli or more active medias known as pre polish, then the white polishing material, etc. The last finish is applied by known to us the Carnauba wax (as a matter of fact - resin). It works better if it is conducted with use of polishing machine. but it may be performed just by hands, although it would be very laborious and would take very long time.

But there is also the other way: it is not the "continuation" of grinding with more and more delicate/less abrasive medias known as polishing materials/paste/wax as long, as the surface shines, but it is based on the concept of applying pressing movements to the surface, burnishing the surface by rubbing it with special tool made of hard material for compacting and smoothing the elaborated surface. Goldsmiths and silversmiths or other metal workers use so called burnishers, and at the industrial scale they use polishing drums. In our case: the proper small piece of hard wood will do the job. The work on the surface should be conducted with care, proper movements and the pressure. The surface elaborated in this way will shine, but the briar will still breath. We remember that the structure of briar is important as factor providing sweet smoke so let me again turn our attention to this elaboration on briar
http://pipedia.org/docs/CharacteristicsOfBriar.pdf

And if I would get interested in different surface "shiners" offered in liquid forms today, I would try to answer for myself the question: is there a chance, that this or the other "shiner" may block the breathing structure of briar ?

EDIT: similar to the use of a burnisher results may be achieved by simple rubbing the bowl with a hard paper, like the page of a newspaper. In case of using the burnisher/hard wood etc. most of movements should be circular.

 

[Kapnismologist]

Well...Here is an OLD OLD OLD tip to polish smooth pipes: Use one of your fingers and wipe the outside of your nose where it is oily, or the top of your head if you are a baldy like me, and then rub it over the outside of the bowl. If you have really oily skin (like me) you can even rub your pipe bowl on your skin where it is oily. Do this a few times and then use the palm of your hand to "buff" it. You will be surprised how welll it works.

I may never be able to bring myself to purchase an estate pipe again ...

 

[Kapnismologist]

While I do use a wheel and carnauba for semi-regular polishing, a square of good, soft chamois can do wonders in a pinch. Also, Paragon, Halcyon or Renaissance are soft waxes applied without a buffer, and do give a nice polish. I've used each to much effect in the past and would not hesitate to recommend them (although I still have yet to find anything that beats carnauba wax applied properly with a wheel).

Once can easily purchase everything needed for minor buffing/polishing work for no more than the price of a new Savinelli; in fact, if you have a good cordless drill which can be operated with one hand (i.e., it has a battery base which allows it to sit steady on a flat surface), one can even then just buy a polishing wheel pack (2" to 4" wheels) from Home Depot for $9.99 (even comes with a few sticks of white rouge), and a block of carnauba from eBay for $5. If your goal is just to polish up your pipes now and again, that will work just fine.

 

[ZeroContent]

I guess what I'm looking for is how to keep up the shine that dulls because of grime from your hands and the smoke without effecting the color. Wouldn't using a wheel slowly start to pull out color over time?

 

[i.keenum]

i got a little tube of brebbia pipe polish it works very well. just rub it on with your hand then let it dry and rub it off with any cloth and your done. would not use on anything but smooth surface, if it gets in any little crack where it can dry it will stay there white till you can scrape it out.

 

[riff raff]

i got a little tube of brebbia pipe polish it works very well. just rub it on with your hand then let it dry and rub it off with any cloth and your done. would not use on anything but smooth surface, if it gets in any little crack where it can dry it will stay there white till you can scrape it out.

I picked up a tin of that Brebbia carnuba in NY last week, but put it back when I saw the $10 price tag...
I think some pure carnuba from an autoparts store would be a fraction of that cost.

 

[tNd]

Well...Here is an OLD OLD OLD tip to polish smooth pipes: Use one of your fingers and wipe the outside of your nose where it is oily, or the top of your head if you are a baldy like me, and then rub it over the outside of the bowl. If you have really oily skin (like me) you can even rub your pipe bowl on your skin where it is oily. Do this a few times and then use the palm of your hand to "buff" it. You will be surprised how welll it works.

an old pipesmoker once told me about that ... it seems to work although i don't have a need for that (i have a buffing wheel)