Savinelli Punto Oro

A friend found several pipes while on a trip to Iowa last summer and she brought them to me to Reserect. The lot of them were not in the best shape.

The Savinelli Punto Oro, second from the top right was to be the first. There is a Dr. Grabow Royal Duke on the left below the large block of briar. The rest of the pipes are not identifiable. There are no impressions in any of them. The Savinelli has very faint impressions.

The impressions can only be seen if held at an angle. I was able to take a picture of it before the work was done but, sadly, it is gone after. The stem has been snapped off at the button on an angle leaving it sharp.

This will be an effort that I have not attempted before, to rebuild the button. Having the opportunity of reading and rereading Steve Laug’s Blog, Reborn Pipes, it gave me the courage to attempt this repair. Using black super glue and activated charcoal I put a pipe cleaner into the airway and began to build up the broken area.

I used a couple of files and Dremel tool to shape the button and begin the process of making it square again.

Then it was back to building up the filler again. More super glue and charcoal.

After a salt and alcohol bath I swabbed out the stummel with Q tips and pipe cleaners. It took several salt baths to get the bowl clean. the rim was rough from abuse, but, I did not want to lose the natural lines from Savinelli. So, I just used a tooth brush and Murphy’s wood soap to clean the rim followed by some light sanding with used 320 sandpaper. I then used black leather dye to even the color.

After the bowl was done I put it asside and went to finish the stem.

After using small files to shape the button with the new charcoal and super glue, it was on to the sanding sponges to polish it. Between each course of three sponges I used Obsidian Stem Polish to help some of the very stubborn oxidisation. A couple of coats of carnuba wax on the buffer and it is ready to smoke again.

There is still a slight flaw in the bit that I will need to address, but, overall I think that this pipe is now a serviceable unit once again.