Pipe Restoration - Cavalier Pipe

 Greetings friends,

I really enjoyed the last pipe I restored, so I once again searched Ebay for pipes that were worse for the wear, and stumbled on another of my favorite styles, the Cavalier! The pipe I bought was missing the bottom cap, but at least still had the threads for it. The stem was oxidized and the bowl had very heavy cake inside. Luckily, the briar was in great shape and the grain on it at least at first glance was very pretty!

 

I started off my reaming the inside of the bowl to get rid of the ridiculously thick cake, which was surprisingly easy and revealed that the pipe was in really good shape!

 

Inspecting the briar more closely, I found no holes or voids that were filled at any point. It really seems that this pipe was well made and properly used, but I imagine the loss of the foot cap (either it broke or was lost) spelled the end of it's useful life for the previous owner. The process for re-finishing the briar was very straightforward, I used some 300 grit sandpaper to remove any grime and old finish, and then sanded to 600 grit for a really smooth surface. I applied a couple thin coats of amber shellac to the briar, which really highlighted the beautiful grain of this piece of wood. I decided not to dye it at all, as the natural briar color with shellac was plenty good-looking. In fact the grain on this particular piece of briar was stunning!

To make the foot cap, I used the remaining piece of horn I had from the last pipe I restored, and fashioned it into a simple cylinder. I drilled the hole and tapped it, which allowed it to very easily screw onto the existing threads coming out of the shank.

I polished the stem with progressively finer sandpaper, followed by a quick rub-down with Yorkshire Grit, and it came out looking fantastic! I wasn't able to use my lathe to create the bottom cap and so had to use my drill press. In the future I may redo the cap but for now the pipe looks great and is usable.

Thanks for reading,

Juju

BMW R65 Restoration - Part 8 - The End & Cutting Losses

 Greetings friends,

This is the conclusion of my series of posts documenting the restoration of my BMW R65. For the previous post in this series, click here.

This post is a conclusion for this project and a discussion of why I've decided to end this project now rather than to sink more time and money into it. This project has been a lot of fun and a huge learning experience but the knowledge I've gained has made me realize I went about some things in ways that weren't proper for the project in general. I'll discuss that here a little bit.

For starters, I have decided to keep the engine that I bought for the bike. It's a 1978 R100RS engine, and I see some potential to use it for another project later on or to fully rebuild as a functional display piece. I did some work on it during this project, including replacing the starter motor, voltage reducer, and updating the air intake. Some of the older electronics like the diodes will ne replacing, but modern reproductions are readily available and I will update that once I have a chance to rebuild the engine in the future.

One of the major factors in deciding to stop this project is damage to the frame that was sustained before I purchased it. I was initially under the impression that only the forks had been damaged when purchasing the frame, but it turns the steering column was also damaged and misaligned, which after having experience riding other motorcycles made me realize that it wouldn't be very safe to ride if I followed through with the full restoration.

Finally, there were just a number of other shortcuts I took that in hindsight were shortsighted. I cheaped out on the throttle body, handlebars, some components of the ignition system, and in the end didn't want to spend more money to correct those mistakes.

I've since sold nearly all the parts for the bike and luckily recouped the majority of my expenses. That's the great thing about vintage vehicles, people are always looking for parts!

I hope to have a similar project in the future with a more complete vintage BMW Boxer, and to rebuild the engine I have when time and funds allow. Thanks to everyone who followed along with these posts, and look out for the other stuff I'm working on!

Thanks for reading,

Juju

Spalted Maple Bedside Table

Greetings friends,

A while back, my next-door neighbor had an ailing Nordic Maple cut down, and I was lucky enough to be able to grab some small pieces of wood as well as a respectably-sized slab from it! It appeared to have some nice spalting, so I thought it would make a fantastic bedside table.

Wet & moldy, but gorgeous!

I brought the slab inside and allowed it to dry for a few months before trying to start processing it. Those of you who read my previous post about my endgrain slab coffee table may remember that slabs of wood dry considerably faster through the endgrain than the long grain, so cookie slabs dry upwards of 10x faster than normal slabs. After 3 months, I used a circle cutting jig with my router to cut the table round. The slab was thicker than I could cut with the router bit I had, so I had to use a jigsaw to cut through the thicker parts afterwards.

With so much more material having been removed, I decided to weigh the slab and track any further weight loss before moving on to the next steps. My plan was to fill the large crack and other negative space with epoxy, and I needed the wood to be really dry before I could pour the epoxy.

About 3 weeks of stable weight was satisfactory for me, so I was ready to move to the next steps. I wanted to make sure I had at least one flat surface to make the epoxy casting process as smooth as possible, so I brought the slab to my buddy Ben at Ply Ply Furniture, who used his CNC table to flatten both sides for me.

I constructed a mold for the slab using terrace board and melamine coated OBD. I used packaging tape to cover the melamine to prevent the epoxy from sticking and caulked the seams of the terrace board to seal it up. I tinted the epoxy using lampblack, which doesn't contain mica (shimmery effect) and gives a great flat black look. The pouring process was relatively simple, though after the initial pour I did have to nurse a few small leaks over the course of a few hours as the epoxy cured.

After a week I unmolded the slab and was really pleased with how it turned out, despite the mess and headache with the casting process. I saw it as a great learning experience in any case. Some sources say this slow-cure epoxy needs several weeks to reach peak hardness, so I let it sit around for a few more weeks before taking it back to Ben for one final flattening. 

At this point the table just needed sanding to smooth out both faces and the sides, and the legs to be attached. A few hours with an orbital sander did the job, and my usual urethane oil varnish really made the grain look great. I had a few hairpin-style table legs left over from another project, so I decided they'd be great to use for this. I drilled holes for M10-1.5 threaded inserts, which I figured would allow me to easily swap out the hairpin legs for something else later on if I decide I wanted to.

I'm incredibly happy with how this turned out! I'm including several photos to show off the finish as well as the grain of the wood. I found that some very small bubbles are still present on the surface of the epoxy, but since this will be a practical piece of furniture, I'm content to leave them as they are. Removing all the bubbles would have been a tremendous effort that I think ultimately wouldn't have been worth it.

Thanks for reading,

Juju