Saving a Ol' Codgers last pipe.

So thought I would share this one.  Got a lot of three pipes about a year ago.  One Bari Matador, a un-stamped Oom Paul and a freehand sitter.  I could tell they were pretty rough from the Ebay pictures but decided to take a chance on them.  When they arrived I figured they must have all belonged to the same person.  The cake was so thick on all three of them that you could not even get at pencil into the chambers.  The draft holes were completely closed and the outsides were just covered in tar/gunk.  The stems were nicely chewed as well.  With all three of them looking like that I figured it was good bet that they belonged to some Ol' codger who smoked them to the end.  Well I reamed the Bari, time I was down to the briar, the briar was completely carbonized/char-coaled with giant cracks everywhere about to break through to the outside.  So put it aside and started on the Oom Paul, same story, brair is carbonized/char-coaled with giant cracks.  At this point feeling pretty disappointed I put the third one to the side and moved on to other pipes.  Well I came across that freehand sitter last month, and it just seemed to call to me.  So i decided to ream it and see what was there.  Lo and behold when I got to the briar it was carbonized alright, but nowhere near what the other pipes had and the cracks were not nearly as bad.   Also as luck would have it, the stummel had nice thick walls.  So I decided to do what I could to save this one.  It took an enourmous amount of scrubbing/sanding/soap&water/everclear/pipe cleaners/removing teeth chatter/over reamed the chamber a bit but got rid of the carbonization and cursing.  So while it will never be pretty, it does smoke.  I plan to think of that Ol' codger when I lite this one up.