1966 Dunhill Shell Briar 6120 F/T

[Scottmi]

Picked this up from Rich at Briarville. Birthyear and my first Dunhill. Passes a pipe cleaner (with a bit of a twist to find the shank bore). Curious about the number. 6120 suggests a Group 6 cherrywood in the charts I could find, but it ain't that... Has a 4S stamp which says group 4...but it is a taller bowl so maybe group 6 capacity with a group 4 diameter? Chamber is .80" diameter, 1.95" deep. Anyway, here are some pics, as well as a depiction of a potential gurgle chamber (in pink)... the stem goes in 12.5 mm of an 18mm deep mortise. Is this typical of Dunnies of the time?

 

[ssjones]

It looks like someone did work on that tenon, it has a far larger than typical draft hole. Draft holes in that era are tapered to accept the straws, but that one looks larger than standard.

 

[Scottmi]

It looks like someone did work on that tenon, it has a far larger than typical draft hole. Draft holes in that era are tapered to accept the straws, but that one looks larger than standard.

I wondered about that, but looking at various pics it looks pretty standard to me--saw on several others that look same, but I am an utter novice here. Stem draft opening tapers up smoothly inside, quite nicely.

 

[georged]

It looks like someone did work on that tenon, it has a far larger than typical draft hole. Draft holes in that era are tapered to accept the straws, but that one looks larger than standard.

It's very tricky to trumpet the airway like that while keeping the expanding hole round, centered, and its walls smooth. It can't be done by hand with a sharp-edged tapered reamer, for example.

How it can be done is with a drill press in a clamp that allows a non-slip grip without marring the finish and x and y axis adjustment down to a few thousanths of an inch in addition to perfect vertical alignment, and a special conical drill bit with the correct taper rate.

Definitely not a kitchen table modification, in other words.

An overly deep mortise is not unusual in most British makes.

As far as the trumpet "end size," Dunhill varied that a lot, too. Some are so large that the walls of the tenon (that sounds weird, doesn't it?) are only marginally stable. I have a 120 on my bench right now where that's the case, in fact. Enough that an entire new stem was required for the pipe.

 

[tobakenist]

I was eleven in 1966, been a pipe smoker for a year then, just about remember it.