Pipe making is not all fun and games

Interesting to see another use for Delrin. At least one aircraft manufacturer that I worked for used it for control cable fairleads. Apparently, there are different specs of Delrin made and someone on the design side was not aware of that. The spec chosen was harder and had a higher coefficient of friction (relatively so . . . still some slick stuff) than was expected. The result was extremely premature cable wear due to the increased friction and the Delrin not sacrificing itself to the cable. Oops.

Is Delrin a common tenon material? I always assumed that the tenon was just an extension of the stem material.

pipe makers that do hand cut stems. I have no idea of percentages of those who do or those that still cut tenons on the stem. Not so sure I would like it with cumberland but I don't have any objections to it on ebonite or acrylic. It is pretty indestructable stuff.

I have quite a lot left of this run. The 3/8 diameter is a bit off and I had to gring down a fostner bit to match it. If the next stuff is not "also off", I'll need a new bit. When I get a bit that fits it is for that delrin for life, I don't use it for anything else except the mortise into the stem and shank.

Splat! Hope that cable wasn't the eject seat.

that is interesting that you have had to cut the delrin to make it hold...I wouldn't have thought it was so difficult to find some sort of epoxy that works for both...but I imagine that the surface mechanical hold is nice as well...beyond the chemical hold...

I dunno...but I like doing stuff like that...so I think I would have thought of that as fun and games...

Cheers,

josh

Not my experience, it is just how I learned to do it. I take the reasons at face value and move on to other more elaborate mistakes.

Shhhh! Don't go around sayin' that kind of stuff. I gotta make this come off like a lot of drudgery and work, hours of tedious toil and charge fantastic amounts of money for a chunk of wood. Jeez, get with the program!

This younger generation seems impatient and in need of immediate gratification and even that is not fast enough. Could be that having ten estates in their grubby little hands makes them forget that Rome wasn't built in a day. Undoubtedly a sheet of plaastic is not going to exite them either.

This unexciting object is a 1/8 inch sheet of cast acrylic. I used to face off and cut thin disks off a rod of ebonite but have adopted an easier approach.

I simply rip a strip of the stuff on the band saw and cut off a square whenever I need it. I was going to use this piece of purpleheart but as luck would have it ....

... it will wait for another pipe. It was just too short to chuck up and cut in two so I had to cut another one. I guess by now you are finding out that just about everything has to be faced off. If not the pieces are going to be off and when assembled will show space between the materials. Prior to using this rod it spent about a week soaking in pentacryl, a wood stabilizer. I am not real happy with it and I think I need to get something that does a better job. It is to prevent the wood from picking up moisture and reduce stress from temperture and humidity changes that might cause it to split or crack.

The fostner bit is self centering but since purpleheart is so frigging hard I drill it first. This reduces the amount of pressure needed for the bit to go into the wood. The drill is small enough that the non cutting point still centers but advancing into the wood is much easier.

So here we have it. A brand new hole.

A couple of pen marks to indicate which side was faced.

Swap ot the right cutter for a cut-off bit and we get our slice of purpleheart. A couple more things had to be done to this ring. The ring itself was chucked up and a small round file was applied to the hole while spinning. It opens the hole somewhat and allows it to more easily slide onto the delrin. If not the stress from a tight fit can split the wood after time. The unmarked side was placed on 400 grit sandpaper on a flat piece of steel and pressing on the hole of the ring while a making circular motion brought it true on the oppisite side.

I think I mentioned that the drill press was good for something. Well this is one of them. The piece from the sheet has been drilled and it is set up for the fostner to bore the right size hole in. So now I have inlay ring, delrin tenon and a acrylic separater.

Chucked up is a length of ebonite that I had cut from a rod. Of course this has to be faced off also. After being pricked a 1/16 hole is drilled into the core. Then unchuck it, flip to the other end, face it off ...

... and drill another 1/16 hole into the core.

followed by the dedicated fostner bit that is a little shy of 3/8. I don't really measure how deep it goes. I watch the bit itself and when it is burried into the core about 1/8 of an inch it is deep enough. Well, I guess that is measuring it but don't ask how deep cuz I could only guess.

So here I have for a considerable amount of time (about 3 hours on a friday night) Ebonite blank, purpleheart inlay, delrin tenon and acrylic separater. Wow.

This is just a check to see everything lines up. Looks decent enough, but I will tell you - if it can screw up I will find a way.

I used to do this on a drill press so the epoxy would run down instead of fill the airway. Afterwards I would have to take the bit after it was set but before completely hardened and remove the jelled epoxy from the airway. I always hated doing it that way and one day it dawned on me. Don't drill the airway. Seems to work fine, the 1/16 hole allows the excess epoxy to ooze out allowing the delrin to press firmly into the mortise. After drilling the airway all the epoxy is also drilled out. I just never trusted a drill bit to pull it all from the airway.

So finished for the night I let my work fester to the next day. Also included are two screw-ups with ivory inlays. The first goes on a reject blast, it is slightly out of round. Ivory is hard as hell and I applied too much pressure when sizing it to the shank on the other lathe.

The top one is not square, somehow someway I dorked it. When stuck into a shank there is a crack of light shining through on the bottom between the shank mortise and ivory. Heating up the ebonite and tenon will heat the epoxy. It will break down enough for me to pull the tenon and inlay. I can then reface it and remount it. When I say heat I mean heat, a lot more than what can be caused by smoking it. Pretty exciting Friday night for an old fart.

well...counting the materials costs...and the hours...I am always surprised pipes don't cost more...

but I am gonna shut my mouth before it gets shut by someone...haha...

and by the way...it is the artistry that people are payin' for...so you don't have to worry about letting on that it is fun...

Cheers,

Josh

Rome wasn't built in a day? Those lazy bastards should have poured the concrete faster.

Great set, Chris. The clueless ones of us enjoy seeing how "stuff is made" .. Keep it up.

I'll go back to my ten estates and 2 minute meals.

Having let this blank sit overnight it it well cured and can be spun and knocked down to size. I will do three passes to get the separater down as it is the weakest being only supported on one face. I will then cut back the whole rod and size all the pieces.

Poof, it looks like a stem somewhat. The drill for the airway is marked to end 3/4 of an inch from the "bit" end. It is a tapered 5/32 bit.

There you have it. A little sloppy on the camfer but some sandpaper and compound cleaned that up and I did not notice the crap in the airway when the pic was taken.

So hear is the pile of junk I have been playing around with.

One evening last October when I was far from feeling sober
I was walking home alone with manly pride
My feet began to studder
So I lay down in a gutter
and a pig came by and laid by my side
Now friends in fair weather
are known to stick together
but a women walking by was heard to say
"You can tell a man who boozes by the company that he chooses"
and the pig got up and slowly walked away

So basically being a slob, I prefer to think of it as the trailings of a craftsman.

As mentioned the ivory was a bit off so purpleheart it is. The block is an ebacheon in shape but it is plateau grade briar. It is a cross cut from the top of the burl, the cross cut is going to display birdseye on the sides rather than a conventional cut that displayed it on the top with the grain vertical to the sides.
My expectations for this block is birdseye left and right, horizontal grain front and aft and horizontal grain across the top and bottom.

Seems like I skipped a lot. The shank end was faced with a 3/4 inch fostner bit and turned down on the lathe. The shank is showing some good birdseye, there were 2 pits that appeared and came out. Yes, even Mimmo's briar as good as it is is not always perfect but so far any pits have not been on any of the lines.

I guess at this point I have to say the fun is starting. You can pretty much see it is going to be a pipe. I worked the stem and shank down to where I want it and have done all the sanding with strips of sandpaper while it has been spinning.
The stummel and stem blank are pressed firmly together and worked as one piece. If they are worked as two separate pieces you will get rounding on the shank and stem ends. Working together does not allow that to happen and the stem and shank line will be a perfect transition and completely seamless.
This is suppose to be a good thing.

So far so good, the shank/stem junction has been wet sanded down to about 600 grit. When dry some dust is gathering in the cracks (grain) of the purpleheart.

I was going to build the cracks up with layers of shallac, to slow and it kept soaking into the wood. (which is why I want a better stabilizer remind self to order "Wood Juice") Another method is CA glue as it is also completely transparent. What the hell give it a shot and see how it does.

Not as well as I hoped. When applied it is thick and the set time is high when not being pressed by the objects being glued. Something in the pressing must cause the glue to react and cure. They do sell accellerators for this stuff and I guess I need that too.
I used the finger smear method to get it to set. Other than that it looks good and I can take care of the purpleheart later.

Last is to camfer mortise opening.

So far all is going pretty well. There is one problem that I wasn't too sure about and I thought it would work. A bit later I think I blew it - I'll go into detail later, after I catch everything up.

I have got a decent mess in the making and have removed the block and positioned it for the chamber.

Same deal as the shank end, (no shots of it though), face it with a forstner bit, this is 1 3/4.

You can see where the forstner bit has burned the wood, not a concern here as the chamber will take it all out.

Yes, this shot is actually spinning, amazing how quick a camera's eye is.

Got about 1/32 more to go down to level out the airway with the bottom of the chamber. It is a good drilling.

Right side - good birdseye and grain towards the fronnt

Left side - very good, birdseye all over!

Back - Some nice stripping from the grain leading to the birdseye sides. There is an upward angle to the grain, hey thats just the way things are.

Front - not so nice; the grain breaks and a "bald" spot occurs.

At this point the problems become apparent. The first is I over canted the bowl, amateur mistake and I can only blame it on a 9 month layoff. It can't be corrected.
However, the other problem is the length. I moved on to access how bad it really was.

Took it down with a coarse wheel and more with a medium wheel.

and finally switched over to a tapered wheel with wave disks for the tight spots.

So that is where I am at.

The pipe is 6 inches long / 2 inches high. It doesn't sound too bad. I think I should have taken the shank end down a half inch further.

I can.

a) Say screw it, it is what it is.
b) Take a half inch off the stem end. That will advance the tapered bit to about a 1/4 inch making the bit not as thin as I could go with the 3/4 inch 1/16 lenght going into the taper. I would basically have a half inch less and would meet the taper that much earlier. It could also result looking pretty queer. I have not decided.
c) There is still enough meat on the stummel to vise it, line it up on the drill press, drill the mortise 1/2 inch deeper and then take the shank down a half inch with a fostner bit.

Not the best choices, c the best also presents the the most problems. the stem face and shank face need to fit flush and the stem/shank transition will all have to be redone on a vise with strips of sandpaper by hand. Yea a bunch can come off with files or maybe a disk very carefully but the final is going to have to be by hand.

Opinions?

I should probably undress it and take a shot without the tape.

Take the stem down by only 1/4" (my dunnies measure 5-3/4" long) - the compromise will minimize the steeper angle in the stem. Or make the stem a saddle bit and you'll have one fantastic looking pipe.

btw, nice job so far!

I'd go for c .. it looks like the pipe will handle the stem just fine. great work.

Worse than I thought.

Can't do a saddle and stem adornment with a delrin. Because of the inlay where I cut down for the saddle I would hit the delrin.

1/4 off the shank

1/2 off the shank

1/4 off the shank and 1/4 off the stem.
Can still go pretty thin on the bit and still reduce the length a half inch.

But, does it really need to be done? This is always the difficult part as the potention is to make matters worse. The shank is the hardest and if I dork it I can still use the blank.

rp, think you might be right, just a bit off the stem and add a bit of shape to the bowl.

• There's nothing wrong with a long pipe
• The cant is actually perfect
• You just need to:
  • Round off the back of the bowl a little
  • Take off a lot of meat off the whole pipe
• You will end up with a gorgeous belge.

Just my 2 eurocents, which -- an approximate guess -- amounts to 7 billion dollars.

I agree with corneel, but leave as much wood as possible. I like a pipe with a bit thicker walls. looks like it will be a nice flake pipe

Just showed my wife this. She says she's surprised pipes don't cost more (she's a beancounter). If nothing else, consider that A Great Service in the interests of my PAD.

help justify your PAD expenses.

What you really mean is cut that shank in half!

Amazing to see the differences in carvers processes. The whole thing was a bit like greek to me, but interesting none the less. What the hell is a lathe? LOL

I think they nail them to 2x4's so the plaster has something to hang off of.

LOL

2x4's aren't 2x4's anymore. What's the world coming to!?

what is that all about anyway. During my recent kitchen job I had to cut 2x6 (1.75x5.5) to 4 inches. They should have left it alone. Trying to save a buck I suppose, they get 99 from a 16 inch cut of wood rather than 8.

My 7 inch Hayes is just right if I don't ever turn my head!

Now, I know i don't want to make pipes. I'd have to sell my simulator just to buy the tools!