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...Wood is fussier. If you cut too fast without clearing chips, your hole will be large and the wood hole will be "glazed"... Sorry for digressing, but the question to clear or not to clear confused me these days. I have drilled some mortises with unexpected slight taper, and some not, al...

I made similar mouthpieces which were thick, round, smooth and buttonless. It's wonderful to smoke such a pipe when you have nothing else to do and hold the pipe all through the smoke. Actually it feels better on the lips than a conventional bit so long as you don't want it to hang between the teeth...

I also grind a piece of saw blade into the shape of a needle file. (Grind the toothless side.) It cuts way faster than a needle file. Grinding such a tool is pretty easy if you use a thin and narrow blade. Producing oodles of sparks by sticking a piece of steel to the wheel beats any Spring Festival...

The site is infused with art in nearly every bit but also with restraint in the positive sense, from the back ground color and pattern to the lighting of your photo. I specially like the "quietness" of its general style. Very attractive!

You are absolutely right Tyler,a missing 'o' can make sometimes all the difference between a heavenly with all god's gifts executed pipe or a down to earth good one. This one is down to earth 'good' and with a glitch of my small finger on the keyboard :D . Omission of that letter bemused me too. Go...

Life is quite a hustle after the lathe arrived - tuning in with the machine, modifying tools, getting warm with basic techniques, and of course dealing with the emotional trauma of confronting screw-ups. It has served to make me all the more appreciative of the pros who live on making pipes while st...

I have no experience of drilling a mortise to fit a tenon. But I think it's OK if you have a set of very finely graduated drill bits, say, 8.1mm, 8.2mm, 8.3mm, etc. Drill a mortise slightly smaller than the tenon, test fit, and if insert is not possible switch to the next larger bit, till you can in...

Examine the threads on the bottom of each jaw. If the threads are short and straight, they are reversible. If the threads come in a curve or arc, they are not reversible. In the latter case, the manufacturer will usually give you another set of jaws which are equivalent to the turn-around ones. Mine...

I haven't read this really good, so if I am completely off, excuse, but, you can turn the jaws around so that the long vertical end of the jaws is pointing in (currently shown pointing out). Wouldn't that help? ...and maybe grind that face flat if you wanted more surface area? Good idea, Mike. But ...

By the way, I have noticed an advantage of this kind of chuck. Unlike a tower jaw where there are actually four contact points, which is a benefit if the block is perfectly squared but quite a headache if it's more or less irregular, the chuck shown above offers two contact points. As a result, whet...

My lathe came with a chuck like this: http://www.super-tech.com/root/taig/pix/tg1030.jpg I detached two jaws and used the rest, but they were too short to hold tight. I ground the second and third "steps" (not knowing the proper word) down, so the first "step" is now long enough ...

Cheap briar won't work, dude! Get some blocks left by Bo Nordh and chop them up for a good somke.

Save the briar sawdusts and drillwools. A couple of pinches into the bowl when you are smoking, especially when smoking meers and clays. Ethereal beauty!

Note: Grizzly bear's butt briar excepted!

Cant of bowl is normal, but you may not necessarily drill the holes accordingly. Just drill at 90 degrees and shape the exterior in a way which "shows" a slight cant, by giving the near-your-face side a less steep wall than the far-from-face side. As the cant is very slight, this will work...

m.c. wrote:

Back from 10+ hours of solitary gawky fuddly eye-rolling.

Thank you Bruce, for the answer.

Thank you Todd, for answering. And, fair.

These work just fine for pretty much everything you'll need to do. I eventually found the 9 x 20's limiting and went to a 12 x 36. Now the 9 x 20 feels like a tinker-toy, but it's all just a matter of perspective. I would also recommend holding onto the other lathes. TJ I have just ordered a metal ...

All established shapes will be good exercise and good fun. That said, in the absence of a lathe, I think making English shapes is more "hand-intensive" and making Danish shapes more "eye-intensive", though the difference may be all that tiny. Making a more liberal free-hand shape...

...and we get put off when he wanders too briskly outside the parameters of his body of work. I would never be put off by an artist or artisan wandering outside his box, provided it's driven by an earnest impulse to seek something more challenging (not a desire to fool the world with some cheap hoc...

That Berimbau pipe, if it had come out of the hands of a rookie like me, would be in every way worth of comment and probably some fussing over. Yet knowing it is from a man like you, I'd take the liberty to say it's medicore. So, you are not actually commenting on the pipe, but on the pipe maker. A...