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Yeah, easy stuff. While these pipes are really not attractive for me personally, I would love to see his process for finishing these carved shapes. I'm pretty sure it involves a selection of little rotary tools, like tiny scotch brite wheels, dental style rubber+abrasive bits, etc.. But how does he ...

Dude, I honestly cannot believe your reaction to someone telling you to use the search function... Why is everyone in the world getting offended so easily nowadays? You asked questions that not only have been answered many times before, but prove (I refer to the tripoli/white diamond/wax question) t...

I never in my life thought I would say such a phrase, but forget books. They will be very useful once you have a metal lathe and know what exactly you're reading about. For now go on youtube, there's all the machining footage and info you can imagine there and you will be able to understand what's g...

This probably won't be helpful, but whenever I make a canadian I never even attempt to measure the height/length ratio. I just turn the shank as long as the block allows and then make a bowl to match.

Never sand off your understand.

I don't think visiting a typical pipe factory is very interesting to a pipemaker, you can see the videos online, there's not much more to see for an artisan, unless you want to set up your own factory. If you want to see something interesting I would try to contact the Gubbels factory in the Netherl...

I really like how this thread evolved. Good lesson for everyone. Just to clear up the info on mortise stabilization: while it is very helpful and good practice, it is kind of unrelated to the seasonal/humidity related fit. Stabilizing the mortise helps keep the wood in place so that the individual f...

A big, strong, fast cutting sanding disk. All the rest is just a matter of preference and habit. Every pipemaker has hundreds of little bits, files, burrs or tools that they find to be useful and they differ from pipemaker to pipemaker. So a lot of tools can be used to achieve the same/similar effec...

George made a good comment, but I think this problem is related more to the color of pipe the rather than the finish (smooth / blasted). If you make a dark finish it shouldn't be a problem, but on a natural or light colored pipe, either smooth or blasted, tars/oils/condensation can seep through the ...

Very creative and overly complex. Read all you can find on "freehand drilling", this technique will save you all this unnecessary fiddling around with your drill press (just to give you a quick idea: you draw all the axes on the block, glue little pieces of wood on the meeting points, then...

Any green wood that I want to use I just paint the end grain with some old gloss (oil based) paint, 2 coats slapped on thick then forget about it for a couple of years. That. Also of all the woods boxwood is probably one that, if you do as Chris says, will stay solid. It's just so dense and grows s...

I didn't mean the risk/difficulty factor, I meant the fixing someone else's fuck ups part

Cool stuff! Have you considered combining chucking&spinning and sandpaper lapping methods- like chucking the pipe in the lathe and just spinning it very slowly by hand while feeding something abrasive from the toolpost? Your job sucks man, I would have cursed to the point the neighbors would cal...

Looks good. Never managed to get on with a french wheel myself, the edges always seemed to catch. Tried making several types but don't use any of them. I think it depends on how well you can fold the sandpaper on the wheel. I cut a kind of "sunshine pattern", with an inside circle equal t...

It's a big difference between abrasive bristles and just plain nylon ones. Abrasive bristle wheels come in different grits, are very useful, but will take away material. Nylon bristles without any abrasives are very gentle. Jeremiah, I don't know what kind of nylon bristles you buy, but the ones I u...

I put carnauba on top of that with a rotating bristle wheel.
(Apply carnauba with bristle wheel, melt the excess carefully with a heat gun, shine up with bristle wheel without any carnauba on it).

IAWP
Steel wool works magic on blasted finishes. Sandpaper isn't as good because it just slides on the surfaces and creates small flats, steel wool reaches deeper and gives a nice patinated effect.

Does is still wobble if you face and start drill the material? It makes all the difference. It sounds like the problem may be caused by the tailstock. It is really important that the morse taper shank sits tight in the tailstock socket (I have a rubber mallet head and just give the lightest tap to s...

You could just use JB Weld instead of regular epoxy- it's heat resistant up to 260 degrees C. Whenever I glue a piece where temperature might be an issue I just use JB Weld and I know the bond will be as strong as it can possibly be. Still, the pipe in question is just a barely smokeable shop pipe, ...

Yeah you fell for the same trick I did a while ago. Most of what is sold as "boxwood" is actually this crap called Castello, which is pretty much as similar to real boxwood as pinewood is.