Deleted

[Gatorade]

gone

[Nick]

I think Kurt talked about polishing the inside of the stem a while back. If memory serves, he started out by rolling slim bits of high grit sand paper, and then moved to a pipe cleaner coated with buffing compound.

I'm with you on the tennon. I'm always worried about slimming it down too much. And my pipes are just for me atm, so I don't mund an unpolished tennon.

[KurtHuhn]

What parts of the stem should be polished?

All I can offer is my own experience, which hopefully is helpful even if it isn't the sum of all pipemaking.

When I make a stem, I cut the tenon just a little bit wider than the mortis. It shouldn't fit, but only by a hair's breadth. then I use some 400-grit sandpaper to get it the point where it will fit, but is tight. Then I polish with tripoli, and it ends up gliding right in - snug, but easy to do.

The airway gets mildly polished if it's a vulcanite stem. If I'm using clear or translucent acrylic, I polish so that there's no trace of sanding or drill bit marks. The easiest way is to start off with super sharp bits, then shape the slot and "trumpet", then sand the inside with rolled up strips of sandpaper (I use a 1/16" drill bit as a madrel) and remove any tooling marks, then I go at it with some tripoli on a pipe cleaner. I stick the pipe cleaner in a drill chuck on my lathe after I rub tripoli on it, and set it spinning at the lowest speed (mine is 500RPM) and just patiently work it. I find I have to change pipe cleaners out often, as they like to coil up like little pigtails. I batter way would be to mount an extra long pipe cleanier in a frame, like a scroll saw, and slide the stem back and forth on it until it's polished - well, at least IMO. However, I haven't taken the time to construct that frame yet.

Why polish the arway and tenon? I don't know. I do it because I think people expect it - based on what I've read in articles online and in print. Since I'm hand-cutting a lot of stems these days, it doesn't require me to switch gears to get into the mode of polishing the airway, it just happens as I complete a stem.

That said, moving forward, my tenons are most likely going to be made entirely out of Delrin - at least on hand-cut stems. IMO, this 'feels' better when you remove or replace the stem - no squeaking or roughness. I understand a lot of pipe makers that I respect use this type of construction.

[jblock]

I also make the tenon just a hair bigger than the mortise. Since I'm not using a lather to turn the tenon, that little bit extra ends up getting polished down by sandpaper and tripoli for the perfect fit.

As far as the stem airway goes, I agree about using a good bit which gets it most of the way there. I then do a few run-throughs with a needle file to remove any spurs, but not to polish.

[marks]

I was taught how to use Delrin for tenons, and that is all I have ever done to this point. I like the way the tenon glides into and out of the mortise, it fits every time, and there is no polishing the outside, etc. Wonderful stuff.

I do plan on turning a couple of tenons at some point just for the fun of it, though.

[Gatorade]

gone

[TreverT]

There's another question--I read where Trever talked about putting cork into a mortise to tighten the tenon--how the heck do you do that?

My comment on cork was entirely related to clay pipes, not briar. This is for clay pipes fitted with traditional vulcanite or acrylic stems, that fit into cork or delrin-lined mortises in the clay. Sorry to have confused!

[marks]

Gatorade, check out the thread on delrin tenons located in this section on stem work.