I've seen some pipes with really long stem extensions made of horn or some other material. Is the boxwood, horn or whatever lined with anything--SS tubing or something?
I'll use Love's "Erroneous Elephant" with the awesome boxwood extension as an example. That's right folks--it's boxwood and not bamboo.
I picked up some horn material that I'm wanting to try but I'm not sure if I should line it with some other material.
I know that some folks use SS tubing in bamboo extensions and I've heard some don't, but I've only seen bamboo with tubing. My Heeschen,for example. (there was a thread on this here somewhere - try a search)
AFIK, most extensions w/exotic wood are not lined - just drilled. I could very well be wrong, but this is my experience so far.
I made a pipe with about a 2.5" zebra wood extension - actually a shank extension-
and I just drilled it and I am smoking it w/o any lining or extra treatment of any kind.
So far, I've not developed any stripes on my tongue.
in some materials lining the airway is a must if the material is for example fragile or bad tasting....in horn extensions its good to line the mortise with briar or delrin so the mortise will not be worn down by the tennon eventually... in bamboo extensions counting the ones that are not "fake" i have not lined them all the way through but only in the moritise area for durability ...
Until recently, I have not been doing long shank extensions, just long rings on stems. In that case, it's lined with Delrin.
These days, when I do a long shank extension made from bamboo, I leave it unlined, and just use a short piece of stainless steel tubing at the briar end for support. That's only about half an inch long at most, and is only there for rigidity and to help support the joint between briar and bamboo. The rest of the bamboo is left unlined.
If the shank extension is something else, like wood, horn, or acrylic, I like to slip that over a tenon of briar that I've turned. I didn't always do it that way, but I am now, because I don't want to chance a more fragile wood than briar splitting due to inserting the tenon. Briar is much more stable than other woods, and much more abrasion resistant, so I like to be sure the mortis made of briar.
I *have* done delrin-lined mortises, and put a shank extension over that, but I was never happy with the results.
If the block I'm working with is big enough, I always cut a briar tenon for the extension to slip over (like Kurt talked about) BUT I can't always do that. Most extensions that Steve has seen are not lined. Love lines the mortise on horn extensions but not the whole length--check my math but I think this is a good summation so far.
What materials (in your opinion) should be lined because of health reasons or they impart a bad taste or because they're fragile or whatever?
I used to line bamboo--I don't anymore because I was told that it was best to leave it unlined.
This might be a dumb question, but I'm going to ask anyway.
I understand using an extra layer to strengthen the coupling, but why not line the whole extension -wood, bamboo, whatever- with SS or something?
I'm no where near this application. I'm still working on my first "it came out like I wanted" pipe. Hopefully number... geez I've lost count; I think I'm on my 7th ebauchon.
Ironiclly my very first attempt almost made it, except that the walls came out too thin; the back wall gets mighty hot, but it looks okay. Since I don't have a lathe making tenons and mortises and just drilling straight is quite a challenge.
Anyway, that's a whole other story that you all already know, I'm sure. Back to my question.
Souljer wrote:I understand using an extra layer to strengthen the coupling, but why not line the whole extension -wood, bamboo, whatever- with SS or something?
You can do that, and there's nothing wrong with doing it that way. Some folks do - or use brass or whatever they have. I don't *usually* line the whole thing because I want to keep weight as low as possible. Depending on the length of the extension it can get quite heavy - even if you're using 3/16" or 5/32" tubing. I can throw the balance of the pipe completely off.
