I'm a very new to making pipes, and have only worked on about 10 pipes. A friend and I ordered a pack of 2 dozen random assortment vulcanite machine crafted stems, which were all unpolished and many had the orange oxidized tint to them. My problem- No matter how much I sand the stems (I get up to glass sandpaper 2000 grit wet paper) as soon as I hold the stem in my mouth there are bite marks and scratches, and i have to sand it all over again to get rid of them. The scratches are not like normal bitemarks, but are the orange oxidation color.
So-what am I doing wrong? Do I need to put somesort of finish on the stem? Not all of the stems I got do this, mostly just the ones that had the worst oxidation to begin with.
Also- I sand the tenon down to a perfect fit with the shank end of the pipe, but there is still a tiny bit of space between the pipe and stem no matter what I do, any tips?
(Yes I am the ultimate newbie, and there will probably be some more of these type of questions in the future
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Thanks in advance!