Finally wished for a bigger lathe

[Growley]

The other day I was working on a Lumberman commission for a customer. I had the perfect piece picked out, a nice looooooong cross cut with beautiful grain. I drew up the pipe, cut it out, chucked it up and started working on the shank. After drilling the smoke hole and mortise and doing some shaping on the shank, I loosened the chuck and swung it around to start drilling to tobacco chamber. I spun it around and it went "thunk". The stupid shank was about a quarter inch too long to clear the ways.

"Oh crap", I'm thinking... I've never had to drill a chamber freehand, and I don't have a drill press. I've never needed one.

"No problem, guys drill freehand all the time." Being a bit out of my comfort zone at this point I rushed into the process. I know there is all kinds of info here about how to do this, but immaturity kept me from stopping what I was doing to read up on it.

Ok, so I remembered something about gluing a chuck of wood to the bottom for the tailstock, drawing up all my lines, drilling a pilot hole, and heck I'd seen Rainier Barbi do it on a YouTube video at least twice I can do this! So, the pilot hole went pretty well. I drilled it a ways in, turned the pipe about 15 degrees and drilled more, continuing that process until I had a nice straight hole going. Now it's time to make this thing happen. I chucked up my drill bit and it was a bit wobbly at first, but I got it going. About half way in the drill bit grabbed, ripped the stummel out of my hands about broke my wrist. The shank went thunk, thunk, thunk as it beat itself across the ways.

Well heck, that pipe wasn't going to be what it was supposed to be, but now it was me against the machine. I was intent on making this friggin' hole happen. After about 4 more times of getting the block ripped out of my hands I finally gave up, chucked the well beaten block into my junk pile and drew up a new pipe... a shorter pipe.

After talking to Tyler, it seems a standard drill bit doesn't work all that well for free hand drilling.

[wisemanpipes]

lol read the recent thread on freehand drilling. theres some confusion on there but alot of good info on freehand drilling with spade bits.

[Ocelot55]

Dang, Brian! Be careful! What is it with you guys trying to think outside the box! Conform to the status quo dangit!

Theoretically, couldn't you get an adapter and put a chuck into the tail-stock? That would work much better that trying to hold the briar with nothing but your paws.

[The Smoking Yeti]

You're gonna give up that easily!? Grab that briar and beat that machine! It's one or the other man!

K, so maybe your wrists weren't meant to fight against multiple horse power...

[Growley]

Dang, Brian! Be careful! What is it with you guys trying to think outside the box! Conform to the status quo dangit!

Theoretically, couldn't you get an adapter and put a chuck into the tail-stock? That would work much better that trying to hold the briar with nothing but your paws.

Well, initially, I was using the tailstock to push the block forward as mentioned here. That's what the guled piece was for. But after I lost it once I got more neanderthal about it and tried to hold on with just my hands.

I could see a soft jawed vice on an MT-2 being a good idea though....

Apparently, if you do it right, you don't need one though. I'm going to skip freehand drilling for a while, as was my previous intention.