pipemakersforum.com

Does anyone have any idea what he is using? Is this some other type of French wheel setup? It looks a little more convex than most I have seen. Thanks.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UQh4jxafJQo/V ... 7%2BPM.png

Looks like a buffer to me, not a shaper/sander.

Something like chamois stretched over wood. Those old timey guys made all manner of spinny widgets out of hard woods.

I would suggest you forward your inquiry to Trevor Talbert. When he returned to the US from France he brought a lot of European pipe tooling with him that has wooden arbors. I'm betting he can identify this.

oklahoma red wrote:I would suggest you forward your inquiry to Trevor Talbert. When he returned to the US from France he brought a lot of European pipe tooling with him that has wooden arbors. I'm betting he can identify this.

Good idea. Page 91 of Liebaert and Maya's The Illustrated History of the Pipe shows an entire table covered with Philippe Bargiel's collection of wooden spinny widgets, several of which look like the one in Schubeck's pic. Meaning the French-ness of the approach is unmistakable.

Here you go. http://talbertpipes.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... -pads.html

Ah, wonderful. That's good to know. It's always interesting to see what custom tools makers come up with to make their job easier.

If you have a lathe the ones on the Talbert Bog are easy to make and use. Even better to use if you can find an old lathe headstock to mount them on. For the arbor just drill and tap a good piece of hardwood to screw on to the headstock threads, turn to shape. Then drill and tap the opposite end of the arbor and design your "discs, etc." to screw on to the arbor using bolts or a piece of all threads.

Here is a blank drilled tapped and turned on my lathe.


I then drill and tapped the other end for a 1/2" bolt for a buffing wheel.


The finished buffing wheel.


The secrets are drill the hole, drizzle thin CA glue in on the walls of the hole. Let the CA glue dry and then run the tap. Again drizzle CA glue on the tapped threads and let the CA glue completely dry and run the tap again. That will strengthen the threads to make your arbor last a long time. Remember let the CA glue dry completely, or you will have a stuck tap. On a 1-8 threaded headstock I use 1.5x1.5 hard maple or hedge to make my arbors. I haven't done it on this one, but I also drill a 3/8" cross hole so I can use it like a tommy bar to remove it when it gets stuck. If you don't and it gets stuck, just use a hand drill and drill a hole in front of the spindle threads.

You guys are exactly right!

By the way, in France, they call those either «champignons», mushrooms, or «plaques à polir» meaning polishing pads. They have the polishing and sanding therms crossway down there.....

And FYI, the image is from Pierre Morel's workshop, with Pierre Morel working on his pipe that won the «Meilleur Ouvrier de France» contest, Best Worker in France.

We are the champignons, my friends.

That's a french style wheel for sanding. It is just a little thicker than the typical ones.

Just easier to go make a thingy than to constantly buy things I get fed up with. That way when I do go over budget, It's not as depressing.