Problems with bulk vulcanite stems

[becometheunknown]

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 )
Thanks in advance!

[StephenDownie]

Try boiling the stems once you've finished buffing then buff on a coat of Carnuba. I've found thet they'll oxidise much less quickly. Ensuring a tight fit between the shank and stem is extremely difficult to do well by hand. You almost need to work with a lathe or tenon cutting tool to get it right.

[KurtHuhn]

You can sometimes find decent injection-molded stems, but they're pretty rare. More ofthen than not, they feel (at least to me) as if the manufacturer will make the rubber a little softer to ensure that it can be easily injected into the mold. I don't know about oxidation, but the softness of the stems bothers the crap out of me - so I mostly stopped using them. I still use factory stems on my Countryman line, but those are the rare ones made from decent rubber - and I just happened upon them one day, and I'm running out.

Honestly, making a stem from scratch is just as quick (considering the work I have to do to factory stems) and the quality is way better.

[josh_ford]

When making stems from scratch is a lathe necessary? I'd love to start making my own stems, for asthetic as well as mechanic purposes, but I don't have the space, or $$, for a lathe at the moment.

Josh

[KurtHuhn]

Not strictly necessary. You can do very similar operations using a drill press, but it can be a little more tricky. As long as you can center the drill bit in the stock, you should be okay.