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i gave pipe making a go for the first time the other night. in the interest of not screwing up, i decided to use a hunk of cherry wood instead of potentially ruining a nice piece of briar. i know all the drilling will be different with briar, but i thought i'd try it out to see how everything works.

the drilling went great, my modified spade bit actually worked quite well, the mortise holes were pretty spot on, my air hole met the bowl in the right place, etc. everything was going great until i started trying to shape the wood part of the stem where it meets the bowl and i ended up going WAY to thin on it, so i had to abandon it.

my question is how much material do you leave to file/sand away? as much as the diameter of the stem stock? i think part of my problem was i bandsawed away too much of the (sorry i don't know the technical name of the part where the stem meets the stummel). and as a result didn't have enough room to make it round how i wanted it...

anyway, sorry for the long post, any tips you have on how you like to start that part of the stummel would be appreciated.

gracias!

The area you're talking about is called the shank. Every pipe maker has different rules for how they go about most anything pipe making-related, but a good rule of thumb is to use the diameter of the mortise as the guide to how thin you can make the shank. There's really no hard and fast rule, just a common sense type of thing. E.G. you wouldn't want to drill a 1/2" mortise and try to have a 9/16" shank. The walls of the shank would be too thin and would present problems.

By the way, you don't have to waste nice pieces of briar to learn the processes. Most places sell cheaper ebauchon blocks that you could use to make your first pipes with until you get comfy and want to put more money in the raw materials. There's also pre-drilled kit pipes available. The holes will be pre-drilled and the stem pre-fit. All you'll have to do is shape it up and finish it.

android wrote:my question is how much material do you leave to file/sand away?

For me, whatever tool I'm using dictates how close I get. With a bandsaw, I try to stay at least 1/8" away from my finished dimensions. With a belt sander, I will get closer, perhaps under 1/16" from my finished dimensions. With a Dremel-type tool, I usually stop about 1/16" away from my finished dimensions. But on the lathe, I might only leave a few thousandths for finish sanding.

I think each tool and each step of the process has its own unique margin of error, and I try to work just outside of the margin of error. I don't always succeed, but that's what I shoot for.

On my belt grinder, I tend to go pretty close to finished dimensions. I'd say, probably within 1/16", then it gets cleaned up during the final sanding. And, like Robert, I basically do finished dimensions on the lathe, leaving only enough for sanding.

I think what android is specifically asking is, how much material to leave at the shank/bowl junction when rough shaping the stummel? It sounds like he ended up with almost a right angle which allowed for little or no radius. Or maybe you did answer his question.

I'll leave it to the experts to answer that too.

Ah, if that's the case then "it depends".

For pencil-shank pipes I tend to use a stainless steel tube with a 5/32" bore as my tenon so that there's plenty of meat left on the shank. You do want to leave enough to prevent failure, but that varies based on the wod, the tenon size, etc. There's no hard and fast rule though. For thin shanks, you really take your chances if you decide to use a 5/16" or so tenon.

This is where the drilling experience helps out, as well as the feel for "how tight is tight enough" when it comes to tenon fit. The fit should be smooth and provide some resistance, but if you have to force it all, it's too tight. This is where something like delrin can really help out since it's self lubricating and is a uniform size from batch to batch (typically).

thanks guys. frank, thanks for the clarification, i guess i was actually asking two different questions, both of which were answered. i may try an ebauchon block for the next pipe... i felt pretty comfy with the drilling and such, i think i just overshot the bandsawing before drilling. thanks for all your tips. cheers.

android wrote:thanks guys. frank, thanks for the clarification, i guess i was actually asking two different questions, both of which were answered. i may try an ebauchon block for the next pipe... i felt pretty comfy with the drilling and such, i think i just overshot the bandsawing before drilling. thanks for all your tips. cheers.

Sorry, android, I read your question wrong initially. Overshooting is common the first couple times you do this. Shoot, I still have to really take my time when I'm making initial cuts or run the risk of doing so. One thing I've found that helps is to draw a rough idea of the final diameter you want your bowl or shank or whichever part you're working on onto the face of that area of the wood. It will act as a rough guide and should help keep you from going too far when rough-cutting the shape out of the block.

thanks again. i also really had trouble shaping the junction of the shank and bowl, i think that was addressed already, but just wanted to reiterate where my problem was. i think i tried to make the shank round too early, just desiring some sort of outcome before i stopped for the night... perhaps i thought if i got that close to final dimensions, i could shape more effectively on the junction area... or maybe i need to use a tool other than my belt sander for that purpose... a file may have taken longer but probably would have produced a better result.

android wrote:... or maybe i need to use a tool other than my belt sander for that purpose... a file may have taken longer but probably would have produced a better result.

Shaping a corner radius with a belt sander is not an easy task. It helps a bit if the belt has a fairly flexible backing and you track the edge off the contact wheel to create a "soft edge".

I'm thinking you can get a better radius, more control, using a slightly domed sanding wheel like those that Love made. I think I need to do a bit of tweaking to the ones I made.

A wise man once said, "You can screw up a nice piece of wood in a few minutes with hand tools or a few seconds with a power tool."

There's a lot of wisdom in that saying.

Besides, one of my greatest joys in life is spreading out an old bed sheet on the floor, plopping down in my rocking chair, and watching a good movie with the family unit while I do the final shaping and smoothing with files and sandpaper.

Wouldn't trade that for the world.

pierredekat wrote:A wise man once said, "You can screw up a nice piece of wood in a few minutes with hand tools or a few seconds with a power tool."

There's a lot of wisdom in that saying.

Besides, one of my greatest joys in life is spreading out an old bed sheet on the floor, plopping down in my rocking chair, and watching a good movie with the family unit while I do the final shaping and smoothing with files and sandpaper.

Wouldn't trade that for the world.

Yepper. I have a bucket that I set between my feet for the final shaping/sanding process. I throw a game or a flick on and just get to work. That junction between the shank/bowl is one that can be daunting until you find a tool or process that works for you. Some folks will use certain rotary tool bits while others will use hand tools so as not to go too far too fast. It all comes down to personal preference. If you're not selling anything and don't have to meet some level of production, slow and easy may be the best way to go until you get more comfortable with shaping that area with power tools. Taking a step back to be able to move forward at a later date isn't a bad idea in some cases.

that's a good call, thanks for the advice.

can anyone recommend a good briar source for the first few? maybe even a kit to get me started?

android wrote:that's a good call, thanks for the advice.

can anyone recommend a good briar source for the first few? maybe even a kit to get me started?

Browse through the USA suppliers here: http://pipedia.org/index.php?title=Pipe ... d_Supplies

It seems a few folks have received lousy briar from GreatGoodsRUS. I'm never particularly impressed with outfits that use that pathetic "r" in their name instead of "are".

I have had good luck so far with PIMO's ebauchon's. The grain seems pretty hit and miss but so far none of them have had serious flaws other than a few small pits here and there. For beginner pipes they are relatively inexpensive. I've only done five pipes using their briar but am pleased thus far. I'm not good enough to spend the dough on their plateaux yet.

Check out Michael Parks website. Last I checked, his cheap Grecian eschubon blocks were going for $3 a piece. You can't beat that! The wood is good, but some flaws are to be expected by the time you've worked down your to final shape. In other words, they are great "guilt-free" experimentation blocks.

kbadkar wrote:Check out Michael Parks website. Last I checked, his cheap Grecian eschubon blocks were going for $3 a piece. You can't beat that! The wood is good, but some flaws are to be expected by the time you've worked down your to final shape. In other words, they are great "guilt-free" experimentation blocks.

Amen. I have several of these on-hand that I use for playing around with/experimenting on. They're fairly small so you're forced to work with the material you have, which to my mind is actually a pretty good thing when getting comfy with what you're doing. It makes you think about what you're doing before you start taking stock off.

If you ask Michael when you place an order, he'll try to pick out some of the larger blocks in the bunch available. So far, I've made 5 pipes out of blocks from him and haven't run across any flaws that keep the pipes from being finished and smoked, at least by me or as give-aways to friends.

Parks' inexpensive briar is small, but so far they've been good to me. They are *hard* though. You need to be sure your tools are sharp, and you're using fresh belts/discs/paper when grinding away stock. They are also holy hell to sandblast. Be prepared to ratchet up the pressure and take your time, even with an aggressive media. You do get some really nice windfalls from them too. Both of the pipes below were made from those blocks:

thank you again all. i ordered a few kits from PIMO just to make life easier for myself. i finished one this weekend... i still struggled with the shank, but am relatively happy that i've at least finished a stummel. the stem will be another story altogether. i think i might try making a stem and then fit a stummel to it at a later date.

the one area i really had problems with was staining it... it ended up pretty blotchy. and when i re-finished an old pipe i had a while back, it seemed fairly easy. is it the ebauchon harder to finish due to the grain differences or something? or is it just the learning curve. it seems difficult to get it on evenly with the first bit drying as you're trying to even it out... any suggestions there?

At what sanding grit did you apply the stain?
Are you contrast staining or single colour staining?
What are you using to apply the stain?