pipemakersforum.com

I am carving a pipe from black walnut with a white ash stem. I don't really have any tools other than a saw here at college and some sandpaper of varying grits (picked up at the local store). My problems lay in the bowl of the pipe. A) smoothing the inside of the bowl and B) fitting the stem I already have the bowl about as deep as I want, and have begun a tube for smoke to enter the stem. How can I finish without a power drill?

keep lurking around here, pick up tips from old topics (viewtopic.php?f=43&t=5311&start=0)
and realize that you might have to buy some tools

I believe in ancient days, the cave men would drill holes in things by scraping long skinny rocks with flat rocks until they were sharp, and then they would push reeeeeal hard with the sharp skinny rocks into whatever they were trying to poke a hole through. You could try that...

Or, you could spend a few bucks on some cheap tools and have a fighting chance...

You can pick up a black & decker variable speed drll fairly cheap, get one that's corded is even cheaper and usually less of a pain. Home depot and places of that sort usually have a drill arbor set with 3 buffs, and compounds for about $10, they're not the best in the world, but better than nothing.
For the bowl, PIMO sells bits specifically for that. Their book has a homemade rig plan in it specifically for a hand drill to serve as a drill press/lathe. If you want the book, PM me a mailing address and I'll send you mine.
Long story short, extra tooling will be needed, or at least a very creative imagination. I started with the idea of spade bits and walnut scraps from my yard, and have since sunk a noticable chunk of $$$ into this endeavour, and haven't even hit the point of ordering briar yet.
If ya wanna save money, patience + flea markets + ebay + amazon will save you a lot in the long run. And the willingness to accept that you may have to work ON your tools before working WITH them.
Or, hammer & chisel

I used to do silver working and had an old dremel that didnt have quite enough torque anymore and ended up burning out. Is this a problem with the cheaper ones? Also, Im not against buying tools I was just wondering if there was a trick to this type of wood or anything like that.
MrC

Havinf only worked on estate pipes thus far, I can't give my own opinion of the drilling process and whatnot.
Briar has been refered to on here as a very unusual and hard wood to work with.
The black walnut, should be fairly dense so I would expect it to be labor intensive working with mostly hand tools. I would suggest working your bowl to go with the grain, to lessen the stress on the wood/cracking/splitting, etc. Make sure that it is seasoned wood, if it's not, it'll still be proned to splitting, cracking and warping over time as it dries even after you've worked it. Pretty much any wood purchased from an "all in a box" type store should be seasoned when you buy it. Turning wood (for lathe work?) is usually still green because it's easier to work that way. I may be off about ALL store bought (lowes, home depot, etc) wood being seasoned, but I'd think it would have to be.