pipemakersforum.com

Hi Folks,
Firstly, thanx to all that responded to my tools Q.

Last nite I took a dremel and needle files to a chubby old junker to reshape the stem and mouth piece. It had lots of wood and stem to work with.
So my two questions are:
I have created slight rounding/gaps where stem and shank meet, even though I never sanded with the stem removed. How can I avoid this ?

I also noticed small pin prick holes in the stem material near the tenon ( on exterior) appeared as I removed material. This is a slightly bent stem.
What causes these holes? I feel they were air pockets that I revealed by sanding down to them - at least that is the way they appear to me.

Again, I have gratitude for all responses.
TIA

magruder wrote:I have created slight rounding/gaps where stem and shank meet, even though I never sanded with the stem removed. How can I avoid this ?

You might not be able to. These gaps are created when you remove material from a face that was not perfectly flat to begin with, and only appeared to mate perfectly because the maker was only concerned with the outside edge of stem/stummel junction. There's nothing wrong with that, most machine-made pipes are like that. Since most folks won't try to reshape the stem, most folks will never see that "imperfection".

Since you can't avoid it, you might as well fix it. Just use a trick that Random and some others have suggested. Grab a piece of sandpaper, poke a hole in it, slide it over the tenon, assemble the pipe, and rotate the sandpaper to remove material and make the junction flush again.

I also noticed small pin prick holes in the stem material near the tenon ( on exterior) appeared as I removed material. This is a slightly bent stem.
What causes these holes? I feel they were air pockets that I revealed by sanding down to them - at least that is the way they appear to me.

They could very well be air babbles. That would be my guess as well.