sanding the bowl

[bscofield]

For those of you who sand your 'baccy chambers:

How do you sand your 'baccy chambers??

I saw a pic of someone's workshop who had a dowel rod rapped in sand paper rigged to his lathe. That's fine and dandy but I don't have a lathe. What I do have is a pipe or two that were drilled while having my self-shaped spade bit ground down out of balance...

[RadDavis]

Hi Ben,

Do you have a drill press? You can chuck up the sand paper wrapped dowel in there.

Rad

[bscofield]

Rad, Would you suggest wrapping up the rod in enough sand paper that it's thick enough to sand the whole bowl? Or sand a portion at a time??

Random, are these rocks you find up there in colorado?

seriously what type of stones are these?

[RadDavis]

Ben,

Actually, I use a 3/8 metal rod that I've cut a slot in the end. I cut the sand paper with a tab that fits into the slot and wrap it around the rod and tie it off with a pipe cleaner. I've also rounded the end of the rod on my grinder to fit the bottom of most bowls.

You want to wrap the paper so that the *floppy* end is going with the flow. In other words you want the loose end of the paper to be dragging against the edge of the bowl rather than heading into it. I have no idea if this makes any sense. If you wrap it the wrong direction, you'll know.

You don't want it real close to the diameter of the bowl. You want to be able to slide the bowl up while the rod is spinning, and when it hits bottom, angle the bowl a little and move it around so that the sanding rod is in contact with the sides all the way around as you move it.

This harder to describe than I thought.

Hope this helps,

Rad

[bscofield]

Ben,

Actually, I use a 3/8 metal rod that I've cut a slot in the end. I cut the sand paper with a tab that fits into the slot and wrap it around the rod and tie it off with a pipe cleaner. I've also rounded the end of the rod on my grinder to fit the bottom of most bowls.

You want to wrap the paper so that the *floppy* end is going with the flow. In other words you want the loose end of the paper to be dragging against the edge of the bowl rather than heading into it. I have no idea if this makes any sense. If you wrap it the wrong direction, you'll know.

You don't want it real close to the diameter of the bowl. You want to be able to slide the bowl up while the rod is spinning, and when it hits bottom, angle the bowl a little and move it around so that the sanding rod is in contact with the sides all the way around as you move it.

This harder to describe than I thought.

Hope this helps,

Rad

The description was fine BUT, I didn't quite get the thing about the slot in the metal rod and the the tab in the sand paper. Wouldn't happen to have any pics around would you? And of course I don't really expect anyone to actually HAVE pictures of something like that so really I'm asking if you will TAKE pictures of it!

[bscofield]

Random, are these rocks you find up there in colorado?

seriously what type of stones are these?

Here is a link to the Foredom accessories catalog in PDF form, http://www.blackstoneind.com/ordermaxx/ ... log_v1.pdf

The ones that I use are the CreamCut Blue stones # CK8332 and CK8301 (about 120-grit), followed by the White aluminum oxide stones # 82 and 75 (reshaped) which are about 400-grit. Note that their grit numbers seem a little coarser than the actual stones. I'd say that the blue ones work out to about 320-grit and the white ones to about 800-grit but I'm guessing.

Their catalog has lots of cool burrs and stuff if you use a rotary grinder.

I'll have to look into these as well. I have seen these on the shelf at Lowes but haven't gone out and purchased anything yet.

Random, you *WOULD* use something real tiny that would make me work real hard wouldn't you!!?

[RadDavis]

The slot is cut in the end of the rod. The end of the rod is a circle, and you're cutting that in half. About 1/4-1/2 inch deep.

Cut a piece of sand paper as wide as the rod is long, leaving enough bare rod to chuck in you drill press. The length of this piece is about the width of a standard sheet of sand paper

Looking at the back side of the paper you've cut: at the lower left end make a cut parallel with the left side of the paper about 1/4-1/2 inch in and about 1/2 inch long. Then angle the cut back about 45 degrees to the right all the way to the right side of the paper. This leaves a litle tab at the lower left which you insert into the slot in your rod. Then you roll the paper up and secure it at the top with a pipe cleaner.

All this does is keep the paper from spinng free while you're sanding the bowl.

Rad

[ToddJohnson]

Maybe Todd or someone with a more traditional outlook will comment on how the real high-graders do things.

I don't know of any high-grade makers that sand their tobacco chambers smooth. Maybe Kent is still doing it on a few of his pipes, but I know even Michael "king of anal pipemaking procedures" Lindner is coating all of his bowls now. I'm sure there are some out there, but none of the Danes I can think of and no Americans I know. None of the Japanese makers either I don't think. There are no Italian or English high grades ( ), so that exhausts my knowledge.

If you're drilling and turning down the tops of your bowls on a lathe, then the most logical thing to do would be to sand the bowl interior while it's spinning in the chuck using progressively finer grades of paper. This would only take a couple of minutes I should think.

Todd

[RadDavis]

Hi Todd,

The only reason I sand my bowls is to remove any stain and/or buffing compound that has colored the inside of the bowl near the top. I sand the inside with 80 grit.

I'm not trying to get a smooth as glass finish, just cleaning up after myself.

Rad

[bscofield]

Random, you *WOULD* use something real tiny that would make me work real hard wouldn't you!!?

Dunno, Ben. I'm not really recommending that you do what I do, in fact you might be wise to avoid anything I do; I'm just reporting how I do things since you asked.

Oh I know... I was just joking. When I saw the size of the bits I was just thinking to myself how much I'd probably screw up the first time I tried to sand the inside of a bowl with them...

[bscofield]

Hi Todd,

The only reason I sand my bowls is to remove any stain and/or buffing compound that has colored the inside of the bowl near the top. I sand the inside with 80 grit.

I'm not trying to get a smooth as glass finish, just cleaning up after myself.

Rad

That's what I'm trying to do too... Only I'm not sloppy just stupid. Should have NOT drilled with the drill bit all wobbly like it was!

I want to start coating but haven't gotten the ingredients yet... I just need a fix for like 3 chambers...

[ToddJohnson]

Hi Todd,

The only reason I sand my bowls is to remove any stain and/or buffing compound that has colored the inside of the bowl near the top. I sand the inside with 80 grit.

I'm not trying to get a smooth as glass finish, just cleaning up after myself.

Rad

Aah, I see. I thought we were looking for a way to make them shine. It may have already been suggested, but a dowel rod with a slit in it wrapped in sandpaper should work great. One thing you can do is purchase one of those sanding sponges and skin the top off of it. Glue that to a dowel rod slightly smaller than the size of your chamber and just twist it around in there a few times with your hand. As long as you're not trying to make it smooth like glass, there's probably no need for a machine to get involved. You won't wear your arm out just trying to remove a bit of stain. FWIW, I just use a rolled up piece of worn out 220 (tear the paper in half and fold into thirds. Then roll this up) inside my bowls right before I coat them. This removes any wax residue and makes certain the coating will cling to the walls really well.

Best,

Todd

[RadDavis]

I tried the waterglass/charcoal bowl coating on a couple of testers, and wherever there was a little wax from buffing (cuz that's when I applied the coating, after bowl sanding & then waxing) it sorta bubbles a *lot* when you smoke it!

I don't do it that way anymore.

Rad

[achduliebe]

Ben,

I just use a slightly smaller (smaller than the diameter of the tobacco chamber that is) dowel rod with some sand paper wrapped around it and sand it by hand. Like it was stated previously, I just use like 150 or 220 and knock of the stain and/or wax that got in there.

[bscofield]

Ben adds to grocery list...

1) 1 dowel rod slightly smaller than 3/4" (Perhaps metal?)
2) 1 set of stone grinding tools for a dremmel
3) more sandpaper
4) a metal lathe (!!!)

doH! there isn't a grocery on there!

[CigarBoB]

I am new to this and getting more and more intrested in making my own pipe soon.

But as i was reading your posts on this subject and my past experince from the world of woking in a bowling proshop when i was younger made me think of the tool we would use to smooth out the thumb and finger holes of bowling balls.

http://www.masterindustries.com/pages/product114.html

you can get sanding disc's to 400ish or you can make your own out of a sheet of sand paper.

I figure this could be good for the saning the hole issue. You will just have to be careful when you reach the top of the bowl it can really bevel the edge fast.

Hope this helps.

[Brendhain]

CigarBoB

what type of bit is used for drilling into the bowling balls?