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I made this the other week thanks for looking

Looks like Yankee ingenuity to me. Neat.
Chas.

Good lookin piece of work, that could come in handy for alot of various procedures.

That's really cool. I can see that being really handy if you work with a lot of pre-fab stems.

from the picture it looks like the tenon is being cut off center? or is that just an illusion of some sort?

That's the kicker with prefabs in my experience - the tenon isn't round and isn't centered, and if you use the outside of the blank as a guideline, who knows where the hell the airway will end up.

That's the only advantage of turning "between centers" - you wind up with the airway in the middle (but this often comes at the expense of drastically re-shaping the outside of the stem.

Very observant, the stem was just a prop for the pic

Sasquatch wrote:That's the kicker with prefabs in my experience - the tenon isn't round and isn't centered, and if you use the outside of the blank as a guideline, who knows where the hell the airway will end up.
That's the only advantage of turning "between centers" - you wind up with the airway in the middle (but this often comes at the expense of drasticallyre-shaping the outside of the stem.

One of the many reasons to cut your own stems....

Very cool. I used to have a piece of rod with a slot and a pin. Sort of worked, but pre-molds are such a schlep!

Here's my setup, suggested Paul Perri.







Machined cone in the end of aluminium bar stock, with a rubber chair leg cover slotted to prevent spinning of the stem. The cone always centers the bit end. Brilliantly simple, and it works extremely well.

I really like your chuck idea, as it would work well for repair work to drill and replace a snapped tenon. Incorporating a cone, centered at the bit end, perhaps even adjustable, would ensure centering of the stem. Just a thought.

CACooper

And some West Coast ingenuity this time. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention.
Chas.

Just don't go greedy with your cuts - torsion will break a stem fixed like that in no time.