pipemakersforum.com

A friend in Miami has told me his city council have ordered an old couple to stop growing vegetables in their front yard or face fines, sob's. Here in merry old England we are not allowed work of a ladder more than 6 feet high, at which point we must have scaffolding. European union for you, soon we...

So are you trying to face bamboo or stummels or other stuff? andrew Stummels and mouth pieces, i dont like the look of bamboo, i work mostly in very old Pearwood, taken from over a fireplace in a 200plus year old house, bowls do not get hot incredible piece of wood, still have a piece 6fert long by...

andrew wrote:Well, that's not good. If you can't face off with your turret I'm not going to hold out much hope for the tailstock. Do you have a chuck for your tailstock?

andrew

Its ok, just not up to top grade finish.

Yes, 13mm Jacobs.

Neither is really suitable as the spindle bore is to small, for accurate drilling you need the work right in the chuck with only a couple of mm sticking out, due to the lightweight nature of these lathes bed twist, and poor milling of the bed will cause problems. drilling a straight hole becomes ver...

andrew wrote:Do you have a lathe?

andrew

yes, a cheap Chinese one, that has had some upgrading, although it is fast turning into a pile of poo as i have worked it to death making parts for fishing reels.
I normally just face off like i would turning round bar but it is not that accurate.

Thanks Scotties22, will try that. I suppose i had better say a bit about myself, 58, retired Lithographic printer, trained in engineering and moved onto presses when i was 21, hobbies include sea fishing, tournament casting, darts, cigars smoking, traded the Pipe smoking for a box of cubans a month ...

Time invest in a Leather apron perhaps, or a BPV made of uhmwpe, i got Trappaned by a 3mm drill bit once, workshop was so cold i did not feel it till the blood was dripping off the end of my nose.

Have a look on youtube some good vids by some top turners, search for tubalcain, he has forgotten more than most will ever know. South bend in good condition will take some bettering. As its only turning pipes( low level of accuracy) a bit of wear in the gibs or a bit of backlash niether here nor th...

Everything we do as pipemakers is outside what the lathe is designed for. The jaws are never run far off centre if set up correctly, the action of the briar block would be many magnitudes worse despite its lesser weight. It would not worry me in the least to run that chuck with steel jaws. Rotating...

Running that amount of weight offcenter or even central on an 80/100mm chuck is outside what the lathe is designed for, basically it would be out of balance, even a big block of wood is only going to be 100grams, them jaws in steel would be perhaps 5x that.

Nice looking jaws, when i first saw them i thought hope they are not steel, if they were you would be spending a fortune in new head stock bearings.

Ocelot55 wrote:Welcome to the forum! I'm looking forward to seeing your work.

I have tried to post some pics, but the are to big and yhe site says NO. lol, not sure how to sort it.

and thanks for letting me in, got into pipes in a roundabout sort of way via Cigar smoking, over the last 9 months i have got into making pipes, already had a lathe and pillar drill, added some sanding bits and a band saw ( just about dead).