Cutting Tenons on Molded Stems Using a Lathe (video set)

For discussion of fitting and shaping stems, doing inlays, and any other stem-related topic.
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LatakiaLover
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Cutting Tenons on Molded Stems Using a Lathe (video set)

Post by LatakiaLover »

UFOs must be real. There's no other explanation for cats.
caskwith
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Re: Cutting Tenons on Molded Stems Using a Lathe (video set)

Post by caskwith »

Interesting series, as always.

Regarding your comments on drill presses, you make some good points about the quality of hobby machines versus the machines of old but I think you make a mistake that I see many times when people compare new vs old. You are not comparing apples and apples, those drills presses and indeed many machine tools of old were never designed for home shop use, they are purely industrial, often heavy industrial. The reason they are available today and there is no modern equivalent is that that they have been superseded by technology and are not required. Hobby level equipment was never available to joe public and is available now because the cost of these items (both manufacture and design) is low enough as to allow us to purchase them. With that of course comes compromise. A modern equivalent of the old machine tools could be made (and in some cases still is made) but the cost would be high (as it was in the old days) so that a home shopper could never justify the cost.
DocAitch
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Re: Cutting Tenons on Molded Stems Using a Lathe (video set)

Post by DocAitch »

George, Thanks for the interesting videos.
I was faced with similar problems to overcome when I resumed making pipes in 2106. I had never made a stem from rod,but had done multiple stems from pre molds in the 1970s. We used a similar set up to the one portrayed here except that the button end holder was a custum made thing that had curved surfaces that “centered” the button.
I was unable to produce those complex shapes, and came up with this:
Image
The prototype was a piece of wood shovel handle on the left.
The center hole is about 3/8” and the “V” is hand cut with a file. Needless to say, it it was not super accurately made but I discovered that if I indexed the holder to the cheap 3 jaw chuck, and indexed/marked the stem so that it went back in the same orientation each time after a test fit, I could remove the stem for a test fit and replace it and it would stay concentric.
I didn’t need a dial indicator to center the holding piece
Image
The button “centers” on the 4 points of intersection between the “V” cut and the center hole. I did break the intersecting edges slightly to keep from cutting the button.
I also found that the regular bits as configured would catch the live center and for a couple of years used this:
Image
A ground down cheap HF bit- the right corner is ground down to provide the clearance for the live center. This worked fine while I was using pre molds.
For this series of photographs (done for another forum) I found that the replaceable bits that Premal sells work very well and I get a smooth cut using the screw feed on the lathe. I also face the stem by manually backing out the tool holder so that the orientation of the bit is not crucial.
Image
Different way to skin the cat, by a non machinist oriented person.
DocAitch
For these phots
"Hettinger, if you stamp 'hand made' on a dog turd, some one will buy it."
-Charles Hollyday, pipe maker, reluctant mentor, and curmudgeon
" Never show an idiot an unfinished pipe!"- same guy
LatakiaLover
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Re: Cutting Tenons on Molded Stems Using a Lathe (video set)

Post by LatakiaLover »

Making anything, not just stems, is always a matter of "whatever works, works."

It's part of the fun and part of the insanity.

My main motivation was from worrying that I'd leaned so hard on my giant Arboga & custom x-y rig in previous videos that people came away thinking that something like it was the only way to do repair work (meaning molded stems); and they already knew from other videos on the Net that a big lathe was the only way to make whole pipes where rod stock was King of the Hill and premolds were considered poison.

Letting them know that they could cut good tenons on premolds with a SMALL lathe was a lifeline of sorts, in other words. I wanted to demonstrate that they didn't have to settle for the crappy output of a cheap, flexy, tabletop drill press and $50 spinner-cutter to do repair work. That a $300 lathe would do the trick if they paid attention to certain things.

All the rest was just taken from what I had on hand.
UFOs must be real. There's no other explanation for cats.
DocAitch
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Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2015 12:44 am
Location: Baltimore, Maryland

Re: Cutting Tenons on Molded Stems Using a Lathe (video set)

Post by DocAitch »

George,
No criticism intended, just a slightly different way to approach the task using the same principles.
When I re started making pipes in 2016, making a stem from rod appeared to be a Herculean task, and I improvised from what I had experienced in the 1970s, and what I had- a 7x10” HF lathe.
I had no idea what a dial indicator was or could be used for so the indexing method seems to work best, and I get repeatable cuts with the cheap chuck on my HF lathe.
I looked up Premal’s button holder and for $18.00, I would have jumped were it available.
Thanks for the video-its always a pleasure to see how someone else does things.
DocAitch
"Hettinger, if you stamp 'hand made' on a dog turd, some one will buy it."
-Charles Hollyday, pipe maker, reluctant mentor, and curmudgeon
" Never show an idiot an unfinished pipe!"- same guy
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