I find myself really wanting to have a nice polished finish on my shank and stem faces, just like the finish on the outside of the pipe. Two questions on this: Is polished faces the norm in the high grade pipe world? Is there some trick to sanding the faces without ruining the flush stem-shank fit or does it just come down to having sharp lathe tools so there has to be no sanding?
To be clear, I don't sand the faces now, since I find a flush fit to be way more important than a polished face.
I first started thinking about this when I did some contrast staining. I couldn't think of a way to make the contrast on the shank face so it just ended up black from the first staining. Any thoughts on how to contrast stain the shank face so it looks like the rest of the pipe?
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
Thanks,
Albert