Shank Extension Question

hazmat · Post by **hazmat** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:36 am

This is probably addressed elsewhere, but WTF, I'm too lazy to search today :dunno:

When making a shank extension, what is the preferred method of connecting extension to shank? Do you:

a) Turn a "tenon" on the non-drilled shank and a mortise in the extension material, then glue together?

or

b)do you face off the shank end and the extension material end and glue together?

or

c) the reverse of "a"... mortise the shank, tenon the extension material then glue together??

I have some new wood coming(what a crime.. out of 3 hunks of wood I ordered getting back up and running with this, only 1.. yeah.. ONE STINKING PIPE survived the process... sigh... I'm thinking particularly about ScoJo whilst writing this.. fear not, my friend, others have problems, too!!

) and I'd like to do a shank extension on at least one, if not more of the pipes... any helps, as always, is greatly appreciated..

RadDavis · Post by **RadDavis** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 1:46 pm

Hi hazmat,

I do "c".

Rad

alexanderfrese · Post by **alexanderfrese** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 2:08 pm

BTW: Maybe we should try to make some cookbooks out of several central threads. I suggested this to Kurt some time ago, but shurely we can not force him to distill that work.
So I would like to go for that on a team basis. Please continue to discuss the idea on this thread (so we don't go OT here):
Collecting most important infos for stickie cookbook threads

hazmat · Post by **hazmat** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 3:09 pm

Alex... are you talking about something like a centralized "how-to" where you could find all manner of tutorials for the different processes in pipe-making?

Oh.. and thanks, Rad.. I was planning on going that way with it.

Matt

ScoJo · Post by **ScoJo** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 3:19 pm

Is anyone out there drilling a mortise in the shank and the extension, and then connecting the two via a piece of briar or a piece of delrin? If so, what diameter of connecting piece are you using? Would the tenon of the stem then fit into that connecting material (assuming the hole drilled the entire way through the extension material)? If so, what is the OD of the delrin connector piece, given, say, a 5/16" tenon on the stem.

Does any of this make any sense? It's been a long day...

hazmat · Post by **hazmat** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 3:23 pm

It makes sense, ScoJo.. but I'm not sure how it would work any better than option A or option C... may be more frustrating, though.

If you're going to do it that way, however, I'd go with an OD on connector tenon(??) of maybe 7/8ths or, if you feel you need larger for your war clubs (

) as much as 3/4ths.. that would definitely give you plenty of extra to drill into..

ScoJo · Post by **ScoJo** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 3:34 pm

After writing that I'm just shocked it made sense.

Anyway, for me c would be easier than a because I could use the little lathe I have for stems to turn the tenon on the extension material. If I wanted to turn the tenon on the undrilled shank I'd have to do it by hand on my Jet mini and I don't trust myself to get a nice constant tenon diameter that way.

If you were to do c, would you still go for the same extension tenon diameter?

hazmat · Post by **hazmat** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 3:42 pm

ScoJo wrote: If you were to do c, would you still go for the same extension tenon diameter?

Not sure what you mean here, but I think I kinda do... hrm... I have no idea, really, what diameter I'll turn the tenon on the shank extension to at this point. It's gotta be, at least in my mind, larger than 5/16, which is what I drill my shank mortise to. I would think that if I made the tenon on the extension 5/16, it would be somewhat too close to the 5/32 diameter of my draft hole and could cause problems when drilling.. not sure on this, just guessing.

When I do it, I'm probaly going to make it a 7/8 tenon/mortise for the extention and see how that does me... if anyone has rock-solid dimensions for this, chime in, please!

JSPipes · Post by **JSPipes** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 3:48 pm

There are a couple of different ways that I've handled it.

Drill both to 3/8 and use a piece of delrin as a tenon and epoxy the whole mess together. Then drill out a mortise and shape it. Or, use the piece of delrin as the tenon for the stem too and drill a 3/8 inch hole for it in your stem material before you make it.

The issue with the first example is that you end up with a pretty narrow tenon and it's somewhat fragile if the pipe drops. The second is a pretty non-standard method and I don't know how the market would accept it.

I'm going to use delrin one size larger in the future so that I can drill a larger mortise.

Hope this helps some.
Joel

ScoJo · Post by **ScoJo** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 3:52 pm

Hazmat without the delrin connection, does that mean that your stem will only fit into a mortise in the extension material, or would you have to make the tenon on the stem long enough to get into the briar?

LexKY_Pipe · Post by **LexKY_Pipe** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 4:08 pm

See Tyler's video on the subject. I use Tyler's method.

Post by **KurtHuhn** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 8:34 pm

For a decorative ring or face on the shank, I:
- face the shank
- drill the mortis
- cut a short tenon on the face that is a snug fit for my decorative material, and is the depth as the thickness of the decorative material
- drill the airway (because that's usually at a different angle)
- and after the thing has got a tobacco chamber bored, I epexy the decorative wood to the shank using the tenon as my guide of where to put it.

Since I usually use finish planed and sanded wood that I get from Woodcraft, this method is ideal.

For stems I just use an extra long piece of delrin tenon material, after ensuring that all my pieces are faced and the decorative material has a good hole in it with perpendicular faces.

hazmat · Post by **hazmat** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 8:01 am

ScoJo wrote:Hazmat without the delrin connection, does that mean that your stem will only fit into a mortise in the extension material, or would you have to make the tenon on the stem long enough to get into the briar?

Depends how you do it, I guess... I havne't done this yet, so anything I put down in this thread is pure guess-work.

geigerpipes · Post by **geigerpipes** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 11:10 am

I use various methods depending on what I'm after but for a long shank extension I use treaded stainless m6 steel as a joiner that I drill out with a 4mm bit and drill bout the stummel and extension with an m6 tredded bit then just screw them togheter with a drop of epoxy

Best

Love
www.geigerpipes.com

ScoJo · Post by **ScoJo** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 2:56 pm

LexKY_Pipe wrote:See Tyler's video on the subject. I use Tyler's method.

Where is Tyler's video on shank extensions? Do you have a link?

Thanks.

hazmat · Post by **hazmat** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 2:59 pm

go to http://www.tylerlanepipes.com and look around.. I think it's on there somewheres..

ScoJo · Post by **ScoJo** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 3:03 pm

I was looking - I saw the tutorial on bamboo shanks and the one on stem inlays, but not shank extensions.

hazmat · Post by **hazmat** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 3:19 pm

Well.. here's how I"m going to approach it, based on method "C" in my opening message of this thread:

1. with a forstner bit, drill a mortise into what will be the shank of my pipe.
2. chuck up the extension wood and turn a tenon the depth and width of the mortise I drilled.
3. carve in some grooves on the tenon sides and mortise walls
4. slather both mortise and tenon with epoxy
5. mash the two together

I don't know if this is the "right" process, but I think it will work just fine.

ScoJo · Post by **ScoJo** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 6:00 pm

KurtHuhn wrote:For a decorative ring or face on the shank, I:
- face the shank
- drill the mortis
- cut a short tenon on the face that is a snug fit for my decorative material, and is the depth as the thickness of the decorative material
- drill the airway (because that's usually at a different angle)
- and after the thing has got a tobacco chamber bored, I epexy the decorative wood to the shank using the tenon as my guide of where to put it.

Since I usually use finish planed and sanded wood that I get from Woodcraft, this method is ideal.

For stems I just use an extra long piece of delrin tenon material, after ensuring that all my pieces are faced and the decorative material has a good hole in it with perpendicular faces.

Hey Kurt - I am confused on one thing (well, actually many things, but this one at the moment).

Once you turn a tenon on the shank, how are you sure that the face of the shank at the base of that tenon is square enough to meet nicely with the mortised face of the extension? You're turning this tenon by hand right?

Post by **KurtHuhn** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 10:10 pm

ScoJo wrote: Once you turn a tenon on the shank, how are you sure that the face of the shank at the base of that tenon is square enough to meet nicely with the mortised face of the extension? You're turning this tenon by hand right?

Yes, by hand.

And I'm going to horrify everyone by saying that I don't do anything special, I just eyball it. Works every time with no space between the shank and stem. It's not too hard to do, you just need to pay close attention. With a metal lathe it would be trivial, but it's not appreciably more difficult on a wood lathe.