A couple of weeks ago I asked some very basic questions about forming stummels and I was fortunate to get some excellent advice; I did some retooling in my shop to gear up for pipemaking and I am very pleased with the results.
The first bit of business was to mount and modify an old twin mandrel pillow block to accommodate a sanding and buffing system. I drilled and tapped the shaft on the right side to hold a piece of threaded rod to mount a Jacobs chuck which holds either a sanding disc (a 3-inch 80-grit disc cuts beautifully!) or any of a number of sanding cylinders:
The whole thing is driven by an old 1725 rpm washing machine motor which is mounted inside the plywood box. The biggest expense was $25 for an Accu-link belt to drive the pulley, and I had enough links left over to replace the belt on my lathe which may be on its last legs.
I learned from the experts (that would be you guys) that the best approach is to cut the mortises, draught holes, and tobacco chambers on the lathe. Not being willing to shell out $700 for a Ken Lamb pipe chuck (work of art that it is), I welded my own jaws for the Supernova chuck at a cost of exactly zero dollars and zero cents (if you don't count the cost of a few inches of welding wire) and here is a picture of same mounted on my ancient Craftsman lathe:
Finally, being a bit cheap and unwilling to shell out a hundred bucks for a tobacco chamber drill bit, I ground down an old 3/4" brad point bit that I bought twenty years or so ago and probably used once and after 5 or 10 minutes of grinding I had what I think is the ideal tobacco chamber bit. Then I took an 11/64" bit and welded a short length of 10 gauge rebar wire to the back of it to make a draught hole bit that I discovered to be more than adequate. Here are my pipemakers' bits:
In case you were wondering, the black tape on the draught hole bit is not holding the bit to the extension; it's my depth gauge.
Over the past three days I made three pipes:
The two bent pipes were predrilled Pimo kits but one (the straight pipe) was built from a solid briar block and turned on my lathe. The draught hole and tobacco chamber lined up perfectly, using the aforementioned draught hole bit and tobacco chamber bit.
The bowl which contains the three pipes in the photo is one I also turned on my lathe, but that's irrelevant. Yesterday was a beautiful day here in Maryland and I sat outside and cut one of the pipes (the one on the top in the picture) almost entirely by hand with a wood rasp. I did some minimal finishing and staining, and was left with a finish which is surprisingly reminiscent of deer antler.
The most rewarding aspect of all this is that I can now take a briar block and confidently produce a functional and (if the assessment of my friends is accurate and free of prejudice) aesthetically pleasing stummel.
The bottom line is that I have had a blast over the past few weeks adapting your sage advice to making the necessary adjustments to my shop to produce a smokeable pipe and I owe much of what I have been able to accomplish to your thoughtfulness in steering me in the right direction.
Many thanks,
-Dave
