Bulldog rings without a lathe?

sethile · Post by **sethile** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 12:41 pm

Hello folks,
Anyone have any tricks for cutting the decoritive groves into Bulldogs and Rhodesians without a lathe?

I want to try this on my upcoming pipe project (#3). Best I have been able to think up for this (using what I have) is to use a very sharp marking tool set up to use the top rim of the stummel against the guide, and with a very steady hand rotate the stummel so the needle point of the marking tool cuts the grove. Figured real light preasue at first, then heavier preasure once the initial line is cut. Depending on how that looks I thought I could follow it up with a very fine dovetail saw to deepen and widen the grove a little.

The thought of doing this scares me to death, especially if the pipe looks good up to that point. Any better ideas or techniques for this?

One day I will have a lathe, but not this time....
Scott

bvartist · Post by **bvartist** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 1:30 pm

Scott,

What I tried once was place the top of the bowl flat on my workbench and used a sharp scribe(any sharp object that will lay flat will work) shimmed with a small scrap of wood to the right height of the ring I wanted to cut and turned the stummel while keeping the top of the bowl flat on my workbench and the scribe lightly touching the stummel to mark the ring, then I widened and deepened the ring with a needle file. Took a lot of patience and a steady hand but worked ok. Might work better with a good dovetail saw too instead of using the needle file.

AHH, the things we try to accomplish with our limited tools!!!

David

Post by **KurtHuhn** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 2:21 pm

A forum member here recently did one by creating a jig that involved a dowel inserted into the tobacco chamber and a dremel with a slitting or cutoff tool. Hold the dremel in one place while rotating the stummel on the dowl, and you can probably get a decent line.

StephenDownie · Post by **StephenDownie** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 9:32 pm

I sandblasted the rings into an Eskimo shape I made a while back. Worked pretty well. You can see the results here: http://www.downiepipes.com/s49.html Good Luck!

sethile · Post by **sethile** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 12:37 pm

Thanks a bunch for the replies everyone! Some very helpful ideas....

Stephen, that is a beautiful pipe! Very unique. I like the blasted ring a lot. Unfortunitely that is not an option for me yet either, but sure hope it will be eventually.

Well, it turns out this project has morfed into a different shape, and yet another diaster/learning experience. The initial Rhodesian shape I came up with was not too bad, but that shape turns out to be tough to keep symetrical without a lathe (at least for me), let alone making the groves I had planned for.

Well, to make a long and painfull story short, I ended up unhappy with the Bulldog/Rhodesain shape I had and turned it into more of a egg shaped freehand. It's still in process and the shape looks ok... but now this is just another painful educational experience. It might still smoke ok, but I completely ruined it while drilling....

My drilling procedure so far has been to drill the tobacco chamber first, then I drill the airhole while watching in the tobacco chamber and stop when they intersect (hopefully where I expect them too). Well, the airhole never showed up in the chamber on this one, so I stoped, but not in time. Best I can tell the drill bit drifted down and I just missed the bottom of the tobacco chamber). "No problem", I thought, knowing I had a little room in the bottom, and not knowing I'd also drilled way past the tobacco chamber, I drilled the tobacco chamber down to the airhole. That looked great until I went to shape the pipe and the end of the airhole poped up on the exterior of the pipe as I was shaping!

I decided to keep working on this, just for the experience, and the sad thing is I'm starting to see some nice grain. So now I want to finish it in spite of the hole. I plugged it with some maple dowel. I guess I could always turn it into some sort of high bred Kawoodie style "Carborator" or something.

BTW, this is pipe #3 for me (more like diaster #3). Continuing to learn a lot. This time, I'm afraid I ruined a nice piece of wood with some potential, and that's a bit more depressing than #2, which was also ruined, but that block was crap anyway. At least this "education" has not been real expensive so far. I've been using the PIMO R shaped ebauchons to learn on. That's about the only smart thing I've done! Really learned a lot on this one...

Thanks again for all the help and suggestions.
Scott

hazmat · Post by **hazmat** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 12:44 pm

Scott... you may want to seriously consider reversing your drilling procedure.. drill the air hole first, then the mortise, then the tobacco chamber. There's much more "room to move" so to speak, in the reverse process. Drilling the chamber first, in my experience, has always left me feeling like I'm in a hit-or-miss operation in terms of matching up the chamber with the air hole. Just food for thought you might find helpful in the future. Good luck!

Matt

SmokingArea · Post by **SmokingArea** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 11:52 pm

Pooka that's ingenious. I had been wondering the same question, and your answer sounds like it'd work well.

Scott,

Sorry to hear about your problems. That must have been frustrating.

EvGeniy · Post by **EvGeniy** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 3:32 am

How to make rings? I was set by this question. :think: Also that has thought up, but yet has not tested.
Born them with the help of a wire and electricity

Butch_Y · Post by **Butch_Y** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 10:43 pm

I do this by securing the piece somehow (a dowel stick in the chamber and clamped in a vice sounds good) and using a long length of the fat guitar wire (I think it's .060) slowly pull it back and forth where you want. The winding is usually enough to at least get a solid groove going that can later be worked with a file. This tool works especially well on the lathe too.

I tried the scribe idea but found it to be too time consuming. I found that flat skew chisels work ok like this too. On a heavy angle I use the scribe first to start so the guitar wire has a bit of a guide.

Hope this helps.

Heinz_D · Post by **Heinz_D** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 5:31 pm

I also thought about this problem and I want to try the following: I want to make a form like an small "U" out of a piece of wood wher the open end is rounded like the bowl I want to get the ring. Put a sharp wire into the "U" and fasten it together in a vice with fitting the open end to the position you want to work on. Do the same on the other side and you'll get a "mask" for the position. Now move the wire on the bowl and you'll get a ring in a symetric position!

Don't know if this works, but I'll try it one time and tell you about the results...