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Ok, I give up. I always seem to end up with some stain into the chamber, especially on rusticated pipes. Sanding it out seems to take quite a long time.

Any hints on avoiding it in the first place? Followed by, what's the easiest way to get it out?

Thanks,
Joel

I stick a dowel in the chamber while I'm staining. It helps some but doesn't keep everything out. Just keeps most of it near the rim.

So far as I know the only "easy" way to get rid of it is to sand it out

I try not to get any stain inside the bowl, like you. Capillary action will actually draw some stain in to the bowl is your staining close to the top no matter how careful you are. But if I do, and I know I'm using a pre-carb coating, I don't worry about it. The pre-carb coating will cover a multitude of minor sins. Otherwise, its good ole sandpaper.

Some carvers wrap sandpaper around a metal or dowel rod, chuck it into a lathe and use that on the inside of the bowl to sand the stain away. No easy way I guess.

This brings up yet another advantage of shaping prior to drilling. I suppose one could shape and stain then drill and have a perfect line every time. I wonder if that is how Purdy does it? His always look perfect...

When I get ready to stain, I stick a wooden dowel in the chamber that has a napkin or paper towel wrapped around it. The dowel is actually a bit smaller than the chamber, but is a snug fit with the napkin or paper towel wrapped around it. I still get a little stain inside sometimes, but it is rare.

You can try this. Assuming you've got smooth chamber walls--that is to say, your drill is sharp and there's no chatter--you can do the following. After sanding with 320 or 400, load a spare buffing wheel with carnuba, and wax the top of the pipe, making sure to lay down as much wax as possible on the top 1/4" of the chamber walls. Then, do your finish sanding, making sure not to sand down into the chamber. When you stain, you still need to be careful, but the chamber walls will resist the stain where there's wax. After you've stained and polished, take some 320 or 400 and roll it up like a scroll. Use this like a dowel rod to sand the wax off the chamber walls. That should pretty much do the trick. My advide though would be to get some pumice, activated charcoal, and waterglass to make a bowl coating mixture. I know everyone has an opinion about this, but if you end up selling pipes for a hobby or a living, it only makes sense to coat every bowl that leaves your shop. And personally, I think it gives the pipe a very nice finished look.

Good luck,

Todd

How do you hold a pipe firmly in the jaws, without damaging the sides, if you want to shape before drilling. Also, how does that effect the centering of the hole.
Tano

A couple of good ideas here! Thanks folks.

Tano, somewhere on this board is a link to a video showing how Talbert drills after shaping --- chucking the drill in the lathe and, if memory serves, using a dab of hardened epoxy (?) as an anchor for a pin between the end-stock chuck and the stummel; left hand steadies and guides the pipe while the right hand advances the end-stock toward the lathe head. The other way is to free-hand the entire process, using both hands to hold and guide the stummel onto the rotating drill bit. Both methods -- but especially the latter -- seem like magic far beyond my abilities.

I use a cotton swab(q-tip) with a very small amount of stain on it(almost dry) to put the color on the rim. Takes several coats- usually 4 to 6 or more to match the color of the rest of the bowl but the thin coats of stain dry sufficiently in a minute or two and the whole procedure doesn't take too long. Not putting much stain on at one time allows me much better control and I rarely have a problem with stain inside the bowl.

David

You guys with the lathes - why not take a 1 1/2 inch (Nylon/Acrylic or wood) rod and just taper it down like a plug. For the guys without a lathe, most hardware stores carry tapered hard rubber plugs (about 79 cents).

Seems to me like an easy solution.

A synthetic wine cork works great as a stopper when you're sandblasting, but unfortunately, it won't keep stain from leaking into the bowl. If you don't coat your bowls, there's just always going to have to be some sanding to make sure there's a crisp line at the top. It's pretty much unavoidable.

Todd

I agree with Todd. The capillary action will still have a tendancy to draw some stain into the top of the rim of the bowl.

But no doubt a rubber stopper would minimize it and then allow for minimal sanding.

I'm going to try putting some electrical tape inside the bowl with it sticking out the top about half the width of the tape. Maybe that'll help.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

Joel

Get yourself plenty of bottles of wine. Or a wife that likes wine, if you prefer beer. This is tha case in our household. What I wanted to say is there are lots of diameters of smoke chambers (I mostly revamp estates…). But even if you drill your own, I heard there are variations. So having some cork of several dimensions will help.

And if you enjoy drinking wine, there may still be other positive sideline effects…