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This site is wonderful..... Thank all of you for all the helpful info provided on this forum.

I drilled my acrylic stem to wide all the way through so my question is can I use a heat gun on the end (button) and pinch it down to narrow the hole?
Thanks in advance.

worth a try

This is a potentially interesting idea. Drill a straight 5/32" hole all the way through the stem, then heat and squish it to form a fan shaped opening at the bit, then shape the outside to finish.

Thanks I will give it a shot and let you know the results.

You would have to be careful when heating the stem to bend later on. On occasion when bending stems i have squashed the button a little bit. This is easily fixed by gentle localised heating of the button as both acrylic and ebonite have form memory. Something to keep in mind if you are going to try this.

Random made some posts on this a few years ago. I seem to recall he never had much luck for some reason. Maybe because he was using Ultem, but I don't know. Apparently the material wanted to crack in the areas being stretched (the sides of the bit, basically).

KurtHuhn wrote:Random made some posts on this a few years ago. I seem to recall he never had much luck for some reason. Maybe because he was using Ultem, but I don't know. Apparently the material wanted to crack in the areas being stretched (the sides of the bit, basically).

Random reported great success by slamming a slot shaped tool into the hole at the button. At the time he was using polycarbonite, I think.

I think it was Trever who said he had tried something similar with vulcanite long before Random's post and had cracking problems. Ebonite will bend fine, but I don't think it has a lot of stretch/squish room.

Rad

I tried it. Took me a couple hours to fashion one of the tools Randon described from an old file. Unfortunally, ebonite doesn't stretch very well. When I forced the tool into the ebonite to make a horizonal slot, it did indeed make a perfect slot. But rather than the ebonite stretching, it tore on the vertical and made vertical cracks. I fooled with it quite a while. I can't make it work without the cracks forming. If someone can I would like to know how. bob

This reminds me of another question I have had for some time - Don't the factories have easier ways to make perfectly smooth Y-shape airway at the slot, say, heat-extruding a stem like that. Do factories like Dunhill do it that way? Further, if the German rod manufacturers produce short pieces of rod with such smooth slots ready-extruded, that will save hand-crafters a lot of work. And since manufacturers have much more precise and high-tech equipment, the airway slot will actually be aerodynamically better than hand-made. External shaping will be left to hand-crafters, so that still keeps us free from any pre-fab ignominy. What do you think?

I think I'd rather do it myself.

You could, in theory, build a machine that slotted stems really, really well. Most manufactures seem to either rely on extruded, pre-fab stems, or do handcut slot with "quickie" tools. You see the slot kind of a half-round shape from some small bit being applied, for example. Quick and easy. Totally the opposite of Kurt's result, in the photo essay at the top of this board.

But could it be done? Yeah. And you can buy kits already stemmed if you like. In fact, I understand that in some places, you can purchased completely finished pipes!

Sasquatch wrote:I think I'd rather do it myself.

I'm currently working on my first pipe and my first handcut stem. My stem is an ugly pain in the a$$, but I'm still really enjoying doing the whole thing myself. My enjoyment lies in the process.

Sasquatch wrote: In fact, I understand that in some places, you can purchased completely finished pipes!

WHAT?!?!?!?


But....why?

D'OOH! You mean I've been doing this when I could buy one already done? WOW! next thing you'll tell me is that they have tobacco already blended up and packaged! YESH!

If I get a bad slit with a 1/16 bit I'll heat it and smash it down a little. Works like a charm.