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I am attempting to make my first hand cut stems. Todd's sticky on making stems without a lathe was very helpful but I am wondering about the procedure for putting some sort of inlay material in a stem. Does each piece have a mortise and tenon or do you epoxy the pieces together and then treat it as a single rod or do you do something else altogether?

Beatus, thanks for the link. Not sure how I missed that on Pipedia. What about if I am not yet using delrin but have only used integral tenons? Would I make an extra long tenon and then drill the inlay material to fit over it or do I really need to go the delrin route?

If you're using integral tenons, then make an extra long and larger tenon to slip the inlays over, then cut your regular tenon as usual after they've been epoxied on.

Rad

Oop, sorry! It never even occurred to me that you might be using the dreaded 'integral tenon'. Mostly because I haven't taken a stab at it yet.

RadDavis wrote:If you're using integral tenons, then make an extra long and larger tenon to slip the inlays over, then cut your regular tenon as usual after they've been epoxied on.

Rad

Rad, I was looking at some pictures of inlaid tenons on your site and saw some examples of this. I also dug up an old post on the subject and the author had given the same procedure. What is the reason for starting with a larger tenon and then cutting down after the inlay is applied, as opposed to just cutting down the tenon to size and drilling the inlay to match? Thank you

Tim

It's just easier to slide rings over the tenon if they are bigger than the tenon, that's all.

Oddly, I do not find this to be the case. However, that means little to nothing. Personally, if the tenon is 5/16", the entire thing is 5/16" and I drill a 5/16" hole in my stem accent material.

Well, there's your problem Kurt.


You're welcome!

BeatusLiebowitz wrote:

RadDavis wrote:If you're using integral tenons, then make an extra long and larger tenon to slip the inlays over, then cut your regular tenon as usual after they've been epoxied on.

Rad

Rad, I was looking at some pictures of inlaid tenons on your site and saw some examples of this. I also dug up an old post on the subject and the author had given the same procedure. What is the reason for starting with a larger tenon and then cutting down after the inlay is applied, as opposed to just cutting down the tenon to size and drilling the inlay to match? Thank you

Tim

Because I like to do it that way.

Plus, there's a chance of your hole in the inlay material being slightly larger than the tenon that's already cut to fit your pipe. This results in a dreaded visible glue line on the face of the stem shoulder.

If your inlay tenon is slightly larger than your mortise size, you can cut that tenon to fit your inlay material exactly, then after it's glued up, cut your mortise size tenon to fit the pipe exactly, and you get no glue line. It's just one of those small details.

Rad

Small details are what I'm interested in. Thank you guys, very much!