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I watched Tyler's videos today on stem work, and I have to ask - how do you shape that rod into something like a saddle bit? Forgive the ignorance, but I have no idea how one does this. Is it carved out by hand, and if so with what?

A combination of disc sander, belt sander, dremel, and hand files are what I use. (I use the dremel with a sanding drum to shape the saddles.)

When I was making that stem for the videos, I video'd the process of shaping it, but I lost those videos somehow.

Tyler

Disk sander, hand files, sandpaper. That's really all you need for finishing the outside of the stems once they're drilled and the tenon is turned.

jeff wrote:Disk sander, hand files, sandpaper. That's really all you need for finishing the outside of the stems once they're drilled and the tenon is turned.

I would add that a very sharp knife for scraping the stems down once they're filed is almost a necessity. Certainly you can manage a nice finish without this procedure, but it is *drastically* more difficult and time consuming.

Todd

I'll echo Todd's comment. Once I finally learned how to properly used this trick, finishing stems went from being a nightmare to being quite tolerable.

Tyler

I'll third that. I forgot to mention the razor sharp knife in my list of tools. Tyler is right, it makes getting scratchless, mirror finishes on the stems much easier.

Jeff