pipemakersforum.com

so next up is a chucking question.. how to you chuck and center the bottom part of a poker...assuming mark same center dots on top and bottom?

You don't. You do the bottom by hand. At least that's what I do.

If you have left enough material on the chamber walls you can use your chuck with all four jaws and chuck the outside of the Bowl into the jaws assuming the bowl is fairly straight walled. This will allow you to get the bottom section of the foot cylindrical. Chuck it tight and sAnd the jaw marks out later. The pros probably do it by hand. But I'm far from a pro.

You could make yourself a pin chuck (aka pin lock chuck) to chuck the stummel by the chamber in order to turn the bottom. That way you would avoid having jaw marks on the outside that need to be removed. They're ridiculously easy to make.

KurtHuhn wrote:You could make yourself a pin chuck (aka pin lock chuck) to chuck the stummel by the chamber in order to turn the bottom. That way you would avoid having jaw marks on the outside that need to be removed. They're ridiculously easy to make.

Tell us more about this pin lock chuck

It's one of those tools that you wonder how you lived without.

This is geared toward pen makers, but the idea is identical:
http://penmakersguild.com/articles/pinchuck.pdf

Just scale the rod up to your chamber size. This does, of course, require that the chamber be cylindrical for some portion of its depth - but I would hazard that this is the case for most pipes made by folks here.

I use one, not for pipes (though that's only because I don't make shaped that require it), but for other operations where I absolutely positively have to get concentricity to an existing hole - like rings, decorative bands, duck calls, fountain pens, etc.

That is pure genius! I'm gonna try to make one as soon as I have the time, I can't believe how simple it is compared to how useful it can be!
Thanks a lot Kurt