pipemakersforum.com

Good day,

Here is my first Lovat ( that I care to display ). It's also my first foray into sandblasting, which I think I'm going to enjoy. I was, again, overzealous with a file around the back of the bowl so I had to shape accordingly to achieve something close to symmetrical. I tried to turn the shank as closely to the final OD of the stem but left about 1/16" to sand down to. Ugh, next time I'll be turning the shank to the exact finished diameter of the stem, as I lose a lot of the straight lines I was hoping for. The stem is acrylic with a deer horn inlay and integral tenon. A couple questions for those who wish to critique:

1: How much of your shaping process is 'at the wheel'. I currently do all my rough shaping with 36 grit then 100 grit then go to files bring everything together. Then I move to hand sanding. Seems like I could do a little more on the wheel but with finer grits.

2: The stem. I had drilled the draught hole using a 5/64 tapered bit then finished it the rest of the way through with a 1/16". When creating the 'funnel' from the button back to the tapered end of the draught hole, I end up with a jagged 'rectangular' portion for the funnel where it meets the round portion of the tapered bit. Am I missing something here? Should be a seamless transition, right?

3: How do you approach the stem/shank junction? I've been doing it very carefully with electrical tape, files and then sandpaper but when holding it to the light, it always seems a little lumpy for some reason.









Thanks for your critiques, they're helpful.

Mark

No critique here. I love lovats! I think you did this one quite well.

1. If you watch a really experienced maker in a video or live, they do a LOT at the wheel. The more you can do with power tools, the more money you make.

2. Deepen the slot, take it further in with a tiny saw, tiny files (crossing files from a jeweller's supply), or a piece of wire with grit on it (or all three). Should be basically a seamless transition - as the airway tapers down, it widens out.

3. Sounds like you are somehow treating the stem and shank differently? Treat it as one piece - file, sand, and polish as a unit.

I do a lot of shaping at the wheel and on some shapes that are going to be sandblasted I can do just shy of everything at the wheel for the bowl and only use handtools on the stem. My rough shaping is done is 40grit, then I use 80 grit to tidy things up, this is for everypipe, after the 80grit disc my choice of wheel and abrasvie is dictated by the shape and the finish.

I have been working on a pipe making video which will be ready for upload to youtube soon, you can see a good bit of my shaping in that.

That's a good looking pipe. Nice work.

I do as much sanding on the disk as I can, and am learning to do even more. I know a guy who pretty much does all his sanding on a disk. It's amazing how good you can make a pipe look without doing a lot of hand work. I'm just not there yet, but I'd like to get to a point where I can do about 95% of my shaping on a disk. It saves TONS of time.

I never use files on the wood, and only some on the stem. I know some who use files quite a bit though, but you've gotta have the right files.

I do almost all my shaping with files. I rough shape with a sanding disk on my drill.Pretty ghetto.

I think that if I did have a better setup I would use the sanding disk for nearly all my shaping. It would save TONS of time!

Growley wrote:That's a good looking pipe. Nice work.

I do as much sanding on the disk as I can, and am learning to do even more. I know a guy who pretty much does all his sanding on a disk. It's amazing how good you can make a pipe look without doing a lot of hand work. I'm just not there yet, but I'd like to get to a point where I can do about 95% of my shaping on a disk. It saves TONS of time.

I never use files on the wood, and only some on the stem. I know some who use files quite a bit though, but you've gotta have the right files.

I agree. The files I have purchased are not the top of the line, and they just don't seem to work,period. I guess if you spent a ton of dough on files it would work.