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I'm working on getting my stems fit flush, and I want to try out the "floating tenon" method. (That's what I'd call it if I were talking about casework, anyway.) I'm nowhere near ready to make my own stems, so I'm stuck with the pre-formed ones for now. From what I understand, I should knock off the pre-formed tenon on the stem, face the mating surface flat with a Forsner bit, and then drill the stem to receive the new tenon, the other end of which will be inserted into the wooden part.

I've got a couple drilled blocks sitting on my workbench right now, and I'd rather not wait for an order of delrin rod to arrive. Any reason I couldn't use a wooden tenon instead of a delrin one? I'm pretty sure I have some poplar scraps lying around, and maybe some other species as well. I won't be hard to drill everything straight on the drill press.

Thoughts?

I tried to walk down this same path early on. My advice? Buy the Delrin. It will save you tons of heartache, and let's be honest- a wooden tenon wont hold up to the test of time. It'll just raise your blood pressure.

http://www.onlinemetals.com/merchant.cf ... op_cat=181

Where are you at on the Gulf Coast? Most larger towns have an industrial supply house that carries Delrin. Some real large machine shops will also have it.

Get the delrin, it will be worth the wait.

Delrin doesn't expand with moisture or shrink when dry. Get the Delrin. A wooden tenon is a bad idea for a pipe.

Okay, that makes sense. Sort of.

Briar is wood, too, so someplace in the pipe you still have wood mated to non-wood. Why doesn't briar have the same problem as a wooden tenon would have? Shouldn't the briar expand and contract around whatever non-wood stem/tenon material you use, delrin or otherwise? Or is briar very stable relative to other kinds of wood? Obviously, briar isn't listed in any of my go-to books that list wood properties and characteristics, so I'm really shooting in the dark here.

I should say I'm not afraid of the work involved in making my own tenons, wood or otherwise. I've done a good bit of joinery by hand, including mortise-and-tenon work. I can drill and fit accurately without much trouble. But I understand that the constant swings in temperature can play havoc with the dimensions of any piece of wood, and a tenon would be highly susceptible to that. Yet there are pipes that have wooden stems. How are those stems usually attached?

I really am trying to understand the logic behind all this.

I'm near Mobile, by the way. Lots of industrial supply places around here. I may just take a look.

I am no pipemaker, so take this for what I think it's worth, 2 cents. Delrin is an extremely hard rubber so it gives a little. On the other hand wood moves, as humidity changes so does the wood, so the tenon hole size will change. So I think that is the reason Delrin is used as the tenon.

Here's some technical info on briar:

http://www.rmperkins.com/RMPerkins/Misc ... fBriar.pdf


In short, yes, briar is very dimensionally stable after the boil/dry process. Where a chunk of pine will move 1/8" per foot in 6% humidity change, a piece of briar probably wouldn't move at all.

So yes, there's a wood to non-wood sliding joint, and it works fine with rubber or delrin, less good but acceptable with lucite/acrylic, but the big answer here is that the wood is briar.


And yes, lots of pipes "feature" maple, ash, oak etc stems and joints, and mostly they are, and hopefully I don't lapse into pipemaker jargon too badly, pieces of crap.