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Hey guys, quick question regarding tearout. I believe I just drilled a little too quickly (and also should have touched up the edge on my bit) and caused some tearout in the bowl of this one. If this were a large bowl or vase of sorts, I would just take some very light cuts with a freshly sharpened tool and remove them. However, this is not a big bowl that is still chucked up on the lathe. When it originally happened, I figured I would continue with the pipe, since I needed the practice anyways, but the rest of the pipe turned out better than expected for my fourth, so I thought I would address the tearout if possible and consider selling it. Pretty sure I know the answer, and that answer is just SAND! But, I'm wondering if any of you have developed any tricks or methods that might make this less of a pain in the butt. The tearout is deep enough that hand sanding will take quite some time (which isn't the end of the world), but with something like a dremmel, I could see me making the bowl look pretty bad. How would you handle it?



Oh and I don't really subscribe to the theory of just smearing a coating in to cover it up...at least not in a pipe for a client.

Sand. You could wrap sandpaper over a dowel that you shape to match the chamber geometry.

But next time, make sure you drill with sharper tools. I've found that high speed and low feed minimizes tearout. If I do it right, I can go straight to sanding with 600 grit.


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Make a dowel in the shape of the chamber just slightly smaller than the bowl. Tape some 120 or 220 grit around the dowel. Chuck it in the lathe and rotate the bowl around the dowel. make sure the dowel is inside the chamber before starting the lathe. there are better ways to do this, but this is the quick cheap dirty way.

With these two replies all I can do is roll my eyes at not thinking of this. I've worked almost exclusively on the lathe for the past few years and wrapping sandpaper around a dowel I shaped never even crossed my mind. I think perhaps I was over thinking things. Thanks for the quick kick in the pants to get me back on track guys.

no problem!
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Solomon_pipes wrote:no problem!
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Two thumbs up!! Glad I could be a part of it. LOL

All the above and sharpen tools also.

The trick with sanding out tearout like this, is it can take some fairly aggressive sanding- the dowel technique works alright for clean-up sanding in the chamber, but it's a tough way to remove that much tearout. After I finish drilling my pipes, I always go to the dremel, and insert a flap of 120 grit sandpaper onto a slotted mandrel(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTA3OVgxNjAw/ ... 60_35.JPG), and sand the shit out of the interior right then and there- this removes all tear-out quite nicely.

The reason you want to do that before the pipe is finished, is because it's easy for a stray bit of the sanding grit to hit outside the bowl and leave a scratch- which isn't a problem if the pipe isn't finished.

I found that low speeds and small bites work for me when drilling.
Just btw, what bit did you use? Spade bits normally do tear out like that.

The Smoking Yeti wrote:The trick with sanding out tearout like this, is it can take some fairly aggressive sanding- the dowel technique works alright for clean-up sanding in the chamber, but it's a tough way to remove that much tearout. After I finish drilling my pipes, I always go to the dremel, and insert a flap of 120 grit sandpaper onto a slotted mandrel(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTA3OVgxNjAw/ ... 60_35.JPG), and sand the shit out of the interior right then and there- this removes all tear-out quite nicely.

The reason you want to do that before the pipe is finished, is because it's easy for a stray bit of the sanding grit to hit outside the bowl and leave a scratch- which isn't a problem if the pipe isn't finished.

This is definitely when I'll deal with any tearout if it happens again, (before moving forward with anything else with the pipe). I'll check out the slotted mandrel for sure.

I turned a 3/4" dowel down slightly and and afixed sandpaper to it last night. It worked great, however, looking into the chamber now the chamber is slightly off center from the outside of the bowl. I'll just have to go back even it up, but the tearout is history.

On a side note, I drilled another one last night after sharpening my bit and took a little more time with it. No tearout at all

Thanks guys!