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Hello everyone,
I'm just finishing up a stem here made
from 16mm Japanese ebonite from Steve,
and when I finished up with the brown trip I noticed this brown stain.
I didn't notice anything during sanding up to 600, just after the first buffing.

I sanded back to 400 and 600 and buffed again, and it seems worse.

HELP!
any ideas?

thanks in advance,
Jeremy.

sorry, here's a picture....

Its the ebonite. That japanese stuff needs 2-3mm shaved off before you get past that, probably more. 16mm is pretty small so I'm guessing you didn't take much off the outer surface. The price on that stuff is right but the quality is iffy at best.

I was going to say it could be tripoli stuck under the white diamond. You could clean it up with denatured alcohol and see if it comes off. Otherwise, it seems likely what Nathan said. Japanese ebonite is in my experience more prone to imperfections, discoloration, and oxidation than German ebonite.

That's oxidation on the rod.

Yep! There's a reason I'd rather pay twice as much for German ebonite.

Thanks you guys,
not the answer I was hoping for.... Jeremiah, I be swabbed it a few times with DNA, it's not coming off.....

If I've got to take two or three mil off, looks like I can jump into trying out a pencil shank......

I would make a new stem for that pipe and put the current stem aside for another, after turning off a mill or so.

You can try the pencil shank or try making a new stem for it.

Strange, I've never had issues like this with Japanese. That said, NYH is the best. Like with everything, you get what you pay for.

When working with German ebonite is there a noticeable difference? I haven't tried it primarily because of the price. I worry that if I like it too much, I will spend even more money making beginner style pipes.

Seamonster, sorry about your stem. My Japanese ebonite only has problems when I screw it up.

For me, Japanese is soft, shines to a mirror finish, but the chances of little imperfections are good. SEM is harder, with NYH the hardest of the lot and for me easier to shape, shine etc. It's sort of more "acrylic-like" to me, personally, if that makes sense.

Thanks Charl! I will have to order up a 10cm section and try it out.