Going to give it a go...

I'm gonna start out with stuff like Maple and cherry, before I attempt briar. When I feel comfortable enough with those types of woods, I'll get some briar.

I don't want to start with pre-drilled blocks or stems either. I figure, "how am I gonna learn, if I don't start clean?". I learn by mistakes, sort of unfortunately, so there's no better way for me to go than a blank slate

Been watching a lot of videos, and reading the PMF forum. Sometimes I have a knack for something. Excited to see if this is one of them somethings.

Good for you!! First learn how to mount wood to the chuck properly. Find a few pieces of local dry wood and turn a bowl or three!! Before you spend money on good briar use other woods that are readily available to you for free. Good luck and have fun👍👍

I cannot wait to see what you make!

I'm just going to gloat a bit but my friend here does great things when he puts his mind on something and his hands get to work. From cooking to welding and more. I can see some good things coming out of this new tool and his imagination.

You may want to invest in some good skews and gouges. The gouges for spindle turning would be the best. Also you may want to consider 1/4", 3/8", 1/2".
Turn some simple spindle items to learn the tools. Then turn several bowls.
Note: each wood has it own difficulty. Research the density of woods compared them to Briar.

Important thing wear your safety gear.

Have fun

Not just eye goggles either....don’t go near a lathe without a full face protective shield 👍

NO GLOVES!

I was referring to not getting his hand caught between the tool rest and the spinning stock a glove just increases the risk of injury.

I hear that once you are recognized as being serious, the mood lightens, and people are helpful...tough, they don't pull punches but helpful....I cannot say from personal experience, but from a friend.

Congratulations on your new venture. I'd love to try that out myself, and my dad had lathe but it's not working. You've gotta show us, step by step, some of your creations. Even from a beginner's perspective it might help us (me) and you to document what you did and what you'd do differently.

Nothing wrong with a wood lathe. I made pipes on a wood lathe for two years before I got a metal lathe.

Let's see must-haves ... as far as chisels are concerned, get one 3/8-ish inch skew chisel and one 3/8-ish inch round scraper like this one.



Scrapers will remove material just as fast as a gouge, but they never, ever get away from you like a gouge tends to do.

These are good for contours, but I drill my tobacco chambers with a 5/8 inch round-nose drill bit and then I use my 3/8 inch round scraper to open the tobacco chamber to whatever size and profile I want.

Don't try that with a gouge.

Scrapers are also much easier to sharpen than a gouge, as well.

And for smaller contours, like little ogee curves on a stem or whatever, get a smaller round scraper (or make one from an old drill bit or file or whatever hardened steel you have laying around.)

Let's see ... well, obviously, you're going to need a lot of other stuff: a "live center" if you wanna make stems with integral (non-glue-in) tenons, a 2/4 jaw independent chuck for blocks and odd-shaped stuff, a 3-jaw scroll chuck for stems and other round stuff, etc.

As far as asking questions at PMF, yeah, I think you've got the right idea. Read, read, read there, and only ask questions when you can't find the answer any other way.

But don't hesitate to ask when you find guys -- like yours truly -- who like to be helpful.

He’s a nice guy👍👍 Plus he makes some outstanding pipes at very reasonable prices!! Hope he reaches his 100 post very soon so everyone here gets to know him and see’s his craft. 

You mentioned getting a supernova chuck and different jaws. The different set is the tower jaws I hope? Their standard jaws are no good for pipe making, not enough grip surface, especially since you take off 2 of the jaws to get a 2-jaw.

Once you get to working some briar blocks, in order to securely hold them in the chuck, it helps a lot to glue a piece of scrap wood (anything) to the bottom (under what will be the bowl area). Reason is because when turning the shank, the block isn't centered in the chuck, and can easily slip if no added grip surface. Glue it on, then trim it flush with the block sides with a table saw, or bandsaw if no tablesaw.

Robert Perkins is right, gouges have no use in pipe making, just get you in trouble.

For finish work, rig a keyless chuck (here they're good) onto a benchgrinddr shaft to hold 5 or 6 inch sanding padss. Since you need to use grits from about 50 to 400, ya need a lot of pads, so the chuck helps that. Using the Velcro backed sanding sheets helps too. Abralon is a great type of sanding disk to look into.

Thanks so much for the kind words and support, Legend Lover and @lonecoyote . 

You could probably get away with using a 2-jaw setup. Maybe you'd have to grind two opposing flats on a rod to keep it from spinning in a 2-jaw setup, but those flats could actually be the start of your bit, so yeah, start with just a 2-jaw setup and add a 3-jaw scrolling chuck later when it makes sense to do so.