The pull of The Dark Side

As the photo on the photo on the left shows, I've managed to be sucked into The Dark Side, and have equipped my shop with a metal lathe. For years I held out, and kept my distance from metal lathes, but resistance, it seems, is futile. Eventually even *I* had to buy one if I was going to get at all serious about pipe making.

Ever since I started this adventure several years ago, I've only ever owned a small wood lathe, and it's been the true workhorse of my shop. I even cut stem tenons on it, as well as drill and shape anything that needs lathe shaped. But some styles of stem are simply too difficult to pull off on a wood lathe, and doing them on a metal lathe takes less time to boot. So when Jack Howell offered up this South Bend 9" Model C at a price I could afford, I jumped on it. Luckily (for me) Jack was planning on being at the NASPC show, so we worked out an arrangement and Jack brought it to me in Columbus. From there I took it back to Rhode Island with me in the back of the Jeep.

It's been setup for about a week now, and already has been put to work making stems, and even tools for other operations I do, like a motor mandrel for mounting DA disc holders that I use for shaping and sanding pipes.