Bending acrylic (propionate/ lucite) stems

[georged]

It's not stubborness for the sake of it. I'm going on my own experience, and the fact that I've heard more advice concerning bending a stem for having a wire in the airway as opposed to without.

The underlined portion is a textbook example of a recursive error, you understand.
The REASON you keep hearing bogus advice is because people keep REPEATING it. "I read it on the Internet so it must be true."
Entire TV shows have been based on the phenomenon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters
Why does such silliness take root in the first place, you ask? Again, this thread is a textbook example. Unsupported faith---"believing in" things (often irrational things)---has evolutionary origins. It's a key component of tribalism, and for several million years humans who didn't belong to a tribe didn't last long. In short, stubbornness paid off.
But that, as they say, is a whole 'nother subject. :lol:
It does explain, however (in part, anyway), why the older guys like me get, the less time we spend trying to sort things out for other people. Especially on the Internet. It's like trying to fill the Grand Canyon with a shovel.

 

[georged]

Kind of an inside joke, Toobfreak. A couple times while I've been engaged in some, uh, "spirited" back-and-forth, Georged has dropped that comment. Just figured it was my turn to do it, somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

Hm. False equivalence much?
A discussion about pipe stem airways is a very different thing than vile, personal name-calling exchanges about 21st century Hitlers and people being Nazis.

 

[zack24]

Anthony,

Three lessons for life:

1) Don't spit into the wind...

2) Don't pull on Superman's cape.

3) Don't mess around with stems...(especially by sticking cleaners inside them)
At the end of the day, you can do it in whatever way you choose, but I don't know any Pipemakers who stick pipe cleaners in. The key is proper heating on the entire area to be bent and in my case, I use a thumb and two fingers on both hands to apply the bend over the entire length of the stem instead of overheating the middle and applying the bend just in that area ( I've seen those kind of abrupt bends in some factory pipes)
...and If you run across a grumpy curmudgeon who has shaped enough stems to go to the Moon and back- I probably wouldn't argue with him (and I also wouldn't argue with George- although he's certainly not a grumpy curmudgeon, he has done a few stems along the way...

 

[dmcmtk]

Three lessons for life:

1) Don't spit into the wind...

2) Don't pull on Superman's cape.

3) Don't mess around with stems...(especially by sticking cleaners inside them)

Zack, you forgot that "you don't pull the mask of an old lone ranger"...

 

[aldecaker]

Yeah, George, I guess since you put it that way, I do "false equivalence much". And if your tender sensibilities don't like it, tough shit.
And to think, I didn't point out that your statement read like "your disagreeing with me is very unbecoming".

 

[georged]

My tender sensibilities are fine, aldecaker. Thanks for asking.
As for your second point... you just did the false equivalence thing again. :lol:
The circle, as they say, is now complete. :clap:

 

[aldecaker]

Yay me. I finished a circle, and got congratulated by Georged! It's pretty effortless, though, really, since you deem whatever you want to be a false equivalency. As for the point of what you found unbecoming, I think you're as full of shit as a Christmas goose. Oops, I'm sorry. False equivalency again! You're a human being, and a goose is a bird, and it can't actually be full to the brim with shit, else people wouldn't eat them...oh, me and my darned false equivalencies.

 

[georged]

Yay me. I finished a circle, and got congratulated by Georged! It's pretty effortless, though, really, since you deem whatever you want to be a false equivalency. As for the point of what you found unbecoming, I think you're as full of shit as a Christmas goose. Oops, I'm sorry. False equivalency again! You're a human being, and a goose is a bird, and it can't actually be full to the brim with shit, else people wouldn't eat them...oh, me and my darned false equivalencies.

How old are you, aldecaker? (Sorry, I must ask)

 

[aldecaker]

How old are you, Georged? A whole (virtual) room full of people just witnessed you get snitty because someone didn't agree with your opinion on bending a plastic MM stem, based, as they said, on their own experience, and now you want to play the smug, "I'm mature and you're not" card? I think that horse is out of the barn for you. You could at least have had the good grace to call the man a damned liar. I'm 44, BTW, in case you have some actual interest in that sort of thing.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Yay age fight! I'm forty-three going on ninety.

 

[georged]

Definitely legit interest. There's usually a correspondence between age and the tantrum thing, and since I'd deal differently with a child than an adult in the real world, I thought the same information might be useful here in the online one.
Oh yeah, since you asked, I'm 63.
As for the rest, now you've moved on to conflating things. :lol: I should call someone a liar? Where did that come from? I'm upset because someone didn't agree with my opinion? Not at all. Then or now. I just laid out some easily-verifiable facts, and explained the mechanics to a small degree. I encourage anyone who might be interested in the topic to ask about stem bending on the Pipemakers Forum board, or read through its decade-plus of archives.
Seems to me you need to find an easy chair, a good book, a favorite pipe, and chill a bit Mr. Aldecaker.

 

[aldecaker]

Seems to me that since you will brook no opposition to your opinions in any case, I'll do just that, Elder Georged.

 

[georged]

Seems to me that since you will brook no opposition to your opinions in any case, I'll do just that, Elder Georged.

Now you are making unfounded inferences. :lol:
There are few things in life that I look forward to more than being proved wrong about something, aldecaker. Because I have no interest in evidence-free, faith-based conclusions about Stuff in General, though (a.k.a. wishful thinking), such occasions are especially meaty.
So. Oppose away. All you like. And, as always, I hope you (and anyone else who chooses to) carries the day, because that will mean I learned something significant.

 

[Chasing Embers]

I will concede to the fact that the stem I had that collapsed was an early attempt and was overheated with a heat gun. Didn't realize at the time that the stem had to be only just pliable to shape.

 

[jefff]

It seems we, as a society, have come to the point were expertise no longer matters. Experience equals corruption and the inhibition of "new" ideas. Knowledge has no importance and every opinion carries the same weight.
This makes me sad.

 

[aldecaker]

Okay, I was going to let it go, but since you wish to stay engaged, here we go.
jefff, I sure as shit hope you do not think I am claiming any expertise, and by no stretch am I claiming any expertise equal to or greater than Georged's. In fact, in my first response to this post, before G even weighed in, I stated that I bend stems the same way as the OP, except without the wire. If there is any disrespect of G's, or anyone else's, knowledge here, it is not coming from me.
Georged-how can it be an "unfounded" inference when it is founded on what I have seen here, with my own eyes? Do you have some mysterious reading comprehension problem when it comes to your own posts? I suppose I can simple it out for you. You stated your opinion ("facts", as you like to call them); Anthony had the temerity to disagree, respectfully and citing his own personal experience. You responded by stating that his "stubbornness" (i.e. refusal to agree with you) was "unbecoming". I thereby inferred that you have have no tolerance for disagreement with your opinion, making it a founded inference. Your enjoyment of parsing weasel words cannot undo your statement.
The reason you state for "people leaving the forums" is valid, whereas mine (tongue-in-cheek though it may have been), is not? You are the only possible arbiter of why people are "leaving the forums"? Or did you just get your knickers in a twist at the thought of some young rapscallion making a jibe at your expense? It's one or the other, so please let me know which you choose.

 

[georged]

That must have been a short smoke or a bad book.
Here's a solution for each:
For tobacco, try GH&Co's Dark Flake. It burns at the same speed chrome bumpers rust.
For a book, give this one a go. It's a simple-enough, mass-audience thriller, but with definite literary flair. Burke has an uncanny ability to paint pictures in your head with words:
https://www.amazon.com/Jolie-Blons-Bounce-James-Burke/dp/0743411447/ref=sr_1_30?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490668753&sr=1-30&keywords=james+lee+burke

 

[zack24]

It looks like everything is getting bent out of shape except the stems in this thread...let's call it a day and pick up the good fight tomorrow....