I broke the tenon of the cheap yellow plastic mouth piece of my much beloved MM 150 Years Anniversary Bulldog. I decided to build a new one from scratch. There was left a last piece of ebonite cumberland rod in my workshop.
The good news was that I didn't need a lathe for the mouthpiece. I don’t have one. The mouthpiece was square, best to work on that flat surfaces with a file.
The tricky part was, how do I get a suitable tenon? It had to have a diameter of just under nine millimeters. But I only have a 10 millimeter tenon cutter at my disposal mounted to the drill press. I also drilled the airway step by step from 5 to 4 and 3 millimetres to get a good draw similar to the original, the last done with a tapered drill.
I cut two pieces of wood, which I glued together at one end with sturdy adhesive tape to form scissors. I initially drilled a hole of 10 millimetres in the middle and later added one of 9 millimetres. I lined the halves with sandpaper cut down to size with the cutter. In about two hours, I reduced the diameter of the sawed 10mm tenon to the desired diameter by turning the tenon in the hole with certain pressure applied.
Once mounted to the pipe I shaped the round rod to flat square surfaces with a file. And build the lip and bore, that’s one of the most time consuming part opening the bore up with just a one millimetres flat needle file.
Now it’s almost done, a few flaws do still need some sandpaper. But I don’t think I will buff the new peace to shine. It suits the rough surfaces of the bulldog in its semi matt finish.
Drums rolling:
The good news was that I didn't need a lathe for the mouthpiece. I don’t have one. The mouthpiece was square, best to work on that flat surfaces with a file.
The tricky part was, how do I get a suitable tenon? It had to have a diameter of just under nine millimeters. But I only have a 10 millimeter tenon cutter at my disposal mounted to the drill press. I also drilled the airway step by step from 5 to 4 and 3 millimetres to get a good draw similar to the original, the last done with a tapered drill.
I cut two pieces of wood, which I glued together at one end with sturdy adhesive tape to form scissors. I initially drilled a hole of 10 millimetres in the middle and later added one of 9 millimetres. I lined the halves with sandpaper cut down to size with the cutter. In about two hours, I reduced the diameter of the sawed 10mm tenon to the desired diameter by turning the tenon in the hole with certain pressure applied.
Once mounted to the pipe I shaped the round rod to flat square surfaces with a file. And build the lip and bore, that’s one of the most time consuming part opening the bore up with just a one millimetres flat needle file.
Now it’s almost done, a few flaws do still need some sandpaper. But I don’t think I will buff the new peace to shine. It suits the rough surfaces of the bulldog in its semi matt finish.
Drums rolling:
