Frazing Machine

The frazing machine is the name used in pipe workshops for the copy-milling machine that mechanically transfers a shape held ready on a metal master pattern onto a briar block. The term's kinship with the French verb fraiser, meaning to mill, is often mentioned; but this connection is more a linguistic association than something documented in the pipe literature. In Turkish it's rendered as "copy mill" or "pattern-following machine."

Working Principle

A metal sample representing all or part of the shape to be produced is fixed to one side of the machine. On the other side, an unbored raw body (stummel) is secured. As a follower tip travels along the surface of the pattern, a cutter mechanically linked to it travels the same path over the briar and removes excess material. The motion is transmitted from one end to the other through arms, joints, and counterweights; numerical control or computer data play no part. Similar mechanisms have long been used in fields like furniture making, foundry mold work, and gunstock making; what sets the pipe machine apart is that it works with a relatively small piece of material, each specimen of which has a different density.