Civic Advice

[nzpiper]

Hi All,
I recently bought an estate pipe over the internet, London-made "CIVIC". It arrived in the mail yesterday and, although it's a nice pipe & I'm sure it will look and smoke great after its been restored, I do have one minor issue with it. Upon trying to remove the stem from the briar it was quickly apparent that the stem was threaded onto a metal (Ali) inset in the tennon of the briar. I can unscrew the stem easy enough, but the metal insert will not budge from the tennon.

Please forgive me if this is a silly question, but I haven't been able to get much specific info on the net regarding Civic pipes.

Also I have not taken pics of the pipe yet, but I can certainly do that if that would be help.
I'm really looking forward to hearing some advice on this. The pipe looks like a great smoker - my first "CIVIC"
Thanks

 

[misterlowercase]

Not much is really known about the Civic pipes, very little info exists.
And as Roth said

I will say that many of the pipes with a "stinger," such as Kaywoodie for example, have the aluminium device attached to the male part of the aluminium tenon, which is "permanently" embedded in the stem.

...it may actually be bonded to the stem somehow. I've seen estate pipes that've had crudely butchered stingers, either with a hacksaw or snips --- you don't want to do that.
If you're going to restore the pipe yourself, are you going to do a "stem bath" in OxyClean or some similar solution?

If so, that may help loosen up the crud a little, making it easier to remove, if indeed it can be removed.
The other option is putting the stem in the freezer for a few minutes, long enough so maybe the material may contract, and see if the stinger can be extracted then --- you gotta be very very very careful about this operation, or otherwise you'll end up breaking the stem!
To play it on the safe side, give it a smoke and see how it goes...who knows? Maybe it works well?
Does your Civic stinger look like this? >>>>>