Tenon stuck in mortise, cool root beer stem in hand

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elduderino

Starting to Get Obsessed
Aug 4, 2014
186
1
St.Paul, MN
Smoked two fantastic bowls of Plum Pudding outta of a new Dr.Grabow Royalton rusticated straight. I gently pulled the stem out to clean the pipe. I'm left with the tenon in the mortis and stem in hand. Enter horrified face here! I've done some research and found there to be loose stem issues with Grabows recently. It wasn't showing any signs of being loose when I gave it inspection out of the box. Snug as a bug. Like my dr.g freehand. Now this.
I've read I can send it to Dr.G to get it fixed for $10? Why would I send it back to get it fixed for a 3rd of what I paid for it? If this is a recurring trend I quality from Dr.G why have they not stepped up to make it right?
Ok pissing and moaning aside. I would like to learn as much pipe DIY as possible. Any help here will be greatly appreciated.

 

PlanxtyPipes

Starting to Get Obsessed
Mar 6, 2013
222
2
Hmm that sounds strange. Did you wait for the pipe to cool before pulling it apart? If the pipe was still hot the tenon could've expanded and been tight in the shank. From the wording of your post it kind of sounds like you smoked two bowls back to back and then tried to pull the stem out immediately...which would be a big no-no. That is a big assumption on my part though. If the pipe was cool that's another story.

 

condorlover1

Lifer
Dec 22, 2013
7,993
26,606
New York
Strange. That is the second time I have heard that in a matter of weeks. Dr. G's are normally pretty well made and generally indestructible

 
Bend a little notch at the end of a coat hanger and drag the tenon out, and glue it back into the stem with a little super glue or a two part resin. Super glue tends to not do very well with heat and time. Then, before you put it back in the pipe, coat it with a little bees wax. That should do it.

 

elduderino

Starting to Get Obsessed
Aug 4, 2014
186
1
St.Paul, MN
Mission completed. She's smoking fine. Two part resin was a good idea vs super glue. Don't have bees wax yet so I used Burt's Bees chap stick. Seems to work.
Thanks again Cosmo.

 

elduderino

Starting to Get Obsessed
Aug 4, 2014
186
1
St.Paul, MN
After a couple bowls it's seems to smoke hotter than before. So I investigated. I shined my cellphone light through the tenon end of the stem and noticed a glob of glue blocking a 1/4 of the airway. Could such blockage change the smoke dynamics? I can still easily pass a pipe cleaner if that helps.thoughts?
I'll note that instead of using a coat hanger to drag out the tenon from the mortise. I clamped an appropriate sized nail to a needle-nosed locking pliers. Used the rounded head of the nail to drag out the tenon. Worked slick. More durable than a coat hanger and less tweaking. Hope it helps.

 

phred

Lifer
Dec 11, 2012
1,754
4
Sigh. I may need to do this with my Rossi author - same thing happened after an otherwise lovely afternoon smoke. :twisted:

 
Glue in the pipe is not a good thing. I'd dig that out if it were mine. I'm not sure if it would change the dynamics to make it burn hotter though. Unless it's forcing you to draw harder.

I've used a nail also. I just mentioned the coat hanger because almost everyone has one of those. The appropriate sized nail, maybe not so prevalent.
I just realized today that you can buy coat hangers. I thought that they just came with the clothes. Duh!

 

elduderino

Starting to Get Obsessed
Aug 4, 2014
186
1
St.Paul, MN
Any suggestions for removing the hardened glue?
Good old fashioned metal hangers are hard to find these days. The plastic ones are expensive. $10 for a dozen? I used the nail method because I no longer own the metal ones.

 
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