Cleaning an Estate Acrylic Stem

[swschaffer]

Hi I am trying to thoroughly clean out an acrylic stem I received from an estate purchase. I got a lot of crud out but there is still more. I checked other forums and YouTube’s and I used bar keepers friend and whitening toothpaste but it didn’t do much. I read you can’t use alcohol on acrylic or it will crack? See pic. Any suggestions?


Thanks
Scott

 

[lightmybriar]

Get some toothpaste or something similarly abrasive like buffing compound, and coat a pipe cleaner in it and use that to clean the inside of the stem. It may take some effort, but that’s probably the safest way to go. Alcohol certainly does seem to pose a risk to acrylic stems.

A few days soak in water and unscented dish soap may also help to loosen / break up some of the remaining crud. Hope this brings you a solution!

 

[ophiuchus]

Beat me to it; I was just about to suggest a mild warm water/Dawn solution, and let the stem soak. Run a couple cleaners. Repeat.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Soak overnight in lemon juice then finish with a bristle pipe cleaner and toothpaste. Where did you see Barkeeper's Friend for the airway?

 

[oldgeezersmoker]

At the risk of being stoned for going against all the forum wisdom, I use a 50/50 mix of 100% acetone (Kroger generic fingerpolish remover is just that) and PGA or 90% plus IPA if PGA isn’t handy. I do not soak the stem, I just run a pipe cleaner moistened in it through the airway. I have used this for 40 years with no ill effects, on one Castello I have owned since new for over 30 years, hundreds and hundreds of times.

A video posted here showed all sorts of instant mayhem wreaked on exposure of “heat sealed” acrylic to alcohol. I have no idea if the airways of Castello stems are heat sealed or not, but my experience, both with routine cleaning of pipes I have owned since new and the grungiest estate pipes, convinces me that what I do is safe. And the formula was developed by the late Joe Zieve of Smokers Haven in Columbus and sold for years in his shop so his customers could maintain the thousands of GBD’s he sold with clear Perspex stems.

But GLP has said otherwise, so forget everything I just said.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

If it passes air, and you can get a cleaner through it, then attach one end of a churchwarden length pipecleaner to a vice or something that will hold it. I sometimes will tie them to a screw in the wall. Then put whatever paste or powdered polish you are using on the cleaner, thread the stem onto it, and while holding the free end of the pipecleaner tightly in one hand, work the hell out of that stem back and forth till you get it clean. You may have to use multiple pipecleaners. It does take some elbow grease to get this done.

I suggest a soft cotton churchwarden pipecleaner. If you use a bristle, you will be making scratches all over the inside which you will never get polished out. The bristles used on a clear stem just negates all of the work you are trying to do.

 

[mso489]

I'd go with Dawn dish detergent and long soaking, plenty of pipe cleaners, and no alcohol. I've cleaned out a stem or two, and found soaking and patience work best.

 

[dcon]

If Bar Keepers Friend did not take care of it, I doubt that toothpaste will. I usually use BKF as an escalation of the toothpaste method. Good luck.

 

[BROBS]

it won't hurt acrylic unless it's been flame polished which most pipe stems have not.

 

[hauntedmyst]

You put a couple of threads of cordite down the air hole a set it off, it'll blow the hunk right out of there.

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

in this particular case, I would think one-time use of pipe cleaners soaked in 100% sprits won't do any harm,

 

[ssjones]

That one looks to be in great shape to my eye. It was never clear. Sand the teeth marks up to 2,000 grit, then micromesh to 12k. A buffer and lightly with White Diamond would yield a superior result, but watch building heat in an acrylic stem (vulcanite not similarly effected).

 

[Chasing Embers]

It was never clear.

He's not having color issues, just solidified, hard to remove gunk in the airway.

 

[oldgeezersmoker]

it won't hurt acrylic unless it's been flame polished which most pipe stems have not.

Finally.Flame polished, heat sealed, whatever, I have never heard of anything being done to an acrylic stem after the airway is drilled along these lines, which is what it took to induce the utter destruction of a piece of acrylic upon exposure to alcohol in a video that has gone around. Whether flame polishing might be used elsewhere on an acrylic stem, I haven’t a clue, but I have never heard of it on an airway.

 

[sablebrush52]

it won't hurt acrylic unless it's been flame polished which most pipe stems have not.

And a chemist would disagree with you. Look, it's your pipes to do with as you will, but I've replaced enough micro fracured acrylic tenons on estates for the time being. I'll go with best practices.

 

[BROBS]

true! probably better safe than sorry.

however I used to work in the sign industry and from experience you can clean acrylic with alcohol with no ill effects until it's been flame or heat polished.

now whether some of these come flame polished could be very hard to tell.
Maybe some rod stock or preformed stems came pre-heat polished I have no idea.

I would bet this happens at the tenon mostly as it may inadvertently get "heat" polished... but that's just a theory.

 

[swschaffer]

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. I will try all of them and see what is most effective. I will let you all know.
Thanks
Scott

 

[swschaffer]

Ok I tried soaking overnight in dawn and water. No difference. I ran a pipe cleaner through with bristles and without and they came out clean. So against most I tried the acetone and isopropyl mixture on a pipe cleaner and ran several through and quickly rinsed after each one. That worked!!!


Look at all the stuff that came out. It doesn’t look like there are any cracks that I can see anyway. Now I can run water through it and it flows great. e there is still some staining inside but I will just leave that. I think it’s sanitized enough. I might run some whisky soaked pipe cleaners through one last time. I don’t understand why nothing else would get the crud out. Thank you everyone for the help. If you find any other solutions that are safer let me .

thanks
Scott Schaffer

 

[oldgeezersmoker]

Ok I tried soaking overnight in dawn and water. No difference. I ran a pipe cleaner through with bristles and without and they came out clean. So against most I tried the acetone and isopropyl mixture on a pipe cleaner and ran several through and quickly rinsed after each one. That worked!!!
View attachment 9661

Look at all the stuff that came out. It doesn’t look like there are any cracks that I can see anyway. Now I can run water through it and it flows great. View attachment 9662e there is still some staining inside but I will just leave that. I think it’s sanitized enough. I might run some whisky soaked pipe cleaners through one last time. I don’t understand why nothing else would get the crud out. Thank you everyone for the help. If you find any other solutions that are safer let me .

thanks
Scott Schaffer

My guess is that the micro fracture issue comes from soaking the whole stem for an extended period, heat or flame polishing, or some combination. Just using the alcohol alone on the airway with a pipe cleaner won’t get very much crud out. The alcohol acetone mix will. Some staining won’t come out of some stems, GBD Perspex in particular at the tennon peg, and there might be more aggressive ways to work on that.

I am thrilled that you posted these results. I suspect the late Joe Zieve of Smokers Haven would be, too, since he sold that mixture in his shop and right alongside the pipe sweetener in the old catalogs. . Given the number of his customers who came from OSU, I wouldn’t be the least surprised if someone in the chemistry department came up with the formula. He simply could not have sold the thousands of Perspex stem GBD’s he did if he couldn’t have provided his customers a way to maintain the damn things without the tennons disintegrating.

For regular maintenance, I just run one pioe cleaner soaked in the 50/50 mix through the airway every few bowls. One is all it ever takes. My almost 40 years experience tells me this is the “best practice” to maintain an acrylic stem. For restoration, it should get you at least 90% of the way to where you want to be. Just don’t soak the whole stem. And before anyone asks, I have never tried acetone by itself. And rinsing is overkill, it evaporates quickly.