I Know How to Clean Behind My Ears, But

[Beowoulf]

How do you clean behind the lip of a stem. You know, that little crease behind the lip? When I am cleaning my stems I never seem to be able to get in there to sand/buff/clean it.
I saw a video where one guy used an exacto knife and scraped that crease clean.

Do any of you have a technique that works for you?

 

[bullet08]

Microfiber cloth and fingernail.

 

[hoosierpipeguy]

I don't bother.

 

[Egg Shen]

Toothpick

 

[Chasing Embers]

Manicure block

 

[Hillcrest]

Or

 

[didimauw]

All of these things are good answers.
I'm just here to say I feel your pain, and I absolutely hate that tiny little crease area....but then again stems would be wierd without a button!

 

[Jaylotw]

Funny. I literally just looked at that spot on a pipe I was smoking and thought ew...

Fingernail and a flick of the schmoo off into the bushes took care of it!

 

[Grangerous]

Don’t open it. Don’t look there.

 

[orlandofurioso]

A bristle pipe cleaner folded and some stem polish, toothpaste, soft scrub, Flitz polish etc.
Manicure block. The oxidized "inside" of the bit I clean with a bristle pipe cleaner and a little soft scrub.
An afterwards flush is highly recommended.

 

[ray47]

This works for me.

 

[augiebd]

This works for me.
View attachment 186499

These brushes are handy for a lot of pipe cleaning tasks.

 

[Coreios]

Fingernail.

 

[jhowell]

Jeweler's screwdriver

 

[Jacob74]

Screwer's jeweldriver.

 

[captainsousie]

I always clean in my creases...usually a bit of love with a softer tool (not too hard, they can leave marks) makes my creases nice and clean. I'm not doing very well at explaining am I?

 

[kcghost]

@georged has a video on this exact problem. But it isn't any good if you don't have the machinery for it.

 

[orlandofurioso]

This works for me.
View attachment 186499

I could not do without these anymore. For cleaning out shanks, mortises, tenons and sometimes stems too.

 

[K.E. Powell]

Most of my pipes have soft bits on the ends of their stems, so if by the little crease you mean the one where the actual lip begins, it's never much of a problem. If you mean the crease where the actual draft hole is, then that I usually take care of with brushes and toothpicks. I deep clean all my stems on my pipes usually every four months or so with Decatur stem cleaner, and the mortise with a shank brush and alcohol. The chamber itself gets swabbed out with a cotton rag and alcohol, which is usually enough. If it isn't, I use cotton balls gently soaked with alcohol and stuff the chamber with them and leave it overnight.

 

[AJL67]

One of those corse fast food place napkins. I used to dead them to @hoosierpipeguy for cleaning but they never seemed to come back clean