Greetings,
I'm new to pipe smoking (about 1 month now). I prefer longer, curved pipes like churchwardens as I find it better to have the bowl down and away from my face. I recently purchased a Tsuge 551 bent egg sitter with a bamboo shank and would like to put a 6" or 8" vulcanite churchwarden stem on it. However, the hole for pipe's tenon is tapered (military tenon I think it's called).
I have the technical skills to taper the tenon on the stem which is expensive but no so much that if I messed up I would hate myself forever whereas If I tried to ream out the tenon hole on the shank and messed it up.....well, I don't want to think about that.
So my question is: Considering that I want the stem face to meet flush with the shank face, and that the pipe is a bent pipe; how solidly would a tapered tenon hold or should I instead have a professional pipe repair person ream out the shank to fit a stem with a push tenon. Basically, I'm afraid that if the tenon is tapered and the faces are flush, then the pipe might fall off the stem while smoking.
Right now I'm just taking my time breaking the pipe in with some nice hand rubbed Virginia flake.
I'm new to pipe smoking (about 1 month now). I prefer longer, curved pipes like churchwardens as I find it better to have the bowl down and away from my face. I recently purchased a Tsuge 551 bent egg sitter with a bamboo shank and would like to put a 6" or 8" vulcanite churchwarden stem on it. However, the hole for pipe's tenon is tapered (military tenon I think it's called).
I have the technical skills to taper the tenon on the stem which is expensive but no so much that if I messed up I would hate myself forever whereas If I tried to ream out the tenon hole on the shank and messed it up.....well, I don't want to think about that.
So my question is: Considering that I want the stem face to meet flush with the shank face, and that the pipe is a bent pipe; how solidly would a tapered tenon hold or should I instead have a professional pipe repair person ream out the shank to fit a stem with a push tenon. Basically, I'm afraid that if the tenon is tapered and the faces are flush, then the pipe might fall off the stem while smoking.
Right now I'm just taking my time breaking the pipe in with some nice hand rubbed Virginia flake.