Shank Tightened, How Is That Even Possible?

[gordebak]

I have a pearwood pipe, and it's a fine smoker. I could remove the stem just fine, and it wasn't loose or tight. Suddenly, it became very hard to remove or put back in the stem. Is it even possible that shank was tightened?
I cleaned the shank and the stem thoroughly, but the problem remains. Have you ever seen anything like this?

 

[andrew]

Heat makes the material expand. Get the pipe cold, if it's not stuck just the fridge should be fine, and it will be easier to remove.

 

[troutface]

Do you live in an arid region? The wood may be shrinking.

 

[pinem]

I would guess it might be a rise in humidity. Do you keep your pipes in the basement? It is a bit counter intuitive, but a shank that is drying out and shrinking would likely pull away from the tenon and the joint would get looser. Been my experience anyway.
I store my pipes in the basement and during the summer I have to put them in an airtight container with a canister of desiccant after smoking them for a few days, or they will never dry out. Too much humidity. I don't have to worry about tobacco drying out though, so I have that going for me.

 

[jpmcwjr]

The main reason I never leave the stems out for more than say ten minutes while cleaning!

 

[gordebak]

So, I'm not alone. It must be humidity, as most of you said.

 

[fluffie666]

Another solution for you -

If you get yourself a small block of bees wax, rub the tenon into it, put it back into mortise and twist it back in. That should fix it.

 

[newbroom]

I thought putting a lubricant on the tenon was a good idea too, till I read comments from George Dibos, who has seen a thing or two, and he said, don't put additional material on your tenon.

Pear wood MIGHT be more moisture absorbent than briar, and the moisture could be derived from the act of smoking.

Try the freezer method of stem removal. It might also work in reverse?...just a few minutes in the freezer and voila, usually.

Sounds to me like you will have a decision to make as to whether or not to modify either the mortise or tenon.

First law: do no harm. ha ha.

 

[fluffie666]

When you're right, you're right newbroom. Putting additional material on the tenon can just cause more issues later. If it's a pipe that has no significant value and is just a smoker, I'm not opposed to a quick bees wax fix. In the interest of doing no harm to any pipe, I reneg, try the freezer.

 

[gordebak]

Thanks everyone. I put it in the freezer for five minutes, and it didn't work. Edit: Should it be longer than five minutes? I didn't want to harm the pipe.
I'll try putting it in the sunlight for a few hours in the afternoon here. We'll see how it goes.

 

[gordebak]

And by the way, the pipe has a metal band around the shank. Could it be the culprit? I don't think so, but you people know more than me.

 

[gordebak]

The air where I live is kinda dry, but I wouldn't call it arid. It's not humid, but not too dry either. It must be the moisture from the tobacco. I clean the pipe after every smoke, but it doesn't mean I can clean all the moisture.
And I have two other pear wood pipes, a corn cob and a briar, and they don't have the same problem. So I think it's not about the heat. This is my oldest pipe and it was kinda abused at first.
I think the culprit is the moisture from the tobacco. So I'll try drying it a few hours.

 

[fluffie666]

I had an old Dunhill a while back. I got it as an estate pipe and it had no stem but the tenon was stuck in the mortise. I had to put a screw in the tenon just to get a grip on it to pull it out. It must have been stuck in there for years. I put it in the freezer for 30 minutes and tried to pull it out to no avail. I put it back in the freezer overnight and tried again. It came right out without to much trouble. Try it again in the freezer. Get the whole thing as cold as it will get and try again. Hopefully that works for you.

 

[gordebak]

Ah, okay fluffie. I'll try THAT first.

 

[gordebak]

What a great idea, skydog!

 

[gordebak]

And welcome, by the way!

 

[troutface]

a shank that is drying out and shrinking would likely pull away from the tenon and the joint would get looser

This is incorrect. We had a detailed discussion about this a few months ago and someone elegantly(scientifically) explained how this works. I will give you a crude analogy. Metal expands when heated. If you apply heat to a metal washer, what happens to the hole? It gets BIGGER. The metal in a circle (even with a hole in it) can only expand OUTWARD. How do you think those pioneers got the metal rims on those wagon wheels? In the case of wood it is humidity that makes it expand. More humidity, bigger diameter mortis, looser stem. As for the OP, there may be other reasons for the stem being tight, but as far as humidity goes, the dryer the air, the tighter the stem. My SWAG is that pearwood absorbs/loses moisture faster than briar. It wouldn't take much in the way of shrinkage for the stem to go from perfect to stuck.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Dampen a mortise with a wet Q-tip, and try to get the stem back in. Moisture will swell the wood. Loose stems often happen from this continuous compression from all sides and can be corrected by heating the tenon, and taking advantage of its shape memory tendancy. Metal isn't porous and doesn't absorb moisture.
https://youtu.be/khWHIzdBbhw

 

[pinem]

Troutface, wood behaves more like a sponge in the presence of moisture, than metal in the presence of heat. If you take into consideration that the outside of the shank stays drier and more rigid while the inside gets softer and expands due to sucking up an incompressible liquid, the forces will likely balance out to push the wood fibers into the shank.
As for temperature effects, depending on the relative thermal expansion coefficients for the differing shank and tenon material, heating/cooling both up together might either tighten or loosen the fit.

 

[troutface]

Humidity is acting on the outside of the shank as well as the inside. Shellac is a very poor barrier against moisture. I am also speaking of the effects over time, not in minutes or hours. I live in Denver, which is quite arid. After having my swamp cooler(humidifier) running for the past two weeks, some of my pipe stems finally began to get loose. The simple analogy of heat making metal expand/contract is the same as humidity making wood expand/contract. As you have correctly pointed out, wood is hygroscopic. It gains or loses moisture according to the atmospheric humidity. The moisture content of wood determines the dimension of wood. I think there are more factors at work here, especially the ones you have pointed out about dissimilar materials and heat. Another possibility is an unknown deposit. I had a pipe I smoked regularly that had never given me any problems. After about a week of resting I could not remove the stem with normal force. I finally was able to wrench it out and it had a whitish deposit on the tenon. I have no idea what it was and had never seen it before or since. Still baffled on that one.