A bit of a dellimma!

[itsKot]

Okay, I lied, its more than a "bit." Yesterday I was doing the regular more intense cleaning of my pipes, it all went swimmingly until I came across one of my basket pipes. Granted it's not the best pipe, but it smokes well and one of my first pipes, not to mention I don't have mountains of pipes (yet at least) so I'd like to keep it around. I cleaned the pipes thoroughly with a bit of rum and even swabbed out the mortise, here's where things start to get messy. Today I reassembled my other pipes lickity-split after letting them dry a good 18 or so hours, but this basket pipe wasn't so cooperative. The stem went into the mortise about half way, okay so I'll just pull her back out and let her dry some more, no biggie. That wasn't the case at all, the stem was completely STUCK into the shank, so into the freezer it went for 15 minutes and thankfully it came out with some elbow grease. I'm assuming the wood absorbed some of the alcohol during the cleaning and swabbing. I've tried to put humpty dumpty back together a few time since then but with a lot of care, fortunately neither the shank nor tenon cracked. Any suggestions to help put humpty dumpty back together again? Being a basket pipe it isn't the fines, as known, but I'm pretty sure its cherry wood rather than briar, anyone have experience with this wood? Does she just need to dry out a little more? Or is this my first casualty of pipe smoking?

 

[Harlock999]

Tried pencil graphite yet?
Someone mentioned that on another thread not too long ago.
Never needed to try it on a pipe, but I use it on guitar strings/nuts.

 

[gandalfpc]

You're in need of some beeswax - that will fix er.

 

[Anonymous]

To loose = bees wax
to tight = graphite
Works for me!