Any pipe geeks know a home remedy for the stem fitting loosely after years of wear? The Pipe is Meerschaum and I can't smoke standing up for fear it'll fall right off and Meerschaum will crack in half or shatter if it falls to the hard ground from 5-6 ft. I tried paper. No luck. I thought maybe if I apply a thin coat of clear nail polish, that'll fatten the part that goes in. Any ideas?

Crazy Glue  

How about a thin sheet of cork, or the cedar wrapper off a cigar? A small amount of glue underneath?  

I emailed my Dad on your behalf, Larry, to see what he has to say.  My thought is if the stem makes good contact with the bowl at the base of the joint, shim the stem with some cedar outside of the airpath.  Hell, I might even try masking tape.

You're on the right track with the nail polish idea, as you want to increase the diameter of the male part uniformly. I just do not know how well the polish will hold up to the abrasion and heat. I would try some hi temp spray paint. Tape off everything you don't want painted, put on a couple of even, light coats and let it dry outside in direct sunlight for a few hours. It will probably deposit ~ 0.0015" per light coat. Check to see if inserting and removing abrades the paint to gage if it will be a permanent repair or not. One caution: the solvents used as carriers in the spray paint might not be compatible with the material the stem is made of.  Might work. Or think of some other material to deposit on the male part. You just do not want the heat to soften whatever you use and fuse the two pieces together.

thanks for thee ideas guys. I think I'll forget the Crazy Glue, since I need to able to remove the stem often for cleaning. I'll check out nail, not shoe polish.

Fixing a loose pipe stem:
http://pipedia.org/index.php?title=Pipe_care/cleaning#Fixing_a_loose_stem

Video (widening the tenon to fit tighter):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEJeB1SZetE

QuoteAnthony - 1/16/2010  9:13 PM


Fixing a loose pipe stem:
http://pipedia.org/index.php?title=Pipe_care/cleaning#Fixing_a_loose_stem

Anthony, I missed your post and googled all over until I found the exact same page. I was just about to post it. Their solution worked! My stem is vulcanite. All I had to do was heat the part with a flame and it expanded!

Very cool, glad it was an easy fix.