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Solved: Peterson System stem is stuck!

Peculiar! About 15 minutes ago I finished a short smoke with the venerable Peterson 307. And the stem will not come out of the metal collar. I've let it cool, run a little cool water over the junction of vulcanite and nickel, held the pipe outdoors in 29 F. conditions for a minute, and even set the pipe in the refrigerator for a couple of minutes. Nothing. I've never known the stem on this pipe to be stuck like this. Is there any lubrication method I can try?

I'd loaded it last night and left it in the kitchen closet. Unfortunately I also accidentally locked my younger kitten in there too. No harm done, I had the heat on. But she did knock the pipe to the floor. Could that have done something?
 
Try putting it in the fridge for longer, a couple of hours. That usually works. Once you get the stem out you could use a graphite pencil to lubricate it where it connects to the pipe, and that should stop it sticking again.
 

luvmysuper

My elbows leak
Staff member
I would bet the drop seated the stem firmly in the shank.
I'm not sure that temperature drops will help much if it's jammed in there, but no harm in trying I suppose.
I had a pipe I bought second hand that was similar, and I just finally decided "fix it, or break it".
I held the collar firmly in my non-dominant hand, gripped the stem with as much hand contact as possible, and twisted back and forth slightly while pulling the stem away with my dominant hand.
Fortunately, that worked for me, but there is risk with such a maneuver.
 
Turned out it was not the twisting that it needed, but a pull. I dribbled a very little bit of WD-40 at the junction, wiped everything down, then when a twist still did not work, I wound up *pulling*. That did the job. It's drying out now. I'll clean it again, then try a little pencil graphite before I reassemble the pipe.

This is the oldest of my pipes that I still smoke regularly, and I didn't want anything to happen to it.
 

luvmysuper

My elbows leak
Staff member
Turned out it was not the twisting that it needed, but a pull. I dribbled a very little bit of WD-40 at the junction, wiped everything down, then when a twist still did not work, I wound up *pulling*. That did the job. It's drying out now. I'll clean it again, then try a little pencil graphite before I reassemble the pipe.

This is the oldest of my pipes that I still smoke regularly, and I didn't want anything to happen to it.
Glad it worked out.
Yeah, mine was much more pull than twist, I had figured that the slight (very slight) movement of back and forth would ensure that I was evenly pulling the stem straight out.
 
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