pipemakersforum.com

as a kid i can remember my papaw smoking a pipe... it is one of my fondest memoires... everytime i light up a pipe it takes me right back to those days... anyway i went to see my papaw the other day, he himself being an amazing wood worker, specializing in clocks... i wanted to show him my first briar pipes... he thought they were really neat... then he goes down into the basement and finds his old pipe rack and three of his old kaywoodie briar pipes and gives them to me... the bits are chewed up pretty bad but the briar after some good sanding and polishing i think will be ok... the stems are the types that screw in... i am out of town this week but this weekend i will post some pictures of what they look like... i was curious if anyone has ever fooled around with replacing the stems on such pipes... if so let me know

Somewhere in the stems section there's a thread started by Jeff Gracik showing a Dunhill on which he spliced a new bit. Looked undetectable from the pictures. Kind of a lot of work for a Kaywoodie, dollar-wise, but I understand they can be great pipes and the sentimental value might make them worth the effort.

I was going to suggest exactly the same thing. Great minds think alike. Or crazed lunatics flock together? Either way, it should be relatively straightforward.

From what I can tell of the Kaywoodies I've worked on, the threaded stinger is cast into the stem. As Jack & Kurt mentioned, you'd probably need to splice to retain the stinger & logo.

I'm still working on how best to splice a square shank saddle stem for an old BBB. The logo takes up much of the square area of the stem, and the flat area after the saddle is pretty thin, about 4.5mm most of it's length & about 3.3mm at the button.

I just bought an older (#14) Kaywoodie for $1.99, just so I could "experiment" with it. The stinger had been cut off, leaving only the threaded part, and the other end of the stem had been bitten clean off Too bad, because it's a mearschaum lined flame grain in really nice shape otherwise.

Using a pair of pliers I was able to unscrew what was left of the stinger from the stem. Of course, I wouldn't put pliers on a good stinger - anybody have any luck getting one of these out without destroying it?

GaryH wrote:Using a pair of pliers I was able to unscrew what was left of the stinger from the stem. Of course, I wouldn't put pliers on a good stinger - anybody have any luck getting one of these out without destroying it?

I had assumed the stinger was cast into the stem. If, as you say, the stinger screws into the stem, then perhaps heating with a heat gun will soften the stem enough to unscrew the stinger without too much damage. Re-aligning the thread to get the button horizontal will be a bit of a bugger.