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One of my friend's pipe stems fits way too tight. Is there an easy way to loosen the fit without doing anything drastic like filing, and if we need to file it down, do you have any ideas on techniques to make it most effective. Thanks!

Jeff

Bee's Wax.

I've used a medium fine fingernail file on a flat surface, rolling/dragging the tenon as evenly as possible. Or if you can spin the tenon (straight stem) on a tight fitting drill bit or pin gauge, you can drag the fingernail file across the spinning tenon. When you get a semi-tight fit, you can "buff" the spinning tenon to get the perfect fit, using super fine grits or a buffing compound on cloth.

If it's a cheap pipe and you just want to improve the mortise/tenon fit, just take some 320 sandpaper, hold it between your fingers and spin the tenon between those same fingers. Use the sandpaper like it were a rag and you were trying to polish the tenon with the rag. You can then move to 400 and then to an actual rag with a little tripoli. This should create a much better fit. If it's still too tight you can try a little graphite on it.

TJ

Yes, of course, graphite... good call Todd! That's the most common, obvious fix for a tight tenon. Try buffing the tenon a bit first, then sprinkle on the graphite flakes. If that doesn't work, move on to the light sanding routine. The fix I mentioned in my earlier post was for a tenon that doesn't fit without really serious force to begin with... more of a pipe making shortcut fix rather than a made pipe shortcut fix.

I've only used bee's wax for loose fitting tenons?

I was sanding a tenon last night that was just ever so slightly too large, and I ran into minor calamity. I went to check the fit of the tenon after a minute or two of light sanding on the lathe, and it finally fit just right, but then I went to pull the stem out only to realize that the tenon had warmed up considerably more than I thought when I was sanding it...enough for the tenon to stay in the mortise while the stem pulled free.

I never had that happen before! The vulcanite just separated like pulling saltwater taffy apart. It was an easy enough fix in that I just had to turn a new tenon, but man...seriously annoying!

Thanks for the great response guys! I really appreciate the help!! We will tell you what works!

Jeff

We sanded it down with 320 grit then 600 and it fit beautifully - we lost a little of the finish so I would say maybe trying graphite in the future may help, but this one was too snug for that fit! Thanks for all the help!

Jeff

Glad it worked out!