hey all, i just picked up a nice Meercham pipe from my store and it seems to have an air leak at the threading. i know when i smoke it, it leaks smoke out of the seam where stem meets bowl.

is there anything i can do to cure this other than tightening it down all the way and end up smoking it sideways? would Teflon tape on the threads fix it, or it that a bad idea?

thanks!

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I'm thinking Bees Wax would help
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check out the pics that are up now....
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Yup. Still going to go with bees wax.
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so where do i procure and how do i apply?
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Cheapest is at a craft store. To apply, smoke the pipe, and while it's warm, rub the outside (and that joint) with the wax. When it cools, you can remove excess with a finger nail.
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the cheapest i can find is $20/block at craft stores, some places suggested to get a candle and melt it (providing its a pure candle). what concerns me about the wax is that itll melt out when smoking.
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At worst the wax should get malleable when you smoke. If it gets to the point where its completely melts and drips, you're letting the bowl get too hot and I'd worry about the bowl cracking before worrying about the wax.
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so what i think ill do is get a beeswax candle and see what happens with the wax from that, and just melt it onto the threads and once its put back in, onto the gap.
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I wouldn't put it on the threads, don't want to risk never being able to remove the stem. If its just on the gap, worst case scenario you pull out a knife and break the seal and can remove the stem, if its on the threads, you may not be able to get it out at all.
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I would go back to the shop with it and show them. If that is a new pipe (looks great I must say!) then it should not be doing that. there are replacement threaded inserts that they can put in the shank for the stem to screw onto and they will be able to get it to a good seal.

Another options would be to form a gasket at the crack... a small sliver of Teflon or even rubber cut to the correct size to fit in there would do it.

I would hesitate with wax as I wouldn't want to have it become glued in, but then I really don't have much experience with using wax to fix this...
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Rev you are really unlucky but I would advice you to pay attention to the "carvers"

I currently own 38 meerschaum pipes. 21 of them are carved by master carvers like ismail baglan,ramazan karaca. If a master carver is signing a pipe , he is guaranteeing two things:
1 Quality of the resource
2 Quality of the artwork + engineering of your meerschaum pipe.

I would advice you my favorite place to buy master carver meerschaum pipes :

http://meerschaumpipe.us/master-carver-pipes.html

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www.meerschaumpipe.us
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