Pipe stuck while cleaning. Will not budge.

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I've had this happen to me a few times, in the past I've taken a rubber mallet and tapped all around the pipe to loosen the dust up, turn the pipe upside down and tap vigorously,
The other solution was to take the pipe outside and hose it off, the water creates enough of a lubricant that with a little force it will pull apart, just make sure its dried off really well since you dont want rust developing.
 
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So, it dawned me I never followed up with how this was resolved. Sorry!

Turns out that I only use about 4" of the second pipe so almost the entire inner pipe is in contact with the outer pipe so a lot of friction preventing them from sliding. Also why I couldn't slide the inner up more than a few inches. Even the powdered graphite made no difference.

What finally worked once I got the pipe reattached to the ceiling collar was to stick a flathead screwdriver into the screw slots that attach to the stove and gently tap each one going around the pipe over and over getting it to slide back into place a 1/4" or so at a time.

Thankful my wood is dry enough and this stove is efficient enough I won't have to do this again for a while.