Whilst unpacking my previous standing studio setup which makes use of the Ikea Stolmen cupboard shelves I had the misfortune to drop one of the top small pole dropping inside the bigger bottom pole. It didn’t want to come out and my tipping upside down seemed to have no luck.
So I jumped onto to google to see if I could find an answer to this problem. Yahoo answers seemed to think sticking a broom handle covered in sticky tape was the best solution, if your inner pole is locked like my was this would involve much faffing around with twisting and whatnot.
I have a look at the bottom pole where the expansion bolt goes it and decided to take a different approach.
If you look closely at the above picture of the foot you can see the bottom bolt goes into a plastic cap. After taking out the expansion bolt I used a fine chisel to pop the plastic cap off the bottom. Inside the pole there is a plastic screw thing that locks the inner pole in place. With a little twisting this released the inner pole and then it was a simple case of tipping the pole upside down to slip the inner pole out. The replaced the bottom plastic cap and all was good again. Not a broom handle or sticky tape insight. It worked a treat.
Hope this helps if you have the same predicament.