Any advice on amber stems?

[caskwith]

Bought some Amber stem blanks from Steve (VF), any advice for working them, they seem to be much more brittle than amber I have worked on in the past. I am worried they are too brittle for sale. Cracks seem to appear after buffing.

[EpicDragon7]

Real amber or amber colored acrylic?

[caskwith]

Real amber

[LatakiaLover]

Advice regarding amber stems?

Avoid them.

Once upon a time in the pre-synthetic-materials world, the hunt for a suitable pipe stem was never ending. EVERYTHING IMAGINABLE was tried, from fossilized tree sap to hollow wing bones from birds.

Then vulcanized/hardened rubber was invented and the desperation ended. All was well in the PipeWorld.

None of the pre-vulcanite materials are used anymore except for historical re-creations and novelty purposes.

Amber has a somewhat stronger hold on imaginations because it was always---no exceptions---the Rolls Royce option. It wasn't superior in any way, rather the opposite, but it was very expensive, and so became popular with those smokers who WISHED they could tattoo their net worth on their forehead, but weren't brave enough to do it. (Ah, humans...)

Specific advice: unless you have a commission buyer who explicitly asks for amber, agrees to add failed stem attempts to the final price, and understands there is no guarantee of any kind regarding the second or fourth or whichever stem finally survives fabrication, DON'T go there.

[EpicDragon7]

Are you buffing real hard? From what I have heard from the jewelry side of working with amber, excess heat when buffing may cause it to crack.

[W.Pastuch]

I believe those would be pressed amber (pieces of amber pressed together into a mass with heat, solvents and pressure), not genuine amber. The fragility could be related to age, any binding agent that was used in the production of these mouthpieces might have degraded and caused them to be even more fragile than solid amber.

[KurtHuhn]

Solid or pressed real amber is such a finicky material to work with, that almost nobody uses it. Even after careful shaping using wet lapidary methods, it can outgas and craze like you mentioned. It's a natural resin that never really hardens and stabilizes. Very frustrating to use. Even for stuff like cabachons and inlay, it presents a real challenge to keep in the condition it's in once you think you're done with it.

[caskwith]

Hmm, seems like I have wasted my money then.

[UnderShade]

Meh, give it a shot and see what happens... or sell it.