Cultivated Amber?

[Puff Daddy]

Anyone have any experience with this stuff? Any of our forum pipe carvers ever play with it? I love the look of it.

A Ser Jac found on Bollito pipes website.

 

[Puff Daddy]

http://www.bollitopipe.it/jacopo-delecta-cultivated-amber-with-silver-band-p-9004.html

 

[Anonymous]

I'm pretty sure they figured out how to dissolve small pieces & cast it long ago. Not many as-found chunks are big enough to make pipe stems out of.

:face:

 

[Fatman]

Great looking pipe, I love the stem!

 

[Anonymous]

When gradually heated in an oil-bath, amber becomes soft and flexible. Two pieces of amber may be united by smearing the surfaces with linseed oil, heating them, and then pressing them together while hot. Cloudy amber may be clarified in an oil-bath, as the oil fills the numerous pores to which the turbidity is due. Small fragments, formerly thrown away or used only for varnish, are now used on a large scale in the formation of "amberoid" or "pressed amber". The pieces are carefully heated with exclusion of air and then compressed into a uniform mass by intense hydraulic pressure; the softened amber being forced through holes in a metal plate. The product is extensively used for the production of cheap jewelry and articles for smoking.

re. violin varnish :

"In its natural state it is not soluble in alcohol nor essence of turpentine nor essential oils. It can, however, be dissolved by the following process. Place some in a clean earthenware vessel and heat it gradually, when melted pour on to a marble slab, when it becomes hard again reduce it to powder. It can then be readily dissolved in spirit, essence of turpentine and also in all the oils extracted by the distillation of tar."

"Chloroform dissolves it."

:face: 

 

[Puff Daddy]

Since the seller called it "Cultivated", I assumed it was some form of manmade amber material, like the manmade Lab-Grown gemstones. I'm skeptical. It looks too clear to be amber but too organic to be acrylic. the black marbling is too good to be natural, yet it doesn't look fake, has a really beautiful and organic presence. I was unable to turn up much of anything on cultivated or man made amber with a simple google search. I have no idea of the smoking properties of this material, if in fact it is really some form of amber, (taste, hardness, heat tolerance, workability for the craftsman, etc) but it's beauty is so much nicer than the acrylic on the market, I hope it's actually a viable option for stem work. It's not a terribly expensive pipe, but still too rich for my blood.

 

[Puff Daddy]

I was jut fishing for information here. I have to admit that I think it is possibly just a really well done acrylic piece and the translation from Italian to English left us with a description that says Cultivated Amber rather than Faux Amber, as most other yellowish colored acrylic or lucite stems are referred to. Most of those stem materials pale in comparison to this one though, so who knows. Savinelli has their Miele Honey pipes, which are pretty nice, but you can see the difference in the quality of the stem material. The Sav isn't nearly as sweet (pardon the pun) as the Ser Jac.

 

[pepesdad1]

Gorgeous pipe!...whatever the stem is made of...looks great.

 

[docwatson]

PD,
I'm with you regarding this material as an acrylic. I love the looks of it and think the color is very appealing. However if one looks at real true amber stems on some antique pipes they look more milky, smokey, or swirled in color and not see through clear rather than the purified style we see here IMO.
The Peterson Rosslare series with the golden stems looks more like a true amber stem to me. Again, when it comes to looks it is all personal preference as to what one likes.
Next to a Cumberland stem material this would be my next favorite and then vulcanite black. Don't you just love choices?? I certainly do.:cheers: 

 

[BigCasino]

it is acrylic, amber extra is the name is what they called it
I had  piece of it and I was going to use it to make my last pipe and I locked the drill bit up in to the blank as I was drilling. it is awesome tho