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Ouch! 🤕 I was too aggressive with a firm-wired pipe cleaner and broke off a chunk of the button/bit. It’s a single piece that fits back in place well, so I tried an acrylic-based “Super-Glue” - which didn’t hold. 😫
Now it’s not only broken, but has an invisible acrylic coating, too.
Does anyone have a clue where I go from here?
I was going to double-down on super glue - going to Gorilla brand Super Glue Gel, over-apply, let set a day, and polish smooth with Micro-Mesh polishing pads.
Anybody with experience repairing amberoid stems have a better idea?
I am only $70 into this pipe, for this very reason - it’s my first foray into home-restoring an old estate meerschaum. But, I don’t want to give up on it too soon.
You've likelyconsidered. But what about epoxy?
Otherwise is it possible to source a cost effective replacement stem?
Not much help.
Bummer
No. Regular epoxy acts as a filler that takes up space. Must be seamless 100% flush-fit. Either re-bonding with superglue or (guessing here) actually melting and re-pressing the amber pieces into one, like when it was initially extruded, or fabricating an entirely new replacement - these seem like the only options. But, I was hoping someone knows for sure.
But, thanks for your input! I will definitely restore it to at least smokable condition! I’m stubborn that way! …even if I have to mangle it with a two-part epoxy. 😎
is the stem acrylic or actual amber?
@joseph have you seen this?
https://rebornpipes.com/tag/repairing-and-stabilizing-a-crumbling-amber-stem/
Also, I saw in a jewelery forum the recommendation to repair amber with "Opticon". I see it on Amazon.
I have repaired many and I have cut new ones. Good news and bad news. CA glues don’t work well on amber. There are surface preps you can do to make it hold, but I recommend against it. Unfortunately, having already applied it creates a bit of a problem since you now have the residue and hardened CA glue is acrylic, which is harder than amber so removing it is no small undertaking. However, I’ve never quite been in that situation before, so I’m not sure, but super glue remover may not damage the amber???
if you can successfully clean it, the traditional glue for it is rabbit skin glue, but it’s a mess to work with for such a small repair. I use Opticon 330 for such repairs, which is a professional jeweler’s glue for gluing stone.
As far as melting or reforming the amber, it won’t work. I can explain why it won’t in detail if you’re interested, but it’s a lengthy explanation. Let me know.
Here are the historic ways a situation like yours would be handled. Without seeing a picture of the damage, I am limited in recommendations. Normally, if re-gluing the piece is possible, that’s what there is to do. If not, what would traditionally be done is to smooth and polish the area of the missing piece (done by progressive hand sanding and then polishing) and continue using the pipe. If the break was extreme at the tip, a common occurrence with amber, the tip would be cut off and a new button would be cut and the bit reshaped. That wouldn’t likely be done with yours though, as your stem was made differently than the older ones and is not consistent in color from the surface inward. Again, I can explain the reasons behind this, but it also a complicated answer. Lastly, new stem. Unless you locate an exact match old stock stem, ones that look like yours are not available and would cost many thousands of dollars to duplicate, even if you were able to find someone willing to. The reason- see my sentence before last. The older style amber stems, the ones with a swirled or marble like effect in them are possible to buy stock for, but it is expensive material. About $250-$350 for the size of piece needed, and it requires a level of experience and tools that are not common to then create the stem and fit it. I can and have done it, but I don’t find it’s worth the effort. The common thing to do today is a new acrylic stem. Those I can and do fabricate, but I’m not offering to do. 🙂 There are pipe repair men that can do it though if you want to go that route.
of course. If you do get Opticon, there are many different products for gluing, fracture filling and general filling. It’s the 330 you want.
Late-breaking news of the “patient’s” status:
I found this very informative blog by Steve Laug which states that “Amber softens at about 150° C, and melts at 250 – 350° C.”
This is well within the range of my heat gun, but, not my skill with only 2 hands. I would need to manufacture a custom jig-press thingie to squeeze the bit together in the same or similar shape it has now. Plus it’s contaminated with acrylic from my initial misadventure. Just not possible. 😒
So, I didn’t wait for the bad news and just went ahead with the overfill and polish back plan.
Here is a picture of the overfill… The whole top half of the bit toward the camera came off. The join is clean and 100% flush. Hoping it holds when sanded/polished. 🤞
Interesting blog, I can see why he hasn’t tried bending one, he’s missing a really important step in his understanding of the process. Since he has no practical experience, he seems unaware that heating amber turns it dark brown to black. There are things that need to be done to deal with that.
With amber stems, good enough is often the best that can be done. Nothing wrong with it. I have many antique examples of various period repairs in my collection. They are all either good enough or they have new stems 😃.
Thanks for your consoling words. The good news is that, if/when my “good-enough” repair fails, the fracture is still in one piece with a clean, well-fitting margin. At that point, there will be an Opticon 330 second chance.
Here’s the rest of the “before” picture…
“After” pictures to follow.
By the way, here’s a close-up of the threaded tennon. Is that bone? (It doesn’t look like plastic or meer to me.)
And, the leather case says, “AMBRE PUR”.
@Ted, does that alter (or narrow) your initial first-glance estimate of it’s likely Austrian origin and mid-20th century dating?
Yes, bone tenon. That’s “pure amber“ written in French. Not a guaranteed way to determine origin, but more telling is the case exterior, which I hadn’t seen before. The case design was used virtually unchanged from the 1890’s to the 1950’s. The pipes really didn’t change much during that time frame. I’m still unsure on where it was made, since it appears to be a generic production for retailers, so it may have been stamped accordingly to the market it was going to, or that retailers could claim it was from. Gave them that imported flair.
Getting a better look overall, I would say 1920’s to 1950’s, it could be older.
I pulled some similar ones out to show an age range. Two top left are 1900 to 1920, group below that are 1920’s to 1950’s, group on the right are the last of the European ones before Turkey outlawed the export of raw meerschaum, late 1950’s through the 1960’s. Except for the two top left, mostly the only marking are on the cases, gold stamped AMBRE PUR, ECHT BERNSTEIN OR GENUINE AMBER. I will point out it is extremely rare to see a white or similar interior fabric prior to the 1930’s.
Here's the after picture on the amber stem repair. The super glue held ...so far, so good. We'll see how it wears under use. (It already got a tiny additional chip while I was scraping the inside of the button to remove a bit of super glue) Arghh! A comedy of errors as I get used to how delicate old meerschaums are compared to old briars.
And, here's the after picture of the whole pipe, ready to smoke. 😎 The meerschaum itself was in near mint condition, and only needed a very light touch-up. Final adjustment was getting the button to sit horizontal when the threaded tennon was just snug against the shank. It lined up just fine when it first arrived, but all my messing with the stem somehow made it a quarter turn off. Just added a custom-cut felt washer and it seems to work. Gonna call this one done. It was a nail-biter for a while there... Mission accomplished.
Now I want one of those nice big Ehrlich's @Ted has. ...hopefully one that doesn't need any work. 🤣 🤣 🤣
That looks great! A wonderful outcome for restoring your first meerschaum, even with the stem incident. Plenty of valuable experience gained for the next one as well.
Great information and a wonderful pipe. I would have something that delicate for 7 min before I broke it. Lol
Chip pulled through! Woo Hoo! 🎖️Wounded warrior back in action.
Thanks again @Ted for your advice and encouragement. The Opticon 330 was a game changer. Extremely well behaved and easy to work with.
Don’t look too close. I messed up the appearance of the meerschaum. Long story short, coloring came through unevenly as I was taking shortcuts re-waxing afterward. I scraped off excess wax with my thumbnail before it could harden while cooling. When I re-heated to let the remaining wax soak in, THE THUMBNAIL TRACKS DARKENED UNEVENLY!!! 🙀 Oops!
Actually, the random coloring lines make the unavoidably visible repair joint less noticeable since the whole thing is tiger-striped now anyway.
Chip is just one-of-a-kind.
Outstanding! Chip lives on. I wouldn’t be surprised if the discolored areas smooth out or disappear completely after smoking it for a little while. I’ve had some strange things happen like this and they have always corrected themselves. The Opticon 330 is a fantastic product, great to have around for many different purposes.
For reference, here’s a re-post of his post-cement-drop condition.
Here’s one side of the stem repair close-up. Sort of visible if you know where to look.
Here’s the other side (notice, I decided to keep his namesake chip on the button). 😃
Here’s the bowl/shank seam
And, finally, here’s the threaded bone tenon insert repair. (It got a hairline split, and some of the amberoid side and the meerschaum side threads were damaged in the fall)
This fix was actually the hardest and most intricate. I used opticon 330 here as well to strengthen and build up both male and female threads. Good thing it has such an open working time. Yet, you can harden it immediately with UV light.
The threaded mortise and tenon is stronger than ever and perfectly aligned now. 😎👍
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