One of the things I love about going to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show is how huge it is. It takes up the entire city, and there are tents the size of shopping malls. One of these has African venders, a mall sized tent full of people doing tribal gem cutting and working all sorts of materials. I was interested in the folks cutting and shaping horn, because I can get truck loads of horn at the time, cheap. But, they were soaking the horns in a vinegar-like solution, making it floppy, easier to work. I have no idea what the actual solution was.
But, I had a bigger problem with bent amber stems. In all of my lapidary experience with amber, I knew that it cannot be bent at all. It is a soft glass-like material. But, then I found out that there is a resinous version of amber that can be heated and bent. There is a difference between gem-quality amber and the resinous stuff. I am certain that the resinous stuff ends up getting mixed with the gem-quality stuff. But, no one is bending the gem quality stuff, much less using a thousand dollars worth of material to make a pipe stem.
