Technology for natural amber pressing was developed once in the workshops of Konigsberg manufactory in 1880.
Pressed amber has been applied for the manufacture of electrical insulators and vessels for blood transfusion, etc.
And used it in the manufacture of jewelry too.
Equipment like trophy got the Soviet Union. Amber Plant produced initially wonderful pressed amber, but machines are worn out with time, and after the reforming USSR to the Russian Federation, normal release "pressed amber" is actually stopped.
Fantastic "stratospheric" rise in prices on the major quality amber and abundance of small amber fractions (not fit for serious business, in fact) had forced Kaliningrad craftsmen learn how make the Russian "press-amber", the wonderful quality too.
But masters have achieved more. They were able to get a new kind of material - "formed amber".
"Pressed amber" is make by fine powder (dust) - so it is dense, homogeneous mass. "Formed amber" - is pushed through a die under great pressure very small succinic stones.
The technology is much more difficult than conventional compression. However, it allows to obtain a material difficult to distinguish from natural stone.
Formed amber - as before amber. And it is close to the natural characteristics. Visually polished products from "formed amber" look more intense (like glass) shine.
Formed amber, unlike the lumpy raw materials, is an order of magnitude more available for working and creativity material .
The color of formed amber directly dependent on the purity of the raw materials. Even insignificant traces of oxidation immediately shift the color of the product in the direction of reddish-brown tones. But this, as well as temperature "modulation" and the pressure force, the injection of water vapor, allow a natural way to change the color and texture of formed amber.
In the case of pressed amber from the Koenigsberg manufactory, the color of the product, as found out by the researcher of the Amber Museum Victoria Rechchikova, was used artificial tinting with special dyes.
With the greatest respect to the unique stone - Baltic amber, we collected objects of its derivative - "a formed amber", on this page, separately from the others.
Smoke pipe.
molded amber, metal, after silicon(Si) impregnation larch