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restoring high gloss to rose quartz

Posted by eric  
restoring high gloss to rose quartz
May 17, 2009 08:50PM
i work with little masks. augmenting with opals and little geodes.

my current project is a mask made of rose quartz. the mask already came with a high gloss. i made a few mistakes with a diamond bit on my dremel, which i'm trying to remove. i tried sanding a bit, and then using a bit of red rouge, but cannot remove the marks completely or restore the original gloss.

how can i fix these mistakes and polish the piece to it's original gloss? (using dremel)

thanks
NH
Re: restoring high gloss to rose quartz
May 17, 2009 10:38PM
Red rouge is mostly hematite, hardness 5-6. Quartz is hardness 7. Tin oxide and cerium oxide are apparently still softer than quartz, but might work better than the red rouge, as these powders can easily polish quartz in a tumbler. Try wetting the powders a bit (or mixing them with grease or red rouge) and buffing the quartz with them. You can buy them in most rock shops as they are used for tumbling stones. A final step in tumbling rocks is to add some soap - I am not sure if this helps polish them more or just cleans them up, but it might help either way.

If you really need to remove a lot of the quartz, try silicon carbide or diamond, and then polish.
Re: restoring high gloss to rose quartz
May 17, 2009 11:40PM
finishing rocks is much like finishing wood...sand with 100 grit, then 220, then 400, then 600...clean well between each step...each step makes the "scratches" finer...then polish with the tin oxide on leather
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Updated Mineral Entry: ArcheriteFrom Van King, 15th Feb 2012 14:22:36