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Techniques for CollectorsBest way to polish up Serpentine?

13th Apr 2014 17:07 UTCCraig Oliveira

I've got some real hard serpentine, several different colors that i plan i cutting. I did a small piece and it looks awesome. The pictures are after cutting and they are dry not wet. They of course look much better wet so was curious what is best method for serpentine?

thanks,

Craig O

13th Apr 2014 21:06 UTCAlessio Piccioni

Generally i used powder diamond

13th Apr 2014 22:03 UTCRock Currier Expert

What you have is a rock with possibly one or more serpentine group minerals in it. Unless someone has cut and polished this particular rock type before, you will have to rely on standard lapidary techniques and trial and error to get the thing polished. There are various ways to achieve this by using a big flat lap which may give you the best good really flat finish. If you use various sanding belts or disks you will not get a really flat surface which is ok for most commercial purposes. You can expect that you may have some undercutting of the softer components of the rock that you may be able to mitigate by using different kinds of abrasives. Or a down and dirty method of "polishing" the piece is to paint it with something like polyurethane which will make it look as though it might be polished, at least from a distance.

13th Apr 2014 23:15 UTCCraig Oliveira

thanks for the informations and tips Alessio and Rock!! This one piece was different from the other one's i got. I'm pretty sure the other ones are pure serpentine but i might be wrong being a beginner and relying on pictures from google. I haven't cut it but was wondering if i posted a pic if you could tell me if pure serpentine or a mix?

thanks again,

Craig O

14th Apr 2014 00:21 UTCRock Currier Expert

There is no such thing as pure serpentine because serpentine is a mineral group. We could look at the picture, but if the cut surface had different colored areas in it, then we would know that it is not pure anything. We could only speculate that it might have serpentine group minerals in it. To characterize a rock is not something you can do from a photo. You really need to do some extensive analysis to be sure what it is you have which might cost you several thousand dollars to do. How important is it for you to know exactly what it is you have?

Most lapidary factories, and in fact most people who work with stone don't know what they have. If you go down to a place that sells "granite" kitchen counter tops for example, they will show you a variety of stone that they work with and they often call them all granite, but they are usually not even all granite, and if you start grilling them about just what kind of granite or rock it is they have, they just don't know. About the best they can come up with is a trade name that someone has given that particular type of rock.

14th Apr 2014 00:38 UTCCraig Oliveira

Great reply Rock, i really appreciate it! I wasn't sure if the different colors were diff serpentine. I'm not that concerned on exactly what type of rock/mineral it is for that much money :-D Just trying to figure out what's around me where i go hiking and stuff, esp the stuff i like the looks of. There are about 4 places with a lot serpentine type rocks but only a few are nice in my eyes. not too concerned about money worth, yet…. lol

here's a picture of my biggest piece of serpentine rock…

thanks again Rock for the great info!!

Craig O

14th Apr 2014 18:46 UTCRock Currier Expert

If the Chinese lapidary factories could get a container load of the stuff cheaply enough, providing it will take a decent polish, they would make eggs, balls and other items out of it I think.

16th Aug 2014 08:59 UTCMIchael Sharpe

I have collected similar rocks from southern Vermont.

Where did you find your samples?

It is Sepentinite, a metamorphic rock composed of serpentine minerals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpentinite

It is very soft and you can use just about any hand or power too to cut it. I have used a steel file.

Then you can get some aluminum oxide grit used in rock tumbling, put it on a plate of glass, wet it and polish it that way, and use some tin oxide polish as a final step

16th Aug 2014 10:50 UTCCraig Oliveira

Thanks Michael, the first picture 3 pic's are from Clear Creek (Coalinga, California) and the last two pic's are from Traverse Creek, just south of Georgetown, California.

Craig O

MIchael Sharpe Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I have collected similar rocks from southern

> Vermont.

> Where did you find your samples?

>

> It is Sepentinite, a metamorphic rock composed of

> serpentine minerals.

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpentinite

>

>

> It is very soft and you can use just about any

> hand or power too to cut it. I have used a steel

> file.

>

> Then you can get some aluminum oxide grit used in

> rock tumbling, put it on a plate of glass, wet it

> and polish it that way, and use some tin oxide

> polish as a final step

16th Aug 2014 16:43 UTCJohn Truax

Hi Craig,

Rocks that are as soft as serpentine are fairly easy to get a polished surface on with diamond sandpaper.

You may be able to shape and polish pieces in just one step or maybe two. I would try 1400 grit diamond first to shape and smooth ... that grit may also leave the surface nicely polished, if not, follow that with 14,000 diamond sandpaper which will leave the pieces with a glassy surface. Work the rock with plenty of water flow, you don't want to breath that dust.

If you have no lapidary equipment a wet side grinder like those used in the stone counter-top industry could be used on your large pieces.

John T.

21st May 2015 19:11 UTCMisty14

5th Jun 2015 18:48 UTCRock Currier Expert

It does not look like serpentine to me but some sort of rock, perhaps sedimentary. I don't think it would be suitable for lapidary purposes. But break off a piece and see if you can get a polish on it. Even if you do, I don't think it will produce attractive stones.

8th Sep 2015 14:34 UTCJay I. G. Roland

Craig, if you have sufficient quantity of serpentine you might want to consider having someone do some carving for you. The enclosed images are of Lizard serpentine (Cornwall, UK) carved into an owl and turned into a lighthouse.

Regards,

Jay.

8th Sep 2015 14:35 UTCJay I. G. Roland

Three more images.....enjoy.

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