Post by woobly on Apr 26, 2019 16:06:54 GMT -5
Hi all,
I got this rock at the Vista show a couple weeks ago. I'm trying to identify what all the components might be, since I'm trying to get a better polish on some parts...and also because I'm curious!
The metallic part I'm pretty sure is hematite with magnetite; it made a gigantic red mess in the water tray, and will stick to a magnet. This was the hardest part of the rock. The darker brown areas were next hardest, and undercut when polishing. (Limonite, maybe?) The blue-green areas were relatively soft, but took a nice shine, except when they intermingled with the yellow, which was the problem child of this rock. It's not crumbly, but it is super soft (I'm thinking somewhere around 3 for hardness), and you'd be generous if you called the finish anything but matte.
I used Zam on a felt wheel to polish it, which usually works really well for turquoise. It didn't smell or feel stabilized when I cut it, and the only part which I had to reshape because of pitting or crumbling was the hematite. This started out as a rough preform about the size of the last joint on my thumb, and ended up about the size of a nickel.
If anyone's got an idea of what this is or where it might be from, shout it out! It was in a six-pound jar of odds and ends, most from the US southwest. Lots of Arizona copper minerals, a few slabs of what could be parrotwing, a fair amount of might-be Snowville variscite (nice stuff, whatever it is), turquoise, and other random bits. There's one other piece which has some of the same features, but it's been ground down, too, so I couldn't say what shape it had in nature.
This is my first time posting, so hopefully I've got the pictures in here correctly. Fingers crossed for that...
Thanks for your help!
I got this rock at the Vista show a couple weeks ago. I'm trying to identify what all the components might be, since I'm trying to get a better polish on some parts...and also because I'm curious!
The metallic part I'm pretty sure is hematite with magnetite; it made a gigantic red mess in the water tray, and will stick to a magnet. This was the hardest part of the rock. The darker brown areas were next hardest, and undercut when polishing. (Limonite, maybe?) The blue-green areas were relatively soft, but took a nice shine, except when they intermingled with the yellow, which was the problem child of this rock. It's not crumbly, but it is super soft (I'm thinking somewhere around 3 for hardness), and you'd be generous if you called the finish anything but matte.
I used Zam on a felt wheel to polish it, which usually works really well for turquoise. It didn't smell or feel stabilized when I cut it, and the only part which I had to reshape because of pitting or crumbling was the hematite. This started out as a rough preform about the size of the last joint on my thumb, and ended up about the size of a nickel.
If anyone's got an idea of what this is or where it might be from, shout it out! It was in a six-pound jar of odds and ends, most from the US southwest. Lots of Arizona copper minerals, a few slabs of what could be parrotwing, a fair amount of might-be Snowville variscite (nice stuff, whatever it is), turquoise, and other random bits. There's one other piece which has some of the same features, but it's been ground down, too, so I couldn't say what shape it had in nature.
This is my first time posting, so hopefully I've got the pictures in here correctly. Fingers crossed for that...
Thanks for your help!