Deleted
Deleted Member
Member since January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2020 16:28:54 GMT -5
You said it only takes a few hours right? What if you soaked it in water first and then gave it a quick acid bath. That might decrease chances of anything getting in too deep. That might work for chalcopyrite - which is more stable than some of the others - to potentially reduce how far the acid would penetrate porous areas. For things like pyrite and marcasite, water itself can be destructive (either by feeding an ongoing reaction, or encouraging the growth of acid-producing bacteria which often exists in pyrite), unless promptly removed. |
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Post by hummingbirdstones on Jan 28, 2020 17:59:52 GMT -5
Thanks for all the additional information, @rocks2dust .
The knowledge on this forum never ceases to amaze me!
ETA - I'm still gonna try it on one of my Apache Gold cabs. I'll keep it on this side as an experiment and monitor it on occasion to see if there's any type of adverse affects.
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pizzano
Cave Dweller 
Member since February 2018
Posts: 1,390
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Post by pizzano on Jan 28, 2020 20:06:22 GMT -5
You said it only takes a few hours right? What if you soaked it in water first and then gave it a quick acid bath. That might decrease chances of anything getting in too deep. That might work for chalcopyrite - which is more stable than some of the others - to potentially reduce how far the acid would penetrate porous areas. For things like pyrite and marcasite, water itself can be destructive (either by feeding an ongoing reaction, or encouraging the growth of acid-producing bacteria which often exists in pyrite), unless promptly removed. I just tried another smaller piece of Chalcopyrite my son had sent me months ago (didn't know what it was at the time)........cleaned it quickly with a diluted muriatic acid solution, water only rinse off, looked just like the first piece did, left it in a 100% vinegar solution WITHOUT copper wire wrap, for 7 hours.......has turned out nothing like the first piece shown here.........hardly visible and only one spot of purple/blue, no reds or oranges to speak of...........copper seems to make a bit of a difference.......hmmmm Funny about the pyrite, which we have tons of around here........sometime ago, I had just finished busting up a bunch of milky quartz, pyrite embedded, sulphur and iron streaked chunks collected from a local (temporary) gravel/basalt mining operation being used for a pavement mixing plant I was inspecting. Anyway, I left several pieces of the pyrite embedded material in a buck of (water only) I was using to clean. Didn't bother to dump it right a way, two days later, went to dump it and almost everything had fallen apart and separated completely......making the quartz pieces easier to identify......a trick I fell upon accidentally. |
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