Polishing amber, coral, and/or MOP
Rita Perloff
beads which have become dull and chipped. I have tried doing it with my
mini polisher w/rouge with poor results. Since I work with beads and do
restringing for other folks, I often get coral and mother-of-pearl to
redo and would like to be able to clean these back to original finish
before I redo? Have tried soap and water--this only leaves a yucky film
on the beads. I do have a rotary tumbler--can I use this? If yes, what
would be the medium to use in it?
Thanks,
Rita
PeterWRowe
writes:
The machine you're using is the right one, but the polish is wrong. Red
rouge won't remove scratches, and tends to stain the amber, though it can
put a high shine on if you've got the technique just right. Try white
diamond tripoli, or Zam. Also, you should use a soft clean (no metal
residues) buff, reserved only for amber or plastics. And when you buff,
use enough compound, use very little pressure, keep the piece moving, and
only use quick brief passes across the buff, then pull away for a moment
so the surface can cool again.. What you want to do is not stay on any
one place for more than an instant, so it doesn't heat up and melt. That
messes it up quickly.
With a little practice you'll find you can buff it out very quickly.
The white diamond tripoli compound will actually cut away a fair amount of
material if you want, so you can take out light crazing and scratches.
Zam will do less of this, but will leave a higher shine. For the final
polish, just a soft clean cloth in your hand will do nicely. You can also
use any polish designed for plastics, such as acrylic polishes that are
sometimes available in the hardware store.
Hope this helps.
Peter Rowe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peter W. Rowe M.F.A., G.G.
Commercial and custom jeweler and metalsmith
Graduate Gemologist and Lapidary
Opinions expressed here are solely my own....... and subject to change
according to my mood and the state of my art ....
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'Cause life's too short and if we're not having fun, then why be here?
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Rita Perloff
Thanks for the quick reply. I'll order some of white diamond tripoli and
zam and let you know how it works out. Re the plastic polishes you can
find in a hardware store: do you have to do the polishing by hand, or can
I use the dremel. If yes, with what buff? Thanks.
Chris Carlisle
that tumbling your beads will RUIN them.
The only way she knows to polish amber is carefully, by hand, with jeweler's
tripoli and leather. In the industry, they use EXTRA slow wheels and tripoli,
but you could still grind off your facets. Rouge can change the color of your
amber.
You could try glass cleaner on coral. She recommends an ultrasonic cleaner
machine for your MOP.
Kiwi Carlisle
carl...@wuchem.wustl.edu
PeterWRowe
writes:
>
>Peter,
>
>Thanks for the quick reply. I'll order some of white diamond tripoli and
>zam and let you know how it works out. Re the plastic polishes you can
>find in a hardware store: do you have to do the polishing by hand, or can
>I use the dremel. If yes, with what buff? Thanks.
>
>
Whoops.
I didn't realize you were using a dremel tool. Those are generally very
high speed grinding motors.
Unless you have a variable speed dremel, don't use it on amber or plastics
or things which melt. (shell is OK though). It runs way too fast, and
will quickly mess up the surfaces. If you've got the variable speed
version, at it's lowest setting with a muslin (cloth layers) buff, it
should work. But you must use a light touch and not let it stay in one
place or even at it's lowest speed it will start to heat and soften the
amber's surface. When that happens it grabs and pulls it into a rippled,
rough, whipped up ugly surface which then sometimes actually has to be
sanded down to cut through it again to a clean surface.
What you need to do is get an old surplus washing machine type motor,
which runs at a nice slow 1725 rpm. (My dremel runs about 17 times that
speed. Much faster even than a standard flexible shaft motor) and mount
it to a benchtop. Or spend lots of money on a new motor. Your choice.
The dirty old surplus ones from garage sales or Salvation army stores or
wherever will do just as well, for $5.00, as the new ones, but won't look
as good.
Anyway, from a local rock shop or wherever, get a tapered spindle which
will fit the motor shaft. That's a tapered steel screw, on which you can
mount standard buffing wheels. I'd try between a 3 to 5 inch muslin
wheel on that motor arrangement for amber. Smaller (slower surface) for
polishing, larger with white diamond for cutting out deeper scratches)
That's pretty slow for metal buffing, but should work well with amber and
plastics. Another option would be to use a standard electric drill in a
drill stand in case you already have such a thing. Either way, you'll
also need a cheap dust mask to wear while working.
The "craftics" brand of plastics polishes are creams, similar to the
automotive rubbing compounds used to finish out paint work They work
well just with a soft cloth. But you can also use them on that muslin
buff if you want, so long as you keep things a little damp.. They are best
at dealing with light hazing and the like, though and for that power
tools aren't needed. Hand power is safer too, as you don't run any risk
of overheating the amber. But cutting out more than light hazing with
those compounds can take a lot of elbow grease
Hope this helps.
Tony Lowe
In article <4le21e$2...@ns1.lr.net>, rew...@mail1.lr.net says...
>
>I would appreciate any information on how to polish older faceted amber
>beads which have become dull and chipped. I have tried doing it with my
>mini polisher w/rouge with poor results. Since I work with beads and do
>
>Rita
>
Hi Rita, I polish and restore amber and Kuari gum all the time.Its
actually very easy.First forget all you ever learnt about polishing stones.
The use 400 grt wet and dry paper to clean it back to clear.Then 1200 wet and
dry(Use paper by hand in water).Then just do the final polish with a silver
cloth,comes up fantastic.I learnt this working on amber in the baltic many
years ago. Coral well the mineral coral I work same as tourquose,the organic
coral I use wet and dry as for amber but final useing tripoli on slow wheel.
careful with ultrasonic on these items.
TONY (SACRED STONES) Auckland New Zealand.