Hello, I’m in love with this stone. I’ve been trying to polish it, first with a Dremel, now with velvet. It has a slight angle, almost like a book edge, that I cannot seem to polish no matter what I try… suggestions?
Also- no clue what type of gem it is …
To identify it you should do a Moh’s hardness test, specific gravity test, streak test, and if you have a refractometer take the refractive index of the stone. You can then run the information to a mineral database and see what matches up and proceed with more tests based on the results. The picture is rather low quality so I cannot see the crystal structure or the internal inclusions very well so it makes it impossible to actually see what you have. It could be a number of things such as Blue Tourmaline, Blue Topaz, Heated Blue Zircon, Aquamarine, Spinel, Obsidian Glass, Lab-Created material and so on.
If you decide not to do these tests and wish to polish the stone the best thing to use would be Bort and charge it into a custom wooden dremel bit. You could also shove the stone into a rock tumbler with fine grits and allow it to tumble for a long period of time which would ultimately polish the stone. The fastest way to polish though would be to simply facet the stone.
Are you able to post other pictures? The current ones are blurry. Additionally, a picture of what it looks like without the light passing through it would be helpful as well.
It appears to be a nicely sized stone, what compounds are you using to polish with? This will give a bottom of what the hardness is. AKA, if x polish is not working, then the stone is above the hardness the
polish is rated for.
Refraction and specific gravity will narrow the field down significantly by themselves. Clearer pictures will also help. Both the hardness test and streak test are considered “destructive” tests, in that they scratch or abrade the stone to some degree.
What we can do, based on the pictures, is narrow the field a little bit: 1. the blue is too strong to be an aquamarine. 2. with the large number of imperfections, the stone is likely natural, eliminating man-made materials. 3. Treated blue zircon of about that size are typically much cleaner, but not ruled out in this case.
Your stone would likely not be whats considered facet-grade material, in which case cabbing (making it into a cabochon) would be the better avenue. A cab typically has a domed top and flat back.
Thanks all… the pics looked good before I uploaded… Hmm.
I do not have tools like mentioned yet… let’s see if I can get better pics loaded.
