Quote (Keasbey_Nights @ Sep 22 2017 03:28pm)
Labradorite is awesome.
Also -- try ordering some large chunks of fluorite and getting different grit sandpapers.
Fluorite is very soft and you can get an "undetermined" rough specimen ( as I like to think about it )
then polish it exactly how you like it. I've done it with a couple of stones to accent the striations in it and make it so light can filter through it effectively.
Pretty fun if you like to get stoned and do random things. It will take a couple of hours to do a small stone. Process can easily be sped up with a DREMEL / similar tool.
While I don't own one, the DREMEL head can get into the nooks/crannies that are nearly impossible with sanding until you go through hours of sanding.
Beware with any stone that soft that there is now a danger in dropping/cracking it as you are working.
Very small with Fluorite because of its crystalline structure it tends to hold together well, but some chipping may occur.
I believe Fluorite is about a 4 hardness, fingernails are ~2 hardness, Ruby is around 9, Quartz is ~7.5, because all of the quartz stones ( Amethyst, citrine, etc ) are very similar but slightly different depending on composition.
In my experience black amber doesn't sand well.
Wanted to recreate Jurassic Park.. Nahmean?
Maybe it was just my process , but that is also a very soft stone that you could break just but dropping or hitting off the table accidentally
cheers, i thought they would go too rough with home made methods, interesting
where do you order?