Agate pendant with gold emblem

Hi, I hope this is how you respond to things and ask questions… I am
not too sure. I have this banded agate pendant with a small gold round
thing glued to the front of the agate. I want to remove it but am
unsure how to do so with out damaging the surface of the banded agate.
It appears to be glued for there is stuff… under it and when i
scratch at the stuff… it makes a white mark. I am just curious what
could i use to get this thing off this pendant with out breaking the
stone and or damaging the surface? Its in a bezyl setting.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you .

Jane

The chemical answer is called Attack which dissolves epoxy adhesives
which is prbably what has been used. I would just pry it of with a
penknife blade - the steel won’t harm the agate and who want sthat
nasty metal covering up a beautiful agate - sorry got carried away
there! Andy

Andy Parker, Agate House Lapidary
Ulverston, Cumbria, England
@Andy_Parker

Tel: 01229 584023

Jane, Try finger nail polish, this is the way I do it. Lots of luck.
Silverbear

Try soaking it in acetone overnight. It won’t hurt the agate, and it
dissolves most glues.
Gary Strickland

Buy some Attack (or other glue remover) and throw the piece in there
for awhile. Banded agates won’t be effected by most glue removers.
Daniel R. Spirer, GG

Hi, Jane. do you have any idea what the gold piece might be glued on
with? If it is epoxied, probably Attack would be the thing to use. Some
glues succumb quite readily to Acetone. Neither of these should harm
the agate. One thing you might consider, however, before you remove
the gold piece, is why the gold piece is there. It might have been
placed there to hide some flaw in the agate, which will now be
revealed in all its un-glory.
Margaret

Hello Jane, Glue will soften when heated, so try touching the metal
with a soldering iron or pre-heated metal rod (iron nail) for a few
seconds. If it’s glue under there, it will “melt” enough for you to
pull it off with tweezers. Then scrape off the remaining glue or
perhaps it will “pop” off with pressure from a knife edge. Good
luck, Judy in Kansas

Hi there, This reminds me of a time in Iowa I found some vendors at a
farmers market selling some beautiful large agate cabochons as “Rock
buddies”. They had glued plastic googley eyes to the stones and were
selling them for 50 cents each. I bought the whole lot and spent the
afternoon prying off the eyes with a small knife. I then used a
product called “Goo-gone” which is a mild citrus smelling solvent that
removes glue and stickers. It’s available in US hardware stores.
Agates are quite hard so if you’re moderately careful you shouldn’t
damage the stone.

Enjoy!

Amy O’Connell
Amy O’Connell Jewelry

ps: jane - DO NOT soak the pendant in anything since you said the
agate was bezel set - the last thing you want to do is get any
chemicals behind the agate where it can eat away at the metal over
time -
ive

jane - if the banded agate cab is in a sterling bezel you can set it
face up on a paper towel & drip a few drops of acetone or lighter
fluid (i usually substitute the white gasoline we use in our peak
backpacking stove) onto the metal thingy you want to remove. if the
bezel is of unknown metal you can use a q-tip & dab it around the
edge of the thingy. after you’ve dabbed or dropped a few minutes you
should be able to lift the edge with an exacto knife & flip it off -
it isn’t going to hurt the agate if you scratch off the rest of the
adhesive residue with the knife. if that doesn’t work - look in the
yellow pages for ‘blow torch rental’. good luck - ive

I find WD-40 works better than Goo-Gone for taking stickers off
everything.

It also removes the resin local pine trees drop on my car.

And it’s much cheaper than Goo-Gone, too.

I don’t know its effect on agate. Dian Deevey