I volunteered to repolish a customer’s rainbow moonstone set in
sterling ring. Thought I could use the yellow compound I used years
ago on ivory. Too soft. I’m “just” a jeweler. How can I save face
and please my customer? Cathe
Easy. Send it to a lapidary.
Cheers
Hans Durstling
Moncton, Canada
Basically, you need to remove the stone from the ring, then using
faceting or cabbing machine, repolish the stone. You did not specify
which type of original lapidary work had been done.
John
Try using Zam buffing compound on a felt wheel. It’s a trick I
learned from a jeweler friend and it’s worked on both moonstone and
labradorite for me. Best part is you’re polishing the metal at the
same time.
Liz
Depends a lot on the shape of the stone and how proud it is of the
setting. A high dome cab can have scratches polished out of its high
spot without removing from the mount, a low profile or flat stone
will have to be removed. One could prepolish with 1000 grit wet and
dry paper and then polish with cerium or tin oxide polishing powder.
It used to be possible to get arbors for mounting small strips of
wet and dry paper into a Dremel chuck but I havent seen these
advertised for a while. cerium and tin oxide are used for polishing
glass lenses etc so shouldnt be difficult to get hold of. A felt or
leather wheel will be suitable for this purpose assuming you have a
small drill. Keep the piece wet when doing this as heat can crack
moonstones.
Nick Royall