Scratches on Green Tourmaline

Jewelry Discussion
1

Hello Orchid,

I have a large “tent-shaped” green tourmaline set into a gold ring.
The stone has scratches over the high “tented” areas at the top of
the stone. Several years ago a fellow here polished out all of the
scratches with the stone still set in the ring. I know this is not
the usual way to repolish a stone, but with so much raised area, he
did a great job cleaning up the stone for me.

Since I have a polishing wheel, and a Foredom, I was wondering if
any of you lapidary people could tell me the process for getting
these scratches out myself. What would I use for polishing mediums,
and what progression? Since this is my ring, I would like to learn
how to keep it nice and do it myself as needed every few years.

Thanks
Diana, vacationaing in St. Louis, where it is blazing hot right now.

2

You’ll need to be very careful since you cannot obtain the same
angles on the crown as when it was originally cut (if cut with a
regular machine that is). I would use something like Alumina B mixed
with a little water. It’s .03 micron so if you have problems it
should cause minimal movement of meetpoints. One caveat is that it
will polish slower than Cerium which could cause scratches and is
more aggressive (ie may move facets).

Is it more a ‘cab’ or a faceted stone? The scratches are definately
not stress fractures, etc right? Last thing you want is to start
tearing off pieces of the stone trying to polish out a crack :).

Also, use a slow speed you don’t need to go fast it’ll just cause
damage.

Craig
www.creativecutgems.com