The best way to stabilize soft stone at home

I have small amounts of turquoise which I have mined and plan to cut and polish myself. I will stabilize it also. I have read on here the various processes such as Epoxy 330, and Sodium silicate etc and need to know which method will give the best results, and can be done at home. The turquoise is a nice blue and I don’t want the risk of losing a stone. Just need to know the best way for small amounts. The bigger pieces will be left untouched and added to my collection.

Among the hundreds of pounds of semi precious rock rough that I inherited from our father was a very nice, fairly clear, piece of turquoise. Most of what he had was from the late 50s and early 60s. I had not considered the possibility that it might have been stabilized until I started cutting it. It always had a very definite chemical smell as I worked it. I have since, mostly out of curiosity, looked on line into how rocks are stabilized. There is a lot of information out there, some fairly simple like your Epoxy 330 and acetone process and others that are fairly involve vacuum and/or pressurization processes. I have not found anyone who says that they will do stabilization as a service. I suspect that you have to know someone who knows someone. Start with your local rock and mineral club or go to a rock show when we next able to hold one. Many have commercial sections where you might find someone who can help you find out more about stabilization.

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