First attempt at malachite

[Lefty]

She's soft all right, just like turquoise. The slabs suddenly part very easily when being run through the trim saw. Luckily nothing I had traced out was split. Made the cabs deliberately thick because of my fear of how easily damaged the stuff could be. Ended up doing a fair bot of work on this one just by hand with bits of wet/dry, creating lots of thick green eyeshadow . Finished it with a very worn piece of 2000 grit diamond paper on the lap and it actually took on a bit of a buff just from that. Will finish it off with the rouge at the club on Wednesday night.

 

[KiwiKaren]

Malachite is very poisonous so hope you havent be breathing it!!
Nice piece. I like when cabs have a bit of substance

 

[Lefty]

No, no inhaling. Probably not a good idea to use the swarth as make up either.

 

[Lefty]

You can imagine how much of this sort of stuff old copper hand miners must have handled. Years of absorbing it surely can't do you any good.

 

[Heatho]

Nice piece Lefty, looks great.

 

[AtomRat]

Must be darn hard to cut a stone so soft! Came up awesome mate nice shine and shape
Does anyone know of any Victoria deposits of malachite close to south east Melb, Mansfield or Castlemaine? I'm only after the resource, not precious stones. I've made copper out of malachite before like the early south african tribes and wouldnt mind doing it from complete scratch if I can find some in the ground

 

[Lefty]

Cheers all.

Yes, it poses it's own challenges. Everything I cabbed before this was agate or petrified wood which were as hard as the hobbs of hell and so was at the opposite end of the cabbing spectrum to to this stuff. You really have to be gentle with it - in addition to being prone to parting on the saw and chipping if too coarse a grinding wheel is used, it grinds away very quickly and you have to be very careful not to overgrind. You can take it off but you can't put it back on

I don't know of any sorry AtomRat but I think the stuff is found on top of most significant copper ore seams so I would think the chances are good.

Exactly how toxic the stuff is I'm not sure. Certainly, absorbing it by ingesting or inhaling dusts or mists must be very bad for you. We used to use copper sulphate as a fungicide when I worked on an organic smallcrops farm.

 

[jimnyjerry]

Good looking cab Lefty

 

[Lefty]

Cheers mate. Do you know if people typically stabalise the stuff before it goes into jewellery? Using opticon or something like that?

 

[Piep]

Looks sweet Lefty, already quite a shine. I'm looking forward to the results after the rouge.

Stabilising is a hotly debated topic in lapidary land; purists will tell you it's blasphemy and it alters the natural state of the stone. I always want to ask if their jewelry collection consists of big, uncut & unpolished rocks, wrapped in pure unadulterated gold/silver as it comes out the ground.
I really can't see the problem with man-made/altered materials and even think it's smart to use all available means to preserve and protect your hard work and the beauties that are a result of that.

The only issue I can see with stabilising is the colour change in treated stones. The colour of turquoise gets deeper and the stones take more glassy shine when stabilised. I think this will be the case with malachite as well.

You can use most stones in jewelry, stabilised or not. You will have to work with the properties of the stone when choosing a setting: soft, crumbly and brittle stones are preferably set with a full backing (which can have decorative cut-outs or a window), not just a bezel. Or with enough material surrounding it and taking the stress of wear, like raised prong setting where the stone sits comfortably within the metal, not protruding outside anywhere. This will protect the stone from scratching, or worse.

 

[Piep]

Here's a bit of inspiration for your perusing pleasure: https://www.google.com/search?q=mal...v&sa=X&ei=s8dGVJm1M4HamAWtyoDwDA&ved=0CEMQsAQ

 

[Lefty]

Wow! Some bloody nice stuff there Definate inspation material.

Which is good because our president is going to start teaching me silversmithing. I've learned the basics of shaping stone, it's about time I started to learn how to turn them into actual jewellery.

She also suggested using cerium oxide as a polish for malachite. I wouldn't have thought of trying it myself after what the tin oxide did to other soft stone but I gave it a go and it polished up beautifully! I didn't finish it because I came home from the club early with a whopping headache but I have cerium here at home so I'll finish it tonight.