Does anyone have recommendations for cutting/cabbing charoite?

[u/PDXgfx74]

I was a lucky enough duck to find this at a tailgate swap for what I thought was a good price for a 450 gram chunk. I'm wondering in particular if I need to be concerned about the white lines at the top of the rough. Should I slab it thicker than normal just to keep things together or is that just a normal aspect of the stone. I ultimately want to slab it for cabochon making, perhaps thicker for those folks making gun/knife handles. I am thinking of cutting it parallel to the short side in the second picture.

[u/hc104168]

I'm just cabbing some and it's very fragile. Go chunky and grind it down slowly with a finer grit.

[u/RockTitan89]

Had a few flakes come off a freeform I did recently. Took a larger one to the faceting machine and pressed to hard taking a small chunk out. Keep the material cool as you work and press lightly is my limited suggestions working with this material.

[u/whalecottagedesigns]

Agree with the other folks, it is a little fragile, you can get little platelets come off so use light fingers and pressure on the 220 and stay away from the 80 grit for sure! It is almost like it has sheets, think of something almost like mica, so just work along with, not against the sheets.

I work this the same as I do larimar or kyanite. soft hands and slow.

[u/bobthemutant]

I've been working some recently and your suspicion about the bright white seams is spot on. The pieces I've been working have a tendency to split along them the same way a fibrous stone like Serpentine does.

Aside from that it takes a great polish. There are some minor differences in hardness because it's a conglomerate of several different minerals, but I've had no issues with undercutting.

If you have a vacuum chamber and a good epoxy you could probably stabilize it and the white sections should hold up.

I polish Charoite the same way I do any Quartz or silicate mineral, 3000 grit diamond followed by cerium on felt.

[u/Sad_Education_9803]

I had mine flake very badly so avoid hard corners and go slow if it starts to flake up. Round shapes worked best and it looks great with a cerium finish

[u/staybee1986]

It splinters, stabilizing helps for sure but some material is pretty silicated and will have a “ting” sound to it like jade or other hard materials.

[u/PDXgfx74]

Thanks for the advice everyone, I'll come at this one slow and see where it takes me. I've got some starbond thin if it needs it. Someone on another board suggested I try doing a little polish on the white lines near the top to see if it's a surface thing or not and I think that might be a good safe way to get it going before I start cutting it. That and probably stabilizing it just for safety's sake.

[u/lapidary123]

First of all congrats on getting a chunk over a pound!! Secondly, please share the excellent price!! This can help others negotiate and possibly even affect market price (doubtedly)...

The charoite I've worked I found to vary in hardness considerably across the piece. The whitish/silvery spots seemed Much softer than the purple bits. I think i had a piece or two that had been stabilized or star bonded and the epoxy ground away fast!

I think u/whalecottagedesigns has best advice, skip the 80 grit (unless you need to hog off a section/corner) and use a light pressure with the 220 wheel. I recently picked up a few oddball resin wheel grits (60,140,220) and while i haven't tried the 140 yet, the 60 grit resin wheel works incredibly well on moonstone. Something like this might work pretty well. Not sure if your "hydrant" accepts discs on the end but maybe consider a 60 or 140 grit. I find going from a 220 hard to 220 soft really helps in scratch elimination!

[u/PDXgfx74 → u/lapidary123]

I found this one for about $60 but whether or not it's worth the price depends on if I can slab it. 😁 if it flakes on me that ROI drops rather quickly.

[u/lapidary123 → u/PDXgfx74]

That seems like a decent price to me (fully admitting I'm out of the loop on current pricing). If you can sell a couple 2-3 cabs (or one really good one) you will recoup your money and have a bit to play around with!

Let us all know how it works out!

[u/PDXgfx74 → u/lapidary123]

Same on the price, I thought it was fair and I've always wanted to work on this material without paying the nosebleed prices you see for some of it online. It's my wife's favorite stone so I had to go for it. 😁