to add but while I was examining it I noticed how relatively soft
it felt. This inspired me to do a little quick google research and
I found a couple of good links that gave me the basic information
I needed.
Amber, according to one of the articles I read, is roughly 2 to 3 on
the Mohs hardness scale. This puts at being about the same hardness
as the deer antler I frequently make things from. Actually, I think
it is probably a hair softer than the antler.
I started out by selecting two nice looking pieces...
From here I decided to see how difficult it would be to buff using
two different buffing compounds, Brown Tripoli and Red Rouge.
While the pictures aren't exceptionally sharp you can still see that
the tripoli worked far cleaner than the rouge. Both required some clean
up work but the rouge was a devil to clean off.
This is the one buffed with tripoli...
The tripoli gives a very good lusterous finish to amber with only
a minimum of final clean up.
This is the one buffed with rouge...
The red rouge will put a good polish on amber but it is far too
problematic since it has to be scraped and scrubbed off.
Then I had the bright idea to do what I do so often working with deer
antler, steel wool...
I started out with an old piece of steel wool but it was so worn out
it just couldn't do anything other the give a dull shine to some of the
high spots. At first I was discouraged by the results and then I recalled
something I had read about the care of amber involving a silicon based
wax. This inspired an idea to try a piece of new steel wool that I had
been avoiding using since it was thinly coated with some form of silicon
protectant.
The results were better than my first attempt and after I gave the
piece a good buffing with a soft cloth, it was at about the same degree
of polish as the one I used my power buffer on.
Note:I also tried a Dremel tool with a buffing pad. The results
were not something I cared for. I noticed that even the lighest pressure
the Dremel was eating away at the amber far far too quickly.
So last night I decided to move on to the next step and see how hard
it would be to drill a small hole through a piece. The first attempt
wasn't completely successful...
Just as I was about to penetrate I decided to try something I remembered
reading about drilling stone. In particular finishing the hole by turning
the piece over and drilling from the opposite side to avoid damaging the
work piece.
OPPS!
I guess it only really works well on stone...
At any rate, I smoothed and reshaped the top of the piece with sandpaper
and gave it a good rebuffing with steel wool and a soft cloth and decided
to give it another try.
Note: I'll do a write up on shaping a piece later.
So after redoing the piece I decided to give it another try. This time
I stayed on the same side I started on.
On a piece of antler I can use a power drill to do the job but on
something as fragile as amber I had to do my drilling the old fashioned
way, by hand using just a drill bit. It is a slow process and several
times I had to remind myself that I wasn't running a marathon. After
all, what I was work on here is probably older than my oldest known
ancestor. lmao
The trick I found to it was that once I finally got to the other side
and the very tip of the drill bit had just broke through was to spin
the drill until I could feel it begin to bind and then reverse direction
for a full turn and then drill some more until it began to bind again
and reverse it's rotation again and repeat the process until the bit
finally makes full clean penetration.
This is the piece with a hole drilled through it and the originally
damaged area smoothed and repolished...
After this I decided to add a simple jump ring so it could be worn as
a pendant....
Keep an eye out for the next post on this.
For now...
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