Polishing stones with a tumbler is common, but not everyone wants to listen to the barrel run for weeks at a time. Or you may just want to do things a little bit faster. Fortunately, there are a lot of ways to polish petrified wood without a tumbler as long as you’re willing to put in some effort.
The lapidary game always consists of the same basic few steps. We need to cut, grind, sand, and then polish the material that we’re working with. Only the last three are really required, and sometimes the steps bleed into each other a bit.
We’ll forgo talking about doing this by hand or with a Dremel. Instead, we’re going to focus on how to face a larger specimen while retaining the limb cast or other exterior.
Very Large, High Polish Petrified Wood Slice
Gather all of your things together in a nice spot with good ventilation. If you’ve got a way to fix your polishing option to a bench outdoors, then that’s actually the best way to do things.
You can use any water-lubricated saw with a diamond blade to cut petrified wood. I recommend something specialized, even if you’re using a cheap saw, due to the hardness of the stone. Silicified petrified wood is among the hardest things I’ve found to cut, and I’ve assembled hundreds of cabochons of agate and jasper.
First, you’ll need to determine which angle you want to cut the piece at. With limb casts, people often make rounds. For personal display specimens, I’ll take an oblique slice along the cast for a wider internal view. This is all just a matter of personal preference.
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You’ll want to let the saw do the cutting as much as possible. Better cuts lead to less work farther down the road. You can make multiple cuts easily if you want a different shape.
If you’re looking to polish a rougher chunk then you may just want to slice/grind off any protrusions from the areas you’re looking to polish.
Do as much work with the saw as you can. Petrified wood is a horrible material to work by hand, even a 1/64” modification on a surface can take a lot of time with anything other than a lapidary grinder.
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If you have a safe option to use a grinding wheel in the 80 to 200 range to finish the cut it’s a good idea to do so. That said, a safe and effective conversion of a regular bench grinder is beyond the scope of this article and you don’t want to just stick your petrified wood against a dry grinding wheel.
For smaller stones, hand sanding will be fine. For larger limb casts, I’d consider the use of some kind of wet/dry power sanding. Make sure that any sander you run can be used wet, otherwise a cutting board or piece of glass will work fine to back your sanding paper.
Start with the lowest grit you have, but I wouldn’t bother under 120. Dip the stone into water repeatedly as you sand, you want to catch it
Polished Petrified Wood From Hungary, Délegyháza (3520 Grams
Dry dust starts to spread. You’ll see the mud on the surface of the stone get more and more opaque, I try to dip whenever I see it starting to get a bit thick.
After sanding with your lowest grit, you’ll now move successively through to higher grits. Like agate, petrified wood is not a forgiving material when it comes to scratches from previous grits. Dry the material, wipe off dust with a microfiber cloth, and check for any deep scratches or gouges between each grit.
Move slowly through the grits. Softer stones, like calcite, can often skip grits but I don’t recommend it. Don’t be afraid to go back in grits if you have to. I always give my petrified wood an extra 30 seconds to 1 minute on each grit past where I’m sure I have it. You won’t lose any material doing this and it helps keep things clean.
Petrified Wood Sphere, 55 59mm
Continue working through grits at your own pace. Preferably, you’ll be able to get to at least 2000 grit with what you have on hand. I prefer to aim for 3000 grit in my own shop, but the difference is negligible by the end of the process, it just makes polishing a bit faster.
Your petrified wood should now have a “wet” look to it, even when dried. Make sure you’re happy with the final results of the sanding process, any scratches will still be in the piece after you’re done polishing.
Now, you’ll want to mix a small amount of water and some cerium oxide powder in a container. You just want the material to act as a thick paste, so don’t overdo it. I’ll often use a bottle cap and just stir it with a toothpick to get the right consistency.
Kieselholz Stock Photos
You can now charge your wheel with the paste by applying it to the spinning wheel. This works the same with rotary tools.
You can also put the paste directly on the stone and then go after it with your wheel or bob. This works well in some cases, but it’s not aways the best route.
Polish slowly enough to be mindful of the heat that’s being generated. At no point should the surface of the stone become hot enough to be painful to the touch. This isn’t necessarily going to break petrified wood but it’s definitely a part of best practices. Stones like opal will readily shatter when heated too much by a wheel.
Cut Polish Petrified Wood
If you don’t have any power tools at all you can use a polishing cloth or piece of chamois to rub the polish in. Make small circles while applying pressure and continue across the surface of the stone repeatedly until you’re happy with the finish.
Some of the links on our website are affiliate links. And as an Amazon Associate, we earn a commission on qualifying purchases after clicking on those links, at no additional cost to you.Many petrified kinds of wood are unsuitable for rock tumbling or lapidary work because it has too many faults and fractures. You should also be careful where you gather it because it is illegal in some places, while you are restricted to a limited quantity in others. Cutting and polishing petrified wood by hand using only wet-dry sandpaper is likely to be too tiring and time-consuming.
The three steps to beautifying petrified wood are cleaning, cutting, and polishing. Cleaning requires only some mild soap, water, and a soft cloth. Depending on the rock’s size, you can use a wet saw with diamond pads or a Dremel for cutting. For polishing, you can use a Dremel or a wet polisher.
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Despite its name, petrified wood is stone, so you can’t cut it with a handsaw or carve it with a knife. This article looks at how easily petrified wood breaks and tells you how to clean it, which cutting and polishing methods you can use at home, and the kinds of tools that will get the job done.
If you are interested in checking out the best dremels and dremel accessories for cutting and polishing petrified wood, you can find them by clickinghere(Amazon link).
Petrified wood is hard but brittle, and it, therefore, shatters easily. On the Mohs hardness scale, it typically rates as a 7.0 at the core of the wood. Consequently, it would be best if you were careful which tools you use as their intense vibrations could cause them to break.
Lb Chunk Of Petrified Wood I Found And Polished. This Is From The Chinle Formation Portion What Was In North West New Mexico. Polishing Took About 6 Hours, Ending With 8000grit Diamond
Despite its name, there is no organic plant material in petrified wood. It consists of minerals, mainly quartz, and silica, that took on the shape of wood over millennia. Minerals like manganese, calcite, pyrite, copper, cobalt, and iron contribute to its stunning colors.
BTW: Do you want to know more about rock and mineral identification? The books listed below are the best ones you can find on the internet (Amazon links):
Harsh cleaning methods using chemicals are not recommended for petrified wood. You can use a mild hand soap mixed with warm water and a few drops of apple cider vinegar in a bucket. Soak it for a few hours, then rub it gently with a soft microfiber cloth.
Petrified Wood Gallery
Don’t use kitchen scourers like steel wool on petrified wood. If your piece of wood is too big to fit into a bucket, you can wipe it down with some cleaning soap on a soft wet cloth and rinse it with the hose. Always use mild soap or dishwasher soap.
Not sure how to clean your rocks before cutting and polishing? Check out the methods on how to clean rocks in the article below:
Step Two: Cutting the petrified wood into the desired shape and cutting and shaping stone as hard as petrified wood without an electric tile saw or rotary tool is difficult and time-consuming because, although it is brittle, it is hard as steel. It may sometimes break off in flakes and chips unexpectedly.
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Using successive sheets of sandpaper with finer and finer grits is not the best way to cut and shape petrified wood, and you may end up disheartened at how much time it takes. It’s far better to use a