[Rockhounds] Stone Consolidation

[Neal Hazen]

I have some Peruvian chrysocolla. As a 5 lb mass, it is stable enough. However, it won't slab without crumbling. I am looking for specific advice on methods of stabilizing this material before I put it in the slab saw. I have washed the rock in detergent, then soaked it in acetone to prepare it. It's beautiful enough to be worth the cost of cyanoacrylate, if that is the best way to go. I am seeking a stabilizer that will give a minimum of 15mm penetration. The folks who stabilize turquoise seem to have the procedure and stabilizer locked down pretty well, but I have been unable to find a discussion of their technique. I dislike stabilizing any rock intended for making into cabochons, but that is the only way this material will ever be anything other than a paperweight.

Neal Hazen

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have." 

Thomas Jefferson
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'In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.' 

Theodore Roosevelt 1907


      

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