[Rockhounds] Cleaning pegmatite specimens

[erich kern]

The Pala gem pegmatites are about 30 miles sout-east of where we live, and I've cleaned many of them with Iron Out. It won't harm any of the pegmatite minerals; I've even cleaned iron stained calcite with IO. It's very mildly acid, so limit the soaking time for carbonates. Putting the minerals in an ultrasonic cleaner after the IO enhances the removal of any remaining foreign matter.

The main thing using Iron Out is to rinse well in fresh water. If the piece is in the IO overnight, let it rinse overnight as well, which means soaking in a bucket of fresh water, change the water every 8 hours or so. This is particularly important with feldspar and massive, fine grained Lepidolite which will absorb some of the Iron Out. If you get any yellow staining as the piece dries, it wasn't rinsed well enough. 

Regards,

Erich Kern
Murrieta, CA
efkern at earthlink.net 


----- Original Message ----- 
From: ozro1 at aol.com 
To: rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com 
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 9:17 AM
Subject: [Rockhounds] Cleaning pegmatite specimens


I have some specimens with iron-stained quartz. I know that many people use Iron-Out these days. How do I know what other minerals with the quartz are safe in Iron-Out, such as tourmaline and lepidolite?
Tara


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