Cutting and polishing

The obvious next step, and a genuinely separate discipline with its own equipment and its own hazard.

A different craft entirely

Collecting is about finding and preserving. Lapidary is about making.

Which means it has the things this property does not: a process, a yield, a consistent product and a repeatable output.

It also turns rough with no locality data into finished material where the data matters less, which is a legitimate use for the undocumented half of a collection.

What it takes

A saw, a grinder or cabbing machine, polishing laps and compounds, and water.

A tumbler at the simplest end, which is where people often start and which needs no skill and a great deal of patience.

Faceting is a further step again, with its own machine and a long learning curve.

The equipment is the barrier, and second-hand lapidary equipment is widely available because people buy it enthusiastically and use it twice.

The silica problem

The one genuine occupational hazard, and it is serious.

Cutting and grinding silicate material dry produces respirable crystalline silica, and silicosis is an irreversible disease with a long latency.

Cut wet, always. Water suppresses the dust at the source and it is not optional.

Extraction, a fitted particulate mask for any dry work, and do not sweep dry dust, which puts it back in the air.

When to cut and when not to

Cut material that is common, undocumented or already damaged.

Do not cut a crystallized specimen. A terminated crystal is worth more than anything that can be made from it, and that decision is irreversible.

And do not cut material from a classic locality without asking somebody who knows it, because rough from a closed locality is frequently worth more as rough.

References