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Colorado Prospector - Gem and mineral prospecting and mining forums > Prospecting, Mineral Collecting and Treasure Hunting Forums > Gem and Mineral Specimen Finds or Processes
Chachi
First off, this site is awesome and I love the Colorado miners that are willing to share great info on how to prospect, clean and ID stuff. CP and family keep up the "how to" threads they are awesome.

My family and I are completely new to this and we are spearheaded by my daughters love of rocks, obsession with prospectors, and her huge collection of random rocks that she picks up. We are also very luck that a person at my work is willing to show us the ropes on how to be a rock hound. We have been on one trip and we are obsessed, I guess I will be doing alot less fishing :), not that I was good in the first place.

We currently are trying to clean up the minerals we found and had a few questions/observations. I will have the after pictures up and hopefully can get some help with ID'ing them.

Observations:
1. Sonic Scrubber (amazon)....awesome.
2. The textile gun (pace brand I think) awesome and dangerous.
3. Just starting on the Iron out so not sure on that yet.
4. Completely surprised how much the kids like cleaning the rocks, but I guess part of the fun is seeing how cool they look after clean up with a bonus of making a mess.

Questions
1. when scrubbing using dish soap there is a bunch of orange bubbles, assuming this is iron/rust, Do I just keep scrubbing till there are no more orange bubbles, is that a good gauge or should I stop and put in iron out for a few days then scrub?
2. When Cleaning Geothite, is it normal to scrub (gently of course) a lot to get it clean especially the rust out of it? I feel like I am hurting the mineral but it still looks awesome. When is the geothite actually clean?
3. Using the textile gun to clean minerals, do you want to leave the microcline attached or not, I seem to knock of it off, is it better to have a mineral with it on there or cleaned off?

thanks guys and I am excited to be a part of the fun.

chachi
Denise
smileywaving.gif Hi chichi and welcome to the CP forums! Thanks for the site compliments, make yourself at home. You ask some great questions and hopefully I can help answer them. happy088.gif

When cleaning a freshly dug specimen, it can definitely have dirt and clay deep in the piece. I find that soaking it in warm soapy water helps, slightly agitating the water. Cleaner water is a good gauge that your getting closer to moving on with the cleaning process Till I see what is on the piece without the mud, I won't scrub it as there may be smaller specimens attached to the main piece like Fluorites, Goethite, Quartz tips, etc. I started a thread for "Specimen Cleaning" that would really help you also.

Goethite is an iron ore so I wouldn't recommended using Iron Out for those. Colorado's Goethite can also be very delicate, so I usually don't scrub on those. I have found that the textile gun works best for cleaning those up. The cleaning specimens thread also has info on cleaning Goethite. thumbsupsmileyanim.gif

Microcline can be a host rock for many specimens so with it is fine. Having multiple minerals on one specimen makes it a combination piece and a lot more appealing to the eye I think. If some loose pieces come off when you are cleaning it, then it may have come off anyways. You just want to make sure you are not too close to the specimen when using the textile gun, it can be very powerful so make sure you have it fine tuned and at the right distance from the specimen.

If the kids are really enjoying cleaning the specimens also, I would recommend using a warm vinegar to replace the Iron Out. It acts as a mild acid and is a lot safer to use working with the kids. thumbsupsmileyanim.gif

Hopefully this answered your questions but If you have any more, please ask. We would be glad to help.
Good luck on your prospecting adventures and we look forward to the pics.
cheers.gif

Denise
Chachi
Thanks....after re reading your threads on iron out I messed up and used tap water with iron out.....so some yellow stuff appeared on the rocks. I am re treating with iron out to see if it gets rid of everything. The specimines have a ton of iron\rust on them so I am treating again with iron out after another scrub.

Also the geothite has been in the iron out and seems OK. I will post pics once I get the yellow stuff I put on there off bash.gif bash.gif
Crusty
Been there, done that... all about learning. Didn't try doing it again, so I look forward to hearing if doing it again works!
MikeS
Welcome to the forums Chachi!

I recommend using the textile gun on Goethite crystals. Most of the decay/rust on my Goethite specimens is yellow/orange limonite which Super Iron Out has little to no effect on. I used to gently scrub with soapy water but the textile gun gets into the crevices that even a fine toothbrush can't.

I try to leave any Feldspars or other minerals connected to my specimens but sometimes a specimen can be improved by removing some of that stuff.

If your soapy bubbles are still turning orange/red then it's likely you are still removing clay/debris. My brother has had great results soaking rocks in the soapy water for a week or more with a few gentle scrubs before going to the Iron Out. After Iron Out another soapy bath and scrubbing can have even more great results. Some specimens I have found are so rust coated that you can scrub forever and keep getting orange bubbles. Iron Out can help speed up the process when necessary. Don't breathe the fumes. I use gloves and eye protection when using Iron Out. I also use gloves when scrubbing rocks that were in Iron Out previously.

Can't wait to see some pics! Hope this helps. thumbsupsmileyanim.gif
Chachi
Thanks for the Help.

Crusty, I did the Iron out over again with distilled water, so hopefully the film is at least easier to remove....not sure if it works that way or not :). Next time on the Goethite I will just soak and gently spray and repeat...no chemicals.

Mike, I am tracking 100% and did the process close to as you said....I do need to get gloves for the IO. That sonic scrubber seems to speed up the process a little and soaking made a huge difference. The Goethite was so fragile that the textile gun did ok, then I felt I was beating it up even on super soft setting....got it looking pretty good but I still felt it was a little dirty, so I put in some iron out with the tap water thinking maybe it would work out the stuff I thought was rust....and then the yellow happen greensmilies-025.gif

Does anyone know how to remove the Yellow calcium (I think that is what it is), my logic here is that calcium lime and rust don't like a mild acid.

thanks
chachi

Dave S.
If the "yellow stuff" is with the Goethite, then it is probably Goethite that is altering to the mineral Limonite. Sometimes Limonite can look good with a specimen, but the textile gun may be the best way at home to remove it. The iron out seems to disolve it some.
Chachi
Iron out helped remove/loosen the Yellow stuff that formed when using IO with tap water....and a lot of the textile gun.

Here are the pictures of the ones that I think are clean....let me know if I need to send through for another round.

Since I have no collection to speak of I am going to keep 2 of the geothite, the big one and the one with the close up pictures....the smaller on has 3 different large Chrystal formations. 2 of the Amazonites and what ever the tan thing is....I think it is Microline chrystals? if such thing exists.

Thanks for your help
MikeS
QUOTE (Chachi @ Aug 14 2015, 07:52 PM) *
Iron out helped remove/loosen the Yellow stuff that formed when using IO with tap water....and a lot of the textile gun.

Here are the pictures of the ones that I think are clean....let me know if I need to send through for another round.

Since I have no collection to speak of I am going to keep 2 of the geothite, the big one and the one with the close up pictures....the smaller on has 3 different large Chrystal formations. 2 of the Amazonites and what ever the tan thing is....I think it is Microline chrystals? if such thing exists.

Thanks for your help


Nice finds Chachi!

I would keep all of those specimens. Nice Goethite sprays and the Amazonite has nice vivid color.
The tan thing is Microcline crystals. "Amazonite" is just a blue/green variety of Microcline.
Most Microcline crystals can turn white when the stain is fully removed. It looks like your piece is about there. Most of my Microcline crystals are still pink with stain or tan/pink with impurities. You may be able to get most the red/pink out of the Amazonite too with a prolonged acid bath which can either show more blue color or turn white.

Thanks for sharing pics with us! greensmilies-012.gif
swizz
Great specimens Chachi! thumbsupsmileyanim.gif
Chachi
Thanks Guys, I have a couple more combos of the microline and smoky with something else on there that I am not sure what it is. But those were really dirty and need more soak time. hope to have picks up soon.

Hi Mike, Agree that I want to keep them all, I am just trying to keep the best 1 or 2 specimens of each type that I find and put in the glass cabinet, the others I will just put into a box until I figure out what to do with them.

thanks
chaz

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