Smokey quartz cleanup

I have some smokey quartz nuggets that were given to me. They are marred up a tad..........is there any way to polish the scratches off these?

[marym]

Hi Deb,

I'm not a Lapidary expert, but unless they are fairly deep marks I would try putting the stones in a rock tumbler for a day and see if that fixes it.  As far as I know there is no polishing compound that could smooth them out without the use of tools.  Someone else may have other suggestions for you, but unless you have lapidary tools, you may want to consider asking a local rock-hound if they could do it for you.

Hope this helps.

-Mary
R&T staff

[freshlemonade]

I had some luck getting out some light scratches using some Jeweler's Rouge on a soft flannell polishing cloth.  Lots of work for this old girl...maybe I'm more lazy than old...LOL.  Good luck with the project. Let me know you get the scratches out.

[Metalman]

Quartz, smoky or not has a hardness of 7 on the Mohs scale. Glass is usually a 6.  This means that polishing is difficult. The tumbler approach will work , with the right polishing compounds but your nuggets will be rounded and smoothed by this method - to the point that they may look really different from where you started.  I have done some sanding and polishing with finer grit silicon carbide sandpapers [often referred to as wet/dry] I user them with water but even on glass - it is slow going. If you really love these, you might try a local lapidary shop or your local rock hound/lapidary club.  These lubs are frequently quite helpful.