[meteorite-list] RE: Polishing slices?

[Christian Anger]

Hi Darren,

I polish all my meteorite slices, endcuts, windowed meteorites  with sanding
paper by hand.
I begin at 80 grit and then polish 
with 120,220,400,800,1000,1500,2000,3000 grit sanding paper.

A long hard work, but the result is like a dream.
This does not work with friable material.
There you should stop at 400 grit appr.

or e.g. most of the Howardites or some Eucrites are also 
no good polishing candidates.

Also it depends on the overall composition of the meteorite.
Sometimes you loose contrast and sometimes you increase contrast.

The best way to check how a material will look like when it's polished is to
make it wet. This appearance will show you how a mirror polished face will
look like. Test yourself.

best wishes,

Christian


IMCA #2673
www.austromet.com
 
Christian Anger
Korngasse 6
2405 Bad Deutsch-Altenburg
AUSTRIA
 
email: christian.anger at aon.at

-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Darren
Garrison
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 10:58 PM
To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Subject: [meteorite-list] Polishing slices?

I'm looking for tips on polishing slices.  I have a few NWA slices from Ebay
that show saw marks,
and have been using various grits of sandpaper to smooth the surface, but
while I get a smooth
surface, it still has a dull, matte appearance to it.  I have grades of
sandpaper from 60 to 220,
start with the smallest grit that will still remove the saw marks, then
grade to finer sandpaper
until I reach the 220, after which I try to polish it further by rubbing it
on sheets of white
paper.  I still don't get a surface that looks as good as the
"professionally" polished ones,
though.  Do I need to go down to a specific grit of sandpaper (I see that
they go way beyond 220) or
some other specialized polishing compound?

Look at this example-- the "after" looks much nicer that the "before", but
I'm thinking that the
"after" could look even more nicer.

http://webpages.charter.net/garrison6328/before_and_after.jpg
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