Polishing Amber

[Yoda]

I have a few pieces of Burmese Amber such as this one. 
The surface is not as translucent as others. 
It looks like it could do with a further polish. 
How do I go about doing that?

 

[Kane]

From what I have read around here, it takes sandpaper and patience, with successively finer grits of sandpaper as you go along. That said, I'd wait for someone who has performed this before getting out the sandpaper as I wouldn't want to give bad advice and be partially responsible for ruining a viable piece of amber!

[Yoda]

I do have one or two pieces with no inclusions, that I would be happy to practice on first 

[FossilNerd]

@Randyw may have a suggestion.

[Randyw]

Actually I do…. @Kane was really close.really fine  Sandpaper of various grits followed by a cotton buffing wheel. Make sure you have good light.Rather than spend a few hundred on a gem polisher grinding wheel setup. I use fine sandpaper starting at about 1000 grit and work up to 8000 grit. I use some cheap sandpaper blocks I got at a hobby store. they are normally used for fine sanding and finishing paint on models and come in a set of 1000,2000,4000,6000,8000 grit. Where you start on the grit is determined by how deep the pockmarks/scratches or roughness of the surface. Sand in a random circular pattern! Sand a bit, wipe with cloth, use magnifying glass to see smoothness,and make sure you’re not about to sand through an inclusion, then repeat. When the deepest scratches etc are gone move to the next finer grit lvl. After I’ve got to the 8000 grit I use a soft cotton pad in a variable speed rotating Drexel tool for final buffing. Then give it a couple swipes on my t-shirt and viola done! I have heard of people using turtle wax for the shine but I never had. I hold the amber with a jewelers tool. Here’s my setup below with a piece I’m currently polishing.  A couple before and after pics and a batch I’ve almost finished in the last couple weeks. Practice on a couple pieces first until you get the hang of it.

[MarcoSr]

I've used sandpaper, diamond hand sanding blocks, and even a mechanical grinder with diamond pads on petrified wood, stromatolites, agate and jasper slabs etc.   In most cases I can get the pieces where they look great to the naked eye.  I like to take closeup pictures with my Dino-lite microscope but some of the pieces after many tries going through the different grits I just couldn't get the scratches out which really ruin the pictures.  I bought a number of pieces of amber with inclusions that I wanted to take closeup pictures of the inclusions.  To get the best pictures you need to get the amber above the inclusion as thin as possible.  I basically ruined every piece that I hand sanded.  I broke a number of pieces by putting too much hand pressure and couldn't get the scratches out from the sanding.  I put the pieces in water and took pictures which helped eliminate some of the scratches in the pictures but I just couldn't get pictures of the quality that I wanted.  Bottom line, you need to be really skilled to properly sand amber or use a better sanding methodology than I tried.  I never got to that skill level so I stopped sanding amber.  Hopefully replies to this thread may help me to want to try sanding amber again.

 

Marco Sr. 

[rocket]

there are some nice tutorials at Youtube like this How to clear and polish amber - from rough to gemstone with ease - YouTube

My best results have been with toothpaste at the end, but it was only - when I compare - medium quality

difficult 

[Randyw]

I’ve tried toothpaste before but didn’t like it..it only has a grit level of roughly 600 so it leaves deeper scratches then what I want in my finished product. I’m going for (almost) glass smooth under my 10x-20x magnifying glass. MarcoSr also raises a good point of no pressure! You almost want a feather touch when doing this. Amber and copal for those of you that like copal is soft. So too much pressure and speed can lead to heating, cracking, or deeper scratches that you will still have to remove… I prefer hand sanding for all but the final SOFT cotton polishing. It takes longer but it gives better control.. 

EDIT: if I have a super rough piece I do use lower grit sandpaper to shape and get rid of cracks, crazing, digits etc anywhere up to 100 grit. The finer grits are for after I get down to about where th Op’s piece is. So low grit sandpaper is also useful just remember any scratch you put into it you gotta take back out LOL!

Edited September 4, 2023 by Randyw

[daves64]

5 hours ago, MarcoSr said:

  I put the pieces in water and took pictures which helped eliminate some of the scratches in the pictures but I just couldn't get pictures of the quality that I wanted. 

Instead of using water, use either sunflower oil or glycerin. Both have a light refraction close to that of amber. 

[daves64]

I use diamond files to remove the crust from raw amber & to shape it, followed by wet/dry sandpaper & water up to a 2000 grit. Then I use some micron graded polishing sheets with an 8k, 9k & 14k grit equivalent (also wet). Buffing is done with sheep skin chamois. I've yet to use any mechanical tools, but might eventually.

[Randyw]

25 minutes ago, daves64 said:

Buffing is done with sheep skin chamois.

I’ve heard about using a sheepskin for final buffing but I haven’t tried it yet. I may have to try it!