Quartz

Yesterday I went walking up a river bed which was littered with stones and a lot of sand . I c across this rock which was unlike any in the area. Looks like quartz and I thought stood out amongst the rest that were there . Small quartz stones but nothing like this chunk . I think it would looks nice cleaned and polished . What would be the best method of making it smooth and shiny ? Sanding it ?

Throwing different grits of sand paper mabey onto an angle grinder (flat wooden disc may need to be made and a thread attachment plate bolted or screwed into it) will wear it down and go through several grades to smooth off. A leather buff may polish it with some oxide after its been shaped. If you want a perfectly flat surface, stick the sandpaper to a large flat mirror or steel sheet and holding the rock go in circles until an edge begins to form. Water will be needed to help clean the dust from the sandpaper.
Wear a dust mask if using a grinder to prevent silicosis or arsenic poisoning if dust is about / dry working. Hard to tell if its a quartz vein or what.. it looks pegmatic

Option B: lather it in salmon paste and find 20 cats

As AR said but maybe start with a masonry grinding disc and an angle grinder to get your rough shape before the sandpaper or salmon paste

This video gives you a bit of a visual of what the others are talking about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh2ryPPzwps

A mate of mine use to through 2000 or so fist sized quartz into an old cement mixer truck without the mixing bars.
Fill with water and leave on for a few days.
It rounds and smooths the quartz.
Then would slightly polish them off.
Bag them, and sell to garden centers.
And all the sand and small rock the same.

Could work the same in a cement mixer

Thanks for the replies . I may have jumped the gun, is it quartz ? Or more possibly granite ?

whoa I wouldn't touch it looks to me like it's infected with yella.

Could you take some more photos of it outside in sun light, a couple a bit closer or under a lens will help too.
I'm sort of thinking its a quartz vein which has been invaded mutliple times by more quartz hydrothermals and remelts or a vein/load undergone several stress directions of pressure. One direction and possibly the last can be seen by several rocks sitting in a layered like form but facing and squashed the same way. Mixed into the mass I can see a foliated ( layered like paper stacked ) rock that I can't put my finger on withought more light. Odd if its quartz but I'm more thinking that could be a mica/biotite or even schist, either way, still meaning pressure thats enough to cause metamorphism, and could be a granite too. If its a granite, alongside the quartz and biotite (black hexagonal)/mica (browny sheets) will be a more opaque and silky looking white, pink, light orange / brown Felspar. It will look similar to quartz but will have a flat / squarish surface instead of random fractures. Under lens this will too be foliated. Its hard to tell by the photos if the orangy / brown mass on it is sandstone or moss too. Pegmatic means individual crystal structures in a mass is greater than ~2cm, which some of the rock seems to also have and common in intrusive igneous rocks within dykes and similar

Have you swung it in front of your metal detector?

The crystal size in the photos makes it look pegmatic as AR said, so most probably a pegmatite or pegmatic granite.

If you do try to polish it i would love to hear how you go.

AR thanks for your reply very detailed and I'm appreciative of your time and effort. Tomorrow morning I'll take a photo outside in the sunlight. I haven't swung it in front of metal detector . There were many rocks where I found this that gave off a signal however the rocks I imagine were highly mineralized and very annoying. Beautiful location. I plan on going back there to do some panning, for gem stones. I'll give it a clean up as well before taking a picture. I thought polishing it would turn up as a nice ornament

Gave it a bit of a scrub and tried removing some of the set in dried clay which is tough on there. The back side has the most clay and that will take some brainstorming to remove, but the front and sides are shown in the images,
Updated images

Images didn't turn out the way I wanted look flat and don't show the true detail

A friend showed me a pic of a piece of round Quartz resting on his shovel that he had heated in his campfire which glowed molten red like lava.

I said to him I would have expected it to explode or shatter into pieces however he said it had not even after returning it to the campfire.

I assume their must be a certain temperature that would turn Quartz into a liquid state?

However I am not keen for "Rush" to try the same stunt in his campfire!

Not too sure about that rush . I'm just curious as to what mineral it is. Looks like one solid bit of crystal formations as you can see in the photo. But is it quartz ?

Sorry about that treasureman as my post was way off your topic.

It's an interesting looking specimen and I think I have a couple that look just like that. Mine came from an old abandoned gold diggings. Looks to be quartz in some form.

Can I see your similar specimens lefty ?

You can if I can find where I've put them They were definitely very similar though.

Sorry for the delay treasureman, I'm awaiting an oppinion from someone else as well. Thi s rock has got me scratching my head...I'm seeing a sort of quartzite but not..or mica but not..or quartz but not 8) :lol: