Cabbing tiger eye

Long time fossicker, new to lapidary. I'm currently working on a tiger eye cab that demonstrates a beautiful chatoyancy but unfortunately has had a couple of major cracks that were not visible at the surface emerge during cabbing. I am still working on the 220 grit trying to remove a couple of tiny flat spots. When the stone is wet the cracks are less obvious but once the thing dries right out they become very noticable. Anyone here done much work with this material? Any tips or tricks that might help? Had some advice from other places, just searching for all the info I can get.

Cheers all.

Hi Lefty

Haven't had a crack at it yet we have some here at home to try.

Does a finger nail catch on it if you drag it over? if not I'd keep going, maybe even move down to the next wheel and pay a fair bit of attention to it.

I can ask one of the guys who run the cabbing course at my local club see what they say.

Not sure how tigers eye goes in the ultra sonic cleaner but it may become less noticeable if you clean it in there after you finish your polish etc

Failing that it might be a chuck in the tumbler job

Will ask around

Cheers

Col

Hi Col.

No, I can't really get a fingernail to catch in it. But the crack is right in the guts of the stone and seems to get bigger every time I look at it - I only go into the club on Fridays and as the stone has dried out more and more, the cracks have gotten more obvious.. As I examine it now, I can see cracks emerging over the entire surface :/ , though much smaller than the one I'm concerned about.

But I also have a slab of the same material from my grandfathers old collection - the face is highly polished and looking closely, it too is full of small cracks. The chatoyancy effect and the polish distracts your eye from them. Perhaps it's a normal feature of the stone - like emerald?

Maybe it won't look so bad when it takes the final polish?

Maybe I could apply treatment to it like an adulterated Thai ruby - cracked but filled with glass to make the cracks invisible

Thanks Col

No worries mate will still ask see what the experts say

Col

It's dead. Cactus. All that work for naught. An experienced club member urged me to persist with it as the cracks appeared to be surface cracks and the cab was plenty high enough to grind down a bit. Did that and managed to get rid of the cracks but in the process I deformed the shape as I tried to remove a couple that were at the edge - I couldn't recover the shape to my satisfaction. In addition to my disaster, the piece of agate my young bloke was working on shattered on the dop - a bad night all round

Just looked at my sadly shrunken and deformed - but now crack-free - piece of tiger eye.....a spiderweb of new fine cracks have appeared at the surface.

Did some reading up and discovered that some red-coloured tiger eye is actually gold tiger eye that has been heat-treated. The article didn't say but I wonder if the process of heat-treating might weaken the bonds between the columns of fibres, allowing it to crack? The other half of the piece is polished on the face of the slab and close examination reveals lots of small cracks. However, the polished slab still looks good in a rock display despite the cracks and that is where it has gone back to.

Dissapointed but will just have to put this one down to experience.

It's a shame mate all a learning curve.

Good luck with your next project. I have a chipped bit of boulder opal a mate's kid found going to fingers crossed rescue has some lovely colour in it.
Will stick up some pics if it works out.

Col

Cheers Col. I think what I've learned from this is that the very, very important step one begins before you start shaping and doming - make sure the piece of material you've selected is suitable for cabbing in the first place. If tiger eye has fine cracks in it, it probably isn't worth starting on. Just polish the face of the piece and put it in the rock display instead.

I have a piece of boulder opal as well, very little colour play but a beautiful vivid blue. I think I'll put it aside though - got a Mt Hay thunderegg half with the face already polished, the agate inside shows very little banding but has the look of smokey quartz. We'll see how that one goes.

Because of your adventure (I'm following your thread on Aussie Lapidary Forum) I have left my slab of tiger eye in the box for the time being. I'm sticking to the challenges of agate (soft spots where the colour changes) for the time being.

Well, that resolve was short lived Instructor told me to take out the tiger eye and have a go. I need to learn the 'feel' of different stones as I learn to cut, he says. So I had a go, with fear in my heart. And that turned out to be unnecessary. The cab formed well, the challenge of the soft stone with lines of very hard iron and ironstone in it was nice to do and even though there was a crack in it from the start, the stone held together very well.

I'll post a pic of the finished cab in my own thread tomorrow. I went home and forgot my stone in the freezer last night, so it's still at the club.

Good stuff piep (only just saw your reply now).

I think the piece I have left is just too cracked - I've got a small piece of carnleian that appears orange all the way through, will try that on Friday night.

Cheers