Blue Goldstone Tumbling Rough
A Glittering Man-Made Glass
This photo shows a two-pound sample of our Blue Goldstone tumbling rough. The pieces of this rough range in size between 1 inch and 2 inches across -- measured along their maximum dimension. They were photographed wet to show their potential polished color. This rough was sized for tumbling using a diamond saw - so you will see flat sides with saw marks on some pieces - but those marks will be smoothed away and disappear during the first tumbling step. Please click the photo to get a closer view.
Adam Rittenhouse of our staff tumbled a couple pounds of this Blue Goldstone tumbling rough. A selection of his tumbled stones are shown in the photo above. Click the photo for a larger view. Wow! Check out those sparking stones! They look like a midnight-blue sky on a starry night. Photograph by Angela King.
Blue Goldstone Tumbling Rough
Size: Mostly 1-inch to 2-inch pieces
What is Blue Goldstone?
Blue Goldstone is a man-made glass with a deep violetish-blue color produced by the addition of cobalt. Its most remarkable characteristic is a glittering appearance caused by reflections from the faces of tiny crystals of copper scattered throughout the glass.
Blue Goldstone is Easy to Polish in a Rock Tumbler
This blue goldstone has been sawn into small pieces (1 inch to 2 inches across) and is ready to tumble in a small rotary tumbler. It is a durable material with a Mohs hardness of about 7 - and that makes it a good tumbling rough for beginners. We have successfully produced a bright polish on this Blue Goldstone in a Thumler's rotary tumbler using our tumbling instructions for jasper, agate, and petrified wood.
If you purchase one pound, you may not have enough Blue Goldstone rough to bring your tumbler barrel up to 2/3 full for the first tumbling step. In that situation, you can simply add enough jasper, agate, or petrified wood to bring the barrel up to 2/3 full.
| Tumbling instructions for Blue Goldstone |
More About Blue Goldstone...
Do You Want Blue Goldstone that is Already Polished?
If you want to purchase finished tumbled stones without tumbling the material yourself, we also have tumbled blue goldstone for sale by the stone or by the pound.
Blue Goldstone Under a Microscope: This photograph was taken through a microscope to show you a close-up view of the tiny copper crystals within each piece of blue goldstone. The bright triangles are reflections of light from triangular faces of the octahedral copper crystals.
Get Your Magnifying Glass...
Look into a piece of Blue Goldstone with a 10x magnifier and you will be able to see many triangular crystal faces reflecting light to your eye. These reflections are coming from the tiny octahedral crystals of copper.
The deep blue color of the glass and the glittering appearance of the copper crystals inside make blue goldstone a beautiful tumbled stone.
Blue Goldstone Is "Hefty"
Pick up a piece of Blue Goldstone and bounce it gently in your hand. It should feel heavier than most other pieces of rock or glass of similar size. Why is that? Copper is heavy, and because goldstone is loaded with copper crystals, goldstone weighs more than similar-size pieces of rock or glass.
Blue Goldstone Is Very Hard...
We are aware that some types of glass are harder to scratch than others, but we were greatly surprised when we tested the Mohs hardness of this blue goldstone. Using Mohs Hardness Testing Picks, we determined that its hardness is about 7. We were expecting it to be much softer.
This hardness of 7 is approximately the same hardness as agate and jasper. The similar hardness of Blue Goldstone allows all of these materials to be tumbled together using our Tumbling instructions for agate, jasper and petrified wood. Please use those instructions with confidence.
| Tumbling instructions for Blue Goldstone |
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