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[olgguy]

 Calling al jade cutters, Help! Sanded the Snowflake on a 600 worn-out silicone. Got rid of the orange peel. Now on a 9mu Eastwind belt and the jade cream is coming off battleship dark gray. Do you leave the cream as part of the process or increase the water flow to remove it. It is not polishing much and I see grain but not orange peel. Mostly matte finish. What's next? 

[Jhon P]

Question? have you checked the hardness? it should be 6, 6 1/2 .  I went out to the shop and took a piece of serpentine (it was in with some calif. jade slabs that I had bought) sanded at 600 a lot of creamy mud, than to 1200 still a some  cream, than to 3mil a little cream. than I took a piece of Wyoming nephrite jade and did the same thing. at 600 a little cream. 1200 no cream just discolored water, I reduced the water to just wet and still no cream. than to 3mil very little discolored water, reduced the water still no cream, but it was starting to get hot and started to polish. Jade like to be hot.

[Orrum]

Did I read somewhere that u could polish it on a worn out dry 600 silicon carbide belt???  Respirator suggested.

[Jhon P]

You can polish it with a well worn 600, you have you to let it get a little hot. here is a picture of the piece I was messing with. at 3,000 I let the belt get barely wet and let it get hot. I just did a strip on the edge.  remember that I am no expert there are much better people that work jade, I just happen to like jade and jadeite

[Redrummd]

I actually do not recommend getting Jade hot in polishing.  If it is too hot to hold against your skin it is too hot.  You can "burn" Jade and leave a deep mark that requires going back as far as 300 grit to remove it.  It does help to have a bit of Jade mud on the polishing wheel though.

Here is my short Jade polishing tutorial on Ebay.

http://www.ebay.com/gds/Jade-How-to-cut-and-polish-Jade-/10000000178583902/g.html

[lithicbeads]

If the magnesium component of the jade is high it will be difficult to polish and of course the various hardnesses of the minerals in the felted structure heavily influence polishing.The technique that works well for some of uss is to sand  wet on diamond 600 then dry on the same grit. Repeat the wet and dry on 1200 and 3000 and you usually have an excellent to passable polish. A few pieces will never polish. You need a fine touch with this technique and wheels that are at least half work. A tiny amount of water on the edge of the wheel can be used to slightly rewet the wheel so as to continue the dry sanding which works primarily as the wheel dries.I have seen fine diamond wheels degrade the 3000 grit polish especially is used wet. Jade has a strange and extremely variable molecular structure and can be a wonderful challenge.

[olgguy]

Thanks REDRUMMD for the tutorial site. Test #2 came up with a better polish, but still not good. I finally looked at the finish with my 10X optical comparator that I use for faceting. It looks like the original cut never got down to the bottom of the grain or it under cut. Maybe, as you describe it got "Bruised" in the original cutting, which was done a long time ago. I am going to try one more time with this type of jade.