More Fluorite Cleaned End of April

I caught up on my websites last night and then decided to do some more cleaning this morning, both additional fluorite pieces and the house. During my cleaning last week, I actually discovered a few pockets of cubes in large pieces that were covered by calcite, and photographed a few of them today.

2 Cooking Three Up

…and here is one of the large pieces that I cooked last week and discovered this pocket hiding inside behind all the calcite…

2 Pocket Found During Cleaning with Galena

here is another one that this face of crystals was hidden behind a thick crust of calcite….

2 This Face Revealed by Cleaning

…here is one of the groupings of clusters I cleaned up today….

2  Another Grouping Cleaned Up

..the one on the far side leaning on the near one, was yet another piece where the cubes were hidden behind some thick calcite crust…another one I was glad that it cleaned up so nicely to reveal some really nice big cubes…

2 Another Cluster Found After Cleaning 2

..and another view of it here…

2 Beautiful Cluster Cleaned Up

..and a second grouping here too….

2  More Cubes Cleaned Up

 

and a third grouping….

2 Big Ones Cleaned Up

..the one on the left is a nice plate with large cubes on the front and back side both…it had alot of rust colored stains on it that I removed first with Super Iron Out and then today I placed it in the Muriatic Acid to remove the calcite and clean it back up…it actually looks much better now…

2 Huge Front and Back Cluster

..this side has alot more cubes than the other side, so I didnt even photograph the other side…

I have two larges ones with something on them that resembles sand,but it wont come off with either solution so I`m guessing I get to keep it no matter what…one is this one, which as cubes on both sides of the piece…

2 Large Cluster Cleaned Up

..and here is the top of the piece with the large cubes and the yellow sand looking stuff and some white spots all over it…

2 Large Cluster Cubes

There were two nice clusters that I found at the Eureka Mine this year, both cleaned up very nicely with the help of the Muriatic Acid, the first one has a ridge of nice cubes on either side of it…

2 Deep Purple Cluster Cleaned Back Side

..here is the back side of it…deep purple with a hint of yellow imbedded in them…

2 Deep Purple Cluster Cleaned 2

..and here is the other side….also deep purple in the center especially and some translucent cubes on the side as you can see…

2 Deep Purple Cluster Cleaned

..and here lightened up a bit for the front side…

2 Deep Purple Cluster Cleaned Lightened Up

..and here are the cubes closer up….

and the other one I soaked for a day in Jet Blue Liquid Detergent to give it some extra shine…since I couldnt find any sausheen detergent…

2 Deep Purple Cluster

 

2 Deep Purple Cluster 3

 

2 Deep Purple Cluster 4

here is also one of the smaller ones I found at the Eureka, which turned out to be very pretty and translucent as well…

2 Palm Sized See Thru Cluster

 

2 Palm Sized See Thru Cluster 2

 

 

Cleaning Fluorite

I decided to get caught up on yard work and mulching and cleaned up some of my fluorite I recently found at the Eureka Mine near Marion, Kentucky, the past few weeks as well. I dipped them into muriatic acid to clean off the massive amounts of calcite that we found them in this year, and burned the calcite crusts and druse coverings off, as you can see in the following images….I do this outside on a fairly windy day so there is no danger of fumes and I place the tray up high so no pets or kids can get to it either, plus I always stay right nearby….

here are some images of the main cluster I wanted to clean off…

Before Before Cluster

and…

Before Cluster 2

…and here it is, cooking in the acid in the tray…

Cooking Calcite

..and up close in one corner of the tray…

Cluster Cooks in One Corner

..and here you can see the progress I`m making with it…

Another Before Shot 3

..it actually burned it off quite quickly, I was impressed with it cause I wasnt standing there very long before I was pulling it out and turning it around and putting it back in…

Cubes On One Side Cleaned Off

..and here is is drying off….

After the Muriatic Acid Bath

..and here are several others that I was able to clean off as well…

Several Clusters Cleaned Up

 

 

..and one showing calcite holding the crystals together more or less….so I`m going to leave it as is…

Calcite Holding This One Together

this one started off looking like this with calcite on it and palm sized….

Started Palm Sized Then Disintegrated

..and then during the cleaning process, the acid ate so much calcite off, the piece literally disintegrated on me to wind up like this….

Left Some Calcite On This Cluster

…I`ll be doing some more cleaning this weekend and will post more results then…