Mineral Cleaning
| Electric Mineral Cleaning | |
| Introduction The mantra of cleaning any mineral specimen and preparing it for collection or display is:
 Of course reversing the cleaning process is not possible, but cleaning with the minimal amount of chemicals is always advisable. Beyond air, the least invasive chemical to use in the cleaning process is usually water. When needed, water is often used with a soap (called a surfactant) to act as a lubricant to loosen and suspend dirt, muds and clays. My preference is Dawn Dish Detergent. The third ingredient often used in this sequence is a means of scrubbing the mineral with a brush, along with the water and/or soap. Always on the lookout for a "softer, gentler and quicker" way of cleaning minerals, I stumbled onto two unique products which fit the bill. The first is a soap which contains a mild abrasive and the second is the new battery powered electric toothbrushes. Alone or in combination, you can tailor these tools to your particular mineral specimen's needs. And the costs for these items is extremely cheap for the benefits. Soft Scrub Cleanser  I was directed to Soft Scrub by a fellow collector, Gene Bearss. Having cleaned a number of purple fluor-apatite specimens by other methods (chemical), I was happy with the results. But Gene suggested using Soft Scrub, with a tooth brush to "brighten" the crystals. The results were fantastic. I even tested it upon specimens fresh from the mine and the results were just as good. Often I didn't have to use the other chemical cleaning methods to prepare the specimens.Researching why this was working, I found that Soft Scrub has an abrasive compound suspended in a mild soap. The abrasive used is Calcium Carbonate, which has a Hardness of 2.5 to 3 on the Mohs scale. Since the fluor-apatite crystals have a Harness of 5 to 5.5, the Calcium Carbonate cannot scratch them. On the other hand, the clays, muds, oxides and stains on these specimens all have a Hardness of 3 or much less. These are gently removed by using this cleaner. And in the process, the crystals are gently polished, removing all traces light staining, residues left behind by other chemical cleaning methods and even the water itself (water spots). As a bonus, the soap used in this product is a very mild surfactant, which rinses away completely and easily. The most difficult part in the rinsing process is to make sure that the abrasive compound is also rinse completely away. As a final step, I always ultrasound the specimens one final time to make sure everything is removed. |
| Some Do's and Don'ts - Only use the original Soft Scrub, or the Orange or Lemon. Do not use the other varieties with bleach and other chemicals. - Use it straight out of the bottle, with a wet toothbrush and specimen. A little goes a long way. - Make sure your mineral specimens and the matrix are harder then 3 on the Mohs Hardness scale and what you want to remove is 3 or less on the scale. - Don't try this with cleansers like Comet or Ajax, the abrasive is about 5-6 on the Mohs Harness scale. Besides these cleansers contain harsh soaps and chemicals like bleach. - Want an alternative? Use any regular toothpaste, not the gels. It has a very mild abrasive, in an even milder soap. |
Battery Electric Toothbrush You can use a "manual" brush or toothbrush with soap and Soft Scrub in the specimen cleaning process, but I have recently found that the battery powered electric toothbrush is a fabulous new tool. It is not only useful at home, but now I can take one out into the field with me. Usually running on two AA batteries, they are cheap to purchase and operate. You can find these now for as little as $6.00 and a 4-pack of batteries will run you $4.00. There are different styles and types of these cheap electric brushes and even rechargeable ones if you have more money to spend.What is so fabulous about these tooth brushes is that they are tailored made for using with Soft Scrub. The back and forth scrubbing action of the bristles gently scrubs a mineral specimen without much danger of damaging it. Quite often using a manual method of scrubbing, you can easily brush too hard and break a delicate piece. The cleaning action is also faster then the manual method. It is important to say that you should let the electric toothbrush bristles do the work. Don't press down hard at all when cleaning a surface. Let the tips of the bristles do the work. When you are after a crevice, then press down, but only to the point where the tips of the bristles reach the level you want to clean. When used with Soft Scrub, make sure you completely rinse the brush on the outside and internally. The abrasive will collect inside the replaceable brush. | |
 You can of course use other soaps with these toothbrushes, again I prefer to use Dawn Dish Detergent, but you can also use them with just plain water. Replacement brushes for most of them are available, but they are much more expensive. Found at any supermarket, department store or pharmacy, they come in many fun shapes! There is nothing like brushing your mineral specimens in the field with a Cell Phone Tooth Brush! And, by getting replacement brushes, you can still use the unit to brush your teeth. The only negative I have found so far is that the brush head is difficult to get into some places on a specimen. There are some "angled" brushes out there, but they only offer limited help. Some of the high end rechargeable brushes do offer a variety of cleaning tips and brushes. When I am rich, I will try them. by Ray Sprague |
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