How to Clean Minerals

You may have found the latest addition to your mineral collection in a field, mine or quarry. It will most certainly need to be cleaned in order to preserve it and prevent it from tainting the rest of your collection. With the right tools and the right knowledge, you can remove dirt, dust and debris from your new mineral.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Pointed scrapers
• Toothbrush for fragile or soft specimens
• Soft brush
• Paper towels
• Field guide
• Tweezers
• Craft paint brush for fragile or soft minerals
• Awl, which is a pointed instrument used to pierce small holes
• Nailbrush to clean hard minerals
• Sable brush
• Cotton swabs for reaching small spaces
• Distilled water
• Alcohol
• Gloves
• Eye mask

Buy Tools to Clean Your Minerals

1. Know where to go. Take the list in the "Things You'll Need" section and go to a hardware store if you'd like to see the tools in person. Otherwise, buy them online or through a catalog.
2. Consider the different minerals in your collection. You may need to buy several sizes of the same tool in order to properly clean them.
3. Look around the house before making a purchase. You may have some of the tools at home.
4. Take a trip to the craft store. You'll need several brushes of various textures and sizes to clean the minerals.
5. Consider buying plastic or acid-free containers for your minerals to be stored or displayed in.
6. Protect yourself. Wear gloves and an eye mask to prevent cleaning solution, debris and bacteria from coming into contact with your skin.

Clean Your Minerals

7. Hold the mineral in your hand. Avoid using a vice, which can cause damage to the specimen.
8. Use an awl and scrapers to remove loose debris. Minerals can become quite dirty and caked with debris when found in a natural setting.
9. Continue to remove debris using tweezers. Because of their small size, tweezers are able to reach and grip smaller pieces of waste.
10. Proceed to using brushes with water or alcohol once all debris is removed. By checking the mineral's composition in a field guide, you can determine if water is best versus alcohol.
11. Use a sturdy brush and distilled water to clean topaz, quartz, garnet, beryl, tourmaline and spodumene.
12. Use a soft sable brush and distilled water to clean fragile minerals. Calcite should always be cleaned this way.
13. Pour alcohol over gypsum and borates like borax. This cleaning agent is ideal for both minerals.

Tips & Warnings

• Always use distilled water when cleaning. It does not contain any agents that may cause chemical reactions.