Cutting a rare Australian mineral - Gaspeite

Gaspeite - An extremely rare Australian mineral

I was recently talking to a friend of mine and we were discussing various different stones. She mentioned that she had seen a bright green stone pendant at a jewellers which she loved and asked if I could cut some for her. She couldn't remember the name of it, but said that it was apparently a very rare stone from Western Australia. I couldn't think of anything off the top of my head, but after we both did a bit of googling we figured out that the mineral she was talking about was Gaspeite.

Although the mineral was originally discovered in Canada, one, very small deposit of the nickel carbonate rock was discovered in the West Australian Desert. The Australian Gaspeite from that deposit is considered to be amongst the best and is the most sort after.

Gaspeite has a Mohs rating of approximately 4 1/2 to 5 making it relatively soft. I found it quite similar to cutting serpentine, and it was just as messy.

The Rough:

After a bit of searching, I managed to track down a small, cuttable piece of Australian Gaspeite from a dealer in Melbourne:

Australian Gaspeite Rough from Western Australia

Initially, I was a little bit disappointed with the piece once it arrived as it had a number of large cracks that ran quite deep. You can see one of the cracks in the photo above, which was the one of most concern to me.

The Custom Design:

After showing my friend the rough, we figured out what sort of shape she wanted, and that she was hoping to get a set to have a pendant and earrings made.

Here is the resulting cabochon set made up of 3 rectangular cabs:


Set of 3 Australian Gaspeite Cabochons

It turned out that my concerns about the cracks were warranted in some regard - you can see the remnants of one of the cracks in the small cab on the right in the picture. In saying this, it ended up giving the pieces a little bit of character with the small cracks and depressions surrounded by a nice polish. The stone itself polished well and was soft and easy to cut.

An Extra Cabochon:

After cutting the cabs for my friend, I had enough material left over to cut a free form cabochon:
 

Free Form Australian Gaspeite Cabochon

The crack in the middle of the stone seen above is the remnants of the large crack visible in the photo of the rough, but again I think it gives the piece a bit of character.

In the end, I didn't mind cutting Gaspeite; It finishes well with a nice shine (although plenty of other stones get a much higher polish) and it was relatively soft so was easy to cut. The above free from cabochon is currently available for purchase via my store:

Gaspeite Cabochon

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Until next time!