I started shaping on my diamond grinding wheel until it was close to a sphere shape. I like to make spheres from this material because it is easy to see the pattern and if I want a cabochon then I just cut the sphere in half perpendicular to the pattern. I was expecting a 1-inch diameter finished sphere. The piece that I selected was about 1½-inches in the longest dimension. If I can see a secondary wispy sheen on the surface, I’m fairly confident that a star pattern can be found in the piece. It is very difficult to observe a star pattern in the rough piece and equally difficult to get the star pattern centered in a cabochon. These fractures usually are healed but visible and many will be fractures that reach the surface. The most important thing is selecting a piece of rough that has few fractures showing. There will often be one strong bar and two weaker bars that show asterism. Often, they are placed so that you can only see a single bar of light which gives a cat’s-eye effect. They are so small that it takes hundreds bundled together to approach the thickness of human hair. The nanofibers are 100 to 500 mm in diameter. LED lights are usually a diffused type and won’t work for evaluating the rough. The asterism is best seen from a single-point light source like a flashlight or preferably the sun. The origin of the stars is dumortierite-like nanofibers producing both the rose coloration and the asterism. Pin this post to save this information for later. This is because of a region of single crystals embedded within the massive material. Some pieces exhibit asterism which is the ability to display a six-ray star. Rose quartz is a massive variety of quartz that is found worldwide. It is rather difficult to find pieces with good enough clarity to make a very big cabochon or sphere especially one with the star in the center top of the cab. This material is rather abundant but rarely clear from fractures and other internal defects. Many materials can exhibit a star including rose quartz.
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