A Comprehensive Guide to Gemstone, Beads, and Stone Treatments
Unlocking the Secrets of Semi-Precious Stone Beads Manufacturing
- Overview of gemstones and classification into precious and semi-precious stones
- Insight into the production of beads and various processing methods
- Treatment Methods for Gemstone Beads
What are precious and semi-precious stones?
When we refer to gemstones, they are typically classified into two categories: precious stones and semi-precious stones.
Precious stones include diamond, Ruby, Emerald, and Sapphire. Occasionally, jade and pearl are also categorized as precious stones, but more commonly they are considered as semi-precious stones.
Semi-precious stones encompass all gemstones other than the four mentioned above.
Whether you are involved in the jewelry industry or simply a jewelry enthusiast, you might be unfamiliar with the origin of gemstones. Do you believe they occur naturally? As a manufacturer of semi-precious stones with over 20 years of experience, JewelryShells would like to provide insights into the production of beads and the various methods employed in their processing.
How to make semi-precious stone beads?
Let’s take a closer look at the process of making round beads:
Cutting: The raw material, typically a large stone, is cut into smaller pieces.
Shaping: The smaller stone pieces are further shaped into slices, strips, and cube-shaped nuggets.
Chamfering: This step involves using specialized equipment and auxiliary materials to grind and remove the corners of the cube-shaped nuggets, allowing the beads to achieve a higher level of roundness.
Bead grinding: A fine grinding process is employed, using equipment and auxiliary materials to refine the shape and smoothness of the bead blanks after rough grinding.
Punching: Holes are drilled into the beads to create spaces for threading or stringing.
Polishing: The beads, along with chip beads, are placed together in tumbling equipment. Through machine tumbling, the stones rub against each other, resulting in both round beads and chip beads acquiring a smooth and lustrous surface.
Selecting and beading: The finished beads are carefully inspected and sorted based on their quality and appearance. They are then used in jewelry-making or other applications.
These steps provide a basic overview of the process involved in creating round beads. It’s important to note that additional steps and techniques may be employed depending on the specific type of bead being produced. For example, certain beads like white quartz beads may require additional steps such as a thick iron wire to polish the holes. Overall, these processes contribute to the creation of natural stone beads without involving color dyeing, heating, gluing, or other chemical treatments.
Glue-filling equipment
Gemstone bead Treatments
Gemstone bead treatments encompass various techniques used to alter or enhance the appearance of the stones. Here are some common treatment methods.
Dyeing
This involves immersing stones in colored liquids to change their hue. It is commonly used for low-density and low-priced stones. However, dyed beads may fade over time, particularly in cheaper river shell beads.
Heat treatment
Heat treatment can alter the color or properties of gemstones. For example, heating amethyst can transform it into citrine, and heat can intensify the blue color of aquamarine. This method is also employed to enhance the clarity of gemstones like ruby and sapphire by removing inclusions. Semi-precious stones like agate can be colored through a similar process by soaking them in a colored solution and then heating them.
Surface coating
Stones can be coated or painted to modify their appearance. This technique is typically outsourced to electroplating facilities, where the stones’ surfaces are electroplated with various colors. It is commonly used for colorful quartz and beads.
Bleaching
Pearls are usually bleached with hydrogen peroxide to lighten and improve color uniformity. Some shells and corals are bleached too. Because bleaching destroys the structure, the bleached stone tends to be more brittle than before. So we need to try to avoid them from colliding with hard things during use. Bleaching is a process that many gem testing agencies cannot detect. But high-quality manufacturers will definitely tell you how things are made.
Glue filling
Glue filling is a method used to enhance the appearance and stability of gemstones. There are two ways to do it: high-temperature high-pressure filling and soaking. Soaking is similar to dyeing stones with color.
Gemstones with low density of soft and brittle ones like turquoise, ruby in zoisite, fluorite, and quartz with high brittleness (such as apatite, kyanite, kunzite, and tourmaline) often require glue filling. Bleached stones, which become slightly porous and prone to breakage, also benefit from this process.
Let’s take Amazonite in the below picture for example. First, the stone is bleached by sealing and soaking it in hydrochloric acid for 7-10 days. Sealing prevents the acid from evaporating while soaking removes impurities and yellow solids from the stone. However, this process creates holes in the stone due to the acid’s impact on its structure.
Afterward, the stones are immersed in water for another week, followed by soaking in alkali for 7-10 days to neutralize and remove residual acid. Sometimes this step needs to be repeated to ensure thorough cleaning.
The next step is glue filling, which requires specialized equipment to fill the stones with glue under high temperatures and pressure. This process makes the stones appear fuller. Polymer compounds used for infusion can be easily detected. Additionally, stones can be filled with glass, oil, or even the same stone material. For example, glass filling involves combining glass powder and glue to fill the stone’s holes, similar to stone filling using stone powder. Color can also be added during the glue-filling process.
There are other treatment methods like irradiation, but the aforementioned techniques are the primary ones commonly used by most factories.
In conclusion, this comprehensive guide has covered gemstones, beads, and stone treatments. It discussed the classification of gemstones, the bead-making process, and various treatment methods like dyeing, heating, surface coating, bleaching, and glue filling. Understanding these treatments is crucial for identifying gemstones and making informed purchasing decisions.
By staying informed, consumers can appreciate the beauty and value of gemstones while making educated choices.
FAQ
How do identify stone from resin, glass, or synthetic stones?
It’s very simple, you can identify by yourself, here are 3 tips for you:
- With different densities, or to say the weight difference, plastic is lighter
- Check inclusions, glass contains many bubbles
- Texture difference, the texture of the natural stone is irregular and vivid, while the texture of the artificial stone is often uniform and regular.
As a jewelry beads wholesaler and manufacturer, what else JewelryShells could offer?
We are a manufacturer of gemstone beads with gemstone factory in Ketang Jewelry Town. We also supply jewelry metal accessories such as claps, chains, pendants, etc. You can check our online products of jewelry findings. More, we also supply Native American Jewelry, we are the best one-stop jewelry factory, we offer high-quality products and factory wholesale prices.
How could I get wholesale prices from JewelryShells?
Please contact us by email or call, share us what you need in details such as qty, size, shape of each stone beads. Custom orders of beads, findings, and jewelry are available.
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