Orange peel ? (burmese jade)

[Agnesg]

Hello I have some question regarding a piece of grade A jade. Without a loupe the jade look well polishes but it is not highly polished like my other cabs.I am able to see some very slight roughness under a loupe. Is that what they meant by 'orange peel'? If not, what does orange peel means? Can I polish these off and achieve a high polished shine? Thank you

 

[LD]

I don't know much about Jade but what I do know is that it is notoriously difficult to polish. Some polish up fine and with others it doesn't matter how many times you polish it, it will still have the orange peel effect. Therefore it may well be that this is one of those stones and having it repolished may have a limited result. If it's only noticeable with a loupe, is it worth the bother?

 

[Michael_E]

All types of jade are composed of mutiple small crystals which have all grown in different directions producing massive blocks of material. These crystals have different hardnesses in different directions and so when one is polishing them some of the crystals will cut faster than others forming small undercut pockets between the crystals which are harder in the direction that the cutting and polishing is taking place. Those little undercut dips in the surface look very mush like an orange peel when viewed with magnification and can be very hard to remove. Depending on the material it may be possible to remove the undercutting, but with some materials it is nearly impossible due to a larger difference in hardness and size in crsytals making up the material. All you can do is send this to a competent lapidary and let them examine it under a microscope and perhaps try a repolish. If the roughness that you're seeing is small pits in the surface, and these gaps exist throughout the stone, then nothing will fix them and a repolish will do nothing other than remove material and weight from the stone. If it's truly grade A and looks good without magnification I would suggest leaving it as is, since there is little to be gained with a repolish.

 

[Agnesg]

Hello Loving diamonds and Michael. I thought it will look better if its highly polished. It is a certified grade A Jade. Let me try to add a photo. Please advise, I do not see pits, thank you very much. Feel free to let me know your thoughts on the quality

 

[Barrett]

Here is a picture of some "grade A" jade I found on the net