Working on raw selenite

[8thsinner]

Today or tomorrow I will be starting some work on raw selenite.
I bought a large chunk yesterday.
My intentions for using it will include the following.

Rectangular pendant 2x1 /3x1 ratio
Orgonite charging plates (small wands)
Healing wands
Meditating stones
Small round charging disks (for a film can)
Pendulum pendants

Supposedly it's a fairly easy stone to work with, easy to split with a mallet and a knife along the grain and a dremel will cut it cleanly across the grain.

But, as this is going to be my first attempt at working with it I figured I would ask the folk here for any advice before I start and as there are other selenite owners in the past that have wondered about it's uses I thought I should document the work for people to work from in future.

I thought too about possibly making a sphere out of a piece, but I am not convinced I can dremel this out...Also, I don't have much in the way of tools so this is going to be interesting...


So, if anyone has worked with this crystal themselves and has any advice before I begin, please share.
I do know it reacts to water and it's dust can be dangerous. Other than that, I am making this up as I go.

[FairyCrystal]

Wear a mouth & nose thingy to protect yourself from the dust. This is a MUST, esp if you want to carve a lot.

Work carefully as it is soft, and the 'needles' brittle, and sometime a chunk will fly off where you don't want it.
WEAR safety goggles in case a piece flies off!

When your done with the dremel, use very very fine sandpaper to polish it. Most DIY stores don't sell this fine paper, but you can buy it online.
After that you can use wool felt to polish it. So not synthetic felt, wool.
The polishing will take a long time. You can polish as long or as short as you like, until you're happy with the result.

You can rinse off the dust, no problem at all. Just don't leave the work in water. Do dry it after rinsing.
You can also use the waterproof sandpaper on it. Just don't leave it IN water.

A sphere, I wouldn't go there. Very difficult to get a perfectly round shape....

Anyway, good luck!

[CrystalSong]

My suggestion would be to cleanse and purify and heal the crystals as you work on them. Being split, carved and dremeled is going to cause them as much trauma as a tree getting cut up, or you getting cut up, so do the best you can to mitigate what they experience. Healing energy is very effective.

I personally can't be connected or energetically corded to a crystal and do any sort of carving/chipping splitting work on it or I feel exactly what it experiences.
I once limped around for three days from dropping a crystal I was cleaning down the garbage disposal. The second it landed fire shot up my foot and I nearly crumbled.
When my roommate got it out of the disposal and we tried to figure out why I should experience basically a version of a crushed toe we discovered the little citrine crystal was foot shaped and the area that got chipped on it from its fall into the disposal was an exact correspondence to where its toe would have been - the same toe on me which now felt crushed.

Despite knowing that the crushing had happened to the crystal and not me we couldn't get the effects on me to go away without energy healing the crystal, and even then it slowly got better taking a total of 3 days. Freaky Experience!
But when you know you are part of all that is and connected to all that is these things can happen. Occasionally I connect to that little citrine piece and see how it's doing - it's fine now and has adjusted to it's chipped section.

Today a friend of mine wants to crush some crystals for use in a black sun organite generator - I've let him know I can't be in the area when he does it because things might 'get weird' and he'll have to Reiki heal me and the crystals both. lol

[8thsinner]

A tiny bit late that, I started working on it about an hour before the first post here...
I haven't connected to anything yet fortunately and have been figuring out a few things myself.

My finest poishing has been done on leather with it's own dust acting as a compound paste. Nearly comes out like glass.
I have been using sandpaper, and saving all the dust, also for orgonite.
The initial shaping I was doing with 120 grit, final polishing 2000 grit, then switching to leather and it's own dust.

So far I have only taken one slice from one end, and the whole thing in half, plus one split from the thinner piece's edge.

I now have a long skinny wand, triangular in nature, barely a quarter inch wide and about 4 inches long.
And a failed charging base that split during the polishing. More like a tumbled stone now.

I am taking it one bit at a time and taking pics so I can share them when I am done too, just feels like too much hassle to upload them all now.

[CrystalSong]

Awesome! Sounds like you are enjoying it, am looking forward to your pics :)

Just finished poring the Black Sun Organite and it seemed to go well. No issues with my friend crushing the crystals as I stayed away. He Reiki'd them afterwards and all seems well enough.

I'll keep in mind the leather polishing for stones, that resonates as a very effective buffer.

[8thsinner]

I would like to see your orgonite results when you are finished too.

And thanks, yes it's fun. Taking my time though tapering the wand was a bit tricky, took a long time with the highest grit otherwise it was kinda rough and speckled as microchips were breaking off with the heavy grit papers.