How To Clean Meteorites??

Dustyloins

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We found a few small ones in Nevada and a couple of larger ones in AZ. One of the guys at a motel we stayed in said we needed to clean them to keep them from rusting. The Nevada ones are small and mostly dark looking and have white dust (salt?) on them. The AZ ones already have rust on them but also have metal looking parts as well. Any suggestions, I was thinking of spraying them with WD-40.....

Dusty
 
Hold off the WD-40! Read this, I just found it and haven't gone through it, but it says something about distilled water... a little different than WD-40
http://www.meteoritemarket.com/preserv.htm

Thanks mucho!!!! Our water up here is nasty, lots of bad things in it and two years ago a salmonella outbreak. (Darn gold and silver mines and wildlife!!) :lol:

Dusty
 
No problem Dusty, I've been watching Meteorite Men lately and they said that salt is bad for meteorites. Common sense should have told me that but I wasn't around to hear it:lol: BTW you got pics of your space rocks?
 
A good neutral cleaner that removes organics is good... Acetone would do the trick, without harming metal content. Then a hot water rinse and hot blow dry. RickO
 
Wash off the salts with water & dry them, then put them in VCI bags. Vapor Corrosion Inhibitor. You can buy them at polygunbag.com.
 
No problem Dusty, I've been watching Meteorite Men lately and they said that salt is bad for meteorites. Common sense should have told me that but I wasn't around to hear it:lol: BTW you got pics of your space rocks?

Thanks for the help, guys!! I know nothing about these rocks, I tagged along with a buddy from Las Vegas whom I was stationed with at Malmstrom AFB, MT back in the 80s.

I'll get pics up by tomorrow. Wanna clean them a bit first.

Dusty
 
OK, got some of the rust/dirt off, here's a pic......

The other Nevada "rock" is still soaking......the two on the bottom are from AZ and the one on top is from NV.
 

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BTW, my old buddy was using his new AT PRO. He found a few more "rocks", but his were smaller. Don't know what that means in the big picture.....My MXT worked fine, I'm 100% happy with it, but gotta get some sleep. Loooong drives.......

Dusty
 
Just got an email from the "rock doc" at ASC about the meteroites we showed him......they are 92% Fe, 7.1% Ni, and 0.46% Co and tiny amounts of other stuff. Isn't Fe "iron" and Ni "nickle?? What's "Co"? (Other than Colorado!!!!)

He also advised brushing them with something like 3-in-1 oil every month or so....

Dusty
 
OK, got some of the rust/dirt off, here's a pic......

The other Nevada "rock" is still soaking......the two on the bottom are from AZ and the one on top is from NV.
There are RARE types of meteorites that I would NEVER use any of these techniques on. But your typical iron meteorite, and stone chondrite meteorite are fine to clean with distilled water, and/or alcohol. I don't know of WD-40 ever harming iron meteorites.

DO NOT spray WD-40 or ANY oil based cleaner/lubricant on stone meteorites. The oil will soak into the pourous stone and ruin the matrix. I usually clean ordinary stone chondrite meteorites in a bath of a mild soap and water (distilled is good) and dry in the oven at 250 degrees for a few hours to remove all moisture. Sometimes I give it an alcohol bath afterwards, let air dry, then I repeat the oven drying process. Then I store or display in a cool dry place.
 
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