What is the quickest way to get rid of a scrape?

Is there an easy way for me to scrape the shell of mother of pearl to get the shiny part?

• I have been using sharp objects to scrape the calcium carbonate of the mother of pearl shell to get the shiny part and it's tiring. It'll take forvever to do the whole thing. I would like to know if there is another easy way to do this. Maybe some solution that will dissolve the calcium carbonate? Please help...

• Answer:

  If you don't have access to it, its probably not cheap to buy. But I took once a jewelry class and we had one set of grinding wheels for stone. They worked very well on shells. I think they are diamond grinding wheels, they come in different grits and you have to constantly run water over them to use them. You can use them for glass and rock as well. If you look who offers jewelry classes, maybe you could ask them if you could use that once or twice, even without taking a class. You could see if there are some available as dremel tool attachments, and some grinding disks may work anyway. Though any acid (e.g. vinegar) should be able to dissolve calcium carbonate, depending on the thickness of the layers it may take quite a while. The problem with that is that the mother of pearl contains calcium carbonate as well, so using acid is only going to be a good idea if you protect your mother of pearl side by using nail polish or a coat of wax from the acid. I haven't ever tried it, but if you want to, I'd start with the strongest solution of vinegar you can find. If you want to use inorganic acids, consult with your chemistry teacher first.