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Post by vegasjames on Mar 19, 2024 3:52:37 GMT -5
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ThomasT
spending too much on rocks
Trying to keep the dust down.
Member since June 2022
Posts: 259
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Post by ThomasT on Mar 19, 2024 19:31:08 GMT -5
I have seen some near perfect (or too perfect) recreations of natural precious stones...and they are beautiful... good article. What GIA labs and personnel can determine is amazing... they have such detailed analytic stone records.
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realrockhound
Cave Dweller
Member since June 2020
Posts: 2,911
Member is Online
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Post by realrockhound on Mar 21, 2024 17:03:52 GMT -5
I’ve been looking into what it would take to make plume agate 😂
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Post by vegasjames on Mar 21, 2024 21:39:49 GMT -5
I’ve been looking into what it would take to make plume agate 😂 How many millions of years do you have?
All chalcedonies, including agates are the dehydration product of opals. As the water content of the opals drops below 3%, they start to crystallize in to some form of chalcedony.
While opal grows extremely fast, takes about a year to grow, the conversion from opal to chalcedony is extremely slow.
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RWA3006
Cave Dweller
Member since March 2009
Posts: 4,210
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Post by RWA3006 on Mar 21, 2024 22:12:28 GMT -5
Very interesting, vegasjamesI know people have tried to recreate Victoria stone and have come pretty close but do you know if anyone has exactly duplicated it yet?
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Post by vegasjames on Mar 21, 2024 23:26:13 GMT -5
Very interesting, vegasjames I know people have tried to recreate Victoria stone and have come pretty close but do you know if anyone has exactly duplicated it yet? Not that I have heard of. I tried it once, but messed up using regular sand. Too high in aluminum oxide, which makes it harder to melt and inhibits crystallization.
I have a lot of what he did figured out, but I am stumped on the asbestos part. The fibers in the Victoria stone are tremolite asbestos. Thing is that the tremolite would decompose at temps needed to make the melt. Not sure if he was forming the tremolite chemically, or adding the tremolite after the initial melt when he changed crucibles for the crystallization process.
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