Post by 88pathoffroad on Jan 27, 2011 0:13:13 GMT -5
I've had a ton of cut stuff laying around that needed to be polished but I've never had the time or equipment to do it. A fellow rock club member that lives not far from me polishes cut pieces for 55 cents per square inch and he does a fantastic job at it. I took him some pieces I've been sitting on for a long time and a few that I'd gotten on Ebay, etc for polishing.
Here we go!
Left to right: a brecciated/disaster jasper slab beefjello sent me (Thanks man!), Biggs picture jasper (Ebay, unpolished, $9), Brazilian (a nice native american lady I talked to at work one day gave me this and a real Arizona turquoise cabochon for no reason, said her father cut it long ago and she had no need for it) and a slab of my Calapooya moss/plume agate.
Super-huge 300 dpi scanner picture here: i.imgur.com/IH0qC.jpg
Anyone care to casually appraise the Biggs slab? It's a 3/16" slab with near-zero pitting and a mirror polish. I've seen pieces like that go for $100, but I'd like a few other opinions. Feel free to appraise the Calapooya agate too, lol. I'd like to know if I found "the good stuff" finally. It has some brecciation, light pitting, some pinholes along the edges and lower-density moss areas but otherwise is nice and hard, real solid. The visible fractures are all fully healed. It takes a great shine.
More slabs: little Deschutes picture jasper slab (? or Biggs?(rock show, $3)), a slab ofCoyamito Dryhead agate I got from at Dan Groah at the Canby rock show last year ($10, already polished) and a BIG Deschutes picture jasper slab (rock show, $5) with a not-too-spectacular picture (but I like the ripples).
Super-huge 300 dpi scanner picture here: i.imgur.com/IHXC2.jpg
On with the show!
End cuts and cut pieces:
Calapooya moss/plume agate I found up a logging road off the Calapooya river waaaaaaay up a hillside...I brought out about 50+ lbs, tweaked my back trying to climb down rocks with a full 5-gallon bucket, BUT it's effin' one-of-a-kind!
Super-huge 300 dpi scanner picture here: i.imgur.com/N7LIB.jpg
Pet wood: Ghostly petrified wood split by an agate lightning bolt that I dug at Holleywood Ranch in Holley, OR ($1.50 per pound), a nice piece of petrified golden oak from the Sweet Home, OR area I got from Don Esch, who also cut and polished it ($10)...and a chunk of pet wood with the biggest growth rings I've ever seen in pet wood that I found on the bank of the Willamette River in Salem, OR.
Super-huge 300 dpi scanner picture here: i.imgur.com/eradj.jpg
Bad-ass pieces: crystallized pastel Brazilian agate I got at a rock show silent auction ($3) and a chunk of some sort of really showy flame agate/mexican plume (Ebay, $13). It has a few fractures, but man oh man, the color...if anyone knows what this should be called, let me know.
Super-huge 300 dpi scanner picture here: i.imgur.com/C2CzN.jpg
More special-to-me stuff: Top left - tube/plume agate end cut I got from Don Esch, who pulled it at random out of the club rock pile and immediately took to his saw. Five minutes later, (dripping with oil) he showed it to me and I instantly begged for the end cut - success!! Top right - Whitcomb Creek nodule, I think. My girlfriend's mom has a rock pile of agates and whatnot at her house outside Lacomb, OR (near Scio) and I found this nodule there. It came from a neighbor who used to be a rockhound. She said I could have it! I swear! Middle agate - found in the water while I rockhounded barefoot and bare-chested on a sunny summer day on the Willamette River in Salem. Pet wood - found on the Willamette River in Salem. Bigger thunder egg with cavity - from Richardson's Ranch Blue Bed, bought un-cut at Facets rock shop in Newport, OR for $2 a pound. I've heard it's very rare to get an egg with purple and a crystal-filled cavity, is that right? There used to be a crystal cast in one half but it broke off during polishing, which bummed me out. You could totally see where there used to be a quartz crystal, it got covered in little quartz crystals, then disappeared, leaving a hollow behind in the center of the egg. Little thunder egg - Richardson's Ranch Blue Bed. Don't remember where I got it, probably at a local rock show.
Super-huge 300 dpi scanner picture here: i.imgur.com/LhWMy.jpg
I have more to scan but this shall have to do for now. Hope you all like the pics, I used my Epson flat-bed scanner to do all the flat work and then tweaked each slightly to account for exposure and tint and whatnot.
edit: added 300 dpi scanner pics
Here we go!
Left to right: a brecciated/disaster jasper slab beefjello sent me (Thanks man!), Biggs picture jasper (Ebay, unpolished, $9), Brazilian (a nice native american lady I talked to at work one day gave me this and a real Arizona turquoise cabochon for no reason, said her father cut it long ago and she had no need for it) and a slab of my Calapooya moss/plume agate.
Super-huge 300 dpi scanner picture here: i.imgur.com/IH0qC.jpg
Anyone care to casually appraise the Biggs slab? It's a 3/16" slab with near-zero pitting and a mirror polish. I've seen pieces like that go for $100, but I'd like a few other opinions. Feel free to appraise the Calapooya agate too, lol. I'd like to know if I found "the good stuff" finally. It has some brecciation, light pitting, some pinholes along the edges and lower-density moss areas but otherwise is nice and hard, real solid. The visible fractures are all fully healed. It takes a great shine.
More slabs: little Deschutes picture jasper slab (? or Biggs?(rock show, $3)), a slab of
Super-huge 300 dpi scanner picture here: i.imgur.com/IHXC2.jpg
On with the show!
End cuts and cut pieces:
Calapooya moss/plume agate I found up a logging road off the Calapooya river waaaaaaay up a hillside...I brought out about 50+ lbs, tweaked my back trying to climb down rocks with a full 5-gallon bucket, BUT it's effin' one-of-a-kind!
Super-huge 300 dpi scanner picture here: i.imgur.com/N7LIB.jpg
Pet wood: Ghostly petrified wood split by an agate lightning bolt that I dug at Holleywood Ranch in Holley, OR ($1.50 per pound), a nice piece of petrified golden oak from the Sweet Home, OR area I got from Don Esch, who also cut and polished it ($10)...and a chunk of pet wood with the biggest growth rings I've ever seen in pet wood that I found on the bank of the Willamette River in Salem, OR.
Super-huge 300 dpi scanner picture here: i.imgur.com/eradj.jpg
Bad-ass pieces: crystallized pastel Brazilian agate I got at a rock show silent auction ($3) and a chunk of some sort of really showy flame agate/mexican plume (Ebay, $13). It has a few fractures, but man oh man, the color...if anyone knows what this should be called, let me know.
Super-huge 300 dpi scanner picture here: i.imgur.com/C2CzN.jpg
More special-to-me stuff: Top left - tube/plume agate end cut I got from Don Esch, who pulled it at random out of the club rock pile and immediately took to his saw. Five minutes later, (dripping with oil) he showed it to me and I instantly begged for the end cut - success!! Top right - Whitcomb Creek nodule, I think. My girlfriend's mom has a rock pile of agates and whatnot at her house outside Lacomb, OR (near Scio) and I found this nodule there. It came from a neighbor who used to be a rockhound. She said I could have it! I swear! Middle agate - found in the water while I rockhounded barefoot and bare-chested on a sunny summer day on the Willamette River in Salem. Pet wood - found on the Willamette River in Salem. Bigger thunder egg with cavity - from Richardson's Ranch Blue Bed, bought un-cut at Facets rock shop in Newport, OR for $2 a pound. I've heard it's very rare to get an egg with purple and a crystal-filled cavity, is that right? There used to be a crystal cast in one half but it broke off during polishing, which bummed me out. You could totally see where there used to be a quartz crystal, it got covered in little quartz crystals, then disappeared, leaving a hollow behind in the center of the egg. Little thunder egg - Richardson's Ranch Blue Bed. Don't remember where I got it, probably at a local rock show.
Super-huge 300 dpi scanner picture here: i.imgur.com/LhWMy.jpg
I have more to scan but this shall have to do for now. Hope you all like the pics, I used my Epson flat-bed scanner to do all the flat work and then tweaked each slightly to account for exposure and tint and whatnot.
edit: added 300 dpi scanner pics