Post by helens on Jul 31, 2012 20:22:13 GMT -5
Kewl! I want to see pix:)!
I know absolutely nothing about fairburns or lakers... but remember that ebay batch I told you about that I got? Well, I got them, and WHOA! They were lumpy, and it just bothered me, so I figured I'd just smooth the faces out a bit.
This is dry with a bit of oil, I think the color would show up better if they were tumbled... since I already ground them even... would it add insult to injury to tumble them shiny too (because it would also shave down the outer 'skin' of the rock)?
The banding on these is MICROSCOPIC... and because it is clear in between, it goes sooo deep into the stone that as you turn it, the colors CHANGE on the surface. I don't even know how to explain this effect, and I've never seen anything like it. It makes the rock ALMOST chatoyant (but it's not of course).
Oh, all specks are just dust and bits of grit, these rocks are teeny, 1 1/2" in diameter total, with hundreds of bands that are finer than the individual lines in a fingerprint (see my finger and the lines). There's only those 2 hairline cracks at the top of this one, I need to clean my rocks better before taking pix of them:P.
Laker 1:
Laker 1 was cut in a wedge, like a cheese. Here's the other side, and the pattern 'wraps' from the one face to the other on the wedge - this side is CRAZY, you move it and the color of the whole rock shifts because of the bands - all in miniature:
Laker 2:
This is more ordinary I think? It's also a bazillion little multicolored bands, that wrap around the stone, but is an olive green rock with white, orange, yellow and red bands. I didn't want to grind it perfectly smooth because it would have taken out too much of the little rock (only 1" diameter), but the pattern wraps around 3 sides with no cracks or fissures whatsoever, just crevices that can be ground out:
other face:
Laker 3:
This peach colored face is 1/2 of the rock, and to get it smooth, I ground down more of it. The backside actually shows a natural 7-point fortification pattern, and I forgot to take a pix of it! The rock itself has olive green in it, but the actual skin of the rock with the fortification is reddish orange.
The pattern inside wraps down around the bottom:
As you can see, the lines in this one are THINNER than the lines in fingerprints, but the neat part is that the back of this rock looks JUST like your fairburns!!
The 4th one is a whole rock with exposed pattern along the edge (like the fortification above)... BUT, has some crazing (like someone actually hit it with a hammer), so I started grinding it down.
It's so darn hard that it's taking FOREVER with a diamond hard wheel, so I didn't take a pix of it yet because the fortification is really long, and I probably have to grind another hour or 2 to get down 1/2 a millimeter on it. I'll get a pix of that when I get it done.
Now would you tumble it to polish since I already ground as much as you see above? They are no longer untouched anyway, but I didn't know if the skin was worth salvaging (there's fortification patterns in the outside skin of the cut in 1/2 one).
I know absolutely nothing about fairburns or lakers... but remember that ebay batch I told you about that I got? Well, I got them, and WHOA! They were lumpy, and it just bothered me, so I figured I'd just smooth the faces out a bit.
This is dry with a bit of oil, I think the color would show up better if they were tumbled... since I already ground them even... would it add insult to injury to tumble them shiny too (because it would also shave down the outer 'skin' of the rock)?
The banding on these is MICROSCOPIC... and because it is clear in between, it goes sooo deep into the stone that as you turn it, the colors CHANGE on the surface. I don't even know how to explain this effect, and I've never seen anything like it. It makes the rock ALMOST chatoyant (but it's not of course).
Oh, all specks are just dust and bits of grit, these rocks are teeny, 1 1/2" in diameter total, with hundreds of bands that are finer than the individual lines in a fingerprint (see my finger and the lines). There's only those 2 hairline cracks at the top of this one, I need to clean my rocks better before taking pix of them:P.
Laker 1:
Laker 1 was cut in a wedge, like a cheese. Here's the other side, and the pattern 'wraps' from the one face to the other on the wedge - this side is CRAZY, you move it and the color of the whole rock shifts because of the bands - all in miniature:
Laker 2:
This is more ordinary I think? It's also a bazillion little multicolored bands, that wrap around the stone, but is an olive green rock with white, orange, yellow and red bands. I didn't want to grind it perfectly smooth because it would have taken out too much of the little rock (only 1" diameter), but the pattern wraps around 3 sides with no cracks or fissures whatsoever, just crevices that can be ground out:
other face:
Laker 3:
This peach colored face is 1/2 of the rock, and to get it smooth, I ground down more of it. The backside actually shows a natural 7-point fortification pattern, and I forgot to take a pix of it! The rock itself has olive green in it, but the actual skin of the rock with the fortification is reddish orange.
The pattern inside wraps down around the bottom:
As you can see, the lines in this one are THINNER than the lines in fingerprints, but the neat part is that the back of this rock looks JUST like your fairburns!!
The 4th one is a whole rock with exposed pattern along the edge (like the fortification above)... BUT, has some crazing (like someone actually hit it with a hammer), so I started grinding it down.
It's so darn hard that it's taking FOREVER with a diamond hard wheel, so I didn't take a pix of it yet because the fortification is really long, and I probably have to grind another hour or 2 to get down 1/2 a millimeter on it. I'll get a pix of that when I get it done.
Now would you tumble it to polish since I already ground as much as you see above? They are no longer untouched anyway, but I didn't know if the skin was worth salvaging (there's fortification patterns in the outside skin of the cut in 1/2 one).
