itsandbits
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since March 2012
Posts: 825
|
Post by itsandbits on Jun 20, 2012 23:38:56 GMT -5
I've been collecting local agate, banded, botrioydal, drusey, and geodes, along with jasper in a couple of varietys, some common opal and agate mix, common opal, a bunch of material I call Lloydite that has all the qualities of a hard green material, and some copper based materials because this area is also home to one of the largest copper zones in the world. I forgot to mention that all the weird shapes are because I do them all freehand. I mount a tile blade on my drill press and the same with polish pads. I have a water gravity drip system to help out and preform on the saw blade , then final shape on a 4" recessed disk diamond grinding cup before I run them through from 400-3000 diamond and cerium oxide finish for the ones that need it.. The green striped material is a jasper I think and and is about mohs 5-6 and takes a great shine real easy. It's nice and solid and is the only thing I've found in any quantity. I don't host my pictures on the net so I'm stuck with 1 pic at a time. If you'd like to see any closer, let me know. Lloyd Attachments:
|
|
itsandbits
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since March 2012
Posts: 825
|
Post by itsandbits on Jun 20, 2012 23:57:57 GMT -5
here's a closer picture of the striped green material. it has a small pyrite crystal in it as do a lot of the materials I find around here. All the fractures are ancient and very solid. It's great stuff to work with. Sorry, this picture is before it was totally finished. I was doing a test of the material to cut angles and contours to see how stable it is. Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by rockjunquie on Jun 21, 2012 1:14:03 GMT -5
Nice bunch of cabs. Some of those are pretty unique, too. I'm trying to wrap my mind around mounting a saw blade to a drill press. But, it's late, I'm tired and possibly missing something.
|
|
|
Post by talkingstones on Jun 21, 2012 5:27:40 GMT -5
Nice batch of cabs with a really pretty shine to them! Really interesting material too! How long does it take you to cab a piece on that setup?
Cathy
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Member since January 1970
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2012 8:03:58 GMT -5
You have some nice material there. I work with almost exclusively local material also.
The green stuff with a hardness of 5 to 6 may be nephrite jade but not jasper which is mohs 7. It looks like some of the nephrite I find here in Wyoming but there are a lot of nephrite copy cats. The one that I am thinking about I can not remember the name. I do a specific gravity test to determine whether or not mine is nephrite. If the stone feels real heavy for it's size there is a good chance it is nephrite because all the copy cats are lighter.
Except for my slab saw I use home made machines to do a lot of my work also. I use polish pads on a grinder set up with pumped water and a big plastic tub underneath to catch the water. For making my rings I do it all on the drill press from drilling to finish polishing. Do you work with the pads down or up? I know a guy that uses pads turned down with great success. Jim
|
|
itsandbits
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since March 2012
Posts: 825
|
Post by itsandbits on Jun 21, 2012 9:48:20 GMT -5
Thanks for looking, I like to let the rock dictate what shape it's going to be if it's small enough to keep whole but the cabs that I cut down, like you I try to get the best features, or if I'm going to cut more than one from the same slab, I'll try to make them a set. To cut I grind a flat on the stone, then slide it on the bed of the press into the saw blade. I vary the depth easily by locking the handle where I want it and speed is adjusted in the head with the belt pulleys. I have a container I sit on top of the head with a metering valve to control the water flow. I drop a blade with velcro glued on it in place of the cutter and place a polish pad on top of it for finishing work. They are as easy to change as changing bits. I try to get a few built up and work them through the stages. Wampidy, The green materials that I call Lloydite are most likely nephrite and I think some jadeite but I make no claims; I have some hard serpentine and all the intermediate materials too I think. When the glacier dams broke here the wash spread the material from here to Washington and beyond through the Okanogan valley so we're probably cutting some of the same stuff. The glaciers ground most of the material up and spread it around for hundreds of kms before that so I mostly get small 2kg but mostly smaller pcs. I haven't found anything "in place" as the volcanoes laid it. The cost to get lapidary stuff shipped here is crazy so I make do with what I can afford or want to spend and I like making do too so it suits me. lloyd Attachments:
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Member since January 1970
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2012 12:01:07 GMT -5
I know about the shipping costs. I did a trade with sampson where he sent the material to me, I slabbed it and sent half of it back. It cost me $33 to send it. I have sent almost the same weight to China for less money. I am not complaining about the sampson trade though. I got some awesome material from it and he threw in some other material that was not part of the trade that is gorgeous also. Everything in my immediate area is river wash and glacial push and has been ground smooth also. The nephrite is scattered all over the place and it is just the luck of the draw if I find it. Like yours mine is no more than a fist and a half in size with fist size the norm. Most of it is pretty good material though without a lot of fractures. Here is a pic of my polishing machine and trim saw. The polishing pads that I use are made for polishing granite counter tops and can be changed in a few seconds because of the velcro backing. Jim
|
|
|
Post by mohs on Jun 21, 2012 12:32:18 GMT -5
creative crafting and cool collecting!! Ed
|
|
itsandbits
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since March 2012
Posts: 825
|
Post by itsandbits on Jun 24, 2012 13:28:19 GMT -5
Everything in my immediate area is river wash and glacial push and has been ground smooth also. The nephrite is scattered all over the place and it is just the luck of the draw if I find it. Like yours mine is no more than a fist and a half in size with fist size the norm. Most of it is pretty good material though without a lot of fractures. Here is a pic of my polishing machine and trim saw. The polishing pads that I use are made for polishing granite counter tops and can be changed in a few seconds because of the velcro backing.Jim[/quote] Thanks for showing me your rig; I am using the same pads in a 5 inch size with the same holder on a H/D variable speed angle polisher too. I tried a small tile saw but the drill press was such an awesome cutter with all the quick adjustments that can be made, I just use the saw for real rough work. I'll probably turn it into a lap at some point I called up the Wyoming mineral data and you sure do have a lot of material to work with. We don't get much of the agatized material up here but there are some good looking agates; few and far between. There isn't any documented jade or jadeite in this area and the glaciers moved the wrong way for there to be any transported here so I think I'm finding my Lloydite from a small seam that got ground up. There are some islands that got pushed into central BC as the plates met and lots of volcanics so there is likely more around somewhere. I find with shipping that thickness has a lot to do with it because they charge more for a "package" than an envelope of the same weight. Lloyd
|
|
itsandbits
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since March 2012
Posts: 825
|
Post by itsandbits on Jun 24, 2012 20:55:48 GMT -5
did up this bunch today in a production line fashion; I'll have to go back and fix a couple of issues and one had a booboo when I dropped it and I found the fracture I hadn't noticed because there was a colour change there. An opportunity to reshape it They are mostly end cuts off rocks I was investigating for pattern, the biggest one is 2 1/2 inches long Attachments:
|
|
itsandbits
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since March 2012
Posts: 825
|
Post by itsandbits on Jun 25, 2012 0:34:21 GMT -5
this one is about 1 1/8 x 3/4 " and has a beautifull mountain meadow full of bluebellsand mountains and sky behind Attachments:
|
|
itsandbits
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since March 2012
Posts: 825
|
Post by itsandbits on Jun 25, 2012 0:40:19 GMT -5
heres one that shows dark translucent green and the white being the pure very translucent material speckled in Attachments:
|
|
itsandbits
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since March 2012
Posts: 825
|
Post by itsandbits on Jun 25, 2012 0:46:00 GMT -5
this one I call "A river runs through it" Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by susand24224 on Jun 25, 2012 0:46:59 GMT -5
Lloyd, where are you? I've been finding some stuff like yours (what might be nephrite) but it's got a blueish tint to it. And I'm in the ancient flood path.
You've got some beautiful stuff there.
|
|
itsandbits
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since March 2012
Posts: 825
|
Post by itsandbits on Jun 25, 2012 0:52:02 GMT -5
this is a material I call "Black Snowflake Lloydite" It actually looks extremely black but is translucent and shows a nice forest green when backlit on the edges and the snowflakes really pop when the bright light brings them out Attachments:
|
|
itsandbits
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since March 2012
Posts: 825
|
Post by itsandbits on Jun 25, 2012 1:03:27 GMT -5
Lloyd, where are you? I've been finding some stuff like yours (what might be nephrite) but it's got a blueish tint to it. And I'm in the ancient flood path. You've got some beautiful stuff there. Thanks; It's really sparse because most of it got moved away by the floods and glaciers but if I wander over enough of these I eventually find something to keep; not like I see other members posting of their insitu deposites I'm in south central BC Lloyd Attachments:
|
|
itsandbits
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since March 2012
Posts: 825
|
Post by itsandbits on Jun 25, 2012 2:34:35 GMT -5
This is a "serpentine?" that I call frogskin Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by gingerkid on Jun 25, 2012 7:16:10 GMT -5
;D Very nice cabs, its!!
Sure would like to see yours and Jim's set up in a video to see how y'all operate your machines.
|
|
itsandbits
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since March 2012
Posts: 825
|
Post by itsandbits on Jun 25, 2012 9:59:08 GMT -5
;D Very nice cabs, its!! Sure would like to see yours and Jim's set up in a video to see how y'all operate your machines. Thanks Jan I keep threatening to take some video right from cutting to polish but my work area looks so messy I'd be embarrased to show it, I'm actually a slob when it comes right down to it; a place for everything and nothing in it!!! ;D
|
|
bgast1
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since July 2010
Posts: 1,076
|
Post by bgast1 on Jun 26, 2012 2:11:20 GMT -5
Cool stones. Green is my favorite color and it also tends to what I pick out most to cab as well. Very nice bunch of cabs there. I don't think that there is much around here to pick up.
|
|