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Post by geoff on Aug 2, 2012 23:36:21 GMT -5
FOR SCIENCE!!!! I've decided to try altering rock crystal to smokey quartz through irradiation with gamma rays. Those of you who were around before I deleted all my posts might remember that I was a radiation safety officer and gamma imaging technician in the Army. I have my own personal radiation sources, purchased legally through United Nuclear, that I've used in various experiments such as scintillation screens and cloud chambers. Well, the day before I came to work, so last Wednesday I set up three 10 microcurie Radium sources in my hot box in a triangle around a baggy of clear quartz crystals from Pinochle Rd near... well... nowhere lol! I had Ray (wife) pull the baggy out and take some pictures of the crystals that have been in the box vs some that haven't.... Holy crap! It's actually working! I may just have to order a 50 microcurie Co60 source to speed up the process!
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Post by geoff on Aug 3, 2012 0:13:29 GMT -5
Ok, so I typed this up in Word so I could add the notations. ProBoards apparently doesn't support notations so here you go.
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Post by helens on Aug 3, 2012 0:15:54 GMT -5
Ok... dumb question... is smokey quartz worth more than clear quartz??
I mean, the clear quartz is prettier and more useful no??
Can you irradiate other stones or just quartz?
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Post by geoff on Aug 3, 2012 0:38:05 GMT -5
I'm not doing it to sell it. I just really like science. The treatment of gems ethically should lower the value. But a lot of times it increases it by sellers not disclosing such treatments. The beauty of a stone is in the eye of the beholder. Plus, those crystals that I'm working on aren't finished. I am going to take a picture a week for four weeks and see where we're at.
Beryl: colorless to yellow, blue to green, pale to Maxixe blue. Corundum: colorless to yellow, pink to padparadscha. Diamond: colorless to blue, green, black, yellow, brown pink or red. Pearl: darken to gray, brown, blue or black. Quartz: colorless, yellow or green to smokey, amethyst or ametrine. Spodumene: to yellow or green Topaz: colorless to yellow, orange, brown or blue. Tourmaline: colorless or pale to yellow, brown, pink, re or bicolor green-red. Blue to purple. Zircon: colorless to brown.
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chassroc
Cave Dweller
Rocks are abundant when you have rocktumblinghobby pals
Member since January 2005
Posts: 3,586
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Post by chassroc on Aug 3, 2012 7:16:13 GMT -5
maybe I'll send you some of my colorless Sapphires!
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Member since January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2012 7:22:51 GMT -5
Very interesting subject. I love science too but I am a little short on brain power compared to you. Is there anything that you do not do? lol Jim
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Post by NatureNut on Aug 3, 2012 7:31:03 GMT -5
Would it make a light blue sapphire darker?
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Post by NatureNut on Aug 3, 2012 7:31:22 GMT -5
Very cool, BTW.
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Post by geoff on Aug 3, 2012 9:45:48 GMT -5
Thanks everyone! Jim, I don't do math lol! Chassroc, I have a colorless sapphire that I'm going to test. I want to be sure the color is desirable and non-fading. Naturenut, it would most likely turn them green. Irradiation of sapphire (corundum) induces a stable and/or fading yellow color change. So, blue would turn green. In order to go darker blue it would have to be slowly heated to 1700*C in a reducing (oxygen free) atmosphere over a period of DAYS!. I don't have a furnace that goes above 600*C, and I'd hate to see the gas bill after that little experiment. You're also getting close to melting the stone altogether at those temperatures, so this would also result in the loss of any "silk".
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Post by helens on Aug 3, 2012 10:05:05 GMT -5
Yah! I forgot to say very kewl too:). And I think we all know you're doing it in the interest of science, it's fascinating science:).
Tourmaline goes from clear/yellow to bi/color with irradiating?? O.o
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Post by Bluesky78987 on Aug 3, 2012 10:06:32 GMT -5
This is really interesting Geoff, looking forward to seeing the progress pics!
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Post by geoff on Aug 11, 2012 20:35:37 GMT -5
Here is my hot box. 20 pounds of lead that I cast into a box mold 5 pounds at a time. SCIENCE! Calculated how much elemental radium I have in the hot box. .00000324324mg My survey meter reads .6rem. The probe has a conversion factor of 1,200 cpm/mRh, putting my source at 720,000cpm or 12,000cps. Radium has 37,000,000,000cps/g. So dividing the two gets me 3.24324E-7. Or .00000324324mg.
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Post by geoff on Aug 11, 2012 20:38:31 GMT -5
Cpm/s is counts per minute/second, or how many individual atoms are disintegrating per second. In my pile there are 12,000 atoms disintegrating per second.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Member since January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2012 20:48:37 GMT -5
Liar liar pants on fire. You told me that you do not do math. I can't even count how many numbers you have there. But it looks like if you drop that radium you are going to have a hard time finding it. Wave your hand around until it glows. lol I know, use the meter.
BTW how do you move that radium around from one place to another. Did you have to pay shipping on a 20 pound container to get the stuff? As you can see I am in a learning curve here and following you closely. Jim
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Post by Bluesky78987 on Aug 11, 2012 22:32:21 GMT -5
Wait where's the radium? Is it in that baggie under the crystals? What does it look like? (This is so cool).
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Post by geoff on Aug 12, 2012 0:09:42 GMT -5
Ha Jim! You caught me. As of right now my source is a little bit low tech lol! I scour ebay and local antique stores and craigslist looking for good deals on antique clocks and watches. The paint used on some was made with a small amount of radium. I have three clocks and two watches worth of dials and hands in the box now. I have 50 more hands and three watches on the way. When they are intact they can be mailed in the post. After I get ahold of them and disassemble them they no longer fall into the exemptions.
I'm working on a process for safely (heh) dissolving the paint off of the clock parts, then precipitating the radium out of the paint. After realizing how much (little) I have, I'm not sure it's feasible. So maybe I'll just dissolve off the paint, evaporate it and put the solids in a more secure container than a plastic baggie.
Of course a respirator, gloves and disposable jumpsuit are used while disassembling the time pieces.
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Post by geoff on Aug 12, 2012 0:12:11 GMT -5
My "source" Reading from my calibrated Ludlum Model 18 on the x1000 scale, so 650mR/h How big my box is
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Post by geoff on Aug 12, 2012 0:35:15 GMT -5
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Post by geoff on Aug 12, 2012 1:22:50 GMT -5
Almost forgot. Here we are at week two.
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Post by parfive on Aug 13, 2012 1:31:36 GMT -5
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