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Post by stardiamond on Sept 14, 2023 14:46:27 GMT -5
My rough and slabs were stored outside. Most of it was moved inside because I was tired of interacting with Black Widows. I have a chair and a small table on my back porch. I smoke cigars, drink coffee or water and sometimes sort rocks near the table. Maybe I'm depressed, but I would rather make cabs than straighten out a mess. Today, I decided to deal with the mess; hundreds of cigar butts, wrappers and labels. Dozens of empty water bottles. A broom, a dustman and large garbage bags. Since I was sorting rocks there was a good chance of slabs being mixed in with the trash. I was careful to check the dustpan before emptying it.
I found about a dozen small slabs. The most noticeable were a Rhodochrosite and an Ocean Jasper.
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 13, 2023 23:01:27 GMT -5
When I found this rock, it was the darker color you see at the bottom of the picture. It is a reddish clay looking color. To my pleasant surprise, the tan color with random black patterns started coming out after 1 trip through stage one. It is currently in the tumbling barrel for a second trip though stage 1. Can someone either verify that it is petrified Palm tree, or something else? Thank you in advance. Does it not look like a random picture stone? www.craftstones.co.uk/product/jasper-picture-stone/Your picture looks like African Queen jasper.
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 13, 2023 22:51:51 GMT -5
I bought these slabs from Martin Kramer at the slab depot Facebook page a few days ago. I bought from Martin on ebay as philosphestone 20 years ago. This is Loma Prieta Poppy Jasper from Morgan Hill. Loma Prieta has a special meaning to me. In 1989, in the middle of the World Series between Oakland and San Francisco there was a major earthquake. It collapsed a section of the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Bridge, an elevated section of freeway in Oakland and the Embarcadero freeway in SF. I was hitting baseballs to my son prior to his soccer practice and I could see waves moving through the ground. My wife was on the freeway. Our house was not damaged and my wife made it home ok. I have purchased this material before only knowing it as Morgan Hill. Martin knows his poppy.
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 13, 2023 21:41:31 GMT -5
Cutting Tahoma with the seam I don't know how it will finish because I am grinding layers. When I hit a good layer it produces a beautiful cab with the frog skin look, otherwise not so much. I am still learning how to read the edges. Morgan Hill tells you what you are going get.
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 13, 2023 20:42:37 GMT -5
My wife collected eggs and spheres. These are the smaller ones.
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 13, 2023 14:59:51 GMT -5
When I saw the slab, I knew it was inferior material. It was pitty and lacked the metallic swirls. At a show I would never buy it. It was $5 and I'm an optimist but this is a good example of what you see is what you get. I bought two $5 Nellite slabs. One is chatoyant and the other was mixed colors so I didn't care if it was chatoyant or not. I made a free form from a corner of the slab. It has one speck of flash in the middle. This one is from a one pound super seven crystal specimen that I slabbed. Looking at the picture it was hard to tell what the cabs would look like. I like a lot of amethyst and cacoxenite. This one had the amethyst and not much if any cacoxenite. Super seven contains seven minerals in varying amounts in a crystal.
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 12, 2023 16:57:19 GMT -5
I am retired and have a lot of free time. I am not able to do much yard work or house cleaning. I have a bad hip so I can't watch much tv lying in bed. That leaves the internet and grinding. I work in short periods with frequent breaks. A few years ago, I developed arthritis in my thumbs and took a break from grinding. I saw a doctor and he said use my thumbs less. Thumbs are used for a lot of tasks like opening jars. I adjust my grip on the dop and my thumbs don't bother me. When I cabbed only on the weekends, I worked dopless and my fingers got chewed up but healed by the next weekend. Working more often I went to a dop and use a hybrid method where most of my grinding is with my fingers but where they would touch the wheel, the dop protects them.
I cab very fast. I changed my approach to do most of the work with 80 grits and the first one is textured and aggressive without chipping. I hike how it melts rock.
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 12, 2023 15:17:17 GMT -5
A Facebook seller had a $5 slab sale. Since the shipping was almost double that I bought 4 slabs. One was Maryellen. I haven't bought any in a while and this wasn't what I was expecting. Since I have no idea how this material will finish, I can't design, so I cut a rectangle representative of the piece as a sample of what I have.
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 12, 2023 11:15:44 GMT -5
Thanks for the nice comments. The third is Morrisonite.
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 11, 2023 13:55:36 GMT -5
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 10, 2023 21:31:15 GMT -5
My first house had a palm tree. My wife hated palms. One day the tree fell over without any property damage. Our next house also had a palm tree in the front. My wife had a tree service cut it down and haul it off. We opted not to have the stump ground because of the cost so it became my job. I had experience removing shrubs; cut the feeder roots and then the main root. The palm was something I had no experience with. Lots of tubes that required an axe and pick axe to dig a hole deep enough to plant rose bushes. Why does that sound like torturous work to me??? I have cleared acreage before... cutting down dead cedar, dead post oak and blackjack oak. I even had to deal with the yaupon holly...... but what you described seems much worse. The tubes become one with the earth. There is nothing separate to cut. 40 years ago, I was younger and capable of sustained physical labor. The project still took days to complete. Today, it would be bring on the stump grinder.
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 10, 2023 20:23:28 GMT -5
My first house had a palm tree. My wife hated palms. One day the tree fell over without any property damage. Our next house also had a palm tree in the front. My wife had a tree service cut it down and haul it off. We opted not to have the stump ground because of the cost so it became my job. I had experience removing shrubs; cut the feeder roots and then the main root. The palm was something I had no experience with. Lots of tubes that required an axe and pick axe to dig a hole deep enough to plant rose bushes.
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 10, 2023 19:48:14 GMT -5
I like to make cabs and make more than 5 times than I sell. I tried listing a cab on FB. Here is a good Badger Pocket Sycamore slab. Sometimes I work with lesser material and made this cab. As you can see from the back it is not very intersting. Grinding the dome really helps. Straight lines become curves. I've made multiple cabs with the same shape and appearance. Since I was posting as a guest my posts needed to be approved. This one kept getting rejected because it had been posted on another Facebook group. It hadn't. They must be using a picture search. I found a picture of the same shape and same material but cabs are like children and I know mine. I finally messaged a picture of a similar looking cab that I sold on Etsy two years ago and finally got the post approved.
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 9, 2023 20:44:45 GMT -5
Royal Flamingo us being called Howardite. Collectible Howardite must have a rattlesnake pattern like this picture. As they say, 'close but no cigar.'
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 9, 2023 16:59:22 GMT -5
Thanks. After looking at the Montana at each step, the Montana still isn't scratch free, but close enough. I usually do better on Montana but a low dome is more difficult.
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 9, 2023 14:22:05 GMT -5
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 7, 2023 16:39:47 GMT -5
Stinkingwater usually is available in narrow slabs. There is a lot of variation in quality. I look for clear agate and distinct plumes. This is the best one I've sold.
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 7, 2023 15:53:15 GMT -5
It was sold as Stinkingwater. I didn't think it was very good SW but it was only $10 and shipping combined. People get prickly over ids. I had a slab from Martin Kramer that he called original Biggs. I bought MHPJ from him 20 years ago and he knows his rocks. It had an atypical look and had FB posters say it wasn't Biggs and it wasn't what they ided. I already posted this on vendor reviews. I posted on a FB listing for Royal Sahara that it looked like Deschutes and the seller blocked me. It was Deschutes and he changed his description.
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 7, 2023 15:30:24 GMT -5
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Post by stardiamond on Sept 7, 2023 14:46:24 GMT -5
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