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Post by bobby1 on Dec 22, 2018 15:52:08 GMT -5
It is about 1-1/2" high and 4" wide. Bob
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Post by bobby1 on Dec 22, 2018 13:22:17 GMT -5
Last summer when we were travelling to the Prineville, Oregon Pow Wow we made a side trip to Richardson's Ranch to get a ton of thundereggs for our geode cutting booth at our show. In their bodacious piles of recks they had a bin of a material of they called Blue Ghost Seam Agate. This is a slab from one of the pieces. I think it is really interesting. Bob
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Post by bobby1 on Dec 22, 2018 13:00:19 GMT -5
I only use paste for soldering the very fine loops on filigree projects otherwise its only pallions. Bob
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Post by bobby1 on Dec 18, 2018 22:32:33 GMT -5
It has a splintery/flaky fracture surface. Anything with quartz or other silica based rock would have a conchoidial fracture. Bob
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Post by bobby1 on Nov 30, 2018 3:04:08 GMT -5
Dpo wax is not that expensive. Get some new stuff but don't mix it with the old stuff. The dop pot is what makes the wax get old. It just sits there cooking the volatile off. Turn the dop on make up a few dop sticks with globs of wax on them and then turn the dop pot off. I use an alcohol lamp to heat my cabs and the dop on the sticks. Bob
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Post by bobby1 on Oct 2, 2018 11:45:21 GMT -5
One thing to keep in mind is that if the stone and sealing mixture is hot a higher vacuum will boil the sealer evidenced by small bubbles forming in the sealer. It gives the appearance of bubbles coming from inside the stone. Bob
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Post by bobby1 on Sept 13, 2018 19:03:27 GMT -5
I use a black-based small plastic box from Tap Plastics to photograph my opals. I fill it with water to just above the cab. When I shoot the photo I angle the camera so that the light used for the photo doesn't reflect off the surface of the water. Bob
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Post by bobby1 on Sept 11, 2018 12:30:16 GMT -5
This cab is my latest submission for my monthly article in Rock and Gem Magazine. It is a doublet made from a red jasper slab and a slice from a large Lab Grown Quartz Crystal. Two of the surfaces hav a botryoidial pattern. The cab is 2" tall. Bob
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Post by bobby1 on Aug 16, 2018 10:20:01 GMT -5
Thank you all for the compliments. It was made to be a pendant. The upper portion has a hole drilled through it to thread a bead string (wire?) through it. Bob
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Post by bobby1 on Aug 15, 2018 12:43:21 GMT -5
This piece is my latest submission to my monthly column in Rock and Gem Magazine. The center cab is Black Turkish Stick Agate, the frame is white agate from the Polka Dot mine and the accent cabs are Chrysoprase. The height of the pendant is 4". Bob
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Post by bobby1 on Jul 7, 2018 22:02:33 GMT -5
I use short pieces of 3/8" wood dowels mounted on the screw tip mandrels for a flex shaft machine. I shape them by spinning them and holding a coarse file against the dowel to shape them to fit the area being sanded. I soak the dowels in water a few seconds and roll them into various size tumbling grits. They work very quickly and are cheaper to use than diamond grit. Bob
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Post by bobby1 on Jul 7, 2018 15:38:02 GMT -5
The material is quite soft, definitely not opal like nor jasper like in hardness. The dendritic patterns are three dimensional not like a manganese surface layer. I'm going to laminate a lab grown quartz crystal cap on it so it will be more stable for making a cab. Maybe a dentritic limestone? Bob
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Post by bobby1 on Jul 5, 2018 23:59:31 GMT -5
Maybe this is a better way to access the photo. Bob
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Post by bobby1 on Jul 5, 2018 23:57:03 GMT -5
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Post by bobby1 on Jul 5, 2018 11:06:17 GMT -5
I use a lot of this synthetic quartz for doublets. I get it from a guy who had a rock shop in Mountain View, CA (Silicon Valley) They are rejects from the manufacturing of quartz for the electronics industry. His ebay sales site is lewisroberth. Google lab grown quartz crystals. They are grown from slices across the long axis on quartz crystals. Natural quartz grows faster in the vertical direction so that is why they slice it across that direction and use the slice as the seed crystal. If you look at the ends of the crystal bars you will see the six crystal faces typical of quartz crystals. These lab grown crystals come s big as 1-1/2" thick 6" wide and 8" long. Bob
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Post by bobby1 on Jun 4, 2018 19:12:15 GMT -5
This cab is my latest submission to Rock and Gem magazine for my "Bench Tips" monthly column. It is made from a slab of a Black Rock Desert Geode. The slab had a vug that I utilized for the center of the cab. It looked lonely so I added a small hemisphere of red jasper in the center. I recessed it into a slab of Basanite that I backed the cab with. The cab is 2-1/4" tall. Bob
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Post by bobby1 on May 29, 2018 8:41:06 GMT -5
I wipe the cab on my T shirt or on my inner arm. Bob
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Post by bobby1 on May 14, 2018 14:10:32 GMT -5
I work a lot of obsidian and have done so for 40+ years. Here is a small piece that I worked on a few weeks ago. It is from Glass buttes. One tip to keep from getting scratches on your piece is to not let the upper edge of the piece come in contact with your wheel. What happens is a small chip will come off and drag across the piece causing the scratch. I aways work the piece from the center to the edge. Bob
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Post by bobby1 on May 8, 2018 0:43:46 GMT -5
My preference is Basanite. It is durable, inexpensive and polishes very well. Bob
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Post by bobby1 on Mar 5, 2018 23:29:21 GMT -5
The cab is 3" tall. Bob
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