Making some Fischer Stone update-2 (22-Jul)

[Saskrock]

Found it

forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/index.cgi?board=sawingb&action=display&thread=33886&page=1

[deb193redux]

I did a few cooks, and have various results. I am sure I have nto perfected the method regarding ideal slab thickness, rock selection, cooking time, ... etc.

forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/index.cgi?board=sawingb&action=display&thread=33886

forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/index.cgi?board=sawingb&action=display&thread=34092

forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/index.cgi?board=sawingb&action=display&thread=38119

forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/index.cgi?board=sawingb&action=display&thread=38247

[deb193redux]

Six days of growth. Only two grew, further growth very slow.

But one look pretty nice.










They need to stay in the solution for 4 weeks, so we will see how much more growth there is.

I will also try to put a new piece of iron on one of the duds.

[gingerkid]

Daniel, the one you zoomed in and the one beside it look fantastic! Awesome job!!

Will have to read the links posted and thanks!!

[Rockhobbit]

Daniel, you amaze me! You are so brave to take on things like this. I have known you for years and my respect for your knowledge has grown so much! You sir, are one intelligent and talented man! Amazing work! I bet you could figure out the recipie for Victoria Stone!

[helens]

Very neat... the metal on top looks like it's being consumed or is rusting? Interesting!!

[deb193redux]

yes, just like the annode in a plating or electroforming system, the iron is consumed as it deposits into the slab

[deb193redux]

May 26, 2012 14:52:29 GMT -5 Rockhobbit said:

Daniel, you amaze me! You are so brave to take on things like this. I have known you for years and my respect for your knowledge has grown so much! You sir, are one intelligent and talented man! Amazing work! I bet you could figure out the recipie for Victoria Stone!

I think Victoria stone is beyond me. I'm just following directions in a book here.

[deb193redux]

May 26, 2012 14:46:06 GMT -5 gingerkid said:

Daniel, the one you zoomed in and the one beside it look fantastic! Awesome job!!

Will have to read the links posted and thanks!!

from the front, once dommed, it should look real nice. I was hoping for a little larger.

I am going to obtain some bigger pieces of snakeskin agate. It sounds like Fischer had larger slabs. I think Tony may have what I need.

[helens]

Tony still has buttloads of great snakeskin from what I last heard of it... you can probably ask him to send you the roundest pieces for slabbing (for a collector, my guess is the oddest shapes would be more interesting!)

[Pat]

This is why I thought you were making Imori stones. A friend purchased these in Quartzite years and years ago. Seller said they were Imori stones and they were man made. Yours look amazingly like these.

[deb193redux]

Yes. No question. You friend confused IImori with Fischer. Both had a type of man made stone. But those pictures are definately Fischer stones. (Many of those would sell for $18 to $35 today.)

You should get a few of them cabbed.

[Pat]

OK. Thanks for clearing this up. I googled Imori stone, and it showed the Fischer and Victoria. Where can I find a photo of the Imori? Thanks.

[deb193redux]

IImori IS Victoria. WHen you see a picture of colorful, opaque, crystalized stone, it is IImori. WHen you see translucent pale or colored agate with metalic moss or dendrites, it is Fischer.

I do not know how exactly you enter the google earch, but any search I do for IImor ONLY brings up websites with Victoria stone images. Daniel Lopaki's site is an excellent example www.lopacki.com/stone/victoria/

[Pat]

Thanks for the further clarification. I thought IImori stone was a different critter from the Victoria, though he made both.

[helens]

A while ago, Maryann posted a green Victoria Stone boule she bought from the original collection. You can probably find it in a search.

I inquired from a glass manufacturer about attempting to make it again. He said he would look into it... but then came back with not enough demand to be worth the effort, it's not his market and he's not set up to do it.

I did a few experiments myself to see if what I was thinking would do it... my thought was mixing COE's (coefficiency of expansion) to get the cracking. The key being that even years later, cutting the 'skin' on the boule yielded cracking noises. That's stress and incompatiblity.

If you read up on what people know about the victoria stones, you find that Imori reputedly melted various rocks, then incorporated them into glass... well, it's not the mineral content causing the fractures, it's the different coefficiency of expansion. So without all the smut you'd get from actually inserting various minerals, you should be able to simply mix the right ratio of COE to get the effect. But that's the trick... what's the ratio? Too much variance, you get the equivalent of tempered glass (instant fracturing into small pebbles), too little variance and you don't get the spray patterns...

It's definitely doable, but would take a lot of time and a whole lot of glass to test (none of which is reusable, whereas a fail with a lot of glass of the same COE can be remelted and reused), with copious notes as you go. Maybe worth working on someday, but for me, not now.

Those old Fischer stone samples are neat... you have also answered the question of 'what happens if you put down 3 pieces of metal catalyst at once'... I see 2 cabs with 3 pieces in your photos. Those 2 cabs also answer another question, "will they be as big as a single catalyst", and the answer is no. Third answer from your photos is that the color apparently lasts for years without fading...

Pat, there's a fingerprint, or finger smear on a few of those cabs... is that the result of water, oil, or some kind of discoloration remaining from the process?

I'm curious to see them cabbed too... but would the copper content be dangerous to work without gloves? Malachite also has high copper content, and copper sulfate poisoning can damage the liver, so you should probably be careful cabbing.

[deb193redux]

OK, cannot add wire to new area after 6 days. maybe can do it sooner. possibly once soda bath starts diluting copper chloride near the surface, the dendrite cannot start. maybe if I took it out and patted it dry and put a drop of copper chloride and then set the wire in it (like original wires). many things to try. but the wire I added 4 days ago is clean and dendrite free. completely.

[Pat]

Helen, those are my finger smudges. I think it was water I used trying to get the dark spots to show up better in the photos.

[deb193redux]

Some sad results. The ones that looked like duds mostly were. I will see if they work better a 2nd time around.

The two best growing ones also had problems. One got a stress fracture, which I think I can seal with epoxy. Both of them had some of the growth dissolve.

Fischer wrote about this, caling it ghosts, where the infused copper solution seems to reabsorb the copper that was displaced by the iron. Supposedly this did not happen if the growth was in soda soution. But it did.



I've tried to show the ghost area looking form the bottom-side (opposite where the iron wire was). Some of the furtherst growth was reabsorbed any looking carefully you can see a ind of light hazy area on the edge of the copper.








I think this happened because these were the thickest two slices. I had hoped that this would permit growth of larger deeper dendrites, but it somehow allowed ghosts even with soda water.

I think there is a race going on. The copper has to grow while there is still infused copper solution in sufficient concentration, but the soda water needs to be able to penetrate the stone and diffuse the copper solution (so it cannot re-absorb displaced copper) before reasorbtion occures.

It is my hypothesis that the thicker slabs took too long for the soda to penetrate and diffuse the copper.

I will cut the slabs thinner for the next batch, so we will see how these thoughts hold up.


On the brighter side, one of the little duds turned out to be a very striking little cluster of dendrites. I think I can make a little pendent, perhaps minimally set in silver and hung on a small thin silver choaker-length chain.





the view from the bottom. Normally I would dome this side, since the dendrites generally grow up like a crown of broccoli, but I think I will just polish the flat face on the top side.




here is a virtual/photoshop mockup of what the pendant stone might look like. It would be just under 1" tall.




... anyway, I learned a lot. It takes time but is not too hard. I will do more batches, especially this winter when the shop is too cold to work in.

[Pat]

Interesting. Glad you are keeping us updated.