Sep 01 2008
Ocean Jasper after Polishing
The batch of jasper that I have been polishing finally finished up its last cycle in the rock tumbler this weekend. Although there were three kinds of jasper in that group, I am just going to show pictures of the ocean jasper today.
Not all of the pieces in this batch had the characteristic orbicular markings of ocean jasper, but most of the ones had a least a few orbs. I am especially fond of the ones with the darker green tones because I like that color and it seems more “oceanic” to me.
The presence of the orbs does make the stone a bit more difficult to polish since the orbs are often small indentations in the stone. These tiny pits can make the surface not as smooth as I would like in terms of touch, but I plan to do some more experimenting to see how to compensate for that factor.
Though the stone in the above picture doesn’t really have the darker greens that I like present in its coloring, I do like the coral tones. Plus, there’s a lot to the pattern of this specimen.
The piece of ocean jasper in this last photograph really doesn’t have much of an orbicular pattern, but it is one of my favorites of the lot. It has a nice shape and I love the seafoam-like pattern of the stone.
6 Responses to “Ocean Jasper after Polishing”
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I like that one, too, Melissa, it’s surely very unique.
Thank you, Petra - I haven’t tried that! I like that idea a lot. I’m going into town today to have lunch with a friend so I’ll check in at the fabric shop to see if they might have some black velvet cuttings.
Oh, they’re all lovely. KNow what?, the second one looks like an octopus tail was embedded in it, just like what Melissa said, it seems there is a little sea animal in it. It is very unique. The third one is my favorite too, I like the colors and the pattern it made. The first one looks like a seaweed soap given to me sometime ago.
I wonder if this is like one of those ink blot tests, and something can be said about your personality by what you see in the patterns on the stones.
I haven’t decided what to do with them yet - this was the first time working with the ocean jasper and I was mostly trying to get a feel as to what would happen when polished. I still have several pounds of the rough.