Treasure Hunting

It’s been a busy week for me, and I haven’t had hardly any time to work on any of my “rock projects”.  I should have switched out the crystals that I’ve been tumbling, but I haven’t even had time for that.  I’m going to have to make sure to allot some time for that today or I’ll end up grinding them to bits.

I don’t have any new pictures, but I still wanted to post a picture today!  So I decided that I would show off this piece of desert jasper that I photographed awhile back.  It’s a specimen from Madagascar that has some very beautiful color combinations.  I have quite a few more of this type that I plan to photograph when I get a little bit of extra time.

I had to add this other photo of the jasper before I leave that subject behind for awhile.  This was taken while I was cleaning the last of the residue from the stones after polishing.  

I’ve added a new item to my wish list - a Swap Top All-In Wonder.  It’s a combination trim saw/flat lap that can be used to trim stones and then polish them.  It’s actually supposed to be a complete cabbing system, but I’m not sure how many cabs I’d want to make.  Mostly, I would just like something that could polish stones (like crystals) with multiple flat sides or trim small slabs.  I’ve seen these combo units run anywhere from $300-400, and that’s not really a bad price for all that you’re getting.  Still, it’s a bit more than I want to invest right now.  Maybe I’ll mark it down as a Christmas possible.

The cold weather snuck up on me a bit this year.  We’ve been having gorgeous days here for the last couple of weeks, but this weekend the temperatures started to fall at night.  Right now, it’s about 40 degrees Fahrenheit, but I am refusing to turn on the heat since it should get up to 70 or 80 today as summer tries to make its last stand.  That’s autumn weather in the desert mountains for you.  The snow could arrive anytime now.

I decided to go ahead and post one of the photos I took of the African picture jasper a couple of days ago when I was photographing the ocean jasper.  I love the markings on these pieces, and I think that whoever decided to name it “picture jasper” should get a naming award.  Each stone of this type does seem to have its own story to tell through its markings.  It reminds me a lot of ancient writings that have been found on cave walls.  This particular one brings images of a burning desert to my mind.

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.

The sanding cycle finally finished yesterday for the jasper that I have had in the rock tumbler.  Now comes the fun part!  I took the photograph here after I got all of the silicon carbide washed off of the stones.  They’re still wet in the photo so it gives something of an idea of how they’re going to turn out when complete.

It will still be about two more weeks before it’s finally polished, assuming that everything goes well.  They’re just starting the pre-polishing cycle now and that should take about a week, give or take a day.  Then the polishing cycle will take about another week. 

Depending how the stones look after that, they may need a few extra days in a burnishing cycle.  It’s really hard to give an estimate on that, though, until I actually see the results after the polishing cycle.  If I had to guess, I would say that some burnishing will be needed but probably only about three days worth.

As the stones go through the grinding and sanding stages, they lose some of their volume so it’s important to add some type of filler in the final stages.  Up until now, I have been using small plastic pellets.  I hate these stupid pellets with a passion.  They’re supposed to be reusable, but they’re so annoying that I end up just throwing them away.  Then I get even more annoyed that I’m wasting something that’s supposed to be reusable.  I finally broke down and bought some ceramic media to use as filler.  I’m trying it for the first time in this pre-polishing cycle.  I can already tell that I’m going to like it better since it’s bigger and heavier.  

I had originally made plans to go out to Crystal Peak in California on Sunday, but when I woke up, I felt miserable.  I think that I might have had a touch of food-poisoning or a 24-hour bug.  I’m still feeling pretty icky, but at least I feel a lot better than I did.  So, instead of going to Crystal Peak, I spent the day laying around in bed and reading stories on the Internet.  Pretty exciting, huh?

Well, it did have its upside.  I was hopping around on several sites looking for some interesting rocks.  I love the beautiful agates and jaspers from Africa and Madagascar, and since I have no plans to be in that area anytime soon (no matter how much I’d love to go), I thought that I would buy some rough specimens online.  The price difference between rough and polished specimens is simply amazing, and I prefer to polish my own anyway.  Not to mention, there are some that I like better in their natural rough state.  

As I was shopping around, I noticed a link at The Gem Shop that I hadn’t seen before that led to a page with their Rock and Mining Locations.  I really enjoy reading mining stories and seeing pictures taken on location of digs.  The pictures and stories here are simply enthralling.  I’m not sure that it made me feel any better, though.  Instead, it just made me miss being out collecting my own specimens even more.  Still, it’s well worth checking out if you want to see some great behind-the-scenes mining tales.  I did order some rough agates and jaspers here, too.  That part did cheer me up.  I’ll make sure to get some good pictures of the items when they arrive in case any of you are thinking about ordering from The Gem Shop, too.  This is my first order from them, but I have heard great reviews from other people.

I was going to wait until the jasper was completely polished before posting any more pictures, but it is coming along so nicely that I just had to share. This is the group of jasper that I’ve referred to before - there are some pieces of ocean jasper and desert jasper from Madagascar as well as some picture jasper from Africa.

This batch has just completed the grinding cycle in the rock tumbler so it still has quite a bit to go. While I was sorting through other stones today, I got the jasper rinsed off and ready for the next cycle. It took 11 days to complete the grinding stage in the rock tumbler, but that’s pretty common for jasper. Don’t believe those 5-7 days that the “book” tells you. Just check every couple of days and see how it is coming along. You may only need a 2-3 days for softer stones, but for harder ones like jasper and agate, you might need up to 2 weeks. (Do make sure to change the grit after one week even if you still need to grind the stones more. You don’t have to clean the rock tumbler as carefully as you do between cycle changes when you are changing the grain of the grit, but do a quick rinse and replace the old grit with fresh.)

On a side note, I now have an even stronger urge to learn to wire wrap due to spending so much time looking over Melissa’s Jewelry and Gemstone Blog. She has some terrific photos of really beautiful, one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces there. Take a peek there if you want to see just some of the things that can be done with the products of your own gem hunting.