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Lapidary, Rocks and Minerals
My most recent time-sink is Lapidary, the art of forming and polishing
minerals. Another way of saying this is taking rough rocks out of the ground
and turning them into works of art suitable for jewelry. Hardcore mineral
collectors call us "rock butchers". Pam and I actually planned to get started
in lapidary and were ready to buy our first tools the month she was diagnosed
with cancer. Needless to say, that put everything on hold. It wasn't until
early '98 that we started, and by early '99 we were pretty much producing
stones the way we wanted to. |
| My most intricate piece of intarsia to date, called "Asymmetry".
Not a right angle in sight! The center piece of opal was purchased from
Phil Magistro at a local show, and the piece was started to take advantage
of its unique shape. The white border is prystene, the purple is sugilite,
and all the rest is turquoise from various mines. If you look carefully,
you can almost count the number of steps involved! |
We both cut cabochons, and facet. For those not familiar with the terms,
a cabochon is a smooth-domed stone, usually the way opaque stones like
opals, onyx, jade and star sapphires are cut. Faceting is the way most
transparent (even if they're colored) stones are cut, in which small flat
surfaces are ground onto the stone with a machine that helps you position
the stone repeatably. You must position the stone repeatably because each
facet is typically cut three times. Those boring white stones that many
people wear - I think they're called diamonds - are what most people think
of when I explain what faceting is. Both of these arts are areas
that you can work in for your entire life and always have something to
learn. |
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| A small garnet I faceted in mid '99, using the Barion Old Mine Cut |
The pendant on the left here is a piece of amazonite that we mined
at the Moorefield Mine outside of Richmond, Virginia. I cut it to (more
or less...) fit an existing pendant that Pam had, and mounted it in the
pendant. |
Pendant made with Amazonite we mined in Virginia and cut as one
of our first cabs. |
My favorite stone to cut is Opal. Cutting opals can be a thrilling
experience, when you sand back the top of a piece of plain, white or gray,
sandy-looking hunk of stone and suddenly see bright colors shining up at
you. Like thousands of lapidaries, I consider myself a student of
Paul Downing in opal cutting. I've read all of his books, and Pam even
got me the opal cutting video for Christmas in '98. We have one connection
that most don't have, however. Paul was a member of our rock and
gem club before moving out of Florida. So we have friends in common.
Here's a nice opal I cut in January of '99, from a piece of cheap rough.
It's almost a given that a picture is not going to capture the beauty of
an opal; this one is no exception. In person, it's almost so bright you
need shades. It's almost the size of a penny, and is actually too big for
a ring. Most of the time, though, when you sand back the top, what you
see is not that spectacular, but the times you do find it are what keep
you going. |
| Opal is a glassy mineral - I've even seen it called a glass. When it
fractures, it gets the same fractures that glass does, the kind that looks
like a clam shell (geologists call it conchoidal). It is a hydrated silica,
meaning it has a certain percentage of water in the stone. The silica forms
into microscopic spheres. If the spheres are not uniformly sized or are
haphazardly arranged, the opal is called "potch" or common opal. There
is no fire. If the spheres are the right size, they return color, like
raindrops returning the colors in a rainbow. Small spheres form blues,
and bigger spheres return reds. To be a mostly red stone, the spheres must
be big and widespread. This is less common than small spheres only arranged
properly over small distances - seen as pinpoints of blues and greens,
called pinfire. For reds to be seen as a large sheet, the spheres must
be regularly arranged and precisely sized over large distances. Such stones
are less common. |
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Opals can range in price from a couple of dollars a piece to thousands
of dollars per carat (1/5 of a gram). Pricing such stones is very complex,
and there's no substitute for seeing lots of stones, and reading everything
you can get your hands on. It makes it equally hard to buy the rough to
cut. What one guy sells for $2/gram another might sell for $1 or $4. Generally,
I like to buy my opal rough at shows. There is a story, a good story even
though it may or may not be true, of an opal wholesaler talking to a cutter
about price. He offered to sell the cutter the rough for $15 a pound if
he'd take it without looking, but $15 per ounce if he insisted on selecting
pieces. The numbers are bit dated, but the idea is still probably pretty
accurate! |
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Intarsia - Gemstone Pictures and Patterns
Pam is especially interested in Intarsia, where you make pictures in
stone by cutting, gluing and shaping. Here in Florida, we have one of the
best known Intarsia artists and teachers in the US, Phil Magistro.
Just as I consider myself a student of Paul Downing's, I consider myself
a student of Phil's. We bought Phil's instruction videos and are
self- taught, but consider ourselves students of his. Pam's interest spread
to me, and I started making a piece in early '99. When we got the faceting
machine, it finished rather quickly. It's pictured below, along with a
couple of other pieces I've made. The first photo on this page is my most
intricate Intarsia to date.
It helps that we regularly see Phil and Rhoda at shows around Florida
and get to see Phil's work. Besides being excellent artists, they're
wonderful people, and a joy to know. |
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My first piece of intarsia! An opal, bordered by dark-blue sodalite,
and surrounded by turquoise. The image is low resolution, because
this was the first digicam we owned and it only did 640 x 480 resolution. |
| My second piece of intarsia, built following Phil Magistro's video,
"Intricate Intarsia". The red flash is an opal, bordered by white "prystene".
The square is completed by blue turquoise from the Sleeping Beauty mine
and green malachite. The border of the octagon is malachite as well. |
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A common affliction of Lapidaries is what I call "The Lapidary Problem".
If you facet a stone or two a month, or cab a few, pretty soon you have
a big collection of stones that you have to do something with. Most of
us end up selling some stones, giving away others, and putting others into
use for ourselves. Pam and I took silversmithing lessons from our club
in '99 and took casting in 2000. Here are a couple of pendants that I designed
and cast in class. The first one is a Spencer Opal Triplet. |
| Spencer is the self-proclaimed (and deservedly so) Opal Capital of
America. Located in southeastern Idaho, near Yellowstone National Park,
and part of the Yellowstone geosystem, Spencer is one of only a couple
of areas in the US where gem quality opal can be found. The other is just
south of the other end of Idaho, in the Virgin Valley of Nevada. The opal
in Spencer is found in a neat deposit. The host rock is black obsidian,
but in it is found cream-colored rhyolite. Most of the rhyolite is small,
say 1/8" in diameter, and looks like pearlite in potting soil. Sometimes,
the rhyolite specs become large enough to become hollow geodes. And some
of these contain opal, deposited from hot water flowing in the region's
geyser feed systems millenia ago. The opal occurs usually in thin bands
- thin meaning perhaps a couple of thousandths of an inch - but in usually
straight, flat areas. This makes it ideal for making opal triplets. |
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The Spencer Merc Opal Mines are apparently now without a web presence,
although I used to have a link to them. This is the most famous mine, and
Pam and I visited Spencer in late June of 2000. We bought this triplet,
and the supplies to make our own. The process of making a triplet has many
steps, but isn't that difficult. The opal band is exposed, then flattened
to a "pre-polish" grade finish. 600 grit is fine. The opal is then glued
fireside-down onto a backing. They recommend basalt, but onyx, black jade,
and other stones are used regularly. Once this glue hardens, the rest of
the opal, rock and matrix is removed down to the fire layer, using grinders,
saws, or whatever you want to use. The fire layer on the black background
is then flattened, smoothed, and thinned down to the thickness of a sheet
of newspaper or two. Finally a cap of quartz or another clear stone is
epoxied onto the top of the opal. If the quartz hasn't been shaped and
polished, you do so now.
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Here is a really bright, beautiful triplet that I made in July of
2000. It is among the brightest opals I've ever seen, and equal to the
best Australian opals. The picture is a pale version of the stone. The
picture looks like the fire is only in that one area. The whole stone rolls
in bright fire as you move it. This is the closest to true Harlequin fire
pattern I've ever seen in person. |
| Finally, here's another pendant that I cast in class. The opal is one
I've had for quite some time. The blue turquoise "dart" across the stone
is there because I broke the stone setting it! I was heartbroken: I cut
this stone within a couple of months of starting with opal, and loved it
dearly. Finally, I decided to use it anyway, picking a piece of scrap turquoise
that we bought on eBay and making this composite stone. It gets comments
when I wear it in a way that shows the pendant off. Yes, I do wear this
pendant! |
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I have a lot of lapidary/rockhound links. Some of the best all around
are:
