Cabochons, Gemstones, Silver Jewelry, minerals, cut and polished stones.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Continuing the Zeolite saga...
The best output was a bunch of Mesolite Cabchons, totally unexpected. The texture is absolutely silky smooth like cats eyes.
The mineral Mesolite consists of extremely fine crystal needles radiating out, this particular specimen was bright orange in color, though the output is a little dull white rather than any orange. The luster on this is absolutely beautiful, the stone looks rich, rather, pregnant with dark spots and effect of radiating needles embedded within. A cabochon of immense potentiality, it seems and probably one of the finest I've seen from Zeolites. Even Scolecite, which is so popular, pales in comparison.
A couple of Mesolite closeups!
There wasn't much success with Powellites, even the photographs in UV haven't been able to bring out its hidden fluorescence. They're rather a little shoddy, though the cabber tells me the nature of the stone did not allow a finer finish. I'm not so sure until I sit on the grinding wheel myself.
Another mineral I was surprised to see staid output was that of Stellerite. I shall post those and Powellite images here in a day! Also, will post images of these minerals as well, even though, an excellent source for this is www.mindat.org
Having cabbed Scolecites from the large hard specimens, which bring out pure white cabochons, of various shapes and sizes with a hidden radiating pattern seen in most, along with some spots which some of these invariable have embedded in them, I finally tried my hand at cabbing the rough small blades I've been stocking for quite some time. The output is rather new looking, different from the Scolecites I've been making, smaller of course, because of smaller sizes of roughs, and also transparent/translucent: that's a welcome departure. No radiating patterns like those found earlier scolecite or the mesolite I just did.
Scolecite from large rocky formations:
And
this is the rocky scolecite. Normal size is about 6 inches across.
#2. Scolecites from rough strips:
Perhaps, the most successful outcome was that of the Green Heulandites.
Click to see complete outcome on my site.
I did manage to get a good large sturdy specimen. When my cabber looked at it, his mouth watered for he know he would straight concentrate on getting some real good shapes out of it rather than wondering it it might not last the next grind and crumble.
These Heulandites sit prettily on my site (I shall add links and photographs very soon, just trying my hand at getting this bog going....being a newbie)...
Perhaps, I should also mention the Mordenites,
these too came out very well, but the uniform whiteness in these makes them a little uncharacteristic, but I'm sure, being another mineral with radiating crystal properties, some play in these might be possible, I shall explore this and post any impressions on these here along with photographs.
That leaves me with Thomsonite, the first Zeolite I cabbed and have again, pretty decent stones, not white like Mordenite but a deep translucent muddy complexion, pretty in some oval dome cuts. Deep and rich, a little like a poor man's Mesolite.
The backs of these stones looked even more interesting, I would consider using that face for any jewelry I would make using these stones! Here's that picture!
http://haikustones.com/images/Zz/IMG_0986.JPG
Finally, I ask myself why haven't I used Apophyllite to make cabochons so far?
I really don't know, I shall do it asap....
With so much to do, and so little time....
The mineral Mesolite consists of extremely fine crystal needles radiating out, this particular specimen was bright orange in color, though the output is a little dull white rather than any orange. The luster on this is absolutely beautiful, the stone looks rich, rather, pregnant with dark spots and effect of radiating needles embedded within. A cabochon of immense potentiality, it seems and probably one of the finest I've seen from Zeolites. Even Scolecite, which is so popular, pales in comparison.A couple of Mesolite closeups!
There wasn't much success with Powellites, even the photographs in UV haven't been able to bring out its hidden fluorescence. They're rather a little shoddy, though the cabber tells me the nature of the stone did not allow a finer finish. I'm not so sure until I sit on the grinding wheel myself.
Another mineral I was surprised to see staid output was that of Stellerite. I shall post those and Powellite images here in a day! Also, will post images of these minerals as well, even though, an excellent source for this is www.mindat.org
Scolecite:
Scolecite from large rocky formations:
And
this is the rocky scolecite. Normal size is about 6 inches across.
#2. Scolecites from rough strips:
Perhaps, the most successful outcome was that of the Green Heulandites.
Click to see complete outcome on my site.
I did manage to get a good large sturdy specimen. When my cabber looked at it, his mouth watered for he know he would straight concentrate on getting some real good shapes out of it rather than wondering it it might not last the next grind and crumble.
These Heulandites sit prettily on my site (I shall add links and photographs very soon, just trying my hand at getting this bog going....being a newbie)...
Perhaps, I should also mention the Mordenites,
these too came out very well, but the uniform whiteness in these makes them a little uncharacteristic, but I'm sure, being another mineral with radiating crystal properties, some play in these might be possible, I shall explore this and post any impressions on these here along with photographs.That leaves me with Thomsonite, the first Zeolite I cabbed and have again, pretty decent stones, not white like Mordenite but a deep translucent muddy complexion, pretty in some oval dome cuts. Deep and rich, a little like a poor man's Mesolite.
The backs of these stones looked even more interesting, I would consider using that face for any jewelry I would make using these stones! Here's that picture!
http://haikustones.com/images/Zz/IMG_0986.JPG
Finally, I ask myself why haven't I used Apophyllite to make cabochons so far?
I really don't know, I shall do it asap....
With so much to do, and so little time....
Making Cabs out of Zeolites
I decided to get some of the Zeolites found here in the deccan traps polished into cabs and I got mixed results. Some minerals, such as in Stilbite, was impossible to find a good hard rough, the ones I had were small pieces of Stilbites, all looking very brittle, they hadn't seen many moons or the hard sun. These are mainly from Jalgaon, but are found throughout the western to mid and southern parts of India.
Finally, only 2 ovals could be salvaged, none of them looking too pretty, but I've added a photo just for the record.
Finally, only 2 ovals could be salvaged, none of them looking too pretty, but I've added a photo just for the record.
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