Thinking outside the box....opinions?

[Steve1236]

The mountain I mine for fire agates is pretty awesome, the whole western slope is agatized, every rock outcropping has agate and chalcedony veins running through them, the north western side towards the bottom of the mountain has blue and purple chalcedony and agate and in the middle lower part of the mountain there's these agates, I kind of never really noticed them, they dont look to intriguing at first glance but one day I picked one up and sprayed it with a spray bottle and noticed the bottoms looked very interesting, a translucent botryoidal layer with beautiful mineralization. I finally got around to taking a peek inside, I grinded off a section of the white chalcedony with 120 grit bits, took forever just to do what you see, this chalcedony is harder than the chalcedony I grind off my fire agates, I still need to remove some milky colored spots but I'm loving the colors and effects I'm seeing so far. What do you guys think?

 

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[Kray Gelder]

Honestly, I see interesting, but I don't see beautiful. I'm thinking there is some good stuff in that area, though.

 

[Steve1236]

Yeah there's nice fire agate out there that has the full spectrum of colors I've found, I just like looking for something new, kind of gets boring digging in the same spot ya know. I still need to remove any milky chalcedony but I thought it looked pretty cool so far. Maybe it's not worth the effort, you have to cut it tediously like you cut fire agate and if I'm the only one who sees beauty its probably not worth the effort lol..
I have a lot of this to smh....

 

[DDancer]

Never know till ya try. All I can add

 

[fuss]

nice stuff you find on that mountain for sure. Do you find any larger pieces?

 

[Steve1236]

Thanks, it's my favorite spot, I just got back from there today and yes I find larger peices, I only practice on the small peices, I find peices from a the size of a penny to small boulders, I just sold one that weighed over 20lbs but it was a specimen, not for lapidary, it didn't have any fire, the largest one I've found with fire was about 5lbs and I sold it for 150$ it was bigger than the one large one for sale on etsy for over 8000$ but that one will never sell for that, it's been on there for like two years lol. I like the fire in my material, funny thing is someone on here said if you find pink fire that would be something, turns out green and pink are the dominant fire colors which is pretty cool.

 

[Steve1236]

This is my spot I hunt for fire agates, well actually right behind me, I'm standing over a hole I dug when I shot this picture, we've had a lot of rain this winter here in Az, all that dead grass foxtail thingy's has little stickers that get in your socks and shoes and it gets at ya after a while, plus really hard to spot highly tempered rattlesnakes we got out here.

 

[Steve1236]

holes I dug today, I'll post some of what I found in a couple days, I have to clean them up a little bit. Darnet I should of taken some shots of the outcroppings with all the agatized veins or the actual mountain for that matter lol next time I will, this is where the fire is, as you can see I've picked it clean, I have to dig everything up now. A lot of the fire agate is attached to that igneous rock so I have check all sides before I toss it.

 

[Steve1236]

Couple off the top of the backpack still dirty to show what I was talking about by not tossing the igneous rocks without checking all sides. If you go through the backside because the botryoidal side is facing the host rock you still get pretty Schiller effects that look like rainbow glitter like the backside small one in the other thread.

 

[fuss]

how fun to find that stuff, if ever interested in trading some pm me.

 

[Steve1236]

I scrubbed the fire agate on matrix in picture 2 with soap and water, looks like it would make a pretty awesome large specimen after cut right and polished.

 

[dsrtdwg1]

Nice, would like to see some of your cut pieces.

 

[Johnbrian]

Beautiful!

 

[Steve1236]

Thanks, I'm still pretty much an amateur at cutting, I practice on small peices and only dremel in for proof of fire on the larger peices, I have a bad set up, I literally just use a dremel attachment, a thumbtack hole in an empty water jug to keep the water flow and I dont even use a magnifier lol. My heart is in the hunt, I mostly let others enjoy making works of art and without ripp off prices, I understand the work that has to go into cutting fire agates and how easy it is to screw up a piece so I try to be more than reasonable with my prices for instance the last couple of fire agates I posted, the smaller ones I started them off at 99cents.

 

[dsrtdwg1]

Have you tumbled some of the lesser pieces ? Dremels seem to work fine from what I've seen. Dental tools for the Masters I guess but this is a hobby forum, lets see some shiney rocks!

 

[Steve1236]

I just recently bought a tumbler, I'm going to go through my fire agates and Chalcedony/Agates to look for small/medium sized ones with no cracks to see how they come out tumbled, I'm curious myself. Dental tools just help with saving your diamond bits, I just use skinny long nails and bigger thumbtacks you can grasp to break off host rock and quartz Crystal's but a dremel or free form cutting is the only way to cut this fire agate, the layers are thin like deer creek and you need some skills to finish a piece, skills I dont quite have yet.
I do have two buckets of shiny agates cleaning now, I'll post some tomorrow or as soon as they are done.