Smoky from Lowmead

Crystal as it came from the ground last weekend...



Finished in a nice easy cut, SRB with horizontally split mains. I'm sending it to a mate's mum as a thank you for some nice hardcover cookbooks she sent me.

Bloody beautiful as usual lefty.Nice mate

Cheers mate. Was some difficulty getting a polish, Brazil law twinning was heavily present here I think. With Lowmead the place for phantoms, sceptres, cathedral crystals and other crystal-on-crystal growths, it wouldn't be surprising if a high portion of the faceting material was twinned.

Under magnification you can see the effect on the surface of the facets, like they are made up of a bunch of little plates or building blocks. Nothing I tried could completely remove this. But you can't see that with the naked eye, it's visible only through good loupes and it doesn't stop the surface from becoming nice and brightly polished. A lot of people on other forums have raved about zirconium oxide as a quartz polish - I can't say that I ever found it any better than cerium oxide. But with this stone, it did a better job at reducing the building block effect on the surface than did the cerium.

Everything will work some of the time but there is nothing that works every time.

That looks so cool I bet that tolk a lot of time to make. And I think that your friends mum will love it . I do. keep on hunting there is still more out there . Thanks you for showing me your gem thanks left?
Little gem hunter
I will put some of mine on today keep a look out

Thanks Little Gem Hunter. You're right, it takes a long time to turn a rough stone out of the ground into a finished gem - this one took more than six hours. I can do it a fair bit faster than that but if you rush, it isn't going to be quite as neat.

Does your town have a lapidary club? If it does, maybe mum and dad can take you there if you wanted to start learning how to do this sort of thing. Depending on how old you have to be for them to let you use the machines. I started off at a club by learning cabochoning (most people just call it cabbing) where you shape a rock into a smooth, polished dome. It's a bit easier to learn than faceting and it's how most people start. Here are some cabs of mine...







I'll keep a lookout for your photos

Very nice gems I love the tigers eye .no we don't have a club here in our town there's one in bendigo . That's why I joined this site as soon as dads legs get more better dad and mum will take me to one witch will be good thanks for showing all your cool stuff? little gem hunter

incredible lefty, amazing work mate, in the wild i wouldnt know a diamond from a broken bit of coke bottle but you have an eye for it mate well done

Hey Mate,

impressive cut - really good - random question but - is smokey quartz the same hardness as clear quartz?

Jukey

Jukebox said:

Hey Mate,

impressive cut - really good - random question but - is smokey quartz the same hardness as clear quartz?

Jukey

Click to expand...

Yes Jukey, Citrine, Amethyst and Smokies are all the same as clear quartz, same specific gravity also. All quartz (Silicon Dioxide) are about the same SG and hardness.

Cheers everyone.

Yep, as Heatho says Jukebox, all the quartzes share the same hardness and specific gravity. They are all the same stuff, just different colours. Though as I mentioned, some of it has an annoying twinning property when you go to facet it.

As far as I'm aware, opal is quartz as well. Just the molecules are arranged in a different fashion, hence the lower hardness than quartz crystal (which is 7 on Moh's scale) and the amazing play of colours.