Though I’m off the island, my Dallasite is all over the world. A friend in Georgia cut some Dallasite and Flowerstone I sent him. Big difference in look to some of these pieces. There’s such an incredible range with this rock. Behold the pictures!
I took a break tumbling as I figured out how I wanted to proceed. I spent a long time going through my tumbles of various stages, assessing and sorting them. I’ve refreshed my approach and got my big 12 pound Lortone Rotary Tumbler going this week.
Here’s what Dallasite, our lovely British Columbian jasper of green, white and black, looks like rough on the outside and then cut up to reveal the inside. That’s all for today. These pictures and rock are thanks to Tommy Lay, who was generous enough to slab and cab some Dallasite for me.
I’ve just been tumbling away over here. I took my 24 lbs of Dallasite out of my rotary tumblers after about 10 days in coarse grind and put a different batch of Dallasite in my vibratory tumbler on final polish.
Here’s a collection of all the rocks that have survived coarse grit in my rotary rock tumblers and are now ready to go in the vibe. They’re split up into groups of Dallasite, quartz, speckled opal, greenstone (some of it jasper), a few porphyries and Flowerstone, and a pile of river rock/gneiss/quartz/petrified wood.
I went back to a local beach in Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, this morning for a quick rockhound before the heat got too serious. I wasn’t the only one out there, and not even the only one after rocks.
My batch of Dallasite and other beach stones from Vancouver Island is now 75% of the way finished, with just one more session in my vibratory rock tumbler to go.
It’s painful to go through your freshly tumbled rocks and hold your breath when you see a great one and then inspect for problems. Sadly, some of my best-looking pieces have suffered from undercutting during the rock tumbling process.
I woke up early yesterday with only a few hours of sleep. It’s summer in British Columbia and the sun’s up before 6am and it’s hot not long after, so I decided to make the most of the morning and go down to my favourite local beach for some rockhounding.
Today I rock hounded at a stretch of beach just off the highway between Nanaimo and Parksville on Vancouver Island.