Wanting all the worked Dallasite I can get, I commissioned Kidd Rocks Lapidary in Michigan to make me some of their fantastic silver groove-wrapped cabochons out of material I collected.
Dallasite groove-wrapped cabochons for Christmas
Tag: rock
Dallasite cabochons from BC Rockhound material
Tommy Lay is that fantastic lapidarist who first made cabochons from our Dallasite. Now he’s made some more. I sent him some high grade Dallasite, or so we deem it. He wrote a nice review of the material on this rock forum and posted a couple of his cabochons so far.
A visit to Dallas Road, the birthplace of Dallasite
Well, not the birthplace, but the place it was first discovered and after which it was named. Dallas Road is in Victoria on the south end of Vancouver Island. My girlfriend and I had a kitten-delivery trip to Victoria this weekend and made sure we stopped for a quick rockhound before the 5pm darkness.
Dallasite and Flowerstone slabs
It’s been rainy here on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada. That and working has impacted my ability to take good pictures. So here are some not so great pictures of slabs I got from Tommy Lay.
Dallasite, inside and out
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.
24 pounds of Dallasite tumbling
I was a bad boy recently. I stopped in my local rock and gem shop not planning to buy much, and I walked out with a Lortone QT12 rotary rock tumbler, my fourth rock tumbler.
Opening the rock tumblers is like Christmas!
Opening the rock tumblers is always like Christmas. I waited almost a full two weeks to pop these three barrels and let my old rocks see the light of day. The two Dallasite loads in my Lortone QT66 went amazingly! I was super impressed with how smooth and fracture-free these rocks came out. More time,…
Went to a river, found Dallasite
Dallasite is everywhere on Vancouver Island. It’s on the beaches, at the lakes and in the rivers. I had to bus from Nanaimo to Port McNeil and drive a car back for work recently and I stopped by a river near Woss.
Beach rockhound with a deer
I went on a quick trip to my favourite Vancouver Island beach as the sun came up one recent morning. This is the beach I found my first piece of Dallasite on. It still yields more than enough beautiful rocks for me and anyone else who would be interested.
Agate, Jasper, Chalcedony, Chert – How to tell the difference
The difference between agate, jasper, chalcedony and chert is one of the biggest stumbling blocks for people getting into the hobby of rockhounding or mineral collecting. I know because I was tripping over it for months, and I’ve seen other people struggle with it as well. The truth is, even the best rock identifiers can’t…