Last Saturday the Idaho Gem Club had a field trip to their Beacon Hill Claim.  The Owyhee Gem and Mineral Society and the Mountain Home Gem Club also participated in this field trip.  I guess a lot of people were excited about this trip as much as I was since this was one of the largest group of a field trip this year or maybe a lot showed up because the 2008 rock collecting season is about to come to end.

A couple of weeks earlier I had made arrangements to ride with Gene Alvey on this trip.  Friday evening I wanted to drive by his house so I wouldn’t be searching for it in the dark Saturday morning.  As I drove by I saw that gene was outside loading his truck already.  I stopped and talked about the coming trip for a while before heading out to the store to get supplies.  A few hours later I had everything ready to go and loaded in the car.

View From Beacon Hill

(more…)

Saturday Jason Estes and I decided that we wanted to go to the rock show in Mountain Home.  I arrived at Jason’s house in Boise around 9:15.  Before we hit the road Jason showed me some of his recent tumbled pieces and an Arbor that he recent acquired from Tony Funk, A.K.A. Catmandewe.  We talked about rocks for almost an hour before we head out to Mountain Home.

Finding the rock and gem show was quite easy; finding information on it was not.  Once I found where the show was being held I looked it up on Google Maps.  We were able to drive directly there without getting lost.  When we arrived the first thing that caught our attention was a Genie that was setup outside with nobody around it.  Jason jokingly said that we should throw it in the trunk, take off and forget the show.  I thought to myself “wow a genie would be nice to have” before parking the car.

Blue Forest Petrified Wood

(more…)

Last Thursday I found a Highland Park 10” trim saw for sale on craigslist.com.    I already had a 10” saw but this one had the vice that I was missing and the seller was only asking $80.  I quickly called and made arrangements to look at this saw.  When I arrived the seller told me that a bracket that held the auto feed motor in place was broken so he would sell it to me for $50.  I took one look at the saw and told him I would take it.   I could hardly keep from doing a happy dance as we loaded it my car.

Highland Park 10 inch Saw

(more…)

A week or two ago I was browsing the Rock Tumbling Hobby forum (http://andy321.proboards48.com/) and found a post where somebody was asking about polishing wonder stone.  I have worked with wonder stone a couple of times and found it to be a very porous material.  This material does not take a polish at all.  To overcome this polish issue I used spray fixative that can be purchased at art and craft supply stores.  I still shaped and sanded the pieces to get a smooth surface before applying the spray fixative.  I often spray multiple coats over many days rotating the material as need to be sure I cover all areas of the rock.

Wonder Stone Sprayed with Fixative

(more…)