We had a big turn out at our meeting this month.

Tooele Senior Citizens Center

May 14th 2002

The meeting was called to order by president Donna Chavez every one was welcomed.  The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved. Jay reported that he will be picking up some rock mostly wood, it has already been broken up into grab bag size, we will be using it at our grab bag fill. Dennis talked about the silver casting class, Henry Chavez said we could hold the class at his home, it will be on the 25th of May at 10:00 AM. Dennis showed the club the awards, which he won 1^st for the articles that he wrote, and 2^nd for Darrell’s poem and 3rd for the Strata Gem.

June 8^th, 9:00 AM at Jay & Erla Woods.

I will be out of town the month of July, so I have to do 2 newsletters before the end of the month. Please, if you have anything for July or August, get it to me ASAP!!!

Pasadena, Calif. (AP) – More than a half-billion years ago, thousands of jellyfish were washed up in a small lagoon, stranded by a freak tide or storm and buried by sand just hours later.

‘This seemingly strange idea originated in a remark of Sir Humphrey Davy that, on the problematic exhaustion of coal, men will have recourse to the hydrogen of water, as a means of obtaining light and calefaction (heat). As the gas used for lighting consists of hydrogen and a little carbon, it is only the latter which would have to be added, after the water had been decomposed into its elementary parts of hydrogen and oxygen."

From The Rocky Reader, 12/2000

via High Country Gleamings

Far hundreds of years, men everywhere have tried to transform base metals into gold. In olden times, monks of a northern Italian monastery were also engaged in this task. For many years these monks labored to recover the precious metals in their retreats. Then, about 1590, after years of effort, the monks happened to make a very beautiful, sparkling material with innumerable gold specks. The monks had failed to make gold, but they did succeed in producing a marvelous specimen, which they properly named "goldstone". Goldstone was used for decorative purposes until 1890 when it was imported to the USA, after it was found to be suitable for cutting and polishing for jewelry. The monks called the goldstone the "adventuring" stone, as it is impossible to foretell the success of a batch for many weeks. To this day, due to lack of modern production methods, a batch of material can turn out unsuitable for use because of the uncertainty of the heating and cooling process. Production of the goldstone has remained a secret method all these years — concealed from everyone. Many have tried to duplicate goldstone, but to date no one has succeeded.

By Edna House

Very plentiful was my family tree,

Two sisters, Mother and Daddy welcomed me,

That we were poor, was a sure fact indeed.

Running barefoot on rocks, was a summer occurrence for me.

The Diamond is the simplest gem - the chemical composition being all of carbon and crystallized isometrically. Tourmaline is the most complex. It is said that tourmaline’s chemistry is more like a doctor’s prescription than the makings of a respectable material.

Approximately 70% of the earth’s surface is covered with water. However, only 1% is available for drinking water.

by TJ Meehan

In 1911 an expedition of C. D. Bunker and "his boys: from the University of Kansas Natural History Museum went fossil hunting and recovered Bunker’s biggest boy: the largest mosasaur specimen in the world. Mosasaurs are the giant sea lizards of late dinosaur time 65-90 million years ago (the late Cretaceous Period). They lived throughout the world’s oceans, but Kansas is the best place to hunt for them. Kansas chalk beds have more and better preserved mosasaurs, as well as other marine life, than any other chalk beds in the world--even the white Cliffs of Dover in England. Kansas has marine fossils from this period because it was under water during most of this time. A shallow ocean, the Kansas—Nebraska Sea, stretched from the Gulf to the Arctic Sea, cutting North America into two lands.

June Birthdays

Birthstone:

Ancient

Emerald

Modern

 Pearl, Moonstone, or Alexandrite

Blaine E. Berry 29

Darrel Bolinder 26

Ardith Higley 2

Larry Higley 14

Lewis Wall 13

When the white man discovered this country, Indians were running it…there were no taxes. No debts, and the women did most of the work. All the Indian men did was hunt and fish as much as they wanted, whenever they wanted!

Here’s the real kicker. The white man was dumb enough to think that he could improve on a system like that!!!!

Via Golden Spike News 11/01

excerpts from article by David "Dos" O'Sullivan Source: Austasia Aquaculture: 12(4) August-September 1998

One of the best-known pearl farmers in Queensland is John Saltmarsh, whose family-run Roko Pearls has been operating in Torres Strait for more than 15 years. At a recent conference, John surprised a lot of people by pointing out that Mikimoto was not the first person to produce cultured pearls-it was an Australian fisheries officer in 1890.

"Everyone considers the famous Mikimoto to be the discoverer of the secret that had eluded man throughout history-a method of making a pearl oyster produce a pearl," John Saltmarsh told Austasia Aquaculture. "The story of the young Japanese noodle dealer's son with his dream of making pearls available to ordinary women of the world has been told many times, most recently in a documentary, "The Mystique of the Pearls", shown on national TV. Mikimoto was indeed one of the truly great entrepreneurs of our time but he didn't invent the cultured pearl."

Saltmarsh said that while Mikimoto probably did more than any other man to build the pearling industry, he did not discover the secret of the pearl. "In 1907, two other Japanese independently applied for a patent over a technique for producing a spherical pearl in a pearl oyster. One, Mr. T. Mise, was a village carpenter; the other, Dr. Nishikawa, was a science graduate. One lived on the north island of Japan, the other on the south island." The story is certainly strange as the two men did not know each other and had never met. Yet within a week of each other, they both submitted patent applications for a method of producing cultured spherical pearls. And the technique in both applications was identical.

Saltmarsh said that Mikimoto then took the process to glory, but the patent for the technique and principles was granted to Dr. Nishikawa, to be jointly owned by Mr. Mise. But how did Dr. Nishikawa and Mr. Mise discover the secret of pearl making? To answer this, we need to go to Australia.

In Northern Australia, the late 1800’s were the era of the great Japanese pearling fleet, the Arafura pearling fleet. According to Saltmarsh, at times more than 400 Japanese vessels were working Torres Strait and as many as 2,000 Japanese nationals were based at Thursday Island. Pearl shell was a valuable commodity on the world market, which was by the Japanese. "The Commissioner of Fisheries in Queensland at that time was William Saville Kent," Saltmarsh said. "He was fascinated by pearls. He studied the technique for culturing half pearls used by the Chinese, who for many years had been producing mother of pearl images of Buddha. They would drill a hole through the shell of a freshwater pearl oyster, place a tiny brass Buddha against the inside of the shell under the mantle, then secure it in place with a piece of thread pulled through the hole that they'd drilled in the shell. This was also the technique used by G. S. Streeter. Saville Kent improved on this by securing the nucleus with hot resin glue. He started Australia's first cultured pearl farm in Albany Passage, near Thursday Island. His half pearls fetched high prices and he spent years experimenting with round pearls. In 1890 he was successful and produced a genuine spherical cultured pearl."

Saltmarsh said it was doubtful that Saville Kent fully appreciated the worth of what he had done, as he was willing to discuss his technique with anyone who showed an interest. He promised to publish an account of his method, perhaps with an eye to the commercial possibilities, but he never got around to it. When he died in 1906, his farm at Albany was sold, together with his techniques and methods. Dr. Alvin Seale in the Journal of Science in July 1910 reported that the Australian who had purchased Saville Kent's experimental pearl farm had succeeded in growing spherical pearls using techniques bought with the farm. "The gentleman must have lost interest, however, as there are no further records of the Albany farm until recent times," said Saltmarsh.

Back to Dr Nishikawa and Mr Mise-they did have one small point of contact. Both Mr. Mise's stepfather, with whom he lived, and Dr. Nishikawa were fisheries officers with the Arafura Pearling Fleet at Thursday Island at the time that William Saville Kent just couldn't help talking about his technique for culturing round pearls. In 1968, author Joan Young Dickinson was the first to make public this amazing coincidence in her The Book of Pearls, "It seems that some time around the turn of the century an unsung Australian oysterman hit upon the method... and passed accidentally his secret unwittingly to these two brilliant young Japanese." Australian cultured South Sea pearls are recognized as the premium product in a very specialized and valuable market, so it's nice to know that an Australian was responsible for discovering the process.

from LapDigest #285 MSG2

I started researching jade polishing several years ago when I took over our club shop. I could get a polish on jade but trying to tell someone else how to do it didn't thrill me much. What I found, when I started reading, was that most authors had the same problem I had, they could do it, but telling someone else how was hard. The problem, it seems to me, is that most of the directions are "technique sensitive", and telling someone that "this piece of jade needs more pressure than that one", or some other such description, isn't easy to explain in print. What I wanted was some way of polishing jade that I could tell someone and not have to worry about their being able to do it, regardless of the quality of their jade.

I had better luck talking to cutters about their methods than reading about it. Al Youngquist of "Jade and More" pointed me at Rapid Polish on wood. I found it worked better than anything else I had ever used.

At this point I set up a series of experiments to see what the other things affected the polish. The most common thread in the books seems to be: "sand it dry on a worn 600 grit belt." I didn't have a used one so I used a new one. Using the belt wet produced essentially the same results as the diamond belt. But dry, the surface started to look like it was almost ready to polish. I also tried a new 400 grit belt. The difference between the 400 and 600 was visible but small.

My next step was to find a finer grit silicon carbide. Rio Grande carries 3M 15 and 9 micron belts and is the only source of finer grit belts I have found. Use their "micron graded," not the "Trizact" belts. The "Trizact" belt is designed not to load and won't work. If you are using a Diamond Pacific "Genie" or similar machine, sanding disks on a rubber backed disk work fine. I found a supply of 1200 grit PSA backed 6 inch disks at Red Hill Corporation. I have also used 1200 grit paper and glued it to a Crystalite "Flexodisc." Dry sanding isn't speed sensitive but you may want to keep a pan of water handy to keep the jade cool enough to stay on the dop stick.

What I did find, however, is that the differences are small and a "worn" 600 grit belt is about the same as a 1200 grit belt new. I was able to follow a dry 400, 600, or 1200 grit belt with the Rapid Polish and get a good polish with little or no orange peel. It was just a case of being able to improve the finish with the added steps.

I think the sanding surface is being loaded by jade particles whose size is determined by the grit size. This jade surface then "burnishes" the jade cab's surface. I think that the surface of the "burnished" cab is harder than the "un-burnished" jade. This harder surface is then less subject to orange peel. This difference in hardness, if real, is small. I believe that this surface change is what has led to some of the different jade polishing methods. If the time you spend on the polishing buff is short enough after the dry sanding the jade is less sensitive to how it is polished. But if you leave the jade on the buff long enough you may go through the "hard" surface and get orange peel. The Rapid Polish never seemed to go through the "hard" surface.

I have tried different polishing pads and found the differences to be visible but small. There is an area where different jades seem to respond differently. Bill Myers, from the company that produces Rapid Polish, suggested using the paper side of a sanding disk. I tried that and found the results about the same as wood disks, although perhaps easier to acquire. I don't think the pad life would be as good either. The harder leathers helps keep the surface smoother but the softer ones seem to give a brighter polish. I think the answer is: don't worry about it.

I tried other polishes after the initial Rapid Polish and found that Reynolds POLY-AL F improved the polish. This is a .2 micron alumina available from Diamond Pacific. Other polishes in the .1 to .2 micron range would probable work as well.

Rapid Polish also isn't rapid. It takes about three or four times as long for me to polish a jade cab as other polishes on other stones, it just does a better job. Many cutters are now recommending adding some vinegar to the polish. I have tried adding some to the polish and have a small spray bottle to spray the polishing disk. Sometimes I think it helps, sometimes I think it doesn't. At least it doesn't seem to hurt anything, give it a try. It does seem to deteriorate the leather pads faster. Ken Fitzgerald of Fitzcorp, Inc. recommends mixing any alumina one-to-one by weight with liquid dish-washing soap and use as though it were diamond paste. Fitzcorp has done extensive laboratory testing of polishing compounds and plans to publish a book soon on tumbling and polishing -- watch for it.

So, after all this, what do I recommend? Diamond: Don't sand past 1200 or 1800 grit. Silicon carbide: Sand through 600 wet. Dry sand on 600 grit until the jade burnishes. Polish with Rapid Polish on what ever pad you have. If you are happy, stop. If you want to try for a better polish, start by getting some 1200 grit silicon carbide disks or belts. If that isn't good enough, try the different types of wood and/or leather polishing disks. Try other polishes after the Rapid Polish, sometimes you can improve the finish.

I know there are other ways of polishing jade but most are sensitive to the type of jade being polished and technique being used. This method has proved to be the least sensitive of any I have yet found.