Gorgeous, and glad to hear it! I'll be stopping by there next weekend to get some eggs cut.

Yeah I need to stop by Richardson's one of these days too. I don't know if their beds are open yet; it's been a wet spring, but a dry two weeks.
The eggs are stunning, by the way!

And the saw came out! No shorts in the motor, got the right amount of fresh mineral oil into it, got it on its little red wheeled cart and made a few cuts. Now I'm waiting for the results of the community poll on whether I'm making too much noise. (I live in a village and the maintenance area/storage shed is in the exact center.) 

Those are really stunning. Love the flow of the handles and blades.

I have some T-egg cores in my boxes at home that show the pressure ridges really well. The outside is all gone, it's just the core that's left, and it's the exact shape from the diagram. A ball in the middle, two 'plates' on the top and bottom, and ribs between. They're not from a marked bed though, just a ditch somewhere (that I have not yet been able to find again.) but if I can find them again I'll post pictures. It's like a T-egg dissection.

I'd wear it too! Lovely little leaf.

Lovely piece! It's a very pleasing shape and frames the pattern of the stone well. Looks like it would wear very nicely.

All three are lovely materials! Love the second one's swirls of color. Amazing what can be found between the frequented places.

Richardsons had a boule in the shop when I was there on a field trip once, and a slice from it. I remember there was a somewhat awful joke about 'pretty faces' and 'ugly faces' reflected in it, (depending on if it was a little girl or a little boy doing the looking.) The spheres are pretty cool. It's an excellent way to show a greater area of pattern, or how pattern carries through a rock. Love the nodules and dugway. How did you clean the dust and grit from the inside of the dugway?

Blue or purple, it's a gorgeous color. I agree that the color shouldn't necessitate the name 'blue,' but I think it can stand on its own; no need to cash in on a bygone craze.

Yeah I am quite thankful for my dad's skills and insistence on shop safety. He lost family members (and most of his own hearing) to a lack of workplace safety and I've got a friend who lost an arm to "the slowest drive shaft he'd ever seen." Hair gets tied up and put away, all scarves and strings are kept well controlled, and any small children are sent elsewhere when the saw comes out.

I've been going out in the evenings, when the light isn't great, but have kicked up some interesting things. More 'just interesting' than of lapidary use (also might have run into a snag with my new employers regarding what I can and cannot do with rock from their property... mostly because I'm asking for permission, which no one ever does, which means no one's thought of an answer yet or even knows who has the authority to give one. If the snag sticks, then I'll GPS my way onto local BLM in-holdings and see what's around there.)

But for now, this was the result of an adventure to a construction site, where a new water tower will be built soon.
There's a thick layer of lavender tuff that contains a variety of interesting things. My favorite is the streaks of thin, brilliantly green crystal/mineral exposed by the fractured rock. So far it's all been paper thin. A mineral sample, not a cut-able rock. 'It must be copper' is what comes to mind, but someday I'd love to send a sample and a giant question mark to the folks who test rock and find out what gives it its color.


From the same location, a layer of tiny dendritic crystals. This is going to be an 'office rock.' I found out the person who had my office before me kept toys in it for the village kids, so they all automatically invite themselves in. Opportunity to teach them a little something about the place they live in, I think!



This is from the same place, but it's not native to it. There's an ash terrace on a red fin of upthrust basalt that was graded and graveled for construction 30-odd years ago. This rock was left behind by someone. I found it fractured and carted the other half home 15 years ago; finding the other half right where I thought it should be was refreshing (memory doesn't always line up to reality.) It's a fine-grain river rock with a pale green rind, and the ripples outward from the point of impact are pretty interesting to me.


The local pictographs:
We're fairly certain they're somewhat real. No guarantee some enterprising kid hasn't added to them, but the very faint and layered geometric patterns are probably authentic (the space ship is up for debate.) Unfortunately they were done on a thin, smooth layer that has since flaked/been chipped off the original basalt monolith (not surprising; these are right beside a dirt track that's been in use for 200 years.)

My dad's a retired school teacher who drafts blueprints for electrical systems in his spare time. He saw me cutting things with the saw and decided it needed a few additions. He doesn't 'get' rock but he does have a passion for safe use of electricity and machinery.
Custom-made belt guard because Lortone said their new belt guards wouldn't fit it, a new three-prong plug and cord, and a new switch. It's also all nice and clean inside and I have a gallon of mineral oil to put in it soon as I get its table finished.





The bearings are a project for another day, maybe this fall. Pretty happy now to not worry about that belt, have the motor better protected against splashes, and have it grounded. If I start tripping breakers, then we'll take apart the motor and see what's shorting.

Very nice! Lovely piece.

So pretty! Can smell the smoke from here