New batch of rocks from this summer's trip to the UP

I began cutting some of my new rocks at home, just to get a sneak peek of what was inside.  I wanted to do a quick polish on the cut side, just to see what I would be working with.

Before and after pics of some new rocks

Love this black one - the patterns are so cool!

             

















I fell in love with this piece, which took on a free form of its own, and just kept going to the final polish.  There are a couple of larger pieces that come off of this rock, too, and I just began shape and polish, so more to come!

Another unexpected surprise was this piece that cut off the rock in a near perfect tear shape and with a little more work, should fit into the tear drop setting from an earlier post.  This piece has the translucency of calcedony in parts.  It is not banded, so it is not a proper agate.  Can hardly wait to finish this!

Core Samples from the old Ropes Mine

One of my first purchases was from a seller who had some core samples from the old Ropes Mine, located near Ishpeming.  These cores all vary in color and and each unique.  Some sparkle with little flecks of gold along the veins when held to the light.  This material is quite soft and I cut many pieces in the studio.  Being so easy to work with, I was able to trim, facet and polish at home.

One of my favorite core samples was rich with Serpentine and the pieces are a dark green with slight marbling.  While I love a good faceted square or rectangle, I let a few of these pieces guide me and ended up with some cool funky shapes.  While they dont polish up to a high sheen, I am still really happy with how they turned out and wish they photographed better because they really are prettier in person.

More information about the Ropes Mine can be found here

Kona Dolomite

Also purchased as a slab from the lapidary studio - Kona Dolomite.

These pieces were cut at the studio and faceted and polished by hand at home.  I still have work to do on some of the pieces. (the piece in the upper left is from a core sample and not kona dolomite)

The slab from the studio looks like Jupiter.  I purchased some other pieces online, which have more of a pink base with finer marbling, as shown in the cut but unpolished teardrop shapes below. Also in the teardrop is a piece of amygdaloidal basalt in the lower left.

I still have a lot of rough left and look forward to making more of these pieces in the future.

Named after the Kona Hills south of Marquette County, Michigan where it is found. Kona Dolomite is an ancient rock in which formations of fossil stromatolite (blue-green algae) occur. The stone is between 2.1 to 2.2 billion years old. These stromatolite formations are from some of the first life on earth. These fossil formations are found in the lower eras of the Middle Precambrian Period.

Because of the great age, and due to the many trace minerals present, kona dolomite can be found in a wide variety of shades including pink, brown, yellow, cream, red and orange with shades of brown, cream, gray and black mottling, banding and lacing.

Butterstone

One of the few items I purchased at the lapidary studio (rather than picking myself) was a beautiful slab of butterstone.  It is soft enough that I was able to work on the pieces at home and they polished up beautifully.

These were cut, faceted and polished by hand.  They would look beautiful on a black leather or ribbon choker.  A couple were cut to fit into sterling settings, as shown on the far left, bottom.

There are some smaller pieces, as shown on the left, that could be set into a thin rectangular setting for a pendant or earrings.  These two pieces were too fragile for a proper polishing, so they were coated with a two part epoxy for a nice shine.

In the morning light from my desk

Found this description of butterstone online