Finding the Star in Star Garnets
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ส.ค. 2024
- My first visit to Idaho's Emerald Creek Garnet Area yielded some amazing garnets! But how many are star garnets? Maybe you've watched videos of others visiting the site. And you've probably seen a perfect star garnet. But what are you supposed to look for in a potential star garnet? I decided to test some ideas.
#lapidary #stargarnet #rockhounding
----------------------------------------------------
Etsy: www.etsy.com/s...
Ko-fi shop: ko-fi.com/dono...
Donate: ko-fi.com/dono...
But wait! 🤣 I literally said WOW when you shone the light to reveal the star! 😯
They're really cool minerals! Definitely want to visit again someday.
Great Video. The star on the big stone was very bright. Heading up this weekend and hope to find a few to practice on.
Good luck!
Those are beautiful garnets, even the ones without asterism, but OMG, the purple that comes out with the star is 🔥
🤩😍
And, as others have said, thank you for sharing your experimentation. This is valuable
Thanks for your research and sharing! I have a selection of these and was trying to figure out which ones might have stars, so glad I found your video! Thanks!
Awesome! Glad it was helpful, and hope you get some good stars!
@@DonohueLabs Thank you! Hoping to get some cut this winter when I can’t go rockhounding!
Hahha! NERD! I was just thinking of sharing this video to you! Haaa.
@@Cliffwalkerrockhounding Haha awesome Jarrod! You can always share stuff like this with me, you know I’ll love it!!
@@GeoRockNerd I know you love garnets and thats your new hood, so I figured HEY!
My grandparents and mom randomly got a bunch of Star Garnets and Star Sapphire/Star Ruby of very decent quality, (worth a lot more than the $30 they paid per bucket) and they just gave all of it to me to add to my collection. I'm looking forward to cutting them
The stars are generally found to be aligned with the vertices of the crystal as the rutile needles are oriented parallel to the faces, hence six rayed stars will be seen to occur where there are junctions between three rhombohedral faces and the four rayed stars occur at junctions between four rhombohedral faces.
Silk may not be evenly distributed across the faces and thus sometimes only a couple of stars can be found, whilst in other stones 6, 8, or, 14 stars can be seen.
(The silk in garnets may be concentrated in particular layers owing to the isomorphous series that is the garnet group, not all varieties of garnet have the same composition and through the growth of a garnet crystal there are sometimes transitions between the garnet types at different intervals.
Mali garnets for instance may often have silk occuring through the brown 'andradite' layers of the growth yet these inclusions rarely continue through the green 'grossular' layers. This is obviously just an example and may have little relevance to these particular Idaho almandine garnets.)
While an experienced cutter should be able to identify the presence of silk with nothing more than a simple loupe and pinpoint light source, an easy way to find the stars would be to lightly tumble the rough in a fine grit first and/or add oil to give the illusion of a polish before using a pinpoint light and examining what you have.
When I was up there some guy pulled a 5 pound double terminated garnet. Largest they had ever seen at the time. That new material they began pulling from is great stuff. 🏆
Wow, those are really cool Patrick Donohue, and thank you for the info on them. Hopefully you can make a return visit and find more.
Gem State Crystals in Moscow is probably the best shop I have been to. Great prices, great craftsmen, and great selection.
Cool almandine, great polish!
Wow’s talent for this project
Beautiful, thank you.
Also thank you for this video, because it is well known how to polish a Star Sapphire/Ruby, but it is almost a mystery how to polish a Star Garnet.
Better use Mogok (Burma) Star Rubies
and Star Sapphires. Star Garnets are not much attractive. Not much perfect.
Wow! Thanks.
Beautiful video!😍
I have purchased quite a number of star garnets and all of them had either a 4 limb star or a 6 limb star. The trick is to make a sphere out of it and then you can mark where the star is and then cut the star part off. Give it a try. I don’t make cabs so I can’t tell you how to figure them out. I do know that they won’t make a star if there is no dome to focus the light bouncing around inside the stone. Hope my comments help. A sphere is made up of “domes” so you can’t loose with a sphere.
Making a sphere seems like a lot of work! How deep do you have to go before you see a star? I had someone tumble some but that didn't reveal any rays.
Those are some very pretty gems! Nice clarity. You should send some to German Gemcutter
That’s not a bad idea, now that he has an ULTRA TEC! So dang jealous!
I just recently found some new garnets but there are different color some are more yellowish color and bright red. I haven’t tried polishing them yet but soon.
I need to search the garnets i have stashed away!
That’s cool. I find hundreds of garnets when I’m dredging. Not that big. I polished some. No star yet. Got cats eye
Hope you find something! You have a claim or property in that general area?
@@DonohueLabs don’t need one. I live in Alabama where we are still free
As long as your not on private property. I been looking for gold by find a lot more gemstones
@@Algoldprospecting oh, I see. Then it makes sense you haven't found a star, since they are only found in quantity in Idaho and, like, India. Maybe it'll happen, though!
@@DonohueLabs what’s strange is our state gemstone is star blue quartz. It is very difficult to find. It’s more grey than blue. I haven’t found any.
So I hunt LSAgates here in NE Minnesota, and sometimes there is a light to complete black coating of Black Maganese on them. Some of us use Citric Acid in water to dissolve it. Maybe try that to see if it cleans the raisin coating off the crystals a bit.?.
Hi Kirby, thanks for the tip. I didn't show it on video, but I did soak them overnight in muriatic (hydrochloric) acid, and it did not affect the raisin appearance. This video was made after the soak. I think what we're seeing is all garnet, and the raisin-ness is due to growth defects.
That said, acid did remove crud and revealed cracks that helped me narrow down which garnets to pursue on the lap, so it's still a great idea!
hadir bosku dari Langkat sumut ,,,salam lestari akik,,
I wish i could do a trip there someday (im in Norway).
Or maybe i will just order a bunch of raw garnets from someone...
美丽的
Clear oil and a light table.
Could anyone tell me if Asteriated (asterism) it makes the gemstones more expensive and valuable? or not.
For example ..sapphire starr and ruby starr is most expensive than sapphire and ruby stone gem?
What’s your process for polishing these stones after you shape them? I’m having trouble getting my sapphires to polish up good with a polishing wheel and diamond paste
The final polish on these was I think a polishing pad with 50k diamond and crystalube. But sapphire might be more difficult since it's harder and has other issues with differential hardness and orange peel effects. I haven't polished star sapphire (only faceted them) but I think I was told to polish star sapphire from the inside outward (ie from top of dome to the edge) so you don't go against the grain of the silk. Other problems that lead to poor polish include parting, and there's not much you can do about that.
Mantap👍
I'm surprised your club lets you cab garnet on their machines. That's very hard on the wheels.
The shop runner didn't mention any concern for the wheels, but definitely said I couldn't go crazy cutting garnet with the club saws!
Do you help me to find out what stone is it’s showing star in my stone. Pls reply me
Ruby, sapphire, garnet, moonstone, rose quartz, and diopside are the most common. They are all different enough that you should be able to figure out which one it is with simple tests that you can look up on differentiating stone types.
@@DonohueLabs it’s shine different colour under different light source and showing star
Đà đẹp của 💯💯💯💯
Sir I have garnered Stone
🫱🏽👏
I THOUGHT U SUPPOSED TO CUT IT PARRALELL TO THE CRYSTALS C AXIS TO BE ABLE TO GET THE ASTERISM?
I've heard that, but when the crystals are equant so there's an imperceptible difference between the axes, or you have a broken crystal, what do you do? And even if you can identify the c axis, you can cut parallel to it in different orientations. My goal was to see if other methods of identifying where stars might be actually worked.
Even the shops that specialize in star garnets can't guarantee they'll get you the best cut, or even that you'll get a star from what you bring them.
Garnets are isotropic, they have no c-axis. The stars are generally found to be aligned with the vertices of the crystal as the rutile needles are oriented parallel to the faces, hence the six rayed stars will be seen to occur where there are junctions between three rhombohedral faces and the four rayed stars occur at junctions between four rhombohedral faces.
Silk may not always be evenly distributed across the faces and thus sometimes only a couple of stars can be found, whilst in other stones 6, 8 or even 14 stars will become apparent in spheres cut from these dodecahedral crystals.
you have a nice Garnets You should save a raw Dodecahedron as a specimen
Definitely saved more than one!
How are you smoothing them out and rounding them?
Just posted a new video with a bit about the steps to polish. But in short: 60 or 100 grit to 600 to 325 to 1200 to 6000 or 8000 final (though I stopped at 1200 in the newest video)
@@DonohueLabs I just used a dremel on mine but it was taking forever, how long does the sandpaper take. I’ll look at your other video. Mine are not rounded some in the geometric shape and some just more like stones. Not sure if any have the stars. Thanks
@@hobbieswithjoe I used cabbing machines at my lapidary club workshop so a stone might've taken 15 minutes total but I wasn't keeping track.
@@DonohueLabs oh ok so you use it there, is that near Spokane? I saw your other video.
@@hobbieswithjoe I'm in the tri-cities, but if you're near Spokane then the Rock Rollers would have the right equipment and they're cheap to use.
Be careful about having a cutter from Boise area cut your stones,I took some to a star garnet cutter in Boise area , he out and out robbed me with the excuse that I was in the middle of a divorce,he is a crooked bastard
The new material that's being processed at Emeralds creek has very little stars now a days.
🫱🏽👏