[SCA-AS] Re: [Metallum_Lochac] Goldstone and Sunstone

[rmhowe]

Tyghra na Tintagel wrote:

>Goldstone is, in fact, a simulant for the natural Sunstone.  I picked up
>a beautiful piece of natural Sunstone being sold amongst other gemstones
>on a rug in the courtyard market held in front of the Tarragona
>Cathedral in Spain.  Sunstone is the national stone of Spain so I
>thought it a little serendipitous to find such a lovely piece in a
>country that truly appreciates it.
>
>Goldstone looks nothing like Sunstone.  If you get a 10 times loupe or
>preferably, slightly higher magnification on to it, the little sparkly
>flecks will reveal themselves to be little flakes of copper with perfect
>hexagonal outlines.  That's about as interesting as it gets for most
>gemmologists :)
>
>Grinding it up for enamelling purposes sounds intriguing though, as does
>the green version!  Must try it sometime.
>
>Cheers,
>Tyghra
>  
>
That is a most interesting bit of information. I shall
have to look at it when I buy some green and brown goldstone
in two weeks.  The dealer is coming back to town.

Lillian, my teacher, wants to know if there are any other colors
than green and brown.  She thinks there must be.
Has anyone seen any other colors? 

I was amazed at the emerald green with the wonderful flecks.
I only saw it the last five minutes of the show but the sellers
promised they were returning in two weeks for the next one..

She can use it under a transparent layer of colored glass on top of
a clear one for special effects.  I suppose she can alter the
color a bit that way.

Here is how my teacher Lillian uses it in enameling:

>The goldstone looks like glitter in the glass.  I layer it in with clear and
>transparent to get the effect.  If you grind it, you can control the density
>of the glitteryness.  A little goes a long way.
>  
>
She is using her new agate mortar and pestle to grind it with.
They come in a very pretty box as well.  Mine is very well
made.  We bought them from an ebay dealer.  opticaspace

>I can try the bottom heat on the tripod.  The metal mesh eats alot of btus,
>but that might not be a problem if I use two torches.
>http://www.rocksmyth.com/ is the site with lots of Jean Stark stuff.  Check
>out the dragonfly.
>
I think the second paragraph refers strictly to granulation.
There are some amazing pieces on those pages.
We were talking a bit via email about how she is trying to
heat her pieces from above and below. 
Another email in which I was talking about granulation with her
revealed the following:

>http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/archive/200112/msg00263.htm
>
>This looks like good instructions to me, except I copper-plate my granules
>first to lower the melting temp.  I am going to see about buying some
>pre-made granules, for uniformity.  L
>
I'll have to check with her about how she copper plates granules.
I have plating equipment but I suspect a pen is being used
instead of a bath.  How would you plate granules that are too
small to attach to an electrode?

Jean Stark teaches jewelry at Meredith College in Raleigh NC.
She and her daughter are very well known for their work and
their inventiveness.  They invented a way to photo-resist on
metal with a special little machine.  It takes extremely bright
flashbulbs to burn through a photo-resist.  Then the item
is cleaned and etched.  I have taken those classes from someone
else at the Raleigh Pullen Arts Center here.

I know other ways to do the same thing without the exposure
machine.  It costs somewhere over a hundred.  Being a natural
scrounge I have an electric arc machine for doing single
newspaper pages in the basement I bought at State Surplus.
The guy I used to know twentyfive years ago used to expose
his screens for screen printing beneath a strong halogen light
for an hour or so.  He silk screened shirts, signage and very
large backdrops for special events.  The light hung over a
table inside his workshop.

The Stark's classes are a bit too expensive for me to attend.
Somewhere in the US $450 dollar range plus a lot more for
materials.  My teacher is one of Jean's students. Then Lillian
teaches folks at the NCSU Crafts Center once she has mastered
a technique.  Her classes are a fifth of what Jean Stark's are
and she is very talented herself.  I take what I would have paid
the Starks for some classes and buy equipment and reference
books instead.  That way I have something tangible to use and
refer to.  Lillian I can afford to take classes from. Hers are still
hard to get into. 

Right now she is taking granulation classes from the Starks
and experimenting on her own.  I want the two of us to
collaborate on the experimentation.  I have some equipment
that should be useful in the process I know Lillian doesn't have.

Granulation is the placing of small balls of gold or silver on
the surface of an object and fusing them together.
Lillian wrote me she is actually copper plating the silver balls
before she solders them.  The ancient technique involves
some sort of copper salt so this makes some sense. Silver
can have copper leached out/off of it with acids like plum vinegar,
which is how the Japanese brightened silver/copper alloys.

Anyone knowing exactly which copper  salt was involved
please reply!

She also told me a quarter ounce of the pre-made silver balls
costs $150 so is looking for a way to make them herself in
certain sizes which you have to control the silver amount very
closely in. 

I have a curious old tool which apparently was
made for shearing many small sizes of wire to exact lengths.
Have no idea what it is called but when you put it in a vise
and drop the wire down a similar sized hole it stops it where
you set a bottom plate for any length and shears the wire
by sliding the two holed plates against one another in a
fashion that apparently is cam actuated.  It was a lightly
rusty antique when I bought it and cleaned it up.
This thing should precisely cut wire into small bits to
put on a charcoal block and heat into balls.
Lillian does that and then drops it into water.
I also have screens she doesn't and rolling mills, casting
molds and other cutters.  So I am hoping we can collaborate.

I will let you folks know if  I learn something special.

Magnus


>On Mon, 26 Jun 2006 09:08:32 -0400, "rmhowe" <mmagnusm at bellsouth.net>
>said:
>  
>
>>I wondered what my teacher was doing with the goldstone
>>I have always seen in brown.  I got an email from her some
>>time ago saying she was using that and ground Swarovski
>>Crystals [Austrian leaded glass] to enamel with.  I wrote
>>to her about seeing the emerald green goldstone [for anyone
>>who has never seen brown or green goldstone it is fairly
>>translucent with many hundreds of tiny golden flakes per cubic
>>inch. 
>>    
>>
>
>  
>