⭐ Gemstone & Mineral Show n Tell

24c ,it has every colour in the rainbow plus some golds and brown

yes I have seen some nice peridot a friend had I used to think I had found nice green sapp but no I have found peridot which is a very beautiful green I like them better than emeralds gg has peridot

Couple of pressies off the in-laws.

Made a throw sieve and took the long haul to Lowmead to find some crystals,... got a few, lots of family time and the thrill of the hunt made shovelling easier,... once we found gravel and some crystal evidence everyone was thrilled and eager to find more,.... every one from 7 to 50 was into it with teamwork sorting itself out.
Here's a few pickys of our finds( not perfect stuff but we were happy).













Lots of thanks would have to go to Ktmman and Lefty, as I used some of their info as research and inspiration to ensure we would come home with at least something.

Family time and something to take home for everyone. ... looks like a great day out silver

We were hopeing for a nice sized clear one GD, but it wasn't to be this time, I went into the Lowmead pub and sighted the big beauty up behind the bar(makes you dig faster once you've seen it), not sure if it's amethyst or a big smokey quartz,.... It's lying on it's side, but I think they really need one of those slow spinning things with a back light to make it show in all its glory,... And it was a great day, one of the best family outings(with exersize) that we've had in a little while.

G0lddigg@ said:

Family time and something to take home for everyone. ... looks like a great day out silver

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Awesome pics there Silver!

Thanks Twapster, the sun was going down in those hand held ones , had there been a little more light we may have seen into them a bit better I think.

Twapster said:

Awesome pics there Silver!

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Hey Silver, great to see you had some success and a great family day out.
I will be taking my family up for a dig as soon as it cools down a bit.

It was a bit hot ktmman, but not unbearable,.. we picked a spot that would stay shaded a bit as we worked.

I was there last weekend, she was still a bit wet and sloppy right down on the hard basement. Lucky I had the washing water otherwise I would have had to turn around and go home.

Didn't find anything worthwhile unfortunately. Hope to get a faceting machine in a couple of months then I'll have a go at cutting the thumb-sized smokey amethyst I found there last year.

Good to see that you found something Silver - anythign facetable among it?

I can't facet yet anyway Lefty, so I'm not sure what size of stone portion you would need clear(in match heads) to have something worth trying with,... I'll have to have a good look at them in full sunshine and take some nicer photos with a bit of clarity,..... there was nothing big and clear like you might see in a rock shop among them, but it was definitely a bit of untouched quartz layer that we dug down to,... funny though, when I went to dig out my step down behind me it was just all sand to the bottom, so someone may have dug that bit before us, the only reason we dug where we did was because we found a nice looking little amethyst crystal lying on the surface( something missed by a previous digger. We are new to the fossicking game of it and only purchased our family licence on line for $60.+ recently,... which was amazing to realise that you can make the purchase online and print out your receipt and licence details just minutes afterwards to take along for the trip(thank you QLD GOV). And it was from reading some of your posts and seeing photos of your finds at/on Lowmead that I settled on it as a place to cut our teeth on as a family outing(thank you), we missed it at first(ha) as there are two sighns about petrolheads, so we ended up in woop woop first, but graciously accepted directions from a very wonderful stranger that set us up to find the spot(and the petrified wood deposit{clearly depleted now} that had 4 little bits left in it),... the throw sieve that I made for the job was alright, but if the mesh gap had of been bigger it would have made retrieval a lot quicker, even if we had lost one or two(or twenty) of the 3 mm long thin crystals, I think the majority would have stayed on the right side of the sieve.

Cheers and Beers.
Silver.

Lefty said:

Good to see that you found something Silver - anythign facetable among it?

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Yeah, the quartz gravel isn't everywhere - I dug some definate virgin ground last time, only to find after busting my bum digging down a metre that there was no gravel layer in that spot.

Actually, it's a bit of a shame that most of the crystals at Lowmead are pretty badly cracked. There is a decent range of colours ranging from the very palest tint of purple, through a nice pinkish-purple, the deeper royal purple and even a dark - but perfectly clear - smokey purple. I've found smokey, I've found bright orange citrine, I've found what you would have to call ametrine and the bloke who is teaching me to facet once cut a piece of very nice coloured smokey citrine a mate of his found there. Just gotta find a good one.

But it's always a fun day out there

Cheers

That's it,all this talk has made me want to go digging again.
I''ll be out there 7am Sunday, sun rain or heatwave

That's the spirit Richard!

No digging for me this weekend, I'll be working on the lapidary workshop. Roof is mostly on now. Right now I have nearly everything crammed onto a table in the spare room. I use the trim saw on the veranda because it's too messy for inside the house. But once my little workshop is finished, there will be room for everything - rock saw, trim saw, cabbing machine, faceting machine, bench for silver working, obligatory beer fridge - can't wait!

Good luck on Sunday, post some piccies

Thanks mate,certainly will post some pic's.

Might try for some shots of us in action.

On another note did you know there is a guy in Childers making
faceting machines? http://vjfacet.com/documents/VJ_Facet_Machine.pdf
One of the guy's at Bundy gem club is buying one from them, though at 6k they would want to be good.

Nice work Silver, well done mate.

A tiny bit of my collection.


Spinel.

Ruby.

Emerald on quartz.

Topaz.

Quartz crystals.

Amethyst.

Stones from Lightning Ridge.

Aquamarine.

Tourmaline on top of quartz.

Thanks TFK

A good day yesterday, all with shovels and sieves.