Interesting Unique and Unusual Gemstones - TaoGems

Click here to join the Lapidary Community WebRing

For those of you unfamiliar with WebRings. It is a great opportunity to give your site exposure on the internet. I researched many before I decided to join up with the WebRing Community, a pioneer in social networking. Since 1994, their members have created over 40,000 communities visited by three million people a month.

It is pretty hot exposure. I am seeing several hits a day from a number of rings I have added my gemstone site to.

I just created this lapidary WebRing, and it is for all gemstone websites that offer lapidary information, services, education, or anything else related to the art of lapidary. Joining a ring specific to lapidary is a great opportunity to show off your niche in the world of lapidary. At the same time it offers the chance to show off the gemstones that you have made resulting from your artistic lapidary skills, promote your lapidary services, and or share other lapidary and gemstone related information about your website.

Spokane Washington Area Art and Crafts Social Networking Community

Brand new network created this first week of August !

This community was started as a means to simply bring a variety of local niche artists from the Spokane area together in hopes of creating interesting and unique opportunities for all members.

Members are not limited to the few arts categories within the site title. All area artists are encouraged join up, and benefit from networking within the Community.
When we think of Artists, our minds can travel to any number of artistic niches. An attempt to categorize or list us all could be never ending.

It is interesting though that many arts related events, shows, festivals, fairs, etc., comfortably combine an endless mix of all imaginable artistic related niches.

Aside from selling our wares at these events, they are also golden networking opportunities. Any number of business building possibilities. Unique, often surprising, and totally unexpected opportunities can present themselves.

These events let us network face to face. Both with other vendors, and of course any local artists walking in to attend.

These "face to face" networking opportunities can turn out to be much more valuable in the long term than any single sale as a vendor at these events.

That is the goal of this community. Except, to provide an "online" social network that can potentially let these same interesting, unique, surprising, and totally unexpected opportunities unfold between area artists.

Hey, maybe even make a friend or two while were here !

TaoGem hand cuts, sands and polishes all our customers gemstone orders. Old School Style. No exceptions !

I have access to a variety of gemstone minerals. If you have a request for a specific type of gemstone and dimensions, please feel free to ask. Here are just a few pieces of gemstone rough and gemstone slabs to pick from.

We have a member on my forum who introduced most all of us to what a composite or domed intarsia cab is and how to make them.

Like a regular flat faced intarsia the most important and must have tool to have is a flat lap. Nothing complicated, or fancy. Just something simple that will let the lapidary create really nice even and flat surfaces so when glued together, the joints really are an almost perfect face to face fit.

Ron started sharing his domed intarsia and composite cabs with us quite some time ago.

Just yesterday I was really excited to have finally picked up a older used flat lap set up. After getting a couple of kinks worked out, it is up and running. Next step is to purchase the type of abrasive discs that can be incorporated with a magnetic pad that will adhere to the 10" metal surface of my flat lap.

I ended up using a 10" trim saw blade for a table saw.

It is running nice and smooth. Can't wait to order and receive some abrasive discs. While I am at it, will be ordering a few diamond mesh pads to fine tune the final cab sanding stages prior to polishing. Expecting a big difference with something like a 3000, then 5000, and finally about a 25000 mesh after coming off my 600 grit silicon carbide paper.

Been having fun again with more multi gemstone groups that are excellent for jewelry designing.. Especially if your a silversmith and like interesting and unique pieces..

What makes the group gemstone cabochon sets a little more interesting, is the way they are cut from the original mineral slab. Somewhat similar to making a quality pair of earrings. Except instead of using back to back slabs for matching grains on each earring, these sets are cut from the same area off an area from the slab.. Done patiently, a nice contour of the grains will flow through the entire group of gemstones within the settings group.

Lot of fun to do.. They are among the most rewarding when finished.. Just something about them that I really enjoy.. I am thinking of giving a set a whirl myself.. I am still trying to get a little better at my soldering before I tackle one of my own sets!

Here is one example and there are many more in store. To more easily find just these sets.

Happy to do any kind of special requests for similar sets from a variety of interesting and unusual minerals..

Feel free to contact me with a request or questions.

We have been sharing a lot of different minerals on forum that contain various metallic contents.. This Serpentine with Chromium is a favorite that I did.

As a result, I have been searching for a lot of interesting and unique minerals with unusual metals in them.

Variscite Gemstone Mineral

With all the talk about blue turquoise these days, it seems that some have overlooked the equally beautiful green gemstone variscite as it will gain in popularity. The fact is that many people can not tell the difference between the greener types of turquoise and variscite. They are both phosphates. The general opinion is that they do not occur together, although there are some obvious exceptions. The new "marquise," is an example, and seems to be somewhere between the two in composition, and also has some of the characteristics of each.

The popular variscite is what it is all about in Fairfield nodules. It is deep green in color when in compact masses coupled with the magnificently color associated minerals makes these nodules the finest ever found. Variscite has a hardness of 3.5 to 4.5 yet is dense enough in solid masses to polish well.

Just received several pounds of this mineral and have several free form and earring cab pairs in the finishing stages of sanding and polishing.

Will be adding them to inventory in the very near future.

Rhodonite:

A brilliant pink or red colored mineral, Rhodonites bright colors may obscured by black marks, a result of oxidation



When fresh from the Earth, the outside of the rhodonite may sometimes be discolored by dark black marks of manganese oxide. These impurities can be removed when carefully dabbing the surface with dilute hydrochloric acid. This will remove the marks and yet does not hurt the mineral. Rhodonite is itself non soluble in acids.

Many rhodonite formations are massive, coarse, and it is these that are faceted for use as jewelry. These specimens are great for polishing. The most popular use for lower grade rhodonite is for beads, and the better quality minerals are usually fashioned into cabochons. The finest grade of Rhodonite samples may also be cut into nice cameo brooches.