Duffy, Dean's nephew was hired to help slabb the 100s of pounds of "saw rock". Large pieces of rock with great turquoise in it.
Blue Lightnig Turquoise, also known a Royston Lightning Turquoise from the Lightning Ridge Mine.
The first 100 plus slabbed stones being backed with epoxy resein mixed with benonite to make it thick. I only have 900 stones to back!
Some the best Royston Blue Turquoise. These rough stones are about 2 inches wide by 3 to 3 1/2 long.
About five pounds of "float" pieces of all kinds: Royston Blue, spiderweb from the Danny Boy, some solid light blue and dark to green Royton turquoise.
I just laid out about 100 pieces to get an idea of what 100 pieces of our turquoise would look like. There is a wide range of colors, solids, Blue lightning, and spider web.
When I arrived at the Otteson Mining Office I was presented with six buckets full of Royton Blue, Danny Boy Spider Web, and the new Lighing Blue Turquoise. This was from the first 7 days of mining with three more days of mining to go!
More backed stones. I am trying to back an even assortment of the Royston Blue, the spiderweb from the Danny Boy Mine and the Lightning Ridge Blue lightning.
Some very nice spider web from the Danny Boy Mine.
As I grind this piece the matrix will grind off exposing much more of the spider web.
This piece does not look very good right now, but as I ground it the brown matrix will begin to expose the blue spider web under it.
A piece of the solid blue, Royston Blue.
These are just some of the stones that I coarse ground, they are ready for sanding after they have any pits filled.
More of the coarse ground stones, ready for sanding after they have any pits filled. These are part of the first one hundred stones that I will cut and use to show the general 100 stones.
Many stones do not look worth cutting, but this is due to slabbing the rock close to the seam of turquoise, and then backing it so this matrix can be ground off.
I am grinding this stone to remove the matrix.
I am using the combo unit and using a the 220 diamond wheel.
Now it is time to shape the stone!
Well, actually it is time to redop the stone as it has come off the dop stick, then shape and grind it into a cabochon.
This some of the fairly rare robin's egg blue that comes from the Royston Mine, just as it comes from he mine, complietely natural turquoise.
A couple more nice stones that show just how much range of color and variety that comes from the Royston Mines in Tonopah and will be included in the 100 stones that someone will receive.
Duffy grinding one of the first of 1,000 stones that will be divided among the first 10 investors in this project. He is using the regular grinding wheel while I am using the new diamond unit.
The new diamon combo unit that I purchased so that I could cut and polish these stones.
(Or course, that is my Diet Pepsi in the red cup.)
