PEACHFRONT SPEAKS

Recent entries july 4, 2018 - 2018-07-04 the triangle continues of courtney, boobear, & nyota - 2018-07-03 Cookie so cute telling, "Hello" to sparrows - 2018-07-01 lovebirb in love - 2018-06-30 wren with fluffffff - 2018-06-24 Read my new book, The 10 Best Things You Can Do For Your Bird at Amazon or at many other fine distributors like Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, and more. By public demand, and after a delay of an embarrassing number of years, I've finally put my notorious essay, Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman, free on the fabulous internets. A bibliography of my published books and stories. Here's a simple card-counting FAQ to get you up to speed on the basics. Here's the true story of the notorious DD' blackjack team, told for the first time on the fabulous internets. No other team went from a starting investor's bankroll of zero to winning millions of dollars. A Sadean take on Asimov's classic Three Laws of Robotics can be found in Roger Williams' NOW REVIEWED ON SLASHDOT!!! The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. Adult readers only please -- explicit sex and violence. For updates on the "Dead Tree Project" and other topics, you may visit the official fan site, Passages in the Void.. My Bird Lists -- My Louisiana State Life List, My Yard List and, tah dah, My World Life List. HEY! What happened to the Peachfront Conure Files? The world's only OFFICIAL Peachfront Conure site now features free peachfront conure coverage, including a magazine length Intro to Conures previously published in American Cage-Bird Magazine, now free on the web. I offer the best free Peachfront Conure information on the internet. If you have great Peachfront Conure info, stories, or photos to share, contact me so I can publicize your pet, your breeding success, your great photograph, etc. on my site. Thanks.

peachfront's rambling and non-expert page about labradorite, spectrolite, "blue fire" 2010-09-08 - 1:45 p.m. Even if you don't want to read this entire background story, there is one fact that you need to know about buying rough Labradorite. You have to orient the stone properly to catch the light. It is also a stone that fractures somewhat easily. There are also, very often, large areas of stone that do not show the play of light. THIS MEANS THAT THERE IS ALWAYS WASTE INVOLVED WHEN YOU BUY ROUGH LABRADORITE. If you expect a solid "opalized" boulder, just quietly click away now, because you will be disappointed. Sometimes, you will have to cut, trim, and turn a surprisingly large amount of stone just to get one perfect cabochon, sphere, or marble. ALWAYS buy more than you think you will need. ESPECIALLY if you want to make larger cabs or spheres. I'll say it again: There is ALWAYS waste when working Labradorite, so I don't want you to be surprised. all photos © 2010 by elaine radford the play of colors known as labradorescence OK, now here's the optional part of the story-- The Story of Peachfront's Labradorite Collection Just What is Labradorite and, by the way, What is Spectrolite? Well, Labradorite is a plagioclase feldpar (a large family of minerals) that mostly looks pretty gray and unremarkable at a glance. It has a strong orientation, so that if you look at the material from the right angle, then suddenly you see a remarkable play of light. The colors can be a rainbow, from gold to copper to green, or they can be bright deep blue, or flashing greeny-blue, or, well, you get the idea. It seems as if the stone has caught fire and now is flashing these various colors. As for Spectrolite, I don't know if I want to get into that debate. Some people say that Spectrolite is a jeweler's name for Labradorite, and I think that's probably correct. Some people use the term Labradorite and Spectrolite interchangeably, and I don't have a real problem with that. I saw a site or two that claimed that it could be Spectrolite only if it was from Madagascar, which I consider to be bull hockey of the first order, but that's just my humble opinion. In my posts, and on my site, if I call it "Spectrolite," it means that I think you can get some good jewelry grade material out of it because I think I has some areas of very nice color. How do you Cut and Polish Labradorite? The most important step is to make sure you have oriented the stone properly. You will need a very strong source of light, such as a strong halogen lamp, or else the direct sun at noon. You will need some water. Dip the stone in the water and then turn it, slowly, until you see the areas of flash. Plan your cuts so that the flash runs across the full face of the stone. Nothing else matters if you don't orient the stone correctly! Remember, the play of colors depends on the light. You want to cut the stone so that the light is always hitting it at the best angle. Slowly, slowly, before you make ANY cuts on your labradorite, turn it in the direct sun and make your plan. Ask yourself how the stone will eventually be used. If most people will be looking down on the stone -- it will be in a bracelet -- then you might orient the stone differently than if most people will be looking head on at the stone, as when it is being worn as a pendant. I myself recommend the stone for pendants and earrings, not for rings and bracelets, because feldspar may chip, and if the wearer is active with her hands, she might one day damage the stone by accident. I haven't actually had this happen, probably because I only wear labradorite pendants or beads in necklaces, but since it's a feldspar and does have a possible tendency to chip, it's something to think about when you're planning the piece. Again, because the stone has a cleavage, and it sometimes gets these small chips in it somehow, I much prefer to cab the stone, rather than to try to tumble-polish the stone. It cuts pretty fast, just don't get impatient, because if it goes flying off somewhere, yep, it's going to get chipped, and then you'll have to cut it down to a smaller size. When we first acquired this material, we hired an old boy in Texas who was in his 80s or 90s (I'm not kidding) to make some spheres from the material. Lord, they're just beautiful. Unfortunately, he passed away, without leaving behind any clues about how he got such a beautiful polish on this material, so I can't tell you how he did that. But if you already know how to create great spheres with feldspar material, this stuff is fantastic. Where did it come from? Well, it's all mixed up from three sources, Labrador, Finland, and North Carolina, and here's why. About two decades ago, we simply bought a large lot from a sales rep who was trying to clear out a very large estate. This material was sourced as being from Labrador, Canada, or else from Finland. In fact, I had the impression that the sales rep thought Labrador was in Finland, but, however it happened, this material was already all mixed up with no way to separate it again. At about the same time, we were asked to help out a classic little old lady widow by buying her deceased husband's stone-cutting equipment. The price was a good deal for us, and the lady needed the cash, so everyone was happy. As we were loading up the truck, she explained that she didn't want strangers coming to her house, so would we be willing to haul away her husband's cutting rough? "It's good stuff, there's star rubies in there," she promised. Would we ever! We called for a second truck and loaded it up. The story goes that she and her husband had traveled around North America, including Mexico and Canada, in an RV, in 1969, on a year-long rock-collecting expedition. The promised rubies were, of course, the old favorites from North Carolina, and maybe the other shoe should have dropped right then, but I just assumed that the large crate of labradorite was from Labrador, Canada. Anyone who could take an RV into Mexico in those days wouldn't have any trouble hitting the happy highways of Canada, right? Anyway, I'm afraid that the only stone the lady recognized was the rubies, so she couldn't tell us the origin of anything else. Her job as far as the rock-hounding goes seemed to be restricted to wearing the largest and best of the star rubies on a prominent finger. ;-) Later, another older gentleman explained that he recognized some of our labradorite as being sourced from "Chunky Gal Mountain," a one-time popular collecting area also in North Carolina. Because of the large number of other North Carolina minerals I found in this collection, including even a couple of North Carolina emeralds in matrix, I believe he almost has to be correct. The only catch is, by that time, I had already put both batches of Labradorite together, and I can't figure out myself which is which. Argh. However, to make a long story short, all of the material is either from North America or Finland, and none of the material is from Madagascar. Yep, I went to Madagascar, but I didn't have any time to check out the mineral areas -- too busy being in the first group of tourists to see the once-thought-extinct Madagascar Serpent-Eagle. (Had to stick that little brag in there, sorry.) So there you have it. I have a mix of material from Finland, Labrador, and North Carolina, but none from Madagascar. back - next All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2002-2017 by Elaine Radford