Monthly Archives: November 2012

Amethyst Glitz

“Can you make me a pendant that will match this”? Of course I can, but why would Bonnie want another piece of jewelry when she has hundreds of pendants to choose from?

It all started on Black Friday (that was actually Thanksgiving Thursday this year). She had a coupon for a local Department Store. I’ll man up and admit that I saw a dressy coat that I thought would look nice on my bride. It had a great design and Amethyst colors. We both like Amethyst. Paired with a glimmering silver blouse, this jacket looked really great.

Unbeknown to me, the jewelry maker”s wife had NOTHING to wear with these garments, and this is where I come in. After I realized the wife has NO suitable jewelry, and asked me in a nice way to help out, I actually thought about making something like I’ve never done before. Here’s the dumb part: I announced on The Facebook I was going to make this pendant so my jewelry-less wife would have something to actually wear to our Rock club Christmas Party IN THREE DAYS!

Bonnie thought a white gemstone with some Amethyst beads that she rooted out of her beadroom stash, would look nice. We thought at first white druzy would work, but she settled on the wonderfully rare shiny white Victoria Stone. Argentium Sterling was the metal of choice. You can read the intriguing story about Victoria Stone in my blog at http://www.snobappealjewelry.com .

It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to make and more time figuring out HOW I was going to do it. After a good nap, I arose with my mind clear and a picture in my mind of what the pendant would look like. I usually do not use colored Aluminum wire, but Bonnie does with her beads. Alas, she did not have any purple (I thought she had every beading item available), so we made a not-so-quick-trip to craft stores (notice I said stores with an S) to locate this wire so I could continue.

After a few hours of watching various “Redneck” shows and wire wrapping, the pendant emerged from the workbench. A good hint is if you are using your mind creating jewelry, you can still watch mindless TV, but not anything deep like “Polar Bears Discuss How to Properly Prepare Seal Sushi”. 1. Wait for seal head to pop up in the hole. 2. Snatch seal from the hole and eat, no seasoning necessary.

OK, so I got off my point; deal with it. Maybe the reason that this piece of jewelry looks unlike anything I’ve done before is because of watching Redneck Duck Calls, or some such show while making it.

Since I was clearly focused on my task, Bonnie took this opportunity to vacuum, do laundry, make cookies, and in general stay clear of my area, and not interrupt my concentration. I do tend to get grumpy when interrupted at key points, and sometimes she can tell what’s key, and what isn’t.

I awoke this morning with ideas that came to me in dreams on how to finish this project. I got right on it even before coffee! The jewelry is actually finished ladies and gentlemen. I could go into a lot of details on how I pulled this one off, but it’s Christmas and the stores are open, and I have to set up for our Open House tomorrow. Remember, shop small or shop on this website (trust me, we’re small). Now enjoy, what Bonnie calls, “The glitziest pendant you’ve ever made”.

Here is my bride Bonnie, happily wearing the pendant that "matched" her new duds.

Close-up of Bonnie's Pendant. Those Swarovski Crystals really add glitz to this Party Pendant. White Victoria Stone & Amethyst Beads.

Fordite (Motor City Agate)

A nice chunk of Fordite and what I made from it.

Over the past few months I have been able to make purchases and trade for several nice pieces of Fordite. I have blogged about Fordite in the past, but haven’t talked about it for some time.

A new supply Fordite cabochons ready for jewelry.

I thought rose gold and silver looked good with Fordite of this color.

Fordite is a generic term for the build-up of overspray on non-vehicle areas within automotive, boat, and private paint booths. Much of the paint, after it reached a certain depth, was removed from overspray areas and hauled to landfills. Some paint chunks were taken home by employees.

Designed shapes flow with the Fordite.

Eventually some creative individuals realized that this waste paint could be re-cycled (but we did not use the term recycle back then). It was discovered that the chunks of scavenged material were especially suited for colorful jewelry!

How did this guy get into this slab of Fordite?

As cars, for example, flowed along the assembly line on assembly stands they were actually spray painted by REAL people (not robots). The car bodies were mounted on assembly stands that transported them along the line. Overspray saturated these stands, walls, and pipe surfaces. Each car was a different color, so excess paint was sprayed on the walls of the paint booths to get it out of the sprayer. The sprayer was reloaded with a different color, and the procedure was repeated. Paint build-up could be an inch thick or more.

Side 1 of a Fordite.

Side 2 of the same Fordite. I like both sides so I’ll make it so someone can wear it with either side out.

I like this piece. It is rare to find green in Fordite.

You would think that paint certainly is not suitable for jewelry, but this paint from the 60’s and early 70’s was very tough. Remember that the enamel was baked after each color was applied, so while the vehicle was getting baked, so was the overspray on the assembly stand. Layers were baked over and over, perhaps hundreds of times. Also the paint contained lead. Lead was added to allow for speed drying, pigment, increased durability, to resist corrosion causing moisture, and to retain a fresh appearance. I’ve been told that the paint “flowed” better with the lead. Bottom line is that Fordite is tuff stuff. I use my diamond wheels to form this paint just as I do with other stones.

At an art show I had one lady ask me in a sarcastic voice, “Does this paint have lead in it?”. I could see she was just “testing” me, so I asked her “Why, are you going to eat it?”. My counselor and wife admonished me later, but it was fun anyway. I think back to all the lead paint I ate as a kid. I couldn’t resist the lure of paint peeling off the wall! It’s a wonder any babyboomer is still alive. Virtually ALL paint had lead in it “back in the day”. You can be sure that the small lead content of your jewelry is certainly not the biggest threat to your health!

By the mid-70’s public safety rules from various Departments, regarding health and job safety, were enacted limiting lead exposure in the workplace, and robots began painting cars using powder coating, virtually eliminating Fordite, as the paint no longer built up on the assembly stands. Fordite’s days came to an end when powder coating was mandated in most applications. There are still things painted the old fashioned way. Non-metallic body parts come to mind, so in some manufacturing you still can acquire layered paint pieces.

It’s amazing to me the variety in pattern that can be coaxed out of a single piece of Fordite. The real secret of Fordite is that it may not come out of a Ford Plant. I cannot tell where exactly where most of my Fordite came from (I often call my Fordite “Motor City Agate” if I do not know it’s source), and neither can 90% of jewelry makers, although some car collectors can actually match colors to old cars. I try my hardest to find matching color charts for my antique Fordite.

This rare antique paint is quite expensive to buy, if you can find it. It’s a great day when I find someone with a stash of this wonderful old material. You also could own a piece of Fordite jewelry or give one as a gift. A wide variety of folks admire the Motor City agates–because they love the bright colors, the cool designs, they worked for an automotive company, or they just love jewelry. This is a surprising media, and is a good conversation starter. Which is your favorite wire-wrapped Fordite pendant?

Is your Jewelry “REALLY” Rare?

Old Crazy Lace from Mexico was turned it this wild set.

What is it that makes “old material” in the lapidary world more valuable than what is being mined today? Sometimes the value is true because a desirable area has been completely cleaned out, and sometimes the values are false or artificially created by a controlled market. The nature of people is to covet anything that is scarce, as we see when morons run over each other at Christmas to get that rare (?) toy or electronic device.

Rare Victoria Stone. This one is light blu, but they come in other colors also.

There are actually some lapidary materials that are rare, and some material, like Diamonds, that are artificially rare. Much of the materials I make jewelry from really are rare. They include Victoria Stone (the art of creating this was lost in the late 1970’sand has not been rediscovered), Wingate Agate (the land is now in a highly restricted military bombing range area),

Wingate Pass Agate from the China Lake Military Reserve, Death Valley California.

Old stock Cocoxenite from Brazil

Cocoxenite from Brazil, and old stock Mexican Crazy Lace Agate.

Mexican Crazy Lace Agate is still available, but not with the beautiful pastel yellows, pinks, and that most sought after material, that contained beautiful caramel opal sometimes found years ago. The only chance of getting this really old agate from the 5o’s and 60″s is to find an old collection. The primary reason I often buy up old rock collections is to obtain just a few pieces of really rare material that may be hidden in the collection grandpa had.

The "new" Cocoxinite (called Super 7) from Brazil is nice, but just not great, like the old stuff

The "new" Cocoxenite (called Super 7) from Brazil is nice, but just not great, like the old stuff

OLD Crazy Lace is jaw dropping. The caramel is all opal!

The reverse side. AMAZING! Two pendants in one.

I just finished a gorgeous pendant and matching set of earrings from some old Crazy Lace. I am sharing this set with you as well as some pictures of other old Crazy Lace pieces I have in stock.

I have found really colorful old Crazy Lace Agate at the shows in Quartzite and Tucson by carefully searching. One time several years ago, as I was walking by one of the hotel rooms at Tucson, I spotted old Cocoxinite through the window. The guy had acquired some old material in an estate sale. How happy I was, as well as other knowledgeable rockhounds, to find this rare, long time extinct, gemstone. The next day I went back to get more, but guess what? IT WAS ALL GONE! I quickly learned my lesson. If you see rare stuff, get all you can or others will scarf it up.

Colorful Datolites from the old copper mines are also getting harder and harder to find. The rarest is the almost impossible to find Centennial Blue Datolite. Also brown datolite from the old Arcadian Mine that now is under the Houghton Airport. I actually have some of this brown datolite, but I haven’t figured out how to make attractive jewelry from it.

Iron Lace Agate from the Republic Mine.

A small quantity of fortification agate was discovered at the Republic open pit iron mine in the metamorphic iron formations back in the mid-70’s. I have found some of this rare agate in old collections owned by veteran members of the Ishpeming Rock Club. After this agate was discovered members of the Ishpeming Club named this material Iron Lace Agate. A few rockhunting field trips were made to the mine and all this agate was collected. There may be more at the mine, but tons of rocks would have to be moved to find it. This stuff is impossibly rare.

Blue Centennial Datolite. Talk about rare.

There are many other really rare gemstones throughout the world, and I can only say that if you see it in a jewelry store, it probably is NOT what I consider rare. I concentrate on offering my customers rare and unusual gem material. Some of the rocks I have for making jewelry are so rare you may never see another person wearing the same gem.

Yellow Cat Petrified Wood, although rare, can still be found. This bright red wood was used by Tiffany for their jewelry years ago.

I have scores of truly atypically scarce stones. Call me if you want something unusual. I might have it in stock.

After I finished this blog, Bonnie told me there was just too much information (and pictures) for one blog. I told her you all could handle it. Picture-wise, I think this may be my best blog ever for jaw-dropping images.