Summer Break 2015 | JWJ Rocks

Sorry folks for not updating my blog site sooner, but I have been taking a break from the heat that came on strong in July, staying inside and working on my collection, adding to it here and there, and cleaning up the quartz I collected in Arkansas the weekend of July 4th and the fluorite that we found at the Eureka Mine during our second machine dig end of June. I still have some cleaning to do on the fluorite, having completed step one with the Super Iron Out and now moving some pieces to the diluted down Muriatic Acid solution soon. I`m not even sure that Step 2 will remove the coating that is covering some of the cubes, because quite frankly, I am not even sure what the coating is made up of, but Muriatic Acid is as far into the cleaning process as I will go, so if that doesn`t clean it off, then it will just remain on the cubes. Here are some of the cubes cleaned up well by the Super Iron Out process…keep in mind, these are mostly small sized clusters, many of them smaller than palm sized and some are only the size of a golf ball….I used one of my high power halogen flashlights behind them to backlight them with…..

…and here are some of the quartz crystals I brought back from Arkansas the weekend of July 4th…some of these are available if anyone is interested and I have some small yard rocks available too. I have some local friends that like quartz for their rock gardens like I do, which is why I brought a few more back this trip…..I can send them to you by flat rate box if you are interested in some….the first four photos show the yard rocks….

…and these are medium sized clusters of quartz from Collier Creek Mine…I purchased them from my friends Bill and Faith who now operate a rock shop about ten miles east of Mt Ida on Hwy 280, called Blue Moon Crystals…they have the best crystal baskets around too…