Jim Koepke
09-18-2010, 7:43 PM
My wife is a "rock hound" and loves looking for rocks and talking to others who are into rocks.
Every time time I am with her looking for rocks everything I find seems to be "leaveryte" as in, "leave 'er right there, it ain't nothing."
Well, last night she shows me something she found about a Gem & Mineral show just up the road in Castle Rock. So she drags me along and I am killing time looking at the pretty rocks and such and one booth has tubs of stones with water and stones in them. The water gives people an idea of what the pieces will look like when they are polished. Well some of these pieces had a familiar translucent look to them. I asked the woman that was one of the people working the booth what it was. She said she thought it was flint. Well, I don't know much about these things, but it did not look like flint to me and I mentioned to her that it looked like something that could be used for sharpening knives. She said that is what some people use it for. I thought for awhile and then one of the men working the booth said anything in the tub for $1. It was getting a bit hard to resist. I asked him if he knew what it was. He said the guy called it something he couldn't remember and said it was from Arkansas. I asked if it was novaculite. He said yeah, that's what he called it. So I bought these two pieces and seriously thought about buying more.
161734
Of course, my wife had other ideas when she found out I had some cash. She spent all the rest of it. As I walked around, I started talking to another person and he was curious about the pieces I had and ended up getting some for himself.
When we got home, they were taken out to the shop and a bit of light oil was put on one of the new stones and it seems to cut fast for an oil stone, but that may be that the surface is fresh. It gets things sharp enough to shave.
I guess the two will do, but in years ahead, my butt will likely be sore from kicking myself over not getting more.
Just another example of never knowing what you are going to find unless you look.
jtk
Every time time I am with her looking for rocks everything I find seems to be "leaveryte" as in, "leave 'er right there, it ain't nothing."
Well, last night she shows me something she found about a Gem & Mineral show just up the road in Castle Rock. So she drags me along and I am killing time looking at the pretty rocks and such and one booth has tubs of stones with water and stones in them. The water gives people an idea of what the pieces will look like when they are polished. Well some of these pieces had a familiar translucent look to them. I asked the woman that was one of the people working the booth what it was. She said she thought it was flint. Well, I don't know much about these things, but it did not look like flint to me and I mentioned to her that it looked like something that could be used for sharpening knives. She said that is what some people use it for. I thought for awhile and then one of the men working the booth said anything in the tub for $1. It was getting a bit hard to resist. I asked him if he knew what it was. He said the guy called it something he couldn't remember and said it was from Arkansas. I asked if it was novaculite. He said yeah, that's what he called it. So I bought these two pieces and seriously thought about buying more.
161734
Of course, my wife had other ideas when she found out I had some cash. She spent all the rest of it. As I walked around, I started talking to another person and he was curious about the pieces I had and ended up getting some for himself.
When we got home, they were taken out to the shop and a bit of light oil was put on one of the new stones and it seems to cut fast for an oil stone, but that may be that the surface is fresh. It gets things sharp enough to shave.
I guess the two will do, but in years ahead, my butt will likely be sore from kicking myself over not getting more.
Just another example of never knowing what you are going to find unless you look.
jtk