February 2002 Newsletter from Gerdus
I had a great beach holiday and could hardly wait to get back on track. I have been running around in January looking for new rocks. It is so exciting, I just miss not going to Tuscon this year. I am looking forward to be in Tuscon in 2003.
From this month I will use a yahoo groups page to manage my mailing list. Do not fear that your name or e-mail will be revealed in my new list. They are safe with us. I hate junk mail and spamming.
I am starting a series on South African mineral localities in March. I then intend to sweep Africa and venture unto other localities later this year.
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We look at the following issues this month.
Should I have a website and what do I want to accomplish with my site?
Cleaning crystals after they are taken out
Micromounting
Silver Hills updates
Should I have a website?
I think that this question must have entered everyones mind at some time.
I think that everybody should have one. It is the cheapest form of advertising and sharing information.
It has become such an easy way to communicate and allows others to see what you are up to.
Start one today!!!
What must my website do for me?
I think that this is where a lot of people miss the mark. The website must have a purpose in mind. What do I mean with that? Are you selling something? Everybody is selling something, ideas or sometimes goods. Determine exactly what you are selling
Who is your target market?
Are you aiming at a local market or are you aiming for a broader worldwide market. With your customer or target market firmly in mind you can work backwards to a mission statement. Your mission statement determines the content of your website. How do I get a mission statement. Imagine that you have unlimited funds and that you can do whatever you want. That vision determines your mission statement. A person without a mission statement is like a boat without a rudder.
How should I structure my content ?
People wants to know what the product can do for them, you always sell the benefits of your product and not the features. Even rocks have benefits. Yes? They enhance your appreciation for the beauty of nature. For many it has become a money making venture and they loose the appreciation of what they are working with. Use more copy than pictures. Words are a more powerful medium of communication than pictures.
What is my final goal ?
The goal must always have your customer in mind. You think of him and how he will perceive what you are doing and then you work back from there. The word me and I should be used very sparingly on any website. You must use the word you twice as much as the word I. It means that the website is aimed at satisfying a need of a person who are browsing and not an ego trip for yourself to try and impress your visitors.
Selling
When you sell an item you must always think of giving your customer value. It cost less to retain an old customer than trying to gain new ones all the time. A happy customer tells two people about how happy he was with your service but an unhappy customer tells ten people about how unhappy he was with your service.
In the coming months we will look at how to build a successful selling site using a few simple principles. Stick with me and become a success in selling on the net. I appreciate any feedback. I aim to give you useful information in the coming months.
Cleaning crystals after they are taken out
This article was forwarded to me about two years ago and I have lost the author's name.
Cleaning crystal is a three step process. First the clay must be washed off the crystal. Second, the iron oxide film coating is removed in an oxalic acid bath. And last, the oxalic acid is washed off the crystal with fresh water. Sounds simple, but there are many ways to do each step depending on the type of crystal (points or clusters) and the quantity you have to clean
Washing the clay off the crystal is not always as easy as it sounds, especially with clusters. Points are fairly easy to rinse with a garden hose. I do not recommend doing it in your kitchen sink because the clay can plug up your sink traps and plumbers are more expensive than your crystal. Most clusters have small cracks and crevices filled with clay. A pressure washer works best to flush out the clay. You can let the clusters dry in the sun for a couple days after washing to shrink the clay and pressure wash again. This process may have to be repeated several times. The cleaner the crystal the more effective the acid bath. Trapped clay prevents the oxalic acid from removing the iron film in that spot. The clay and iron oxide will also turn your acid green and eventually reduce its effectiveness. So do not rush the process and remove as much clay as possible before putting the crystal in acid.
Oxalic acid can be purchased in powder form at most drug stores, cleaning supply houses or rock shops. Prices will vary with quantity but expect to pay $2 to $4 per pound. Mix the oxalic acid with fresh water. The recommended mixture varies from one pound oxalic to two gallons of water up to one pound per five gallons of water. I use one pound per two gallons water. If you see funny green crystals growing in your solution you know you have added more oxalic than can dissolve in the water, you're saturated. This will not hurt anything, it just looks funny. Now you have to decide how fast you want to remove the iron oxide film off your crystal. If you are not in a hurry, you can let them soak in a plastic bucket in the sun for several days. If you are in a hurry you need to heat the acid. I do not recommend building a fire under your plastic bucket. An old crock pot works fine for the smaller crystals. Half of a fifty gallon drum will work for the bigger crystal. Set the drum on cement blocks and build a wood fire under it for a few hours. You can also use a propane burner to heat the acid. I do not recommend cooking your crystal on your kitchen stove and do not put oxalic acid in aluminum pans. The oxalic acid should be heated in a well ventilated area and wear rubber gloves if you stick your hands in the acid or OSHA might get you. And be sure to neutralize your acid with baking soda, lime, or ashes from your fireplace before disposing of it.
When you remove the crystal from the acid you should wash it thoroughly with fresh water. I use a pressure washer to help remove any clay residue. If you're not satisfied with the results, repeat steps one through three. I've had to clean small, needle point clusters as many as six times before I was satisfied with them. Some clusters have trapped clay that cannot be removed except with a hammer. You can get them clean this way but they do not look very nice when you're done.
Trick - The porous sandstone base of some clusters will turn green in dirty, hot oxalic acid. When the sandstone gets hot the pores expand and open allowing the acid to penetrate. When the sandstone cools the pores will close trapping the acid and turning the sandstone green. One method of removing the green color is to re-heat the clusters in acid to open the pores, and while still warm, put them in warm soap water (dish washing soap works fine) to soak for several days in the sun. The soap water will neutralize the acid turning the sandstone base back to its normal color. It's best to use clean, fresh acid when cleaning clusters that have a sandstone base.
Another way to clean sandstone base clusters is to heat the clusters in clean water before putting them in the acid bath. This will open the pores an fill them with water. Then, when you heat the clusters in acid, the acid cannot penetrate the water filled sandstone. Soaking sandstone base clusters in cold (non-heated) acid for several days will also prevent most of the green problem.
For small crystal cleaning jobs you can use a product called "Iron Out". Iron Out is used to remove rust stains from sinks, bath tubs and toilets. Millard wrote, "Hello again, -- We had a lot of trouble finding oxalic acid in this part of the world, so we cleaned our crystals with a compound called "Iron Out" which is a bisulfate cleaner sold at Home Depot. It is normally used to remove iron stains from porcelain or water softeners, and is fairly cheap--about $3.90 for 18 oz. of powder. It was quick and did a very good job. We used about 3 TBS per cup of water and cleaned a few points at a time. Don't know how it compares to oxalic, but our finished points look good. One bottle did our bucket full."
My new crystal mine is producing beautiful crystal but it is coated in a very heavy iron and limonite. To clean it efficiently I've had to use muratic acid. Muratic acid is nasty and dangerous stuff so I would only recommend using it as a last resort....and obey all the safety precautions. I made a "crystal still" to heat the muratic acid in a plastic stock tank
Micromounting
Micromounting is the collecting minerals that is best viewed under a microscope. I am printing an article by Quintin Wight which I really enjoyed, I hope you will enjoy it as well.
Secrets Under the Scope
By Quintin Wight
There is something about micromounting which seems to mystify collectors of cabinet specimens. Micromounters are looked upon as some sort of secret society which does furtive things under microscopes for inexplicable reasons. Well, there certainly are secrets under the microscope. In fact the biggest secret of all is why micromounters do what they are doing in the first place. "Why can't they collect 'real' specimens?" the cabinet collectors ask themselves.
Why indeed! There are nine responses to that question. Taken individually, each is compelling enough, but taken together, they form a solid foundation upon which micromounters have built their hobby.
Before examining those responses, however, we should take a look at micromounters themselves. In the first place, among mineral collectors, micromounters tend to be older than average. In the second, they tend to be more knowledgeable about minerals. Third, they have more experience with collecting, and fourth, they are serious enough about minerals to have invested heavily in expensive equipment. In short, the micromounters have often been through the rest of the hobby, and have finally settled on micromounting as the final solution. Now consider the nine responses to the question "why?". Remember, above all, that a good mineral collection is a collection of representative crystals. Massive material, with the minor exception of the very rare, is acceptable only for cheap and dirty. It's the paperback of mineral collecting. Crystals are the hardbounds and first editions. The first response, therefore, is that many minerals come in small crystals only. It is impossible to make a significant systematic mineral collection without including some very small crystals. Very small crystals need a microscope for proper examination.
The second response is that small crystals have a better probability of being closer to textbook "perfection" than large ones. That's because they don't occupy as much space, so they don't crowd each other and become distorted. They are also less likely to be affected by mechanical forces or changes in the environment over their period of growth.
The third is that large crystals have a higher probability of being chipped or broken while being collected. Small crystals are often protected by the walls of the cavity in which they developed. Collectors of micro minerals usually don't have to worry about how many wilbers a crystal has. (A wilber is the largest amount of damage a crystal can sustain and still be acceptable to connoisseur collector David Wilber. It is very small. Two wilbers equate to one ding, and so on up the scale.)
The fourth is that more features of crystals and their associations are visible under the microscope. The micromounter therefore has the capability of extracting a greater amount of information from his specimens. The microscope reveals minute inclusions, tiny surface changes, vicinal faces, faint twinning lines, and other features not necessarily visible on a macro scale. Its judicious use amplifies knowledge as well as vision. Response five is that it is much easier for a collector to find good small crystals in the field than to find good large ones. Fans of self-collected minerals know the difficulty inherent in finding cabinet specimens. If the mine is in operation, the miners usually get them first; if the mine is abandoned, the good big ones are long gone or require intense work to retrieve. Operating mines pay little attention to micro material, however, and even mines abandoned for years can produce good small specimens with little labour. In Germany, I have collected excellent micro specimens right at the roadside from mines closed forty years earlier. The mines at Leadhills in Scotland closed long ago, but the dumps are full of gorgeous micro crystals.
The question of cost arises in six. Obviously, a one millimetre quartz crystal costs a great deal less than a ten centimetre one. Although micromounts having special significance can sell for a thousand dollars or more (a unique specimen of a rare mineral mounted by the person for whom it was named is an example), most are less than ten dollars. A single, common, ten centimetre quartz crystal can go for twice that amount, while a Sweet Home Mine rhodochrosite of ten centimetres is well into the thousands. Gatherings of micromounters, usually referred to as symposia, after the original Baltimore Mineral Society Symposium of September 14, 1957, often have long tables lavishly piled with specimens to be given away. It is a mark of honour that a field collector of micro material keeps enough for his own needs and exchanges, and brings the excess to a symposium to be given away. Micromounting is one of the few hobbies in which one can build an entire collection for free.
Seven is in some ways an extension of six. Many collectors exchange minerals with others. A package containing two dozen micromounts can weigh less than 100 grams and be sent airmail, while a single cabinet specimen may require a parcel shipping agent and many dollars' worth of packing material. Exchanges of micromounts are frequent, easy, and cheap. I have made exchanges with collectors in North America, Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, all at very little cost.
Response eight is that there is more than simple identification skill required to make a micromount. Some people plop a blob of sticky stuff in a micromount box and press the specimen on top, but that isn't true micromounting; it is mere packaging. Micromounting in its true sense incorporates aesthetic value as well as scientific. In a true micromount, the specimen is selected for its appearance as well as its mineralogical value. It is then mounted permanently in a properly prepared box, using the appropriate glues and pedestal materials. In a properly finished micromount, there should be no glue visible, and the pedestal should be as unobtrusive as possible. It is oriented to show the most desirable features, and at a standard height to minimize refocusing of the microscope between specimens. Finally, the box is labeled with all the information necessary to preserve the identity of the specimen and the locality from which it came. Mounting in this fashion requires skill, considerable dexterity, and a sense of fitness and proportion. The late Neal Yedlin, a true giant among micromounters (and also among men - he was large in all directions) and member of the Micromounters Hall of Fame, once purchased a collection of some 3,200 micromounts from an estate. He kept 200 for his own use, distributed 1,000 to other collectors, and destroyed the remaining 2,000 as not meeting his standards. Neal had a well developed sense of aesthetics. Finally, at least for our purposes, is the concept that a micromount collection needs little space. That is true in the sense that 1,000 standard micromount boxes will fit within one cubic foot. For those few who buy their collections, it is completely true. Unfortunately, for those of us who collect our own in the field, it is totally false. The collection itself may occupy a couple of cubic feet, but the mountain of broken rock brought home to search for tiny crystals at leisure fills the basement to capacity, and overflows into other rooms as the years go by. The home of the late Paul Seel, another member of the Micromounters Hall of Fame, had boxes of minerals in every room, under his bed, and even on each step of the stairway to the bedrooms. It goes with the territory.
There may be other, equally valid, responses to the question "why?", but the nine above are sufficient for most of us. Having established those reasons, we might then have a look at what a micromounter actually needs to carry on with the hobby. Clearly, the first thing is a microscope. Microscopes are expensive. Very expensive. They are among the few modern scientific tools that have appreciated in value. A microscope which sold brand new for $300 twenty years ago might fetch $500 or more on the used market today. Still, a reasonable microscope for a beginner does not have to break the bank. In fact, many micromounters, well established today, began with a simple hand lens. There are several good, simple, fixed-optic microscopes available commercially at prices in the $300-$400 range. One excellent Russian model can be had, complete with built-in camera and lights, for roughly $1,000.
The next consideration is illumination. A small, transformer-driven high intensity light will do for a start. Fortunately, some of the simple microscopes have illumination systems built-in. While they do not match the super fibre-optic devices used in photomicrography, they are perfectly adequate for general micromounting. Think back: your first car probably wasn't a Rolls-Royce, but it got you there and back again. A really good light is essential once one is deeply involved in the hobby, but it's wise to begin slowly and get a proper idea of the pros and cons before investing a bundle.
Other than the two major items, microscope and illuminator, one requires only a handful of relatively cheap material: some appropriate boxes (traditionally, sized to fit within a one-inch (2.5 cm) cube, some matte black paint, a couple of types of glue, some pedestal material (anything from plastic rods and birch toothpicks through cork and balsa to porcupine quills and cat whiskers), tweezers, labelling material, and, of course, some mineral specimens of an appropriate size.
Achieving "an appropriate size" for a mineral specimen need not be difficult. A standard rock hammer, judiciously manipulated, will produce a reasonable number of them. For stubborn small pieces which should be smaller still, a set of tile-cutting pliers with tungsten carbide chisel tips will do very nicely. Micromounters who are in the business to stay often use various sizes of hydraulic or screw-operated rock breakers, but those, like fancy illuminators, are things which come in later years. From that point on things are relatively simple: find a good specimen, size it properly, glue it to a blackened pedestal, cut the pedestal to the proper height, glue the pedestal to the box, affix a label, and voila!
I began this article by saying that there were secrets involved. There are. Micromounters have one which is truly hidden from others. The micromounter who has just cracked open a rock containing a tiny cavity is the first human being ever to see what Nature hid inside twenty, a hundred, or a thousand million years ago. Some crystals are clear, some are coated, some are brilliant, some are dull, but all are new, and fresh, and exciting. A new world opens up under the microscope.
"Capital isn't so important in business. Experience isn't so important. You can get both these things. What is important is ideas. If you have ideas, you have the main asset you need, and there isn't any limit to what you can do with your business and your life." -- Harvey Firestone
"Doing the same thing over and over, yet expecting different results, is the definition of 'crazy'." -- Unknown
"There ain't no rules around here. We're trying to accomplish something." -- Thomas Edison
"It isn't the incompetent who destroy an organization. The incompetent never get in a position to destroy it. It is those who achieved something and want to rest upon their achievements who are forever clogging things up." -- F.M. Young
UPDATES for the month of January 2002
January was rather slow on our side. I was on holiday until 15 January 2002 and then had to start shopping for new collections again. I took a trip up to Messina and had a great trip. My next trip is up to Zimbabwe in February. I am after more fine alexandrites and euclase. I will also do a trip to Namibia soon. The good news is that I now have established a supply of Orange river quartz at good prices. I also have acquired a few ajoites and papagoite. I might be getting in some tanzanite specimens. Hold thumbs. These will also be listed in the month to come. Let us make 2002 a positive year with lots of joy and laughter.
Bless you
Gerdus