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[mrlnavy]

Does anyone have or know where I may be able to buy some Bumble Bee Jasper rough? also looking for Rhodochrosite rough.  Thanks

[Amethyst Rose]

Rhodoco will be in Tucson again this year.  They are the world's largest supplier of rhodochrosite as they used to own the mine.  They typically have tons of rough available but is also sells out the 1st day to one of the Chinese dealers.  You can also contact them in advance of the show and see if they can set some aside or ship out of their existing stock.

Bumblebee I have no idea who is selling that material.

Bob Johannes
The Amethyst Rose

[mrlnavy]

Thanks Rose

[Barclay]

I would be very hesitant to work Bumble Bee Jasper.  The yellow/orange part is orpiment which is arsenic sulfide.  The gray parts may contain metallic arsenic.  Arsenic is toxic is extremely low concentrations.  Your N-95 dust mask does not protect you from the fine mists generated during grinding.  The OSHA exposure limit for arsenic is 10 micrograms/cubic meter of air over an 8 hour day.  That is .000001 grams per cubic meter.  To put that in perspective a paperclip weighs about 1 gram so imagine that paperclip being cut into 100,000 parts and one part is all you are allowed to breathe for a day.  Arsenic has a garlic smell so if you smell garlic while working Bumble Bee Jasper you are way over the limit.  Since arsenic is a metal it does not evaporate so the water mist that settles out today will turn into dry arsenic sulfide for you to pick up for a long time.

[Ryaly2dogs]

Nice perspective there.  So assuming you can ventilate the heck out of your breathing space; how do you assure you don't leave behind residues in your cooling water reservoirs?

[erichK]

Interesting, I've worked Bumble Bee several times, are you saying Arsenic builds up to a toxic level and then you die or is it immediately fatal? This is a serious question as I've a good ten pounds of it.
My workshop is in the open air and I dispose of waste water where it won't harm anything and also clean rock snot in the same manner. Perhaps this helps?

[Barclay]

Below is the link to the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry, which is part of The Centers for Disease control discussing arsenic.  If you are in to getting in the weeds on the technical side check out the health effects data in section 3.  The No Observable Adverse Effects Level (nothing bad happened) in the various studies can get down into tenths, hundredths and thousandths of of a milligram per kilogram of your weight.  Those are really low numbers.  To put it in perspective a small paperclip weighs about a gram.  If you cut that paperclip into 1,000 pieces each one is about a milligram.  If you can visualize the size of one one thousandth of a paperclip you are doing better than me.  Now imagine fractions of that.  Iron (i.e. red and yellow jasper) and copper minerals (i.e. malachite, azurite, turquoise, shattuckite) might have arsenic as a contaminant in low percentages which is probably ok.  Orpiment (the yellow/orange in bumble bee jasper) is arsenic sulfide.  Looking at the atomic weights it is about 66% arsenic.  Since it is a soft mineral and in bumble bee jasper it is soaked into calcite the host rock is soft also.  The gray/black parts of bumble bee jasper likely also contain high concentrations of straight metallic arsenic.

https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp.asp?id=22&tid=3

[ZEKESMAN]

It isn't breathable when wet. As we grind stones wet, we should all be safe from the harmful compounds in rocks. Don't lick them, don't eat until you have washed up. You will be fine. We all die.   Vic

[erichK]

Barclay, Thanks for the link. I will check it out.

Zekesman, that is what I thought.

[Barclay]

Barclay, Thanks for the link. I will check it out.

Zekesman, that is what I thought.
[/quote

Zeke you are wrong.  I challenge you to find any "clean" rock grinding equipment in use.  Wheel type grinders use some kind of water mist system and that water mist gets flung everywhere as the wheel goes around.  For disk type grinders that water is flung to the side of the grinder and makes mist.  Water isn't some kind of magic glue that makes toxic material go away.  It is the transport medium that is taking it out, particles in the water mist.  Once it dries it is available to become dust, just like dirt tracked on a floor.  Since it is a metal it does not evaporate, it stays.

[gemfeller]

If anyone has a stock of Bumblebee they're afraid to cut, please make me an offer.  I'm already old enough to know I won't die young and I've cut plenty of "dangerous" materials in my time.  I'm not saying there are no hazards but the dose makes the poison.

In the words of memorably-named Swiss doctor Philipus Aureorlis Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim-Paracelsus:

"All substances are poisons, there is none which is not a poison.  The right dose differentiates a poison from a remedy." 

[Ranger_Dave]

Exactly. The dose makes the poison. I like to look at the list of ingredients of the stuff you buy in the grocery store. I saw a vegan "chorizo" that had Yellow Prussiate of Soda in it. If they only knew.....   I'm not a chemist, but some of the arsenic in these rocks might be bound up with other chemicals and not a problem.

If I'm cutting or polishing a stone that contains toxic compounds, I use lots of water, wear a dust mask, make sure the windows are open. I'm not dead yet.

[Greg Hiller]

For those with some of this material who still want to make nice cabs from it, one option is to turn the stone into a doublet.  You can get some plate glass or optical quartz if you want higher end.  Glue the glass to the top then just cab the glass part.  I do this a lot with stones that are just too soft to take a good polish, or have different hardnesses within the piece and would end up undercutting a lot. 

[Ryaly2dogs]

Love the reference to that crazy, long-named Swiss chemist.  Gotta love this forum! 

Good points made, it seems managing the risk is the best we can do if we elect to work with the rocks that contains the dangerous chemicals.  Probably dusting down the wheels with a wet cloth would help as well as dumping the water out as opposed to letting it recirculate over and over are good added steps to consider; beyond the ventilation and respiratory protection.

[crashoveroide]

Does anyone have or know where I may be able to buy some Bumble Bee Jasper rough? also looking for Rhodochrosite rough.  Thanks

here some Links https://www.google.lk/search?biw=1366&bih=659&ei=mycEWpO7NMbR0ASxhLjQDQ&q=Bumble+Bee+Jasper+rough+buy&oq=Bumble+Bee+Jasper+rough+buy&gs_l=psy-ab.3...744225.744896.0.745612.2.2.0.0.0.0.236.446.2-2.2.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.0.0....0.u0Q5rQrMJBI