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[Kaljaia]

There's a patch of big pink stilbite crystals in some welded tuff high up behind an annoyingly steep sandy slope. I wanted to try something with some stilbite though, so off we trekked today!
Got some good stuff I think.







I am not sure if the crystal will hold together when cut flat across the base or not, and I won't experiment with the really nice ones on the plates but I have a handful of loose crystals from the pocket too. Has anyone here ever tried to work stilbite?

[irockhound]

Wonderful find!   A good day to be sure.

[Felicia]

Nice! Good sized, too.

[Kaljaia]

Some cleaned up pictures:






I don't have a textile spot cleaner yet but I'm being told that's optimal for cleaning crystals. Just not sure if I want to drop $80 on one at this moment :P
The hope is to trim the base of loose big crystals and incorporate them into some projects using stain-glass foiling and solder. I don't have a safe torch setup so soldering irons are where it's at right now. I re-checked ONX because I wasn't paying attention when I went up there and this is on BLM, so if these work the way I want them to, I may invest in a claim on it next year. I'm being told these are very large, well-formed crystals for central Oregon stilbite; most big display stilbite seems to be coming from India these days and while I have nothing against import I like the challenge of all local materials!