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[auscarver]

I normally prefer to carve stone from my own country Australia but I recently saw pictures of Indonesian river jasper. As far as I can see it’s much the same as ocean jasper but then colouring may be a bit different. Can have druzy pockets. More like a jasper agate mix. I purchased this 3.2 kg block to carve but After it arrived I can’t bring myself to cutting it up. Awesome. I ordered some cut slabs to carve. It was the best grade I could get and was VERY expensive but I think worth every cent.

[lithicbeads]

I have found that some of this rough doesn't have as much silica as I would like.That seems to be a problem for many Indonesian agate-jaspers. The best is fine but it doesn't have the inherent bit of translucency that much of the original ocean jasper had.Their rough is far too expensive over all considering the quality issues.

[R.U. Sirius]

It looks beautiful, but orbs and the overall colour palette remind me of the good-old Polka Dot agate - which is plentiful and affordable.

[auscarver]

Thanks for the comments. Time will tell about the silica content when I carve and polish this piece. There does seem to be quite a bit of silica in this block. I would not call it a true jasper as it’s quite translucent. Used my very bright jade torch to search for fracture to stay away from. I will carve some slabs I have coming first. My testing material.

[auscarver]

I carved a piece. 90% is easily 7 hardness.But some of the dark green orbs are softer and do undercut - orange peel. Even when working by hand with diamond paper. For cabs with diamond belts it may be better ?. But I’m still happy. I think my double mobius design suits a translucent stone like nephrite jadeite chrysoprase better.

[lithicbeads]

I bought a 50 lb piece that is extremely silicified but have also about 25 more pounds of what is slightly problematic.I bought a lot of Indonesian rough this year and overall silica seems to be an issue no matter what the color or pattern So far the red agate with marcasite seems to be quite similar to the old California material, not perfect but ok, some small unsilicified areas but overall quite good..They wet the rough and it is very hard to see the dull lower silica areas and  some of their rough is simply a disaster.

[Enchantra]

I love this material, have a couple cabochons in it that I need to work with.