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[Lunchbox]

I was reading on the forums and some folks are using a layer of optical quartz over the object they have made(belt buckle).  What is optical quartz and where would I get it?

[rocks2dust]

Optical quartz is just inclusion-free, colorless quartz. You can buy natural or lab-produced synthetic slices. Synthetic colorless spinel or sapphire are also occasionally used for pieces that get hard wear. Although some lapidary supply places carry the above for doing opal doublets, these are also used for watch faces, so that might be another place to check/compare prices. Depending on the stone you are covering, quartz that isn't completely inclusion-free may also work. Some people also use cheaper fused quartz (aka, quartz glass), but that is quite a bit softer than quartz itself, and would scratch in a belt buckle.

[bobby1]

I only use optical quartz for my doublets and triplets. It isn't expensive and is always flawless. A few years ago a friend of mine bought a very large block of fused quartz and made an 18" sphere from it. It also is flawless. He gave me some of the cutoffs from the sphere making process and I tried it for caps but it is as stated very soft so I didn't continue using it. The owner of a rock shop in the Bay Area carried the synthetic quartz but he shut the shop down a few years back. He still deals in the material, though. He prices it at $10 a pound.
Bob

[bobby1]

This is what the synthetic material looks like. This piece is about 2-1/2" thick, 4" wide and 6" long. The surfaces are shallow bubbles. It comes in smaller sizes. 
Bob
http://s151.photobucket.com/user/Rocksbob/media/New%20Photos/SyntheticQuartz5.jpg.html