Friday, January 26, 2018

February 2018 Del Air Calendar of Events

Del Air’s February 2018 Calendar

01: General Meeting: 7:30 pm in our regular meeting room.
14: Valentine’s Day: Don’t forget your Sweetheart.
15: Board Meeting: Bob & Maxine Dearborn's Home.
15: Chinese Lunar New Year: Year of the Brown Earth Dog.  
19: President’s Day: Happy Birthday George & Abe.

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General Meeting: Thursday Feb 01, 2018
The meeting begins at 7:30 pm in our regular meeting room at:
Northridge United Methodist Church - 9650 Reseda Blvd, Northridge, CA 91324           Guests are always welcome at our meetings and events however our annual Holiday Party in December requires a prepaid reservation in advance.
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February 2018 Program:
"Tips & Tricks at the Jewelers Bench"
Presented by: Bradford Smith 


(Bradford was unable to give his presentation at our January meeting so he has kindly agreed to re-schedule for February)

Bradford Smith is a studio jeweler, lapidary, and jewelry instructor based in Santa Monica, California. His teaching career started with eight years in the Los Angeles school system. In 2009, he designed and built a new jewelry facility at Santa Monica's Adult Education Center where he continues to teach Adult-Ed classes in beginner to advanced jewelry fabrication

After retiring and moving to California, Brad discovered rockhounding in the desert and the lapidary arts. That led him to cutting gemstones, then to silversmithing, etc. He’s been a happy camper ever since.

Brad is a long-time member of the Culver City Rock Club, the Metal Arts Society of Southern California, and the ASPCA. He enjoys photography, rockhounding, scuba diving and robotics.

His how-to jewelry book started nearly four years ago as a homework assignment in a social media class. "Bench Tips for Jewelry Making" is now on Amazon, and has more than 4700 followers on the Facebook Bench Tips page plus distribution to 213 club newsletters in six countries.
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Support our Hobby.....Attend a Local Show....

March 2 - 4: NEWARK, CA
Mineral & Gem Society of Castro Valley
Newark Pavilion
6430 Thornton Avenue
Hours: Fri & Sat 10 - 6; Sun 10 - 5
Contact: Cathy Miller, 510-887-9007
Email: showchair@mgscv.org
Website: www.mgscv.org
March 2 - 11, IMPERIAL, CA
Imperial Valley Gem & Mineral Society
California Mid-Winter Fair & Fiesta
200 East Second Street
Hours: Weekends noon - 10 pm; Weekdays 4 pm - 10 pm
Contact: John Pyle, Jr.   (760) 562-3453
Website: www.ivgms.org

March 3 - 4: ARCADIA, CA
Monrovia Rockhounds
L. A. County Arboretum & Botanical Garden
301 North Baldwin Avenue
Hours: 9:00 - 4:30 daily
Contact: Jo Anna Ritchey, (626) 359-1624,
Email: joannaritchey@gmail.com
Website: www.moroks.com

March 3 - 4: TORRANCE, CA
South Bay Lapidary & Mineral Society
Ken Miller Recreation Center
3341 Torrance Blvd (entrance on Madrona)
Hours: Sat. 10 - 5; Sun. 10 - 4
Contact: Nancy Pekarek, (310) 257-8152
Email: pekareks@hotmail.com
Website: southbaylapidaryandmineralsociety.com
March 3 - 4: VENTURA, CA
Ventura Gem & Mineral Society
Ventura County Fairgrounds
10 West Harbor Blvd.
Hours: Sat 10 - 5; Sun 10 - 4
Contact: Diane Cook, (805) 312-8467
Email: info@vgms.org
Website: www.vgms.org
March 9 - 11: VICTORVILLE, CA
Victorville Valley Gem & Mineral Society
Hwy 15 / Stoddard Wells Road
Hours: 9 - 5 daily
Contact: Brett Ward or Sandy Skidmore, (760) 617-6001
Email: san2744@aol.com
Website: www.vvgmc.org
March 10 - 11: SAN MARINO, CA
Pasadena Lapidary Society
San Marino Masonic Center
3130 Huntington Drive
Hours: Sat 10 - 6, Sun 10 - 5
Contact: Ellen Ferrell, (727) 512-0381
Email: pasadenalapidary@aol.com
Website: www.pasadenalapidarysociety.org
March 10 - 11: SPRECKELS, CA
Salinas Valley Rock and Gem Club
Spreckel's Veteran's Memorial Hall
5th & Llano Streets
Hours: 10 - 5 daily
Contact: Gary Beck, (831) 679-2896
Email: garybeckpca@yahoo.com
Website: http://salinasrockandgem.pagecloud.com
 
Go to www.cfmsinc.org for more show information 
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GARNET
Garnets are found worldwide in igneous rocks like granite, rhyolites, and pegmatites; in sedimentary
rocks like sandstones; and in metamorphic rocks like amphibolites, limestones, contact metamorphics,
eclogite, gneiss, mica and chlorite schists and serpentines.

Garnet is a group name for a series of some 60 minerals that crystallize in the isometric system and
have a basic structure unit of SiO4 which possesses four negative charges. Those charges are satisfied by
calcium, iron, aluminum, magnesium, manganese and chromium commonly; however, titanium and
vanadium also may appear. All the garnets have almost identical atomic structure, conclusively the same
family. Best known of the common garnets are the deep red pyrope, from the Greek ‘fire-like’, the
magnesium aluminum silicate, and almandine, the iron aluminum silicate. Other people prefer the green
demantoid, originally named andradite for the Portuguese mineralogist D’Andrada, for its diamondlike
brilliance. Another green is uvarovite, named for Count Uvarov, a beautiful emerald green but
usually too tiny to facet.

Few minerals are so readily adaptable to the cutter’s blade and the collector’s cabinet. The cutter must
honor garnet’s sensitivity to heat, its intermixing with sister garnets and matrix and its easy parting. But
it is worth the care, being as bright and colorful as any precious gem. It carves and polishes easily if
protected from heat and sharp knocks. It is a durable stone but given to parting when rapped.
The collector easily identifies the almost predictable textbook shape of garnet crystals. Ninety percent
of all garnets show a dominant dodecahedron or 12-sided form. The same collector may have troubles
with garnet’s intermingling with sister garnets, “isomorphous replacement”, but there are now six
species, with varieties, that can supply the collector with every color of the rainbow except blue.
Accepted variety names serve to identify variations in garnet species usually by source or particular site- specific color, e.g. hessonite is ‘the cinnamon stone of Ceylon” and tsavorite is the emerald green
grossular garnet.

Collectors who wish to display crystals in matrix specimen frequently find that given a close trimming,
garnet will pop out of the matrix, leaving a perfect impression of its crystal faces in the matrix. The
crystal will have grown in its matrix, say a biotite schist, by pushing aside the biotite. Forming out of
other iron and aluminum bearing minerals being metamorphosed, the garnet’s tremendous power to form
perfect crystal faces is the outward manifestation of its complicated but highly symmetrical internal
structure that pushes aside minerals with weaker crystallization.

Garnet has a hardness ranging from 6.5 to 7.5 on the Mohs scale. This makes them very useful. When
found in massive deposits, it is sold and used as an abrasive material. Harder than quartz and parting
rather than fracturing, it exceeds quartz sand for grinding material. Garnets have considerable internal
strain, which causes them to act like crystals of lesser symmetry and show anomalous birefringence,
going from light to dark in an erratic fashion when rotated between crossed polars.
(re-printed from the Jan 2018 Petrograph – Peninsula Gem & Mineral Society) 

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         BRUNEAU JASPER                                       Bruneau Jasper is a well-known beautiful stone that comes from the region near the Bruneau River in western Idaho, about 30 miles south of the tiny town of Bruneau. It is sometimes referred to as a
porcelain jasper because the cabochons have such a nice porcelain-like finish. The Bruneau Jasper flow is the most silica-rich rhyolite flow in the area. It is predominantly red and brown jasper. The deposit covers several hundred meters and is covered with unpatented claims. Jasper has a hardness of about 7 on the Moh's scale.

The Bruneau Woodpile site has long been popular among fossil collectors; however, the deposit has received scant attention from scientists. The fossilized wood was deposited ca. 6.85 Ma, within the Chalk Hills Formation, and was mineralized with carbonate-fluorapatite. The diverse assemblage of conifers and hardwoods is representative of the warm temperate forests that flourished in southwest Idaho during the late Miocene. Limb and trunk fragments preserved in a single thin sandstone bed appear to represent woody debris that was transported by streams.                               (re-printed from the Jan 2018 Petrograph – Peninsula Gem & Mineral Society)



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 Mitchell Caverns
Mitchell Caverns is located within the Providence Mountains State Recreation Area. Tours of the caves are offered (twice a day Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and on Holiday Mondays) by reservation only. Reservations can be made only by speaking to a staff member on Mondays (8AM-5PM, 760-928-2586). The state recreation area is surrounded by the Mojave National Preserve, which offers campgrounds (Hole-in-the-Wall is the nearest) and roadside camping. At Hole-in-the-Wall, the Rings Loop Trail, descending into Banshee Canyon by metal rings set into the rock, is exciting for kids of all ages.                                                                                    (reprinted from Delvings – Delvers Gem & Mineral Society)
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