The Del Air Rockhounds Club Welcomes You!!

                                                                

  

                                                           

www.Facebook.com/DelAirRockhounds

The Del-Air Rockhounds Club was founded in 1954 with members mostly residing in the San Fernando Valley area of California. Our club is a non-profit organization dedicated to sharing knowledge of the lapidary arts and techniques, geology, mineralogy and related fields. We own our own lapidary equipment with members available to teach and demonstrate lapidary techniques to other members. Our members enjoy lapidary related programs, demonstrations, exhibitions, displays and lectures. We also take monthly field trips to our local deserts & mountains for exploration and the study and collection of lapidary and mineral specimens.

Mailing Address: P.O. Box 7618, Van Nuys, CA 91409 

Member of the California & American Federation of Mineralogical Societies

      

   https://cfmsinc.org/                      https://www.amfed.org/

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Del- Air Club Membership Application & Dues Information

Prospective members must first attend two meetings or one meeting and one club event before they can be voted in by the club membership. For a club membership application and annual dues information, please click on the link below. Print the application and follow the instructions for submitting the form. We welcome you to the Del-Air Rockhounds Club!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r1Mp_FRGAm_s7mW-YaODU3faxFaxfNpc0oedBcfik-o/edit?usp=sharing 

Del-Air Rockhounds Club T-Shirts & Tote Bags

Del-Air club t-shirts and tote bags are now live and ready to order on Amazon. They are only available to order through the following two links.                  

T-shirts: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GSDXH4NT

Tote Bags: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GSDBKDX5

They are not available by searching directly on amazon.com. Once you click on the links, it works just like any other Amazon order. If you are a Prime member, shipping is free. Returns are accepted. The shirts are available in mens, womens, and junior styles with 27 colors to choose from and a wide variety of sizes from small to XXXLT and beyond. The tote bags are a great size with our logo on both sides and are of high quality. They'll be great to carry your rocks in on club field trips. Pricing is very affordable so check them out and order your swag today!

October 2026 Del-Air Calendar of Events

Thursday October 1: General Meeting

Saturday October 10: Boron, CA Field Trip - Paid Members Only.

Thursday October 15: Board Meeting

Friday October 16: Vintage Magnet Stem Night

Saturday October 24: Workshop Day - Paid Members Only.

Saturday October 31: Halloween

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October 2026 Program - Gem Trees - Presented by: Bob & Maxine Dearborn

You have seen them in catalogs and at gem shows, now you will be able to make your very own gem tree. Members Maxine & Bob Dearborn will bring the supplies and instruct everyone at the October general meeting on how to make a gemstone tree. Because this takes some time to complete, you want to be on time for the meeting. Please arrive promptly at or before 7:00 pm. This is a hands-on program and we will all do it together. If you have a flashlight or small battery run light, you might want to bring it with you, to help see the small holes in the rock chip beads.

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October Rock of the Month = Generic Rocks

For October, we ask you to bring in whatever rock tickles your fancy and share it with the group. No theme necessary. Any rock or crystal is fair game.

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Workshop Day - Saturday October 24, 2026

10:00 am at Jeff Dengrove's Home - Paid Members Only

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October 2026 Field Trip

Lonely Butte/Boron, CA for Petrified Wood, Jasper Agate & More

Saturday Oct 10, 2026 - 9 am meet-up time - For Paid Members Only

Field Trip chair, Joe Mastro, will be leading our October 2026 trip to Brown/Lonely Butte and Boron, CA to hunt for petrified wood and palm, jasper, agate material and agatized clusters at Brown/Lonely Butte, CA and for agates, bloodstone, chalcedony, occasional petrified wood, occasional geodes and geode fragments, druzy quartz, and green/blue/red jasper at Boron, CA. Please be on time. We leave the meet-up location at 9 am.

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2026 Del-Air Holiday Party Teaser

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2027 Club Dues Coming Due

It's time to start thinking about your 2027 club dues. Dues are due by December 31, 2026 for calendar year 2027. Dues remain $26 for adults, $10 for juniors under 18 with a paid adult and $13 for associates. Please plan on paying these at the October or November 2026 meetings or, at the very latest, the January, 2027 meeting. Please do not bring membership dues to the December meeting as this is our annual Holiday Party and there is much too much going on to have to deal with collecting dues payments at that time. We thank you in advance for paying your dues in a timely manner.

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In October, our sister club, The Woodland Hills Rock Chippers, will be hosting their annual show, one day only, October 17, 2026. The Del-Air Rockhounds will be hosting a vendor booth at this show, so come on out and pay us a visit.

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Sept 5, 2026 Field Trip Report - Wrightwood, CA

We had about a dozen members show up for the field trip to Wrightwood, CA for Actinolite, Marble and Schist. Lots of good rocks were found by everybody and they all enjoyed the pot-luck lunch. A heartfelt thanks to member Shellie Van Winkle for hosting this field trip at her Wrightwood home.

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Save the date!

Stop by our other sister club's Holiday Sale, one day only, November 7, 2026

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September 2026 Del-Air Calendar of Events

Thursday September 3: General Meeting

Saturday September 5: Potluck/Field Trip, Wrightwood, CA - Paid Members Only

Monday September 7: Labor Day

Friday September 11: Patriot Day

Thursday September 17: Board Meeting

Saturday September 19: Workshop Day - Paid Members Only

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September 2026 Program: Silent Auction

Presented by: Jeff Dengrove - Auctioneer

September brings us the Del-Air Rockhounds annual silent auction. Always a favorite among our members. Join us and bid on the rock related items that tickle your fancy. Each item will be labeled with its name and starting bid. Add your name to the list along with your bid and if you are the last name when the auction is called, you win that item. Bring a bag or box to carry your winning items home and please try to bring $1 and $5 dollar bills so our treasurer can easily make change for you.

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Workshop Day - Saturday September 19, 2026

10:00 am at Jeff Dengrove's Home -  Paid Members Only

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September 2026 Potluck/Field Trip - Paid Members Only

Wrightwood, CA for Actinolite Marble, Schist & More

Saturday September 5th - 9:30 am Meet-up Time

Shellie Van Winkle's Vacation Home

Sign-up sheet at September's General Meeting

Actinolite

September brings the return of our Wrightwood, CA Potluck/Field Trip. Another one of our club member's favorite events. Club treasurer, Shellie Van Winkle, has once again, most generously, donated the use of her vacation home as our field trip staging location as well as the place to eat our potluck lunch. Please advise field trip chair Joe Mastro or president Jeff Dengrove of your intent to attend this event and what you will be bringing for the potluck. Please think of main dishes, side dishes and desserts. Shellie will be providing coffee and some sort of breakfast pastry for the meet-up at 9:30 am at her home. Bring your own drinks with you and please plan on bringing your empty bottles, cans, trash and any leftover food from the dish you brought back home with you as there is no garbage collection in the area. As usual, we will head down to the collecting area around 10:00 am and collect for a  couple of hours or so and then head on back to Shellie's to enjoy a nice potluck lunch. After lunch, you may return to the collecting area, which is just steps from Shellie's home, and collect to your heart's content. Remember to bring your Del-Air Tote Bags that I know you all purchased from Amazon, to carry your treasured finds in. 🤣

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October Field Trip Teaser

Saturday October 10, 2026 - 9:00 am Meet-up - Paid Members Only

Brown/Lonely Butte and Boron Collecting Locations

Field Trip chair, Joe Mastro, will be leading our October 2026 trip to Brown/Lonely Butte and Boron, CA to hunt for petrified wood and palm, jasper, agate material and agatized clusters at Brown/Lonely Butte, CA and for agates, bloodstone, chalcedony, occasional petrified wood, occasional geodes and geode fragments, druzy quartz, and green/blue/red jasper at Boron, CA. Full details in the October newsletter.

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Del-Air Rockhounds August 2026 Calendar of Events

Monday August 3: National Watermelon Day

Thursday August 6: General Meeting

Thursday August 20: Board Meeting

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August 2026 Program

August brings us one of the Del-Air Rockhounds favorite annual events… Our Ice Cream/Bingo Social! Come join us for some delicious ice cream and some rousing games of bingo for fabulous prizes. Also, bring in your summer rockhound finds to share with the group. It's fun for the whole family.

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August 2026 Rocks of the Month

August has three official birthstones: peridot, spinel, and sardonyx. While peridot is widely celebrated as the primary gemstone for the month, this trio offers a unique variety of colors, histories, and meanings. Bring in your examples of these three beautiful gems to our August meeting and President, Jeff Dengrove, will give a brief talk on each of them.

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Holiday Party Information

This year's holiday party falls on Thursday December 3rd which means planning for it needs to start right away. Bernadette Friedman, our holiday party chairwoman, will be hosting her first planning meeting on Wednesday August 26th at her house at 2:00 pm. She is asking all you creative individuals to join her team and help her make our 2026 holiday party the best one yet. Any member can join. Let her know if you'd like to be part of the team. Bring your best and most creative ideas for colors, themes and possible programs for discussion with the group.

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Field Trip Report

Natural History Museum - Saturday June 27, 2026

We all need to thank our president, Jeff Dengrove, for a really great field trip this month.  His easy directions to the LA Natural History Museum's parking lot where we were to meet and his efforts in getting us a special group entrance rate made it a great day. We had 20 members and some of their guests on this field trip to see the new gemstone show room.  And what a show room it is! Really a lot of exceptional specimens of gemstones and most of the huge tourmaline crystals were from southern California. We all then looked at the special minerals in the adjoining gem room and the super faceted stones in the vault. I think I like the tourmaline better than the black diamond! We had time for lunch at the museum, if you wanted, and then go look at everything else in all of the museum buildings.  A fun day for sure. If you were not one of the 20+ from our club taking part in this event, you really missed out on seeing the best of the best specimens and displays all at a really great discounted entrance fee.

  

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 Continuing Our Salute to America's 250th Birthday

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Pay a visit to the Pearblossom Gem & Mineral Show in October and stop by Club Vice President Aileen Beckers' booth to say hi and to peruse all the wonderful items she has for sale. You won't be disappointed.

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July 2026 Del-Air Rockhounds Calendar of Events

Thursday July 2: No General Meeting in July

Saturday July 4: America's 250th Birthday

Thursday July 16: Board Meeting

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NO JULY GENERAL MEETING

August 2026 Program Teaser:

August brings us one of the Del-Air Rockhounds favorite annual events… Our Ice Cream/Bingo Social! Come join us for some delicious ice cream and some rousing games of bingo for fabulous prizes. Bring in your summer rockhound finds to share with the group. It's fun for the whole family.

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Welcome new member, Denise Dardarian, to the Del-Air Rockhound Family! We are delighted to have you!

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Creating Rivet Heads 

For a nice looking rivet head, use brass escutcheon pins. You'll have perfectly rounded heads that are all the same size and shape. The pins are a little hard to find, so try the best hardware stores first. Be sure to get solid brass pins, not brass plated steel. If unsure, test them with a magnet. The pins are readily available online. Lee Valley Tools has them in 14-18 gauge and lengths from 1/4 inch to 1 inch. Go to http://www.LeeValley.com and do an item search on "brass escutcheon pin" For best results, select a drill that gives you a hole with a close fit to the rivet. Trim the rivet to leave a little less than one diameter sticking out the back side. Place the head on a scrap of hard plastic on the anvil so as to not flatten the head. I prefer a ball peen hammer (with a small 3/8 inch ball) for setting the rivet.

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Del-Air Rockhounds June 2026 Calendar of Events

Thursday June 4: General Meeting

Thursday June 18: Board Meeting

Sunday June 21: Father's Day

Saturday June 27: Field Trip - Natural History Museum - For Paid Members Only

NO JULY MEETING - SEE YOU IN AUGUST

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June 2026 Program: Howlite

 

Presented by: Bob Dearborn

Club member & secretary, Bob Dearborn, will give a talk on the mineral Howlite. A little on its history, its composition, where it can be found, and how it is used in the commercial world today. You may want to dig some of this out of your collection and make something different.

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June 2026 Rock of the Month: The Feldspar Group

Our June rock of the month is the Feldspar group. Some examples of feldspar include moonstone, sunstone, labradorite, and amazonite, to name some of the more well known varieties (there are 12 in total). Bring in your samples of this beautiful mineral to our June meeting and share them with the group. FYI… June's birthstones are pearl, moonstone, and alexandrite.

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June 2026 Field Trip: Natural History Museum - Unearthed: Raw Beauty Exhibit

10:00 am Saturday June 27, 2026 - Paid Club Members Only

Parking is $20 so the club recommends carpooling to help save money. Directions to the parking lot: Take 101 south toward downtown LA. Merge onto 110 south to Exit 20B, Exposition Blvd West. Pass one light before you reach Vermont Blvd and turn left at the traffic light onto Bill Robertson Lane. Proceed to the first driveway on your left into the parking lot. The parking lot opens at 9:30am and we will meet near the ticket booth at 10:00am. The ticket booth on the Exposition side of the museum/north. Proceed from the parking lot to the ticket booth. You will see other members. Payment will need to be made at the June meeting via cash, check or credit card. Adult: $15, Child under 12: $6, Seniors & Students: $12.

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Report on Event at Patrick Henry Middle School:

On May 15th our educational group went to its last scheduled school event before the summer break. Jeff Dengrove, Bernadette Friedman, Aileen Beckers, Diana Durfee, Pam Abbott, Bob Knox and Maxine & Bob Dearborn were there representing our club. We all gave educational information on rocks, fossils, geology and any questions that might be thrown at us.  The two hours went really fast because we were having a good time. You, too, can have a good time at one of these events. Just come and help out.

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Club Member Joe Mastro's Japan Vacation:

My wife, Antonella and I, are vacationing in Japan. We stopped at a rock shop in Tokyo and bought a few things, including a fossilized walnut and some pyrites, etc. Prices here are very good. I'm wearing the club shirt that is for sale on Amazon. The owner of the store let me take some photos of her store and logo. There were a lot of people in the store at one point. Rock collecting in Japan is a thing. Kind of cool. And yes, some of the store's stock was from Japan, so I bought a few of those too.

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Del-Air Rockhounds May 2026 Calendar of Events

Thursday May 7: General Meeting

Sunday May 10: Mother's Day

Sunday May 17: Wire Wrapping Class - Paid Members Only

Thursday May 21: Board Meeting

Monday May 25: Memorial Day

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May 2026 Program: "The Mines of Minas Gerais, Brazil"

Presented by: Paolo Sanchez

 

This month’s presentation, by Pasadena Lapidary Society member Paolo Sanchez, focuses on the famed mineral-rich districts of Minas Gerais, Brazil, following his June 2025 expedition to this region. Paolo spent two and a half weeks exploring gem and lithium-rich pegmatites of grand proportions as part of his research to understand how the melting ancient ocean floor could contribute to the creation of these deposits. This talk will touch upon historic gem mining in the area as well as an international rush for lithium and industrial minerals happening today, with a focus on the mining districts of Linopolis, Araçuai, and Diamantina.

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May 2026 Rock of the Month: Pyrite

Our May rock of the month is Pyrite. Bring in your samples of this beautiful iron sulfide mineral to our May meeting and share them with the group.

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Del-Air Rockhounds 2nd Quarter Shop Class - Paid Members Only

Wire Wrapping with Debbie Schoenmann

Sunday May 17, 2026, 11:30 am - 2:30 pm at Bob & Maxine Dearborn's Home

SUPPLY FEE - $10.00

There will be spaces available for 10 people.

Contact Maxine Dearborn to hold your space. 

Please PAY OUR TREASURER - Shellie Van Winkle at the May Meeting to hold your space. A light lunch will be served while you work on your project.

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Report on Rock Sale Saturday April 18, 2026:

WHAT A ROCK SALE! Our club had its advertised rock sale and it was a BIG ONE! 40% of our membership was involved in this project either by advertising, helping to set-up, running the sale, helping take down or just by being there talking to us and our customers. We had other club rockhounds ready to look at our rocks and slabs way before we were ready to open up. So, we just said “the rocks are on the ground, take a look.” And boy, did they! And they bought, too! The rocks got hot in the sun, so we hit them with water and the sale kept going. The purpose of this sale was to dispose of all the club rock stored at Bob Knox’s house and we probably moved 75% of them to other peoples houses. The balance will be taken care of very soon. WE DID GOOD! And we put a little into our coffers at the same time. THE DEL AIR CLUB WISHES TO THANK ALL OUR MEMBERS WHO PARTICIPATED IN THIS CLUB EVENT AND TO THOSE WHO BROUGHT THE GOODIES FOR US TO SNACK ON THROUGHOUT THE DAY. 

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June 2026 Field Trip Teaser: - Paid Members Only

Natural History Museum - Unearthed: Raw Beauty Exhibit

10 am Saturday June 27, 2026

Come join us and experience Unearthed: Raw Beauty, a one-of-a-kind exhibition featuring some of the largest and rarest mineral specimens ever to be displayed in their natural, uncut form, with some on view for the first time. The specimens, including many from the museum's own collection, are truly magnificent in scale and create an otherworldly experience. Parking is $20 so the club recommends carpooling to help save money. Aileen Beckers will provide info on admission costs and full parking details at the May general meeting. Hope to see you all there.

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March 28th -  A Great Day For The Del-Air Rockhounds:

Our club participated in the annual DWP Spring Equinox again this year and we had a great time. The DWP provided us with the same booth location as in the past few years with a canopy, table, and 2 chairs.  We brought our own extra canopies and tables to make a really nice booth. We displayed many dinosaur fossil items to talk about, had our free educational game, a touch and feel area and a good display of items for sale. There was a Native American Ceremony to open the event, then guests were able to walk around and visit the many non-profit booths in the area. The attendance may not have been as high as in the past, but we were very busy talking about rocks and fossils to many people. We had a good time for the three hours that the event was open. Club members who helped set up, talk to guests and take down the booth were: Jeff Dengrove, Bob Knox, Sandy Lee, Pam Abbott, Shellie VanWinkle, Bernadette Friedman, Dan Farber and his friend Alex, Maxine & Bob Dearborn. Club member Louise Ratliff was working in a booth for California Native Plants directly across from us and we could wave back and forth.

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