Cutting rockhound finds from our road trip to Phoenix Arizona. We stopped at Chalcedony Hill in Nevada, The Chasm in Camp Verde Arizona, and Tonopah Nevada. I use a Highland Park lapidary 10 inch trim saw and the 8 inch all-u-need from Hi Tech Diamond.
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Transcript
hey everybody it’s me Betty I’m back from my road trip let’s go over the rock hounding stops that I made and cut open a couple of the rocks that I found we spent the night in Reno and then onward to Phoenix we stopped at a place called Chalcedony Hill in Nevada this was a pretty quick stop this location is right next to the freeway people were doing some target shooting and Lola didn’t appreciate it so we left pretty
quickly but this is an example of some of the material that we found it’s all pretty fractured up and I don’t know I called it Chalcedony of questionable quality Hill because all of the chalcedony that I found was really fractured maybe more time spent researching and more time on the ground I could have found better material I really don’t know um but I’ll show you another piece uh it’s similar it’s slightly different colors it’s but it’s also all fractured
up so like I said the stuff that I found was really fractured up but I thought I’d try to cut this piece anyway it basically exploded so here’s a clip of me putting it back together I’m just kidding I wasn’t sure how to use the footage of this rock cutting it went so poorly that the only way I could figure out how to use it was by reversing the footage it’s a neat piece of chalcedony and maybe if I were gentler with it or if I stabilized it I could do something with it I don’t
know here she is in all her glory before I cut her I will add the close-up photos and some UV photos of all of these rocks at the end of the video so we spent 2 Days in Phoenix we were there to see a really close friend of my husband’s and I had not met this friend and this the the friend passed away moments after my husband arrived so I still didn’t get to meet him but I have a feeling that that’s exactly the way that he wanted
it everything happens for a reason and things work out the way that they work out we knew that we needed to try to enjoy our time as much as possible and our first stop was Sedona the Sedona is beautiful we did the Devil’s Bridge hike at sunset well I didn’t make it all the way to the very top Lola couldn’t get there but it it was a beautiful hike nonetheless a girl named summer did part of the hike with us so shout out summer if you ever see this you were
hilarious we stayed in Cornville Arizona and from there we were able to get to Sedona pretty quickly and we also were able to get to Camp Verde and and we went to this rockhounding spot it was called the chasm this felt like really good snake habitat to me but I didn’t see a snake or a lizard all day I don’t know where they
were I did find a few cool rocks here I’ll show you here in a minute my husband and I have a joke when someone doesn’t get my sarcasm will say oh you fell into the chasm I tried to capture what the environment here was like and how we found most of the pieces just sort of sitting in the gravel I didn’t dig I would have died it was hot my lips are still chapped look things die here Arizona is hot
I made sure I was carrying at least a liter in my backpack and we didn’t really go far from the car it was hot I’m from Oregon this is one of the pieces that I collected at the chasm let’s see what’s inside of
it a lot of the pieces that I brought home from this area have calcium carbonate all over them um I’m soaking some in vinegar and we have experimented with soaking some in muriatic acid um I just can’t really do the muriatic acid by myself I’m freaking scared of
it I’m not certain what this stone is technically called but I’m just going to call it chalcedony um it’s super funky lots of colors and it’s really reactive under UV which is fun I hope I get more pieces like this funky we spent the night in Goldfield Nevada this is a teeny tiny little town that rock store is just about the only thing there and unfortunately it wasn’t open but onward to
Tonopah Tonopah had some of my favorite rocks I only have one bone to pick it was this this clown Motel no way no way was I going to stay there no here’s a quick look at the environment around Tonopah and some of the rocks that I found this was one of my favorite spots the material has lot of different colors but it’s there’s a lot of deep dark chocolaty brown and red and yellow it’s all super orange under
UV I would definitely go back there I mean I I have to go back to Arizona too but I definitely liked Tonopah a lot I have a load of these in the tumbler already I’ve heard that you can find fire agate near Tonopah so um the pieces that I put into my tumbler I’ll be trying to check more regularly just in case I managed to find
anything I’m not sure I’d know it if I saw it but I really really do like this material I really just wanted to show it to you guys I wanted to show you more than this it would take me hours though
some of these pieces are pretty unique and I’m not sure how to handle them I really want to free form polish this one it’s not it’s not solid chalcedony I think that it’s a mix of materials but some of those brown stripes are super translucent if you’re familiar with this material please feel free to comment not from
Nevada a lot of this stuff from Tonopah is really earthy colors very Brown some of it has little bits in it um but it’s it’s the chunks are small and the chunks are in odd shapes but they’re not very fractured up like it’s just very consistent material which I haven’t found a lot of in my rockhounding
so very very interesting I did find this piece of petrified wood I’m I’m really sure this well I feel sure that this is petrified wood this piece I’m sure someone will say no it’s not maybe maybe it’s banded chert I think this is wood
okay um and now you know because I can see into the future I think that this is also petrified wood but but it can be so hard to tell it’s so hard to be certain but this is really neat um and I don’t think I’d ever found a piece that was green and yellow before
um so here’s another piece of well I would call that chalcedony hopefully nobody’s going to say oh my God it’s all chert um please don’t no I’m just kidding say whatever you want
I don’t know what method we use to measure the translucency of objects but us Rock people need to know I need to know how to measure this smart people help me
out okay last two rocks these are both from Tonopah let’s see what’s inside this was a pretty rushed trip and it was hastily planned but Arizona and Nevada did not disappoint me I will definitely be
back we took quite a bit of footage of our driving um we tried to capture as much of the scenic changes as we could and I’ll try to post that video later too but it’s like 20 minutes of no rocks so you’ll have oh but there is a donkey fight I can promise a donkey fight I I wish they hadn’t but they did so yeah um people are talking there’s a lot of hype about this donkey fight you know nobody got hurt though all the donkeys walked
away one more piece from Tonopah we are now pretty sure that this is a piece of petrified wood am I certain no don’t ask me I will never be sure if you’re still here thank you I can’t wait to cut the next Rock see you soon
