Aventurine chunks...now what do i do!!

[Molly Butson]

Hello All
This is a message of SOS going out from the Homer of Beadmakers!!!

I have seen all kinds of things on aventurine, and cool stuff, so I ordered some Gold, Meteorite Green and Rubino Pink (i think). So I opened my box of goodies up and I have these CHUNKS>>>>>>

Now what do I do? DOH?????

Do I encase the stuff and pull it out, does it pull out by itself. good grief, it looks so pretty. How do I break up the chunks. This is a new area for me, so any help would be great.
Molly
(aka Homersimpson of beadmakers)

[Kuehlmorgen_D]

Hi Molly

It depends on your equipement and the way you want to use them. I'll separate your treasures into two groups, first: A = Brown (and blue) Goldstone and B = Meteorite Green and Rubino Oro.

Search between my posts for Goldstone related answers. In General this glass wants to be encased and worked relatively cool. If you have an annealer, put the pieces, larger than 1/2" in it to run an annealing cycle. That helps much to chop them with hammer and chissel. Or you ramp them up to pick them up for encasing before you pull them into stringers.

Meteorite Green, also known as Aventurine and Rubino Oro should be less sensitive to the flame when you are working in an oxydizing to neutral flame. The tip with annealing before you chop them works here as well, but is not so important.

Dietmar . -(X)-(Y)-(Z)- (with "creative" decorated beads)

[daffodildeb]

How big are the chunks? If they're really big (I had one about 5 lbs last year), I heated it to about 400 to 500 degrees in my kitchen oven and then dumped it a bucket of cold water. It fractured internally very nicely (great sound!), and then broke apart when hit on the head with a hammer--use heavy-duty paper grocery bags to protect yourself and contain the mess.

[Emily]

Yes, you want to encase it and pull stringers. Take a thick rod of clear and heat a gather on the end of it. Press the rod straight down to flatten the gather. Heat up a manageable chunk of the goldstone. If you can, heat it in your kiln or on a hot plate. If that's not possible, hold the chunk in big tweezers or pliers and flick it in and out of the flame. When the chunk is warmed, attach it to the clear rod. Stripe clear all over the chunk, being careful not to miss any spots or leave any gaps. Try not to trap air. Now attach a second rod as a punty, heat the chunk and pull into stringer.

Try encasing goldstone with colored transparents rather than clear. Rubino over goldstone is very pretty.

[CindyLouhoo]

As Emily said, try encasing with other colors. I really like the goldstone cased with Moretti black (which as we know is really a deep purple); it makes a great glittery dark purple stringer.
You can never have to much sparkle... or too much goldstone.
Cindy

[Molly Butson]

Thank you everyone who has responded to my plea

I can't wait to try everything that has been suggested. Unfortunately, due to some travelling, I won't be able to play until Thursday afternoon, or maybe not till Friday.

Deb, they are small chunks, total weight of is 2oz, (egads a 5 lb CHUNK?) so I will just heat them up in my kiln as Emily has suggested. And Dietmar, thanks so much for your input and taking the time to help me out.

And thanks Cindy for the suggestion of encasing in black, I would love to see purple glitters, and Emily (my kiln buddy), I love rubino gold too! Anyone else with hints, I love them!

So thanks to all who have given me advice and support!!!!
Molly