Jan, I’ve cut hundreds of fire agates over a long period of time and
have never had one fade as you describe. I can’t even imagine what
could have caused the fading. Do you have any about the
mine they came from or the source?
Please email me about your specific fire agate needs. I have many
stones in a lot of different grades.
Rick Martin
MARTIN DESIGNS
Responding to Daniel Ballard’s request for more on fire
agate and fashioning it, I wrote an article aimed at novice fire agate
cutters several years ago. It’s in The Eclectic Lapidary e-zine and
is still in the archive at:
http://www.bovagems.com/eclectic/HTML/19980901_9809FIREAG.html
My article doesn’t get into the actual carving of the material. That
piece is yet to be written, and may be one of these days now that
Eclectic is coming out of hibernation, hopefully this month or next.
However the article attempts to explain the structure and lapidary
challenges of this infernally difficult gemstone and lays out a
strategy for cutting it with conventional lapidary machinery.
Contact for me given in the article is out of date. If
you have questions or comments please respond to the email given
here.
Fire agate is a gem that should be of great interest to Orchid-level
jewelry designers because each stone is unique. With rare exceptions
a one-off setting must be made for each individual gem. At its finest
fire agate rivals black opal but posesses greater durability because
it’s much harder and tougher. There are many truly fine stones
currently available from many cutters at bargain prices. It’s one of
those vastly undervalued gem resources we hear about from time to
time and it’s “hiding” in plain sight. I invite you all to learn more
about it.
Rick Martin
MARTIN DESIGNS