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. . . of zaratite found in Tasmania.  These are rings in their raw state . . .

. . . after Gareth S, the UC Santa Barbara technical specialist, cored and turned them. 

There's a story in how these unique rings came about.  Early on in our e-mail exchanges, pplater and I independently and simultaneously came up with the idea to incorporate opal into our project.  Then we decided that would be a bit too precious, and looked around for minerals native to Tasmania.  Two were discovered, zaratite and another now forgotten.  pplater contacted a gemologist in Tasmania and had sizable samples of both air-freighted to my doorstep. 

At that point it was my job to get them turned into rings.  I asked Bob, our master cue-maker.

"Are you fucking crazy?  My wood lathe couldn't turn rock for love or money.  You need to find someone who knows how to work with the stuff."

Then I thought of Ty, a machinist's machinist I was introduced to years ago by mrsnak.  ('Ty', incidentally, is an abbreviation of Tiberias, which in turn is not his real name, but a moniker foisted by his friends.  Reputedly on account of his being as imperious as the Emperor of the same name.)  Ty has a degree in physics, and interestingly enough made parts for the Hadron collider.  These days he mostly makes parts for Harleys.

"Are you fucking crazy?  I don't want to see that shit in my shop.  The dust alone would mess things up.  Call the head of the geology department at UCSB."

So I did.  He was slightly amused. 

"Call the technical department.  Maybe they'll be able to help.  I don't really get involved in outside projects."

So I did.  Played phone tag for three weeks.  On one occasion I received a call from someone with a distinctive Chinese accent.  Couldn't understand a word, and assuming it was a wrong number, hung up.  It turned out the caller was a student in the geology department.

Finally, I connected with Gareth, who's in charge of the rock shop at UC Santa Barbara.  Only to call it a rock shop is a bit of a misnomer; there's enough high-tech equipment there for the No Ko's to make a nuclear bomb.

"Uh, ok.  It'll take awhile.  Bring 'em over.  I'll get back to you."

So I dropped off both rock samples.  Eventually, Gareth got back.

"The pretty white stuff with blue streaks can't be worked.  It turns into mush.  The green 'n purple rock, though, has distinct possibilities.  It's tough to work with, but it can be turned intro forms."

So we waited.  Weeks went by.  Finally, Gareth called.

"I've got rings ready for you." 

Excited, I drove back to UC SB to retrieve them.  Handled them as gingerly as a Patek repeater.  When I took them to Bob, he tried putting one on to the handle core so that I could photograph the whole shebang.

It broke into three pieces.

😣

Now there were only two left, and to make matters worse, there was a learning curve to creating the raw rings.  Practically no zaratite left.  Informed, pplater contacted the gemologist and had another sample air-freighted. That second sample was used to create all the rings in pplater's cue plus the smaller rings in mine.  The larger rings in my handle separating huon from blackwood are survivors of the first batch.

And that's not the end of the story.  Crafting the rings was difficult enough, but now Bob had to incorporate them into the handle and joints.  He found he could only machine a few hundredths of an inch at a time before backing off to allow the rock and cutter to cool.  With normal synthetic materials he works a tenth of an inch at a stretch, maybe a little less for elk antler or buffalo horn.  Working with zaratite took about six times as much effort as usual.  So kudos to both Gareth and Bob for making our project of passion a reality.  They went above and beyond for us.

Art

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