Hello Friends,
I had a pleasant phone call this evening and it was none other than Gene Howe informing me about the stones he had available as well as to check to see if he can get some of the turquoise for me and after I talked his ear off and explained how I have used stones as well as muscle shells crushed and worked in with the wood of some of my projects. They actually look like Ivory.
He asked me to relate to you folks how I used some of my stones so here we go my friends;

Over the years I have used fool's gold and when crushed and sifted through either muslin or even at times through a old worn T shirt. Then I would put the powder in a pepper shaker to sprinkle over the project after the first coat of hand rubbed tung oil was applied. Use it sparingly but with enough that will really make your project sparkle after the next two or three coats. The more coats that you use will enhance the sparkle of the chips. As you walk around the room the light changes to many different eye catching views of the beauty of the wood and flakes of the stone used.

I asked Gene to check for me about a pound of it and I would send him the money to buy it as well as to pay for the postage. I am anxious to get some to play with and experiment for different effects.

I remembered as a boy I would gather rocks for the foundations of the buildings my family were building and became infatuated by the beauty in some of the stones. Some when you put them in a ball of putty on a piece of railroad and with a Jeweler's strike that is used for cutting diamonds you could split the stone for a book match appearance and then when you mortised them into your piece and held in place with epoxy till you applied the fist coat of finish, which held them in place forever.

Try mixing some various stones and or particles of them into your different works you will be amazed on how pretty they can enhance the workpiece as Gene did with the little box.

That was a wonderful call indeed Ralph, I love hearing these stories about our members connecting. I wish I could have been in on that conversation, I bet it was a great one. Thanks for sharing Ralph.

Hi John,

Wouldn't it be nice if we could have a conference call set up where we could make calls as a group of say three or more and exchange ideas and items to post on the forums. How neat that would be.

I have a pair of ear phones that I can plug into the computer USB port and talk to folks from anywhere but, it requires others to have them as well. Then we would have to set corrisponding times for the hook ups. However it is something to think about.