Reel Mine. How to extract gems.

[colorshapetexture]

I found this in the Georgia Mineral society flyer from some time in 2005.
But with the Reel mine dig coming up. I thought the newbees and may be a few barbarians miners might want to read this.
We will be in a REEL mine in a few weeks and we will get to extract gems in situ.
Everyone working and learning together on this trip is in for a rare learning oppertunity.


I propose a contest at the Reel.

Who will screw up the nicest specimen?

With maybe another for the first to ruin a nice specimen.

Mining pockets will be a new experience for a few.
Just thought this might help.
See yall the 20th.
Jim








Tips and Trips Page 13
Care and Feeding of Crystals Begins in the Field
By Julian C. Gray
Mineral Section Chair
CRUNCH! Sound familiar? You’re at your favorite quartz
crystal location digging away and with the next push of the
shovel blade you hear a familiar and sickening sound like
biting into a Rice-Krispy snack bar. The good news: you
found the pocket. The bad news: you’ve ruined one or several
crystals. But oh well, there are still dozens of crystals.
So you happily dig away, flinging crystal after crystal into
your bucket to take them home. Once cleaned, you find
yourself saying “this would have been a good crystal if that
termination didn’t have that chip.” If this all sounds familiar,
then here are a few ideas to help you out.
I want to emphasize a few things here at the start. Most of
us have fine crystals at home – perhaps even many that
are museum quality. These minerals are the product or
rare geologic circumstance and can be quite beautiful and
valuable – which is why we collect them in the first place.
They also have sat in the ground for perhaps millions of
years. The scientific and aesthetic value of some specimens
is immense. Now some yahoo (like me) comes
along and starts flailing away at a rock with a sixteen
pounds sledge hammer. Stop and think about what you
are doing. While digging rocks sounds trivial, a little
thought might help to avoid wounding crystals at the point
of collection. I’ve raised this to a high level of nerdiness,
but the rewards are worth me embarrassing myself if it improves
the quality of material that we bring home.
Digging to remove lots of overburden and expose crystals
is unavoidable and the risk of damaging specimens is great
during this phase of collecting while picks and shovels are
flying. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of the
moment and start working quickly to expose more, but this
is exactly the time when you need to slow down. Along
with my heavy tools, I carry a whisk brush or small brush.
At the first promising sign, I stop digging and clear away
the loose debris. This helps me find the pocket, if that is
indeed what I’ve found. It also helps me plan what tool to
use next and where to work. I generally have three
choices at this point: (1) False alarm, keep digging (most of
my trips are like this), (2) There are crystals exposed, but I
need to move nearby rocks to expose more of the pocket,
and (3) Wahoo! Crystal faces are exposed and ready to be
removed. Option (1), keep digging is easy. With option
(2), I switch tools and carefully remove the obstructions to
the pocket. I view this as working a puzzle in reverse; the
pieces went together in a certain way and I have to figure
out how to get them out. This usually involves various prying
tools. I typically use an Estwing gad bar, which is a
giant chisel with a tiny pick on one end. It can be used as
a lightweight hammer or as a chisel and then lever once
firmly hammered in the crack. The tiny pick on the other
end can be used for great mechanical advantage to pry
cracks open. I also use screwdrivers, including one that
with an intentionally bent tip. I made this item by heating
the tip in a torch flame and bending the tip in a vise. Auto
parts stores carry brake tools that are like giant screwdrivers
with bent tips. These high strength steel tools make
excellent pry bars. Chiseling and hammering may be necessary,
but do this wisely. Most of the shock of the hammer
blow is transferred to adjacent rocks and can loosen
crystals from the matrix. Repeated hammering should be
avoided. A single large hammer strike is favorable. Given
a choice, I’d take the force of a single small explosive
charge over twenty hammer strikes. And now that you
have freed the boulder, you have to finesse a seventy-five
pound rock out of a hole and out of the way. Make a
friend. Since you have crystals showing, offer to share in
exchange for help lugging boulders out of the hole. Then
take a water break, now you’ve exposed the pocket and
have some delicate work ahead.
Step (3) is to remove the crystals. At this point, I typically
use a variety of small tools, some made of plastic. Remember
Moh’s’ scale of harness? Which is harder, plastic
or quartz? (Plastic – H = 2 – 2.5, and yes I tested it. Actually,
my # 2 hardness point is plastic.) I’m even thinking of
experimenting with homemade oak tools. Seriously. Also,
if your cheap plastic tool breaks – rejoice! Better a ninetynine
cent putty knife that a $75 amethyst crystal. I frequently
use plastic putty knives or the handle of a tooth
brush. If I am using the tooth brush handle then I can
switch to the brush end periodically to wipe out loose material.
Stop frequently to touch the crystal. I collect by feel.
Touch the crystal and try to move it. If you hear that ricekrispy
crunch sound, slow down. Carefully remove clay or
soil from around the crystal. Try to excavate under the
crystal forming a void below the crystal. Again, do this using
plastic tools or dental tools. In some cases, once
enough soil has been removed from around the crystal, it
will simply come off in your hand. In some cases, it must
be pried from the matrix. Use small tools and small movement
– you don’t want to
spend hours to get to this
point to have the crystal fling
out in an uncontrolled manner.
Cradle the piece with
your free hand. Don’t have a
free hand? Put some packing
material around the crystal to
protect the tip. Ideally there
should be a final crunch or
snap, but this time only matrix
because of your careful collecting.
Put the tools down,
turn the piece over. Wow!
“This will clean up nicely” you
say to yourself.
Now you throw it in the bucket
right? Wrong! Now that you
have the crystal in hand, you now have the responsibility of
caring for it. I take this as seriously as if I were adopting a
stray pet. You wouldn’t throw a pet in the truck and forget
about it. Carefully pack the crystal and place it in a rigid
container. Buckets are fine, but once extracted from the
ground, the crystals should not touch other crystals, doing
so risk chipping. High end mineral buyers and picky collectors
look carefully at the tips and edge of crystals. Dings
and chips there reduce the aesthetic value of the specimen.
These dings and chips are produced by crystals
bumping together. Wrap the crystals in the field – packing
material is cheap. I use various things for packing; newspaper
(cheap, but newsprint can stain rock matrix), paper
towels (a buck or so a roll), dry cleaner bags (acid free!),
bubble wrap, toilet paper. I have also started to use Ziploc
plastic bags of various sizes. These don’t provide minimal
protection, but it may be enough for some cases.
I’m certain I’ve made my point that care of mineral specimens
begins at the point of collection. I’ll leave the cleaning
part to others. But I do have one other point to make –
documentation. No other fact about a specimen is more
important than where it came from. If you misidentify the
mineral, that can be corrected. If you forget where a specimen
came from, that is not forgivable. While the specimen
beauty remains, its usefulness as a specimen is nearly
completely lost. I label specimens at the point of collection!
At home, I cut 3 by 5 index cards into small strips. One
reason I’m using Ziploc bags now is that I can throw the
label in with the specimen and keep them together. In the
field, I write three things on the label with a permanent
marker (sharpie, for instance): mineral name, date collected,
and mine name. All are important. Certain parts of
a mine or quarry may be exposed only at a single point in
time. Knowing when a specimen was collected can provide
valuable information about a deposit. When possible I
note where in a mine the specimen was collected: northwest
corner of main pit, for example. I have seen only two
specimens of gold from Graves Mountain, but no one can
tell me where they were collected. How valuable would
that information be now! I’ve also found that a notebook is
useful. Sometimes the only thing I write is the date, place,
and who I am collecting with. But this is often enough to
reconstruct when I collected something.
Good luck!

[bammer]

Wow, alot of good info in this post.
Thanks.

I hope I don't win this contest.

I am constructing some 'hanging wire' probes. Basically it is a piece of stiff thin wire mounted into a handle for probing into an area (listen and feel for the crunchy sounds) before digging with any tools that could damage something.

[lauriesrocks]

Good advice there. I really cringed when I read about the post hole diggers. Can't imagine a better way to ruin a nice specimen. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever", a busted crystal is a busted crystal.

[botanyme]

Memo to self: leave post hole diggers at home...
Nice post Jim!
b, still a reasonably newbie digger...

[crowsnake]

Good advice. It's tough to slow down when you find that elusive vug but its the difference between another dinged crystal compared to a few extra moments of good honest work to yield a perfect specimen as mother nature intended it.

I hope we will all be so lucky!

But if you do ding your crystals, Confucius say - better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.

[Riviera]

Hi all, I did not read everything on your post about the contest but one thing to remember is when you remove a quartz specimen from a cold ground do not place it in the sun. I have rock hound many time at the Reel Mine and have seen crystals break due to the heat of the sun. Best thing to do is keep as much of the dirty on it and wrap it as soon as it comes out.

Riviera

[arappaho]

More good advice there, Riviera
But that's alot of good information well put. Thanks Jim.
Specially like the part about recording the location and date
of your specimens.
Joe

[amythestguy]

Definetly take your time! When I was new to hounding I watched Romin and Ed C. take half a day extracting one specimen. Good thing it was them and not nieve me because I guarantee I would have flubbed it up rushing to much. Now I have learned.."A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.”

[stevebarr]

I've just had a very interesting, informative talk with someone who used to dig at the Reel fairly often when it was open in the past. I've heard that the finest specimens from the Reel tend to require hard rock work to extract. They tend to occur in vugs.

But, quite a few specimens have been unearthed in pockets of red clay in certain areas. These almost always have crystals in them, so when you hit red clay you need to ABANDON your metal tools and shovels. It is time at that point to pull out bamboo or pvc plastic handtools to continue digging. The red clay quite often is hiding clusters that are on the bottom, with the tips face up.

The surest way to damage them irreparably is to keep probing or using metal tools. Speed is not of the essence. Patience and methodical work is required at that point.

I'll echo Laurie's sentiments….I cringed at the idea of using posthole diggers at a location like this. It might help you find the red clay, but it would also almost surely destroy potentially significant finds.

Isn't the whole point of what we do to find and preserve clusters and crystals? One good specimen is worth way more than 50 damaged ones.

[xtldggr]

I'd have to agree with Lee, If you are entering an area of unknown potential a systematic sampling of an area in a grid pattern or similar fashion can be quite useful and perhaps one of the easiest ways to do this is with a post hole digger. I would only use this method as a crude means of defining the topography(surface) of the buried rock or location of veins/stringers of qtz. Keep in mind that most commercial miners use heavy equipment to locate veins. Sure you might run the risk of damaging some crystal if you are lucky/unlucky enough to happen upon a fully developed vug, full of crystals. As any of you hard rock diggers know, veins can be prolific but having the veins open up into specimen producing vugs is relatively scarce. In the nut shell if you are simply in reconnaissance mode the likelihood of actually pinpointing a vug, through use of a post hole digger or similar apparatus is highly improbable, however as a means to quickly determine the location and trend of veins, residual gravel beds or a buried bedrock surface, a post hole digger, IMHO is not a bad way to go.

See ya all at the Reel !!!


-xtldggr-

[major]

The other day I was out prospecting and found that someone had "out prospected me" and found a quartz crystal vein. They left a very unusual homemade tool(looked to have been there for some time) The concept of this tool had never crossed my mind. It is about 6ft long and digs more like a drill bit so that no hammering force(like the one required by post hole diggers) is necessary. Only thing is that I believe to operate this devise to its fullest potential would take 2 people. It is completely hand driven, meaning its no machine or takes no power to operate. Its actually a quite simple idea that just hadn't occurred to me or anyone else that I know. Anyway, when I get it finished I will post some pics, hopefully I can get it done so that some of you might could build the same thing. Steve is 100% right, "One good specimen is worth way more than 50 damaged ones."

[hydrogeologist]

Was it a hand auger?

[amythestguy]

ohh can't wait for the pics bryan. you have me wondering....

[stevebarr]

If you are going to use any equipment (including posthole diggers) to do exploratory work at the Reel, remember that the owner insists that every hole outside of the main digging area needs to be filled in. You are responsible for any hole that you dig.

With posthole diggers, you will need to fill in each hole immediately after you've dug it, before you start the next one. On the floor of the forest, with the fallen leaves covering much of the ground, it would be a very easy thing for other people to unwittingly step into the hole you've dug, twist an ankle and injure themselves.

I still maintain that you run the risk of damaging something right under the surface. But, I guess that is a personal choice. I was just passing on advice given to me by someone with a lot of experience at this particular site.

In my opinion, a better way to find a starting point would be to listen to the suggestions that will be offered by several people who have dug there successfully in the past. Some of them have already offered to point people in the right direction. And, I've said it before, but I'll say it again....I think one of the best methods to make the most of this first visit back to the Reel successful will be for people to team up and work together.

[reverenddeb]

This is a cluster that was dug from the Reel before 1973. I got it from a dealer in Virginia who was going out of business at that time. It's about 6" across and about 4" high. While I don't really expect to get anything like this myself, hope does spring eternal. It has a couple minor dings, and the color is skewed a little too much to the purple but it is one of my best and favorite pieces.

[lizziebird]

Awesome piece, Deb.

Thanks, colorshapetexture, for the informative and fun to read article. I hope y'all have fun digging gently and finding lots of perfect points to bring home. (please, someone, take lots of pictures at this dig--- I will be awaiting the field trip report!)

[johnny]

I think it was in Rock & Gem people were using deer antlers to dig crystals.

Johnny

[reverenddeb]

1) Find deer
2) advise it to give me his antlers.

[geodepat]

1) Find deer
2) Shoot deer
3) Eat deer, keep antlers

[traveler]

I have a plastic ice scoop that works pretty well. It's just like a flour scoop, but quite a bit bigger.

[hydrogeologist]

Up here in Maryland we have no shortage of delicious deer. We're No. 2 for deer-related accidents in the U.S. behind Pennsylvania. I've seen 10-pt bucks dead on the side of the road before.

[reverenddeb]

I like delicious beef steak.