Little Pine Garnet Mine

[tracey]

YAY! Finally took the kid to Little Pine Garnet Mine yesterday. We had a great time, all day in the adit, picnic tables outside, why? we picnic-ed in the cool cave, picking up all trash when done.
A couple of horse back riders came in, the looks on their faces were hilarious while we tried to explain what we were doing.

Found one nice baseball sized one, part of it came off in extraction, but I figure after a bit of clean up I'll glue it back in place. I just tried to wash it a bit and more of it started crumbling off so I've set it aside to dry out. And a couple interesting clusters.

Do you put these things in Iron out? I've experimented with rubbing a few on some sand paper. Any other advice on cleaning.

So happy this site is available, we had a blast!

[FishInaBeryl]

I dont have any experiance with iron out and garnets, however, I know the chemical composition of garnet contains Iron....maybe be carefull?

[writerman2255]

I would not use iron out. Thing is, if iron is prevalent in them, it's all through them, especially the crumbly ones, so it won't do any good anyway. I have polished some of the non-crumbly ones, into a deep gorgeous red from the Little Pine. They shine up very nice indeed. They're there! T.

[Ryan]

I soaked a few of mine in iron out, it helps. It wont "eat" them so to speak. I know it seems like it would but it just removes the iron oxide coating. The rust basically. The garnets themselves are fine. They are irony garnets so after the soak, they almost have a bluish gunmetal look, i quite like it. Now,... one or two i found that were still somewhat gemmy, came out of the SIO bath looking fantastic! I know logic suggests that something called iron out will eat something made of iron but the iron in these garnets must be in a stable molecule or bound in the formula of some other compond molecule. They wont dissolve, just takes off the rusty coating. Im not saying youll get gemmy miraculous reults, but they will look cleaner and perhaps a bit better in my opinion. Soak a busted chunk first and see if you like the result before you commit the whole lot of them. As I recall, the solution did fizz quite a bit. :-)
Im gonna post my better ones tomarrow after work or at night. One is very gemmy, and has a bit of a silky lustre! isnt that place just awesome?! Glad u had fun, id like to see your stash of treasure you got!!

P.S. it seems the small ones have a chance to be gemmy but the larger ones seem a lot less likely to be. This isnt a 100% true but it seems to be the general trend i observed.

[tracey]

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll be making some experiments. Yes, from this one time experience it seems the smaller ones have a better chance of being gemmy, I think I may have one or two, but really haven't gotten to clean or sort much yet.
The big one! but crumbly on the underside, in one pic you can spot the seam where the broken piece is. Definitely a handle with care piece, shame, it has such a nice weight in the hand



I really like clusters and this is my new favorite, although damaged a bit due to my inexperience




Thank for the encouragement and advice!

[IronTom]

Aug 13, 2011 2:17:09 GMT -5 Ryan said:

Im gonna post my better ones tomarrow after work or at night. One is very gemmy, and has a bit of a silky lustre!

Well, where are they at? I've tried a few in Super Iron Out, but it didn't seem to do very much. It helped loosen some of the gunk off of some pieces. How long did you soak yours, and at what concentration?

[Ryan]

Full stregnth, a whollleee bunch in a bucket with a lil water. They fizz a lot but it doesnt damage them. The ones about quarter size and smaller may be somewhat gemmy though i have seen larger ones polish up reeeal nice. I have one the size of a big black walnut that i shined up real good at the roundup on Diamond Jims Diamond Devil. Mr Jacquot has a sweet one too around the same size. As for the silk, i too noticed a few with some silky flash at certain angles. I wonder if a cabbed garnet wouldnt show asterism or show chatoyance. Doubt theyd cab real nice though, even the nice ruby red gemmy buggers are internally fractured to hell and back. Good luck and post some pics! I post mine up when i get some good pics taken.

[rockshine]

Don't know about little pine garnet and asterism, Ryan, but in the past I have found star garnet in Buck Creek that have an orange X, or four-rayed star when cabbed.

[Ryan]

Rockshine, id love to see some of those. I dont know about these Lil Pine guys either but I have about 4-5 of them that are surprisingly gemmy and vary from ruby red to root beer brown. Of these, two have a silky face that flashes bright silvery grey at angle. Would there possibly be rutile in these? As I comprehend in my minimally advanced cranium, it is fibrous rutile or chambers of the microscopic variation that cause asterism in corundum and a fibrous structure that causes chatoyance in tiger eye qtz and cats eye chrysoberyl. I deeply wish I had a few grand to shell out on a diamond devil because i would already know the answer to this query. I bet theres a tiny chance these would flash somehow if i polished them up a bit. Id need to hear from someone who was an authority on the minerology of the area near LPGM regarding the rutile possibility. Ill try to get pics up that show the effect I speak of however I am on vacation in Ocean City with the Girlfriends family this week so itll have to wait. If I had chosen the Vaca destination I assure you all it would be far from the beach on some mountainside near my beloved WNC minerals. Sadly a 5 month pregnant woman does not a good mining partner make. The roundup was MY vacation. This is just a family formality as I rather loath boardwalks full of teenagers and cheap popculture goods. Sigh*

When I return Ill post again and try to illustrate what I am observing.

[Ryan]

Here are the two big ones I got, one was polished at the roundup and the other left in its natural state. Below these are some smaller, but well formed ones that do display some type of silky lustre and a bit of translucency. I tried to take a picture of the shiller but it never turned out. Anyhow, here they are.


Next, I tried to use various flashlights including the light on my cell phone to show the color of these. Some actually have some nice red in them. One or two are kind of brownish red, and the last one is almost like a raspberry color more reminiscent of rhodolite garnets than almandine. I have not shopped the color in these pics at all. These are fairly color-accurate.


As you can see, they are fractured as heck internally and probably wouldnt cut anything worth the effort or cab up real nice. But if I had a flat lap Id be giving it a shot! Maybe if I ground and polished the natural faces, they might look somewhat like little gems! Who knows. Anyhow, just wanted to post some finds up in the Little Pine thread. Thanks for lookin.

Oh, and Tracey, All of these, with the exception of the two first big ones, took a nice long bath in the Iron Out, I really think it helped take the crud off to reveal the gemmyness. Nothing other than the SIO soak and a good toothbrushing was done to them.

[tracey]

Ryan, Those are great pics and very helpful! That polished one is gorgeous! I've SIOed mine but I must have mixed to light cause no fizz and they are not nearly that clean. However whats left of the silver flakey stuff is much easier to scrape off ( I have this great little stainless steel tool) and they are looking even better. So after scraping I'm thinking another stronger SIO bath.
Beer, garnets and sharp metal objects, ah Friday night!

[CrossfireBusiness]

thanks for the post ... this has just been added to my itinenary !

[Ryan]

Its a good trip Greg. Hard rock mining deep in a historic adit, and the garnets are plentiful. Id go again in a heartbeat! Let me know when you go down!

Tracy, go strong with the SIO but do it outside. If you make a good strong bath for your stones, youll get a good fizz reaction going and itll give off some bad odors. I have access to gas detectors in my line of work and I have used one to measure the offgas from SIO and the device registered the byproduct Hydrogen Sulfide given off in decently harmful levels when one makes even a moderate SIO solution. Plus, SIO is made from bulk/stock quality components, it is not concocted from pure chemicals (too pricey for the manufacturer) so who knows what all is in that fizz.