Post #151409 by FlickOn_Tiki on Wed, Apr 6, 2005 10:42 PM

A-A,
Sweet - a fellow rocker! Great to hear from you!
Well I guess I do not know what feather rock is. So it could be called that. ???
The rock I am working has light grey ,darker grey, and black in color with vein layers running through it. It’s is a pretty light weight rock. It has a grain direction to it if you look at the edge of it. The grain is wild and wavy on some pieces. The black layers are dense and splinter like glass. But the pieces I picked out are mostly like pumice rock with about 2% black layers. It is mostly crumbly layers with fine air pockets in various layer densities.
I could drill a whole clean through with an old screw driver. Yes this stuff is pretty nasty, but it is mostly dusty. I have been wearing eye goggles and a respirator. The dust is more like sand than like glass. I am sure it could do a number on your lungs.
A note to the Gods: No BAD KARMA LAVA was stolen from volcanoes to make these creations. I got the rock from a landscape place in San Jose, CA (on Monterey HWY). There I picked up 4 good chunks and I gave the dude a five spot for it.

A-A sounds like your rock is denser with harder layers of obsidian that splinters and shatters on contact with a masons bit.

To work this stuff, I tooled it with a masonry bit on a power drill, a chisel, a jewelers saw (small bow saw) and some crude steal tools made from pins and old screw drivers. This stuff does fly when hit with the power bit. But it mostly crumbles away when worked with a chisel. I gauge it out mostly by hand.

The work was started from 10 x 8 Cubic inches or so of rock - each. I will defiantly post pictures after I get a friend to flash some for me. I will post some of the tool carnage pics and raw materials pics of the rock as well.

Aloha
FlickOn