Post #330641 by prairie jade on Thu, Sep 6, 2007 4:36 AM

i have a few hundred pounds of jade i could use an assistant to slab for me. nephrite IS a matted fiberous mat of metamorphic rock and jadeite has a crystalline structure. Robin,
the best thing you can do with the big hunk of jade is to trade it for tama's cutting scrap--the pieces he included with my tiki were internally cleaner than most of the jade i own.
i'll be making the 2000 mile trip to the big sur jade festival again robin-are you camping?-cause the people are as much a prize as the jade. look for the 6'4" hippie in the brightest tie-dye and introduce yourself during one of my lucid moments Robin. there will be surprisingly less carving jade available at the festival than you suspect--the big sur jade
tends to be very internally occluded-although some nice carving pieces are for sale- mostly the jade is in the form of beach pebbles. and the festival prices are about what you might expect on the most isolated portion of the southern california coast. sorry i haven't posted pics of my old tiki carving yet- camera self-destructed in the rain photographing bison.