Tucson Gem, Mineral, & Fossil Shows 2014-Dino Bone & Lapidary Stuff

I wanted to show you the metal-included Rhodocrosite I mentioned yesterday. There was not much, but I bought what I could.

Electric Park was calling again today. (My editor tells me that this hasn’t been called this in several years). I will endeavor to refer to it as Kino Sports Complex, but my mind reverts to what I first learned!) I wanted to avoid the crowds at the wholesale shows and The Kino Sports Complex provides room to move. We have heard that thieves are hitting the shows for cell phones, so watch yours when in town. Some of our vendor friends had to replace their phones.

I checked out what Lapidary Equipment might be new. Barranca Diamond features a new 6-wheel GP6 Cabmaker which resembles a Genie. The difference from a Genie is this motor has 1/3 horsepower (rather than 1/4), and they use brazed 80 and 170 grit metal-bonded diamond wheels. They have the same 4 Nova wheels as the Genie. The list price for this machine is $3645, making it more expensive than the Genie, but sale prices may be up to $1000 less, and this is Made in America. A third difference is the Cabmaker features a drip system for wheel-wetting. This avoids the emitter-spray that takes place with the Genie. This also has 6 stainless steel water-control valves verses the Genie emitter system. I was very impressed with this American-made Cabmaker. If you need more information on this check out the BarrancaDiamond website. We talked to John Wease of JS Gems who distributes for them. I appreciate him taking the time to show us these features.

I also saw a new 7 inch Barranca Diamond trimsaw that seemed nice. This saw is comparable in size to Diamond Pacific’s Wizard trimsaw. It featured a direct drive 1/3 hp motor that is extremely quiet, all cast aluminum, and numerous other handy options including a plastic cover that you can reach through the side while cutting. Most of us don’t use a top, but this is a good option for some users. The cast aluminum makes it lighter weight, and is the table lifts up and out for blade changes or cleaning. It has a fluid drain hose and a sludge removal plug. It is mounted on a 1/2″ polypro base, so it is impervious to water or oil. The rock vise and splash hood are options.Again I found these machines to be well-engineered and well built.

At Diamond Pacific I examined their swing arm slab saw. If I had the money, I would own this Model SA18 which has a lot of advantages over my old slab saw. Time-saving elements you don’t have to open the saw to reposition your rock for the next cut and it has a table inside that can be completely removed for cleaning. I expect that one of my lapidary friends that have one of these high tech saws may wish to comment on it.

At Graves I didn’t see anything new, but they do offer excellent saw blades, some American made. I bought a special blade to cut the watermelon tourmaline you saw in a prior blog.

I also saw some Citrus scented Mineral Oil sold by Stellarlubricants.com. This was one of those why-didn’t-I-think-of-that moments. They said that they completely sold out in Quartzsite and it is selling fast here in Tucson also. If I had this oil my shop probably would not even smell like a shop anymore.

We roamed around the grounds at Kino Sports Complex, chatting with vendors looking for things of interest and trying to find something new in the line of rocks. I went back to Bohemian Fossils and dug again into John’s gem Dinosaur Bone troughs. Some slabs called out to me and I couldn’t pass them up. (“Don, pick me, pick me, pick me….”)

Not surprisingly Bonnie found a few beads to round out her collection as well.