| Original Message: Re: Imitation "block" material = soft plastic |
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The Imitation "block" material is soft plastic. Tapping it against your upper teeth it feels plastic, not glass or stone hard. Thin beads of it do not clink like hard stone. In fact, it's not often used as really thin sections except as inlay because it would snap fairly easily. The use of the word reconstructed is often suspect. Recon is used to imply that real material is used in the process. As in the first uses of "block turquoise" the sellers said it was ground up turquoise bound together with plastic. But no real stone was harmed in the making of most of it. I do have a sample block of "block lapis" that has tiny flecks of pyrite in it. The blue plastic undercuts the much harder pyrite. There IS what I prefer to call "Compressed Nugget." This is what Colbaugh processing makes from chunks of Kingman area real turquoise. When they mix it with red dye and plastic they get the popular "purple turquoise" sold by Dakota Stone. A cross section of this shows hard edges rather than the soft swirls of plastic and dyes mixed together. Magnesite is so cheap I'm not sure it is used in "reconstructed" or "compressed nugget" form. I have seen carved beads in magnesite that were stabilized with clear plastic after being dyed. I'm not sure if the clear plastic was to make them look like real turq or just to protect the detailed carving. The magnesite and dyed magnesite seems to be a different group of makers than the imitation stone makers. Some of the sample chips and blocks in the above pictures show layers of different colors, like the "Fordite" and "Rainbow Calsilica." Some of the "malachite" block is made this way, too. "Rainbow Calsilica", by the way, is another product of Colbaugh's processing. The necklaces Sarah shows look to be the dyed magnesite in 2 of the more common colors. There are huge amounts of this available here in China. All rights reserved by Bead Collector Network and its users |
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