MATERIALS IN MY COLLECTION THAT ARE USED IN INTARSIAS

Most of these I have used in intarsia work, a few I have not got around to!

AMMOLITE

Opalized ammonite shell, found in only one place in the world. Fine specimens are getting harder and harder to come by.

MALACHITE

Finely banded green copper based mineral. Cut across the banding, it makes a beautiful accent stone. More irregular patterns available too...

DINOSAUR BONE

Surprisingly, not that rare. Rarer though is really nice material. This comes in many differnet patterns, red, yellow, black, and even some blue.

ETCHED METEORITE

This one's from outer space! The pattern is called Widmanstatten , and is a part of the crystal structure of the iron in the "space rock". Etching solution is used to bring out the pattern so you can see it. This one is a Gibeon meteorite from Namibia. These are getting rarer too.

RUBY IN ZOISITE.

Gorgeous watermelon red and lime green material. makes you want to eat it!

PIETERSITE

Pietersite, either from South Africa or from China. It's related to Tiger's Eye, but more interesting. Very rich pattern, in brown, mahogany, rust red, and black. Much of it is chatoyant.

HONDURAN MATRIX OPAL

This stuff reminds me of a freshly caught rainbow trout! Very pretty reds, greens, blue, and those black dots sprinkled in, it looks like a starry night.

RHODOCHROSITE

Salmon red, some with stalagtite-banding from the way it forms.

LAPIS LAZULI

Royal blue, from Afghansistan, with intriguing sprinkles of pyrite. It has been used in fine jewelry since Egyptian times.

TIGER'S EYE/TIGER IRON

The familiar Tiger's Eye, but mixed in with Jasper and Hematite, makes for very organic patterns.

GASPEITE

I have been looking for a solid lime green stone like this for a long time. Then I found Gaspeite. It's hard to find large solid chunks like this.

BOULDER OPAL

Beautiful and always popular, every piece is different, both the color pattern and the wavy surface.

TURQUOISE

Solid blue-green color, used often in Native American jewelry.

BANDED RED JASPER AND HEMATITE

The picture says it all! Yummy.

AMAZONITE

Fairly hard material, a form of microcrystaline Quartz. Nice green and white veins .

FOSSILS

The top ones are Ammonites, the center one is replaced with pyrite. The lowerone is a small fish that lived millions of years ago.

AZURITE CRYSTAL CLUSTER

Incredible royal blue, and in the form of a fine carpet of crystals! I haven't tried this one in an intersia yet, but itchin' to.

UVAROVITE

From Russia, with love! Pure green drusy crystals. It can't GET no greener.

FIRE AGATE

Looks like bubbles of lava. Very 3D.

SUGILITE

This stuff is the yummiest purple. It's from the Kalahari Desert in South Africa. Hard to get good solid chunks of color like this.

COBALTIAN CALCITE

Lovely hot pink crystals. Greatly increases the available color pallet for intarsia.

CHAROITE

Royal purple, but with some chatoyancy. the really chatoyant stuff is also fibrous and tricky to work with, but can be worth the effort.

CAL SILICA

Though some claim this is natura, I'm pretty sure it is man-made. in this case, I DON'T CARE! Very popular in jewelry, just check Ebay.

VARIOUS AND SUNDRY OTHER GOODIES

What's shown on this page is not even all that is available for building new and unique intarsias.

AMBER

I have some very nice amber with 30,000,000 year old bugs in it, can combine with dinosuar bone, mammoth bone, fossils, etc to make interesting combinations..