Hello,

I`m Jack

Bios what fun to write. They tend to sound more like Bio-waste.......

I work to support my lapidary habit.....which has involved 9/10th of my life.

My family are all into lapidary and i had no choice other then to join in, By the age of 4 I was out hunting on the Santiam river in Lebanon,Oregon Got a Radio flyer wagon it lasted one trip to the river where the new bridge was going in, Back the in1960 they would dig down to bed rock to place the footings for the supports on the bridge.
after the front end was rebuilt we would bring home large loads of agate, petrified wood, Jasper, and a lot of Holley Blue could be found that far down stream.

My Father`s Family was from Kemmerer Wy. where dad spent a lot of his time fossil hunting with his dad and Grandpa in the fossil bed out side of there house.

My Mothers side of the family were from Mount Ida Ar. And my Grand fathers Brother had the Quartz claims on Fisher Mt. and Ocas Married Ms. Fisher so thats how this all came to be as i was growing up i would get material from Ocas Stanley For my birthday.

So the History Line of time I`m sharing here is that i had no choice other then to work in the shop with dad as this would in return got me out to go rock hunting......with a fishing pool to walk the rock bars with. Tough most of the time rock hunting was better then fishing.

The Stanley family and the fisher`s were mining Quartz from about 1880s tell Ocas grew up to took over the Claims and the 357 acres of the Cap of Fisher Mt.
Ocas passed on in 1987, And Ole Stanley took over there on.

Back to Lebanon year 1960 the start of my and rock habit......
I thought i would / could use the saw by my self......oh sure worked fine tell the rock turn side ways in the vise and the rock started to scream out load and dad took about 3 sec. to be standing in my face......Well the rest is`t BIO material but I`l share it with you all.

As the face of dad came down to my level he sat me down on the bench and had that talk with me.

As it turn out ...Not that bad....My young hand of six could`nt tighten the vise tight like it should of been, Cost dad a new blade ( 16 inch ).....And my ass a few Sq. inch of skin...

In 1981 Dad turn over the shop and Equipment to me.

Since the start of this lapidary life of mine i was blissed to live in Oregon and to grow up in Lebanon, For there is no better place to start and learn the hobby of lapidary.

For you folks that know Oregon, has some of the best rock hunting in the World......
Well No thats not true....When the light in the head got brighter I started to collect material from all over the world.

Fire agate`s are my specialty

Now at the age of 50 ( a young 40 ) Mining has the same time line as the rock hunting.
One thing about rock hunting there is a lot of material you need to know to make the best of every trip.

Skip ahead to 2008.

I have a Web-page and i sell some of my collection on line.

Ya...Ya...Ya....

Here`s the Ad http://www.lapidaryrough.com

Reg. Name in Oregon Lapidary Rough