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GeneralActinolite tile.

27th Sep 2016 18:47 UTCGüber McSanchez

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Hi and thanks for having an amateur. This is my first post and I was torn between art and education as a main header so I hope I chose the correct one.


Anyway, on to the actual question. My inlaws just bought a hundred acres and after many walks and small finds of actinalite (sp? I've seen both actinalite and actinolite) I found a spot with a literal truckload of it. Some pieces are the size of a small European car but most are the size of my torso or smaller. Long story short, we've been working on redoing the kitchen and I thought, why not cut them into tiles and use them as an inlay for the backsplash with maybe a copper border. The time frame for the backsplash is a few years away because of finances. I can't imagine it being cheap to get a nice tile cut from an oddly shaped lump that weighs dozens of lbs, thus, I must save my pennies.


So, to the question. What would be the best/cheapest way to cut and slab these beasts and the smaller ones into tiles about half an inch thick and up to 18inches long and 6inches wide, while maintaining the emerald hue and luster of the crystals? I want to basically mosaic an emerald dragon from D&D and some of the wing pieces would be huge. I've found one boulder that is at least 4ft wide by 3.5 tall and 3.5 deep ish that would make a stellar dark green background with copper stars laid into it but I imagine it would be 1000$+ to cut that, let alone move it.


As you can imagine this thing is going to take a while (but so cool when finished) that there is no real time frame on this at the moment and could turn out to be just a thought project and I might build something else first. Included should be (if I did it right) a picture of the smaller pieces I'm going to use for the body of the dragon.


Any ideas?

Much thanks.

 
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