Rock friend Tony W sent me some Fire Agate.
He also sent me some Boulder Opal.
Working this material takes courage, a steady hand, and total concentration. Grind too much and your fire goes out; grind too little and your fire is only a smolder. Tony told me “it is stuff you can just grind to dust so you can learn about how the opal runs and how pits open instead of going away, etc….. the awful pitfalls of opal lust 
That’s how I finally over came my timidity with it…just sacrificing some rough to the wheel. Grinding it all away so I could see where I should have stopped. It is just part of the dance.”
So that’s why he gave me the Fire Agate too. It is different in that it’s agate and therefore harder, but… when you find the fire, care must be taken not to grind into the encapsulated fire. Not all pieces have it either. Tony tells me that his rate is one bit of fire to ten tries. Thanks to Tony’s encouragement, I had some half decent success.
Here are the results of my adventures with fire this past weekend…
~The Fire Agate~
