Fossil Hunt South Dakota 2017

[RJB]

Thats funny @Ptychodus04, I just brought home my 3rd display case, and there is no way ive got enough room to display all my rocks!!! 

 

RB

[jewelonly]

@RJB, This report thread is utterly amazing! Page after page of beauties and so enjoyable to see your documentation of the prep stages for them! Can't wait to see more!  

 

Leah

[RJB]

Just hold on to your horses @jewelonly, im about to post one more beauty.  and thank you for the compliment. 

 

RB

[RJB]

Aaaaaaalrighty then.  This freakin beauty took a HECK of alot of work!  Lots and lots and lots of rock to remove.   The large ammonite is Hoploscaphites spedini, the two below it are Discoscaphites conradi and the little flat one on the left is Sphenodiscus.   This one is one of those rocks where the more I worked on it, the better it got!!!  This beautiful multi specimen is from the Fox Hills Formation.  Very happy with this one.  

 

RB

[jewelonly]

Good heavens, @RJB, That is STELLAR!!! Love it!! 

Leah

[RJB]

  Stellar.  Great word @jewelonly, thanks.   I know a guy who has been hunting ammos since he was 16 and is now 44.   He also was quite impressed with this one, and he is very hard to impress!!!   Believe me, his ammo collection makes mine look like some 3rd grader put it together!!!  

 

RB

[jewelonly]

11 minutes ago, RJB said:

  Stellar.  Great word @jewelonly, thanks.   I know a guy who has been hunting ammos since he was 16 and is now 44.   He also was quite impressed with this one, and he is very hard to impress!!!   Believe me, his ammo collection makes mine look like some 3rd grader put it together!!!  

 

RB

 

I can believe he was impressed! 

Wow! Your comparison of your collection to his collection is difficult to wrap my head around @RJB, considering these beauties!  

 

Leah

[RJB]

  Just to try and put it into perspective @jewelonly,he has an ammonite sittin in one corner of his house that is worth about $30,000 and his intire house is full of really nice A-Grade ammo,s, and so is his garage and also his huge shop. 

 

RB

[Ptychodus04]

Holy cephalopods Batman!

 

All of my ammonites are grounded for 2 weeks for being slackers.

[ynot]

42 minutes ago, RJB said:

  Just to try and put it into perspective @jewelonly,he has an ammonite sittin in one corner of his house that is worth about $30,000 and his intire house is full of really nice A-Grade ammo,s, and so is his garage and also his huge shop. 

 

RB

Yeah, but does He have any crabs?

 

It is a stunning piece!

[Raggedy Man]

Wow! That's spectacular RJ! 

[Fossil-Hound]

@RJB that's looking really nice. If I play my cards right I'll be out there in September. You pulled away with a spectacular haul. I'm very jealous but also proud of the work you did. Certainly IPFOTM worthy. This months FOTM competition is going to be one of the best yet. Some of the current entries are spectacular. I'm also really excited to see your preparation of that rare Dakota crab.

 

@Ptychodus04 I can't wait to see some pictures of your finished ammonites!

[RJB]

Thanks everyone.   I still have to find my binocular scope to finish that crab and another.  Not sure when?  did a lot more rock cutting today so have a few more to prep.  It doesnt seem to end, but now I can see the end in sight. 

 

RB

[RJB]

My son came over yesterday and we cut a few more rocks.   So today I finished up these two.  Not the best, but far from the worst!  Sphenodisus, Fox Hills.

 

RB

[RJB]

While coming home from this trip, my buddy went to a place south of where we were finding these most beautiful fossils and he called me after I was about 2 hours on my way back home.  He told me he found a Fox Hills lobster concretion!   I did him a big favor about 3 years ago and he told me he would find one for me.  Well, he came through for me.   Ive only prepped out one lobster conc from the Fox Hills in 24 years of prepping.  This will be my second.   I couldnt read the conc so it got wacked.  and yes, I was quite nervouse!  To say the least!   But now I can see that there is one really nice lobster in this rock and what appears to be another but looks to have some problmes.  Really not sure what is going on?  Gunna be real interesting to see what is going on!  This rock is a two stage glue project before I can do any prepping with the scribe and will take me quite some time.  I will show the prep progress as I go along. 

   Oh, the preservation on these Fox Hills lobsters is much better than those from the Pierre Shale or Bear Paw, so im quite excited!!!   Woooooooop  Wooooooop!!! 

 

RB

[ynot]

 

[RJB]

Thanks @ynot.   Your one funny guy. 

 

RB

[Ludwigia]

Great stuff RB! And I'll dig into the until you've got that lobster done. Looking forward to the play-by-play on it.

[Wrangellian]

What is rockite and how does it work? What are the benefits/drawbacks and where do you get it?

[RJB]

@Wrangellian.  Rockite is a type of concrete patch.  Not near as hard as concrete though.  Very soft once cured and easy to work with with airscribe.  Also has flowing capabilities depending on how you mix it.  I got mine from Ace Hardware store.

 

RB

[RJB]

   Ok, been rather busy, but got this Fox Hills Lobster glued back together and now ready for prep!   Woooooooop,,, Woooooop!!!

 

RB

[Coco]

 

Coco

[ynot]

 

[crabfossilsteve]

Ok, now you have my attention again after all of those amazing ammonites.  Look forward to seeing how this lobster turns out, so keep sending out pics.

[Bozark]

On 6/16/2017 at 6:12 PM, RJB said:

Ok, ive started on one of the White River tortoises.  Sad to say, I hope I never get one like this again.   Just the nastiest rock ive run into in a very long time.  Its like the whole thing is wrapped up in a thin coating of very hard iron!!!  Impossible to not beat it up!!! Not happy at all with the way this is turning out!  I mean, its still purty dang cool, but trying to get the iron stuff off is an absolute pain in the you know what!!!  To say the least.  Anyways, ive got a bit over 15 hours in this so far with at least 20 more hours to go. 

 

RB

I've found the best solution for iron stone is a small engraver for jewelry and the like. Those little ones that use AAA batteries are handy and cheap, and they'll burn through matrix. It's slow through thick stuff, but when there's a thin layer you can slide small pieces off with the rotation.