Ore

[gfish]

It is annoyingly hard to find affordible sources of metal ores. Either it's being sold as display examples of a semi-precious mineral, or you're bidding on boxcar loads of the stuff. It's almost like no one is in interested in catering to the backyard smelting hobbyist.

Also, what does it say that there are more pages devoted to gathering/smelting ore in MMPORGs than doing it in real life?

Comments

[niac.livejournal.com]

I hear ya. I've found that you can find deals when dealing *directly* with shops that sell those expensive rock samples. They tend to be able to get ore. I negotiated (but did not execute) a deal on 50 lbs of copper ore for about a quarter a lb. Still exceedingly expensive, but not so much for the hobbyist.

In person is often best for those deals.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Also, what does it say that there are more pages devoted to gathering/smelting ore in MMPORGs than doing it in real life?

It says that you're part of a small, select group. That's the best euphemism I've come up with in years.

[basal-surge.livejournal.com]

Most of us hobbyist smelters are lazy about documenting our stuff on the 'net, I suppose.

What sort of ore do you seek?

(I just go out and pick the ore I want up of the ground, you see, but I live in Australia at the moment, and the place is absolutely lousy with the stuff.)

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was just idly looking for a source of cassiterite. Not urgent, since our copper results have been pretty poor to this point.

There should be copper ore in the area. We tried gathering our own once, but ended up with greenish rocks that had no copper in them at all. Next time I'm taking a basic blowpipe kit, but I've decided to stick to mailorder for now.

[basal-surge.livejournal.com]

Cassiterite - well, big ask there - it's not common at all, and one of the things you'd have to order rather than fossick for. I've panned cassiterite before - it occasionally turns up among our heavy mineral samples, etc.

Actually, what I'd do is cheat, and use high-tin pewters as a source for tin. Mind you, they often have a bunch of unwanted crap in them these days.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I always knew I'd have to order cassiterite. Not that I would mind driving down to South America...

[basal-surge.livejournal.com]

If you can get a tin/copper pewter of known alloy, that should be fine. I'm assuming you want cassiterite for the purpose of making bronze, of course.

[shandryl.livejournal.com]

*looks out her window at the mountains* Oh look, a metric buttload of free ore. Especially where there's a whole pile of crushed material on the side of the mountain, dumped over there when they were dynamiting chunks of the mountainside to make room for the railroad. =)

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I might be able to get you small amounts of silver lead carbonate (Leadville is lousy with it.) I've never had any luck getting the silver out, though. By small amounts, I mean mL quantities.
Any thoughts on going to Arizona and looking around in the turquoise-rich areas? They certainly have copper-bearing rock.