SUN CITY: Shop draws rockhounds, artisans

Lapidary Club members make jewelry, stone displays

By CATHY REDFERN - Staff Writer | Wednesday, March 26, 2008 9:55 AM PDT ∞

SUN CITY ---- For area rockhounds, the lapidary shop at the Sun City Civic Association offers a place to turn ordinary rocks into jewelry.

The shop features 10 diamond grinders, three trim saws, three big slab saws, six sanders, a silver polisher, a flat lapper and more.

"This is the most elaborate lapidary shop I've seen anywhere, and I've seen a lot of them over the years," said Bert Zwonechek, a former ceramics teacher and Nevada rock and gift shop owner who was in the studio on a recent morning making a bolo tie.

He used stones such as the swirling-blue denim lapis from Africa, the purple lepidolite from Pala and a green stone he said was a type of banded jasper.

Zwonechek, 75, said he has taken to using polymer clays as settings for his stones, because silver has become so expensive. He's also into suiseki, which he describes as "a pretty esoteric Oriental thing," which consists of finding and displaying odd-shaped rocks that resemble miniature figures, often shapes from nature. The objects are often displayed along with bonsai plants.

He and some other club members display their wares in cases in the studio. Zwonechek's display features several bolo ties of varying colors and styles as well as two blue ribbons from the county fair.

"You can't buy bolos that size, so that's what I do," he said.

Club membership carries annual dues of $10 and is open to anyone who lives within the civic association's boundaries. The 25 members have varying specialties when it comes to stones.

Bob Baird, vice president of the Lapidary Club, makes displays of luminous rocks. He works in the darkroom area of the shop, where he has long- and short-wave ultraviolet lights that make the color of certain stones glisten and come alive.

The shop also draws silversmiths, and the master is longtime club member Sam Diaco, 94.

On the other end of the spectrum is Steve Owens, the neophyte of the group and a veritable rock puppy. The 66-year-old said he got hooked on the hobby several months ago, after seeing a television show about geodes, which have rock exteriors and cavities inside with quartz crystal and other glimmering, colorful formations.

Intrigued, Owens stopped by Rockhound State Park near Deming, N.M., an area highlighted in the show. After picking up a couple of small geodes, he brought them back to the lapidary shop and George Crafton, the club's president, offered to saw them.

From then, he was hooked.

He says what intrigued him is not knowing what the inside of a stone will look like. A tan, dull stone can hide all kinds of interior beauty, he said. Discovering that inner beauty is like opening a present, he added.

"It's just like Christmas," he said.

The array of colors and patterns found in the stones at the shop is dazzling, and the properties vary, leading club members to issue one rock-related warning: Some minerals in rocks can give off toxic chemicals.

Crafton was making a pendant recently, putting a finished stone in a silver setting. In the background was the persistent hum of the slab saw, which would take about 20 minutes to slice out a section from a largish carnelian, he said.

The 75-year-old moved to Sun City from Long Beach about four years ago, and said he was delighted when he spotted the lapidary shop after visiting the area while he and his wife were staying at Wilderness Lakes in Menifee.

He used to go to a lapidary shop at a senior center in Long Beach, he said, but it was much smaller.

"I saw this shop and told my wife, 'This is where I want to live,'" he said. "I love it. I come here almost every day. Traveling around in our motorhome or making silver, those are my passions."

-- Contact staff writer Cathy Redfern at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2621, or credfern@californian.com.