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Birthstone for October -- Tourmaline

Tourmaline the Jewelry Making Birthstone for OctoberThe birthstone for October is tourmaline.  There are 14 officially recognized varieties of tourmaline.  These varieties vary in color from black, yellow, green, pink, light blue, dark blue, and colorless.  Some crystals of tourmaline actually have one end that is green and the opposite end being pink to red.  This variety of tourmaline is called the watermelon tourmaline.  Chemically, tourmaline is a silicate of aluminum and boron with several common trace impurities.  Each different impurity results in a different color of tourmaline.  Some pink tourmaline are irradiated to help enhance the red color of the gemstones. 

Tourmaline has a hardness of 7-7.5 on the Mohs hardness scale.  This makes tourmaline about the same hardness as sand and dust and for this reason, tourmaline is probably unsuitable for use in rings and bracelets for everyday wear. 

For more information on tourmaline, visit Wikipedia here.

To view our selection of pink cubic zirconia, simulating pink tourmaline please select the picture above-right Please select here to view our man-made and mined tourmaline gemstones.  Pink cubic zirconia have a hardness of 8.5 which makes them suitable for everyday wear. 

  Birthstones                    View our Tourmaline (Pink CZ) Jewelry Making Kits

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Tourmaline"
Last updated 3/28/2007

This WigJig web page is provided as part of WigJig University - College of Jewelry Making Techniques.  We try to provide interesting jewelry making techniques using beads, jewelry wire and other jewelry supplies.  We hope that the jewelry making skills taught on these web pages will provide you enough information for you to incorporate these techniques in your own jewelry making projects.  For beginners, we suggest that you start with a visit to our Beginners Jewelry Making pages. These pages discuss the skills necessary for making jewelry in the detail that beginners need. We also suggest that beginners to jewelry making might need to visit the WigJig University College of Jewelry Making Designs for jewelry making projects using the skills and techniques shown here. 

 Most, but not all of the jewelry supplies shown here can be purchased in our WigJig store.  We try to have a complete selection of jewelry supplies in our store including chain, wire, glass beads, findings, watches, tools, etc. 

The jewelry making projects shown here do not use Sterling Silver.  The reason for this is simple, it is harder to get good pictures of Sterling Silver wire components than with colored wire including gold-filled, copper, or brass wire.  Any project shown in colored wire can be made in Sterling Silver wire.