Thank you Eileen, the
www.greatslabs.com is the same guy as
www.greatrough.com, but he has the red goldstone only on the first site, it seems.
Pat, I do encase before pulling as otherwise the goldstone tends to get muddy and doesn't sparkle anymore.
DesertDreamer, you haven't had any cracking with the goldstone you got at Quartzsite? That would be my biggest concern. If I encased it and pulled it and put it into a bead and then later the bead cracked that would be disasterous. So far, I have only used the fairly small 14mm or so chunks I got through Arrow Springs at the Gem Show in Tucson. This is the expensive stuff.
Glasshouse, do you have the name of the knife knapping store? I don't even know what knife knapping is, but if the owner is willing to send the really big sparkle pieces, that's awesome!
I'm still leaning on ordering from the fellow in Tucson (
www.greatrough.com) however, as he is local and I could even (theoretically) drive to Tucson and pick out my pieces. It's just a 90 minute drive but the gas costs more than the shipping.
I had just never considered goldstone as having a COE, and in fact I was told you could even buy strings of beads and melt those to use to encase and pull into stringer. I wouldn't use beads though because the beads can be used to design and they have a hole in them which could trap air.
I appreciate all the responses everyone has contributed. It looks like it would be just fine to get the goldstone from the fellow in Tucson or anywhere that I can actually see what I'm buying.
I'm wondering why some people in ASGB thought there might be compatibility issues. They didn't even know the vendor I was talking about. It was also mentioned the goldstone might be from China (Oh no! Not that!)