The Rock Lab Has a Name

As you go through life, if you are fortunate, you get to meet some really interesting people and, happily, I've met my share. It's an added bonus when they are not only interesting but nice.

Since moving back to Nova Scotia, I've come across several, one being Vaughn Tidd.

Vaughn used to own the Whale Cove Campground further up The Neck and has been a "rock guy" all his life from the looks of it. Over the years he started doing more than just finding them and began acquiring lapidary equipment to be able to showcase the amazing beauty of the rocks found in Nova Scotia. A few years back, he decided to downsize and started selling some of his machines and I was fortunate enough to buy a trim saw and grinding arbor. Then, this year, I bought a larger (10 inch) saw and beautiful little rock tumbler and last week, Vickie and I drove over to the south shore where Vaughn now lives and come back with this nifty little flat lap.

A flat lap is a machine that allows you to grind and polish rock on a flat surface, using plates embedded with grits of different coarseness. I modified it a little by changing the water cooling delivery system and tried it out and it works great! I am really impressed. Also, I got the blade put back in the big saw and actually cut a few stones yesterday. It too works great.

So now the lab is complete with all the equipment needed to do what I want to do with the beautiful material we are finding but it was still missing something important- a name!

Coming up with a really good name is not the easiest thing in the world. It has to reflect what goes on and also, hopefully, the personality of the person inside and I think I've found the perfect name for it. I give you:

Now some who know me might say, "Oh isn't that nice- he named it for Vickie", but while I'll take the compliment, it's not the case. Whenever I have bought equipment from Vaughn, I have always said that he was free to drop by and use it since I know that it is really hard to give something like this up totally.

So my little man cave will henceforth be known as the VT ROCK LAB in recognition of the guy who made it possible- Vaughn Tidd. And I hope that by hanging this over the door, Vaughn will feel comfortable to come by and use his equipment any time he wants. And I hope that you too will want to come by and see what a well equipped lapidary shop looks like and some of the beautiful things it can produce.

And speaking of beautiful things, one of the pieces I came away from Vaughn's with is this beautiful amethyst crystal which he had found on The Neck.

I actually used the new flat lap to clean off the faces and now will continue to smooth the facets and polish it up really nice because it is going to someone special who really likes amethyst- my daughter Lisa.

It is a standing family joke that every time Lisa comes here, she looks for a piece of amethyst and never finds any, even when we "seed" the area. So perhaps this will fill the void.

Although we are very busy gearing up for Knit City at the end of the month, I will be staying here except for when I drive Vickie to and from the airport so the shop will be closed Sept. 27-8 and October 4th. Other than that, we will be open regular hours or longer if we are here.

We are so excited to be able to present our gorgeous yarn to such a large piece of the knitting community andI'll be posting some shots of our booth at Knit City when they are available.