We were able to have a visit from our daughter, Sandra, who lives in Nova Scotia about 3 hours away and while she was here, I finished some pieces on my new Cab King. I am really loving this machine and if you are serious about lapidary, check it out.
Thought it might be fun to show a piece from start to finish. During her visit, Sandra and "She with the agate eye" did a little rock hounding and came back with some interesting material. As you can see, this stone is not large.
But inside it showed itself to be pretty spectacular!
The red and black areas are both hematite and while the black usually polishes well, the red can be a bit of a problem. But not this time! I usually try to do something with the end piece when I cut a rock to see how well it works and that determines what I do with the rest. So I was able to get a shape for a nice little pendant and this is how it turned out.
The red polished like glass and the black was even better with some of the areas actually polishing to silver! So now I know I want to get as much from this piece as I can so I glue it to a small piece of 2x2.
This lets me keep the stone in the same plane as it cuts so the slices are uniform. And now, hopefully, I should get three more slices.
Also, I wanted Sandra to try her hand at cutting a groove around a stone to facilitate wire wrapping and we chose this little beauty.
It looks sparkly because it is sparkly with internal facets of amethyst surrounded by plume and fortification agate. A real show stopper! So before she left, I managed to wrap it in sterling silver wire and she wore it home on a silver chain.
I told her it's her inheritance!
If you have any questions about my work, don't hesitate to ask. Otherwise, when travel is permissible feel free to contact me and arrange a tour of my shop- The Lap of Lapidary!
