One Door Closes and Another Opens

 The days are much shorter now and the water is too cold on these old arthritic hands. So the rock lab- The Lap of Lapidary- is shut down until spring. This week was spent finishing off a few stones and cleaning the machines. The Cab King got a total overhaul after a very busy summer and a heavy job was made much lighter by my OCD artist partner in crime. 

As some readers will remember, Vickie makes some very beautiful paint from the rock dust pigment that collects in the machines and being who and what she is, the machines get a meticulous cleaning to ensure it all ends up in her bucket! Here's her Cab King haul.

I find it interesting how the colour varies from different areas. The darker stuff on the left came from the dried sediments in the bottom of the wastewater collection bucket while the lighter material was collected from the pans underneath the wheels.

I also made a big decision to install a new set of wheels. The 8 inch Cab King comes with an extra set of the soft wheels and I had bought new hard ones. The old ones have plenty of life and I'll probably sell them but I figure at the age of 75, it's doubtful I'll outlive this new set. Anyway, it's a new life goal!! And now the Cab King looks better than it has since the day after I started using it.

 So as that door closes for the winter, the door to the jewelry bench opens.

I have several new techniques I want to try and tons of beautiful stones to finish- all under the critical eye of The Real Artist who occupies her Real Art Domain beside me. Our hatches are all battened down here and I hope that wherever you are, you're set to enjoy the winter!

Stay tuned to see what mischief we can get into!

Cheers.

Time to Shut Down The Cab King

 Half way through the summer I bit the bullet and bought a Cab King cabbing machine and it has exceeded even my high expectations!

It was so much fun that even the lady with the agate eye tried it out!

But now the days are getting shorter and it's getting pretty chilly in my Lap of Lapidary Shop so it's time to shut 'er down and do a clean up and let me tell you, it will be a lot easier with the Cab King! I may even be able to con "The Real Artist" into helping if she wants to collect the rock dust to make pigment!

My last task was to finish a bunch of local Bay of Fundy agate and jasper I had rough cut earlier and I have to say they turned out even better than I had hoped! The Cab King is awesome!

I also finished off some more petrified wood so there will be lots to work with on the jewelry bench when the snows are being blown around by our winter gales. And speaking of that, we are going to get a visit from Hurricane Teddy on Tuesday with wind gusts supposed to top out at 130+ KPH so that should be exciting!

Work is continuing on our new web site- the Seawall Emporium- and I have about 35 pieces ready for photography with a goal of having 50 listed by the end of October so stay tuned!

Stay healthy and sane!

The Eye of the Tiger

 Summer is gradually coming to a close and the sun is appearing farther south on the horizon every morning. The mornings aren't yet cold enough to turn on heat but we're getting there.

The good old Lot-O-Tumbler is doing its last load for the year and once I have worked a few stones for "She Who MUST Be Obeyed" I'll start cleaning the machines and the Lap of Lapidary will be shut down except for the drill press that I'll continue to use for metalwork through the winter.

Last year I participated in a little product research for Hi-Tech Diamond, a great American lapidary equipment company and as thanks, they gifted me with a beautiful thick slab of Tiger's Eye. This material appears to be the type formed by altered asbestos or chrysotile so I call it the ugly duckling. It starts life as an ugly, potentially dangerous mineral and, after it has been altered by silicate fluids, it becomes an amazingly beautiful gem rock that exhibits "chatoyance" or a shimmer of light that causes the stone to look different as it moves. It's an amazing, complex process that I won't go into here but the results it produces are visually stunning.

When I got the slab, I immediately knew what I wanted to do with it. It was large enough for me to get 3 pendants and thick enough for me to do a complete drop- that is curved surface front and back. I needed 3 pendants of differing size- the largest for Vickie my wife (she with the agate eye), a medium sized one for my older daughter Lisa and a smaller one for daughter Sandra- the runt of the litter.

First step was to define the shapes using a magic marker and doing a rough cut of the slab. I used my 10 inch Hi-Tech saw because the slab was so thick. Then I ground out the outside shapes on my new (and much loved!) Cab King cabbing machine.

Next, while the stones still had flat surfaces front and back, I located the mid point and cut a groove around the perimeter as shown in this stone, using a machine with a 1 mm. bit that lets me cut horizontal grooves.

The groove holds the wire I use to set the stone and doing it with a flat surface lets you make a nice straight cut. I like using this technique because it doesn't interfere with the colour or patterning of the stone.

Then it was back to the Cab King to grind the curved shapes on both sides, smooth them out and then polish with a mixture of tin and cerium oxide. I love the results!

I used bronze wire to complement the golden yellow of the stones and now the girls just have to decide what they want me to hang them on. Here's a video showing the effect of chatoyance but in all honesty, it is much more pronounced in person.

I hope you enjoy this and now it's on to new adventures. We have almost completed work on our new web site and enterprise- the Seawall Emporium- and I am now figuring out how I can incorporate old guitar strings in my creations so stay tuned (get it?)  and stay sane and healthy!

Cutting Perimeter Grooves in Petrified Wood Cabochons

I am now well into my petrified wood project. Just to recap, I started with several beautiful slabs of petrified wood and used a magic marker to define shapes.

I then cut them out and finished them on my new Cab King. The results were pretty spectacular.

Recently I was contacted by someone who wanted to buy these three.

So today, they had to have grooves cut around the perimeter to prepare for wire wrapping. I prefer this technique when stones have a lot of patterning or colour shifts so the wrapping doesn't "compete". I have included this video to show the process. Hope you enjoy it.

In my next post, I'll include a video on my process for wrapping with a groove cut.

Enjoy!

Latest Pieces from The Lap of Lapidary

Well, it certainly has been a "different" summer- in many ways.

First, there has been the weather- definitely not the year for "fun in the sun" as we have had very few nice days to date.

And then there's "the Virus".

Although there are tourists from other parts of our "Atlantic Bubble" in town, we decided not to open the gift shop because of its small size and will look to establish a significant web presence in the fall. That has meant that it is really quiet around here and while we miss meeting all the interesting people who stop by, it has given us more time to "create". Vickie has been doing some very interesting artwork which is nearing completion and when finished, I'll do a post on it.

It's been fun playing with my new toy- the 8 inch Cab King and a new old (50+ years) toy- my 10 inch Mercury oil saw that daughter Sandra updated with a new and more powerful motor.

I am in the midst of a massive project to create pendants, ear rings and rings from the beautiful petrified wood slabs gifted to me by Glenn Cooke (miss you guys!) but have taken some time to finish a few pieces of local stone that are now ready for wrapping.

The first one is a perfect Digby Neck pendant.

It is shaped just like The Neck- right down to Brier Island- with little druzy pockets in each segment and is made up of the basic rock that makes up The neck- basalt and agate.

The next piece comes from Brier Island- a beautiful piece of dark green brecciated (broken) jasper

I plan on cutting a groove around the edge and wrapping it with silver wire. Should be dynamite!

And then there are these two little gems. They come from a small stone found on a nearby beach that offered a really nice surprise when cut. The smaller is about an inch long.

The colour and detail on the patterning is awesome and deserving of a nice setting.

All for now. Hope to see you soon. Cheers!

Petrified Wood Project Update

In my previous post I showed the slabs of petrified wood with the shapes I had defined using a marker. I have a combination of pendants, ear rings and a couple of rings.

It took me two days to rough cut all the shapes using a Cab King trim saw and my Hi-Tech 10 inch saw with a thin blade to accommodate some of the larger pieces. I was really pleased with the results since I started with 55 shapes and only lost two due to shattering along fractures. Here's how they looked then.

This morning I switched out the trim saw attachment for the right hand wheels on my Cab King and got busy grinding off all the excess material using my coarse (80 grit) wheel. I was amazed at how fast it went and now they look like this.

So now I am ready for the next step where I will use my 220 grit wheel to do the final smoothing around the perimeter and grind off rock on top to produce "domes" that will allow the rocks to polish. This is a much slower process but it is worth it to get stones that are well shaped because any flaws introduced now can't be undone down the road.

I continue to be really impressed with my Cab King, especially the water delivery system and removal system. And it is really easy to convert back and forth to the trim saw.

Stay tuned for the next step in this rather large project!

Cheers!

My Next Project

One good thing about no tourists is that I'm getting to spend a lot more time in my "Lap of Lapidary" shop. So today I embarked on a rather large project.

Fortunately for me, I have an amazing amount of quality local rock to choose from. And if that wasn't enough, I have a good friend- Glenn Cooke- who has gifted me a wonderful assortment of agate and jasper from the Petrified Forest in Arizona (all ethically collected).

This rock was formed about 225 million years ago or about 100 million years later than the rocks on Digby Neck (a wink of an eye geologically speaking). Over the eons, the trees, buried in sediments, were converted from wood to rock and what a conversion! There is an amazing array of colour in the jasper and agate and many pieces have retained the trees growth rings etc..

The first step involved defining shapes and cut lines in the slabs. here's a photo of the result.

Many of the slabs contain fractures so you have to be a little careful where you put your shapes. If there are a lot of fractures, I do straight cuts first to see how the rock will split. Here is another part of the assortment.

In all, I have defined 55 shapes so far for pendants, ear rings and the odd ring.

So now it is time to convert my Cab King cabbing machine to a trim saw and start cutting. Once that is complete, I'll go through the off cuts and probably be able to get another 5 pairs of ear rings and a couple of rings. Then I'll convert my machine back to the 6 wheel grinder/ polisher and start doing the final shaping and polishing. In all honesty I have held off doing this for a long time but my new Cab King is so much faster and easier that I felt now was the time (especially since there are no tourists!).

So stay tuned as I intend to show updates as the work progresses.

By the way, did you know that the Cliffs of the Bay of Fundy are a Unesco Geopark? I live in a Geopark! You should definitely check it out.

Cheers from Digby Neck!

What We've Been Up To

So how are we all bearing up in these "unique" times? It is so strange not having tourists visiting the shop but we are still keeping busy.

The new Cab King has proven to be amazing and we are producing some really outstanding finished product.

I have run into a bit of a problem though in that the "real artist" has decided she likes working on it as well and has even demanded her own apron!

Fortunately, she got bored and returned to her own side of the wall where she has been busy making gelli prints. I have no idea of the process other than the fact that I can no longer remove any of the various weeds around the house. The results are pretty cool I must admit. Here are a couple that are about 12x16 inches.

I find the detail amazing and, frankly struck by how beautiful an image a weed can make. Almost makes up for the fact I live my life in a grade 7 science project!

Next week I will shift my attention to some cutting on the 10 inch saw and making some polished specimens on my Hi-Tech slant lap so stay tuned!

More Goodies From The Lap of Lapidary

It sure is a different summer with no visitors stopping by. We hope that you are all well and staying clear of the effects of the Covid virus.

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!

A Tour of the Lap of Lapidary

Well, I have finally managed to get all the machines up and running and have decided that the shop name had to be changed. Since it now has everything I need- including a sound system- I thought it should be called "The Lap of Lapidary"!

New Sound System

To create the sound system, I had to get a signal booster so as to access the internet and now I can listen to music all day!

In order to show you everything in the shop, we created four videos and to make it realistic, I did them from the standpoint of taking a piece from a rough hunk of rock to a finished piece.

The first video takes you through the sawing of a large rock to produce a slab or slice.

Then we take the slice through the process to a finished, polished piece.

And then we take a look at a few special machines used to create specific effects in the finishing process.

And finally, I show you how I keep track of all the rock I have cut for future reference and possible use.

I hope that you have enjoyed the tour and if you have any questions about the process or a specific machine, feel free to ask. At some point I will be doing specific posts on individual machines to show them in action.

And if we ever get out from under this virus shadow, come and take the tour in person!

Big Cab King News!

Since I moved to Nova Scotia, I have been using some very old equipment. How old, you ask? Well, one of my 10 inch saws and my grinding/ polishing arbor were made by a company that went out of business in the late 1960's!

Over the winter, I did a lot of research on what are called "cabbing machines". These are used to grind and polish rocks in order to make jewelry with them. There are many options available but my research tells me that the best machine for quality of build and value for money is the Cab King. Since most of my readers would not be interested in the details, I won't post them here but if you read this and are interested, I would be happy to answer any questions.

Here is the Cab King machine.

It has 6 wheels and two more pads on the ends and what makes it even better is that it can convert to a rock saw using the same motor. I bought that attachment as well.

I can't wait to show you pics of what I can do with it!

So now I have to find some buyers for a few of my machines I no longer need but that should not be a big problem as this hobby is really hot right now.

If you are in the area post Coronavirus, stop by and I'll show you how it works!