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!

Getting The Most Out Of A Stone

I am very fortunate in that I have a lot of beautiful stone to work with so often my biggest problem is deciding which one(s) to choose.
Recently I was cutting some slabs to use for guitar picks (I'm working on a batch of 44 and they are going to be spectacular!). Being somewhat "frugal" I tried to get as many out of each beautiful agate slab as possible but there was a piece left over that was large enough to use to develop a pendant and here it is.

I just love this stone. The colouring and patterning are amazing but it is the live (natural) edge that does it for me. To me, that edge takes it to a whole new level of beautiful.

I am also working with an amazing piece of petrified wood.

I have glued it to a distressed copper plate and will now wrap it with copper wire through the holes around the stone. In this picture you can clearly see the growth rings but in other light it is jet black. But again, the part I like the best is the live edge on top and to the left. It adds an amazing contrast when seen from the side, regardless of the light.

Conversely, other stones need to be worked more to develop their full potential. Here are two local stones that I have shaped in what I hope are shapes pleasing to the eye and then contoured so the natural patterns etc. show to their best.

On the left is a nice piece of crazy lace with some crystal (druzy) pockets that I have enhanced by using curvature. This one will eventually be mounted to a copper back plate. The stone on the right is what we call Straw Agate. It can vary from dark to light in colour but this lighter piece really shows off the patterning which is even more enhanced by the curvature. This one has been drilled and will probably just hang from a silver jump ring so the amazing stone takes center stage.

So as you can see, we have plenty of new pieces in the shop. And speaking of the shop, our sign is back up and we will be officially opening for the first time this season tomorrow- Friday, March 22 so if you are in the area, drop by and say hi!

More Pendants off The Bench

I have finally had a block of time to finish off most of the pieces that I had started on. As you can see, they vary from simple to complex.
Here's a small but powerful piece of Mexican Crazy Lace and even at only about an inch high, it makes a big statement. Both the front and back have amazing colour and patterning (sorry for the pic quality):

This next piece is more complex but again showcases a beautiful local stone. All the copper work is hand made.

Since I was using a thicker copper wire as a design element, I had to come up with a neat way to make the connection at the back so here's how it looks.

Then there is this beautiful piece of petrified wood from the Petrified Forest in Arizona. My friend Glen, who is from the area, gave me the slab and it polished beautifully.

Up close the patterning is awesome and since it is a relatively large piece (2.5 inches) I kept it simple and elegant with an antique sterling silver bale and clasp.

This next stone is amazing with stunning colour and patterning.

The patterning in this local stone kind of makes it look like Digby Neck and I showcased it with some hand made copper work.

And finally, here's a gorgeous piece of local carnelian. I love carnelian, especially banded as this piece is.

The colour was so beautiful that I didn't want to lose one bit of the stone so I just left it free form and tumble polished it and attached it to a bit of hand made copper work with a glass bead for balance.

In the upcoming weeks, I plan on trying some new techniques so stay posted. Also, we are pretty close to being able to offer pieces for sale on the Seawall Fibres web site so check the blog as I will post it when it happens.

More New Pieces From The Bench

Well the weather has been up and down like a toilet seat so I've had some time to sit down at the bench and finish a few "WIP"'s- works in progress. I stole that term from the knitting crowd (heh,heh).
Here's a nice little piece of Crazy Lace that comes with a sparkly druzy in the center.

It has a hand made copper prong setting and copper clasp and is hung from a premium leather cord.

Then we have this nice piece of banded jasper.

I used a really nice decorative copper bale and is hung from a longer soft hollow glass cord.

The next two pieces were really fun to do because they required a lot of planning and engineering. The first is a beautiful piece of local carnelian that absolutely glows. I decided to use it in its natural shape- pretty much just as it was found.

Gunmetal chain and wire were used to complement the colour and a solitary glass bead was added for balance and a sense of mobility.

Then the fun really began. I hand hammered and drilled a piece of thick copper wire to produce a flat paddle and the clasp and all other findings are hand made in copper.
Finally, here is a gorgeous piece of local plume/ fortification agate. Both the colour and patterning are amazing so I decided to come up with a setting to really showcase it.

The stone is wrapped with copper wire attaching it through drilled holes to a copper back plate which was then attached to two hand made copper eyelets.
In this close up you can see the delicate design which was impressed into the copper plate by running it through a metal roller with a piece of desiccated leaf.

It is hung from a premium Greek red leather cord with a beautiful copper lobster clasp.
So my next project will be to use some of the butter soft leather I picked up recently in a couple of pendants and then learn how to use the JoolTool to finish a few specimens. So stay tuned and see how it turns out!

A Lapidary Convert?

Currently, my friend Ted is visiting from Sydney Australia. Ted is also a geologist, in fact, we went through McGill together.

My objective on this trip was to get him working in the rock lab and I have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams! Best of all, he works for beer! And even better, HE BUYS THE BEER!

Ted's weapon of choice is my Hi-Tech 8 inch slant lap. Here we are suiting up for battle in the rock lab.

Note that I graciously let Ted wear my Hi-Tech apron. Now we're getting serious.

And now Ted is totally immersed in his grinding efforts.

I must say, he did really well, taking several pieces from 100 grit right through to final polish. And while he was doing that, I was cutting some of our recent finds. I'm pretty lousy at rockhoundind what with my artificial hip and all but between Ted and "She with the agate eye" we have come home with some pretty nice stuff! Here's a little sample straight off the saw:

The shop has been super busy of late with a lot of European visitors and many of my pendants have left for new homes so with the weather being a little punky today, I'm working on some new stuff and will try to post pics when finished. Also, I have a load coming out of the tumbler tomorrow and will follow that up with an absolutely spectacular load of mostly crazy lace.

So if you are in the neighbourhood, drop on by and see what's new.

Cheers!

Not Bad For a Monday

After 2 days of rain and fog, today, holiday Monday, is beautiful!

We were asked to produce a piece to be used as a prize and the buyer selected the stone but gave us total control of the setting so here's what we came up with.

It's Mexican Crazy Lace with a nice live edge in two spots and set with 100% hand made copper findings. In fact, Vickie just taught me how to make the pieces on the side, called balled head pins and those are two I made this morning.
Why yes, I AM proud of myself!
We finished it off with a really nice red leather cord that I just got in stock and it picks up the red in the stone perfectly!
Our objective at The Artist's Mark is to create interesting pieces that bear the mark of the artist(s) and that are also beautiful and we have many more like this in our shop. So come on by and check us out!
Cheers.

Back on The Bench

The nice rockhounding weather of the past few days left yesterday afternoon. In fact, last night we had high winds, snow, freezing rain, ice pellets and finally rain. Then this morning, we were back to wet snow.
It was time to move indoors and finish some pieces and what better stone to work on than a piece from Brazil! I felt warmer just touching the stone (heh,heh)- a nice piece of crazy lace jasper.
For the last few days, I have been experimenting with a totally new (at least to us) technique for setting stones using only copper wire and after a few failures, it worked!

If the stone looks familiar, it is because I did a similar piece with a different setting a few months back. Remember this:

As I said, the setting is unique, and allows me to use finer wire (in this case 20 gauge) and still have the stone snugly and firmly set. I took a picture of the back and if anyone reading the blog is interested, if you ask nicely I will send it to you via email.

On the yarn front, sales have been pretty brisk over the last week or so but we are expecting a large shipment early next week so the shelves will be fully stocked and with some new colours!

Cheers and hope to see you soon!

Another Nice Piece of Bay of Fundy Agate

It is really cold here today but Vickie, the lady with The Agate Eye, was not to be deterred. She managed to come home with this beauty!

The patterning was so amazing that I had to cut it and here is the thin end section.

The rest of the cut stone looks like this.

So now I will glue this face to a piece of 2x4 so I can cut quarter inch slices. Pretty interesting.

Keeping Touch With School Friends
Don't know about you but I really enjoy staying in contact with people I went to school with. One of them, Apryll, lives in the U.S. now and follows my blog and recently she contacted me about a piece she had seen. She is now the proud (I hope!) owner of said piece and was kind enough to send me some pics.
Here's Apryll wearing the piece:

And here's a close up of the piece:

Personally, I think she makes a really nice piece of Mexican Crazy Lace Agate look even better!
I really enjoy making pieces like this but it's really great when I can send one to a friend.

And by the way, some have asked if they can buy stuff they see on the blog and the answer is yes- if you are prepared to pay shipping. And if you don't pay for insurance, your beef is with the post office, not me. I will say that everything I have shipped to date has arrived quickly and undamaged.

Hopefully, later this year we will be selling through the Seawall Fibres website which is "under construction"

Drill Baby Drill

I belong to several groups dedicated to lapidary and the making of rock jewelry and there are some amazingly talented people when it comes to wire wrapping stones to create pendants and earrings. An alternative technique to creating such jewelry relies on drilling the stone. While in many ways simpler, this can produce some pretty neat stuff.

Here's a beautiful piece of local agate on grey basalt that I made into a pendant- simple but nice.
I started by shaping and finishing the stone but you will notice that I didn't go for a high gloss finish because I find the lines and shapes show better if I take it to just this stage without using any polishing compound.

Drilling Rocks:
I often have people write or come to the shop asking how to drill rocks- often after they have tried unsuccessfully to do it themselves. So here's how it is done. First, you need the right drill bit.

This is a 1 mm. diamond drill bit made by Drilax. It's true length is 4.5 cm. and I buy them in boxes of 30 at a web site called Wish. They will break (hence the box of 30!) but I like them because on a relative basis they are cheap and the thicker shaft makes it easier to set the bit perfectly vertical in your drill. And speaking of drills, while I know of people who drill rocks with a Dremel, I can't. It is vital that you eliminate as much bit "chatter" as possible because when the bit is wobbly, it creates much more heat and heat is a big problem! So my suggestion is to use a drill press. Going back to heat for a moment, it is important (mostly for the stone) that the operation stay as cool as possible since too much heat can cause the rock to shatter. Some people drip water on the bit, I do it totally underwater. Here's my set-up.

Sorry for the wrong bit- I was doing some wood working and was too lazy to change it. This is a plastic container with a piece of quarter inch wood at the bottom. It is there to stop the bit from putting a hole in the plastic since when I am drilling, the plastic container is filled with water to cover the stone. I will drill stones up to a cm. thick but regardless of the thickness or type of rock, I have found that even using all the patience I can muster, I have a tendency to blow out the back of the stone when the bit exits the finished hole.
To solve this, here's what I do. First, I decide where I want the hole. It should be centered relative to the geometric mass center for the piece. If it is an abstract piece, you may have to hold it lightly to see how it will hang because believe me, gravity always wins! You don't want the hole right on the edge to minimize the chance of fracture but you want it close enough so you can attach your bale and leave room for the chain. Start the hole on one side and drill about 75% of the way through. Then, take the stone out and use calipers to see where the exit point will be. Mark it with a water resistant pen and restart the drilling on that side at that point so the holes meet in the middle. Throughout the process, the stone has to be held absolutely still. Some prefer to clamp the stone using a C-clamp but I prefer to hold it by hand. Drilling should be done slowly with the bit being partly removed from time to time to let water get to the area of the stone where the bit is working.
And that's all there is to it!
Then, when the stone is cool and dry, I attach the bale. In this case it was a 925 silver antiqued bale with two prongs. I buy them and all my other wire and findings from Fire Mountain and if you can put together an order of 100 pieces or more with some friends, you can get some really decent prices (about 60% of the unit price).
The glue I use is FPC Surebonder 9000. It comes in a clear plastic tube and there is no mixing required. I use it to bond all kinds of metal to rocks and have never had one give way, even when I am gluing bell caps. Fill the hole with glue using a thin wire to get the glue in the hole and then warm up the silver bale in your hand. This is necessary to make it a bit more pliable because you then need to open it up to go over the stone and get the prongs on both sides into the hole. Then you have to pinch the bale back together, put some kind of weight on it and let it cure for 24 hours. Make sure that there is no excess glue that can be seen on the bale or stone.
In the case of the above piece, I added a sterling silver 16 inch chain and now it's ready to go in the shop.
If you have questions or want to learn more, just make a comment on the blog or send me an email.
Cheers!

Latest Piece of Jewelry

Sometimes you are faced with a real dilemma if a stone looks really good on both sides. In this case we were working with a beautiful piece of banded/ fortification agate that had beautiful patterning on both the flat (back) and domed (front) surface.
We decided to set it with half hard, 26 gauge sterling silver wire and here's how it turned out.

Front

The stone is about 3 cms high and we will sell it in the shop with a sterling silver chain for $35- another steal

The Rest of The Story

Does anyone remember Paul Harvey? If you do, you are probably, like me, getting up in years. Paul used to do syndicated radio features where he would dig out little known facts behind major stories or the lives of famous people. And he always finished his segment with this line:
"And now you know the REST of the story!"
After I published my last blog post, a couple of people asked about the mechanics of the piece. It struck me that if I was calling it "process jewelry" I should show you the process. So here goes.
First, I must tell you that Vickie has several decades of experience making jewelry from polymer clay and her work is spectacular (we have some beautiful examples in our store). Moreover, she is known for her exceptional finishing- the added care that makes her pieces rise above the rest.
Second, our philosophy, especially when working with copper, is to make every piece we can. So here is the back of the piece.

As you can see, there are marks visible on the back of the copper plate. We could remove these but choose not to. These are the artist's marks and we feel that they should be left to show the "process". Here, you can also see the backs of the hand hammered eyelets and how the fastening copper wire is joined. Care is taken to tuck the ends to ensure there are no loose ends to catch on skin or clothing and, if necessary we smooth the ends by using a file or sanding using 600 grit paper.
Also, you will note that the connectors (jump rings) are hand made from copper wire. A rod is attached to a power drill and the wire is connected to the end of the rod and then wrapped using the rotation of the drill. WARNING! If you do this, be sure to use leather gloves to hold the wire as it can cut you if it gets loose. Then, a jeweler's saw is used to saw individual rings. (As the lowly apprentice, this is my job). The coils used to hold the cord are made in much the same way with sections, rather than individual rings, being cut to the desired length. The top end is pinched to secure the cord and the bottom end is opened up to accept the jump ring. Finally, the cord is cut to the desired length and a clasp is added.

Both sides of the clasp are hand made from hammered copper wire. It is important to flatten the paddle on the open piece so it can slide easily into ring on the left of the photo.
So the process starts with the shaping and finishing of the stone. Vickie decides on the shape and I do the execution. Then, Vickie comes up with a concept for the setting and we are both involved in the execution with her deciding shapes and me making all the copper findings.
The end result is a piece that is not only sturdy and beautiful in a somewhat primitive way, but also very interesting.
And now you know the REST of the story!
We hope you are having an enjoyable holiday season and look forward to seeing you at the Artist's Mark Shop in the New Year. There are some exciting changes that I will be detailing in upcoming posts as well as more examples of our process jewelry so come back and check from time to time..

New Jewelry Line Takes Shape

Sorry for the gap in posting but both Vickie and I have been fighting problems with our sciatic nerve and just now getting back to what passes for normal around here. As some might know, my wife, Vickie, is an accomplished "Process Painter"- someone focused more on the creative process than the outcome.
For some time we have toyed with the idea of bringing this idea to our stone jewelry, meaning that while we hoped to showcase and enhance the beauty of the stone, our focus would be more on the creative process involved.
We finished our first piece yesterday and here it is.

The stone is a piece of Brazilian crazy lace jasper and it is secured by copper wire to a copper back plate covered with a piece of snake skin Vickie found in her "stash". Pretty well all of this is hand made. The stone was finished by hand as was the copper plate. All connectors and eyelets were hand made from copper. The cord is leather and it is about 4.5 cm. high.
We felt it looked somewhat like a bird so we called it Rufous after the State Bird of Brazil which has a similar colouring.
Our objective is to create jewelry that, while being beautiful, is also interesting and we hope to have a few dozen pieces in the store by the spring.
I have to confess that we had a ball working out the logistics and it doesn't hurt that Vickie appears to have one of  everything!
So let us know how we did and if you get the chance, stop by to see it in person as I can honestly say that the photo doesn't really do it justice.

More Beautiful Stones

With the shifting seasons, things change on The Neck. We are currently getting King Tides because of the Supermoon and the pier across the street is totally under water at the highest point. The weather has been cold and grey- perfect for doing lapidary!
Here are a few stones I have worked on over the last few days.

The piece on the left is a beautiful bit of banded jasper (found right here on The Neck) with a little bit of glitter- amethyst crystals- at the centre right. The two in the middle are from my stash of crazy lace "jagate" from either Brazil or Mexico. And the one on the right, which, unfortunately is a little out of focus, is a beautiful botryoidal jasper from here on The Neck.
I'm getting an even better polish now that daughter Sandra has given me a Norwex cloth used to cleaning glass. If you know someone who sells Norwex and you want to get a superior polish on your stones, try to get your hands on one of these cloths! These pieces are so smooth it is literally almost impossible to hold them without them slipping out of your grasp.
In the days ahead, these will become unique pieces of jewelry that will definitely be available in the shop and might even be selling on line in the new year.
So the lapidary machines are humming in the rock lab and I'll be posting more beauties in the days ahead.
Cheers.

Some "Semi-Finished" Jewelry

As most of you know, we have amazing agate, jasper and other rocks here on Digby Neck and most of the work I do is with local stone. Here are a couple of pretty nice examples:

Above is a nice piece of (very hard) plume agate that I have managed to polish to a glass like finish.

A gorgeous piece of vein fortification agate which I have also been able to polish to a glass- like finish. It is much more spectacular in person.
Also, I got my new supply of diamond bits and have been perfecting my drilling technique.While it is still a little (maybe more than a little) rough and I will cop to a couple of broken bits, here are a couple of local stones ready to become pendants.

I think it is banded jasper on the left and a pretty cool moss agate on the right.They are drilled slightly off centre to get the spot where they will hang perfectly vertically.
Recently, I came into possession of a beautiful piece of crazy lace from "out of town". I can't really say if it comes from Brazil or Mexico but it is beautiful stuff and takes a great polish.

Some people call this jasper and some call it agate but either way I just love the patterning in these stones and especially the druzy in the one on the left but I have a real problem.

When they look this amazing on the back, I don't want to cover them up with a silver backing. Any suggestions? One way or another, all these guys will be in the shop shortly so if you are looking for a truly unique gift or just want to see some amazing rock, come on by! At this time of the year, it is best to call or email to ensure we are open.
Cheers!