Latest From The Lap of Lapidary

 While we have had more visitors recently, I've still had time to get out to the shop and do some cutting. Here are some recent efforts.

The first is a beautiful piece of our local moss (some call it plume) agate.

This one had some nice colour and patterning and the inside sure didn't disappoint!

It shows the typical gorgeous golden plumes and some beautiful blue/grey pockets of fortification agate.

The next one was a real surprise. Quite frankly, this one had me stumped on the surface.

It had some nice yellow colour that always suggests sagenite but not much in the way of patterning. But inside...

This one has everything including the kitchen sink. There is definitely sagenite but also fortification agate and deep chocolate areas of what I suspect to be haematite. If I can get this to polish, I'll get some amazing cabochons! And to that end, I've already cut some additional slices.

By the way, these rocks are both local from Digby Neck. Stay tuned!

The Voyage From Rock To Pendant

I have been doing a lot of cutting recently and have produced some slices with real potential. So I thought I'd give you a little insight into how these things get transformed frrom rough rock to a shiny pendant.

Here is a beautiful piece of brecciated (broken) jasper as it came off the saw.

And now I've defined a shape that I want to work with and did a rough cut of the shape with my smaller trim saw. Sorry for the lousy lighting.

Here's another really interesting cut.

So I cut a slice from one of the sides and defined these two smaller shapes that I have now rough cut.

And here's a piece I cut earlier that I am hoping will become earrings. I have done the final shape on one and now have to match the other.

So in the upcoming posts, I'll follow these pieces through their development and we'll see how they turn out.

Stay tuned!

More From The Lapidary Shop

Like the rest of the world, we are self isolating way out here on Digby Neck with the hope that at some point in the future, "normal" will return and we will actually see some tourists.

I am fortunate to have a hobby (lapidary) to occupy the time and a large amount of rock to cut and polish.

As some of you may know, my wife Vickie, (She who MUST be obeyed) has The Agate Eye and it is because of that that I have such beautiful material to work with. Here is one she demanded be cut this morning and although it was a little big I decided to give it a try on my Hi-Tech 10 inch saw (you try saying no to her!). The results were spectacular! The surface is like glass and includes areas of plume, moss and fortification agate.

If you click on the pic you will see even more detail.

But because there have been no visitors, I have had time to cut a lot more and here are a few of the nicest.

The last one (greenish) is called eclogite and it is formed deep in the earth where one tectonic plate is dipping below another. As such, the pressure is so high that sometimes diamonds can be found associated with this rock.

If you click on the individual pictures you will be able to see even more detail.

I happen to live smack dab in the middle of an amazing geological setting and I hope that you can experience it for yourself sometime. In the meantime, stay safe and healthy!

Back in the (Lapidary) Saddle Again!

Well, I held out as long as I could.

My original plan was to wait on cutting until I had completely cleaned up the shop but Vickie had found some really interesting stuff recently and I had an itchy trigger finger so I put some oil in the small saw and voila!

Here's a great piece of agate with several different types.

We have some lovely examples of fortification (grey area at the top) and plume and there are some gorgeous little islets in the center.

This next piece is a great example of a stone that didn't look all that good on the outside but on the inside...

Gorgeous areas of fortification and plume- what some would call our local moss agate. The patterning and colours are very organic and I have cut one slice and plan on getting a few more. These will make some beautiful small pendants.

So now I guess I have to get the big saw going so we can get at some of her larger pieces. Stay tuned for more interesting materials in subsequent posts.

The "Agate Eye" is Back!

We have had a pretty lousy spring weather wise but things are starting to look up. It was good enough today for the "Agate Eye" AKA Vickie to do a little hunting and here are a few of her finds that I had time to cut.

There is amazing patterning here that reminds me of Digby Neck itself.

Again, great patterning and colour here

 I love this stone and am already planning some beautiful pendants.

Great flame patterning on the left and a beautiful combination of fortification and moss agate on the right.

Stay tuned because over the next few days I will be doing a post showing what the shop will look like this summer.

Latest Rock Jewelry Pieces

Well, we are in the midst of a true Nova Scotia Blizzard today. It was -10 this morning and will be +10 by tonight but in between we will get heavy snow, then a few hours of freezing rain and then heavy rain. Oh yeah did I mention the winds gusting to over 100KPH? On Digby Neck, we call a day like this ...Sunday!

I have been finishing up a few pieces including 3 from the Stone&Bone series. The first two are jasper in a silver plate bezel with a fossilized sand shark tooth attached and hung from a black buna cord.

This one is a local stone- fortification agate with a nice sparkly quartz druzy in the center- a really beautiful stone. Again it is set in a silver plate bezel with a sand shark tooth and hung from a premium black leather cord with a nice copper clasp.

And last but not least is my first piece done totally by hand in silver. Unfortunately, since I am taking these pictures with a phone that eliminates glare, you can't see the sparkling quartz druzy in the center of this really nice moss agate but it's there and it's a show stopper!

And here's a close up.

Sorry for the poor quality of the pics but "She Who MUST Be Obeyed" who normally takes them, is designing a knitwear pattern for Seawall Fibres and I have been given strict orders not to approach.

I am now going to move on and do some more combining stone and leather so keep checking the blog for more (and hopefully better) pics.

By the way, many have asked if these pieces are for sale. They are all for sale in the shop but shortly, I will be posting pics and prices on the Seawall Fibres web site in the Seawall Creations section. I'll let you know when that happens.

In the meantime, stay warm and dry (unless you are my friend Ted in Australia- you should stay cool!)

Cheers!

P.S. Here's a little tip. If you have jewelry with a sparkly druzy and you want to bring up the sparkle, use one of those little plastic dental floss picks and just put it in the cavity and twirl it around.

Latest Jewelry Creations

We have had a lot of people in the shop recently but I've managed to make a few things to replace those pieces that have found a new home.

My daughter Lisa recently sent me some silver plate bezels and one was almost a perfect fit for a really nice piece of moss agate I had already finished. Since I felt it would work best with silver, it became the perfect marriage.

This piece is already spoken for but my other project is the first of a small series I intend to complete this summer. I live in a very unique place, a small strip of land in south west Nova Scotia called Digby Neck. It is formed from a ridge of basalt which has beautiful seams of agate, jasper, carnelian, amethyst- you name it. It is made up of three parts- Briar Island, Long Island and "the mainland" and, since shear faults in the basalt have created passage ways, you must take 2 ferries to get to the end.
 Some time ago, we found a small, irregular seam of fortification agate, surrounded by basalt on both sides. Seemed like the perfect metaphor for the area so I had to try to express it in a pendant and here's the result.

I used sterling silver wire to wrap it at the points where the ferries are located and the proportions are pretty accurate. Since the agate is fortification, up close it looks like a topographical map. I hung it on a black buna cord with sterling silver findings.

I'm pretty happy with this result so will start the next one which I intend to do horizontally so stay tuned for more pics! And if you want to see this one in person, along with a lot of other unique pieces, stop by the shop!

Cheers!

Back To The Grind

Things are slowly starting to return to what passes around here for "normal" in the wake of my geologist friend Ted's return to Australia. It's amazing but it takes someone visiting to get us to explore our immediate surroundings. For instance, we made our first visit to Delaps Cove. What a beautiful and interesting spot. Here's a shot of the senior citizens:

Yes, I know my pants are dirty. They get that way when you are hunting the elusive Bay of Fundy Agate.

But now my nose (actually finger tip) is pressed to the grindstone and I am also trying to cut some of the great stuff Vickie has brought home recently. Here is a really nice dense piece that took me for ever to cut, especially since I had to do it "free style" without a flat base.

I see some very small fractures but there is some beautiful patterning and colour. In addition, my daughter Lisa sent me a large stash of silver plate bezels and one of my finished stones fit perfectly. Ordinarily I work with local rock but when you get a chance to work with something this nice, you grab it!

This spectacular piece of Moss Agate is about an inch square and the wire in back is there to help remove the stone so it can be glued into the bezel so it will disappear by the end of the day. I also have some really nice bracelet bezels to work with and that might be my next project.

So the bare spots in the shop are gradually filling back up. It has been an amazing season to date and we expect it to continue through the fall. Come and see us in September, when our weather is at its absolute best.
Cheers!

Rock Shop Back in High Gear

Yesterday, I spent about 5 hours in the shop. I got the tumbler going and managed to cut some slabs into shapes that I will do a final forming on later today. I have several beautiful pieces of moss agate and this one even has a druzy as well.

The black lines are where "The Artist Who MUST be obeyed" wants me to work to. It will take about two weeks to finish this and then I will post pics. The colours and patterns are so rich and vivid that I know this is going to be a really exceptional piece.
I was also able to glue two smaller pieces to wood so they can be cut and I just had to cut a piece Vickie found recently. Here's how it looked on the outside:

When you see conchoidal fractures like that you know you are dealing with high quality stuff so I was interested to see the patterning in the direction I wanted to cut and here it is:

There is a lot of hematite in this stone but it is still like glass on the surface so it should take a really good polish.
The yarn shipment arrived yesterday and we are in the process of labeling it so it will be on the shelves by the weekend for all you addicts (you know who you are!)
Hope to see you soon!

The Boss of The Moss

For a brief period in my life, I was a golf professional. I wasn't very good- hence the adjective "brief" and even though I haven't played for close to a decade, I still follow the game. This is Masters Sunday, a special day for all golfers, as it is the culmination of the Masters Golf Tournament from Augusta Georgia. In honour of this, and since my latest piece features a really nice local moss agate, I am naming it "The Boss of the Moss" after one of the best putters ever- Loren Roberts- who was so good that in 1985, a fellow competitor gave him that nickname (one I think is the best ever).

This stone was found virtually across the street and was originally round. After I had run it through the tumbler, the deal is I show all the rocks to Vickie (She who MUST be Obeyed!) and she takes the ones she wants for jewelry. This one she asked me to cut in half and drill and so of course, it got cut and drilled. We then used a balled copper wire to do a cool "funky wrap"at the top and put it on a waxed cotton cord with a copper clasp and now it is, with apologies to Mr. Roberts, The Boss of the Moss.
When viewed with light behind, a very interesting pattern shows up. A lot of people think that moss agates are green in white but, in truth, they can be many colours as long as the patterning is organic.

All in all, a very interesting local stone.