Lapidary

General discussion of our day to day lapidary activities

Great day at the craft fair today

Yes today was a great day at the craft fair, it was well attended and I got a few nice comments about the hessian we bought recently to use as table covers on my stand, it went very well with the rocks and trees. I met a very interesting chap who wanted to have a […]

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Cutting the Printstone

Looking Forward to being a busy Lapidary in 2011

In addition to working semi precious stones like Tiger Eye, Blue Lace Agate and the many others we have in stock I also want to revisit my big stock of Flint and get to know it better and maybe couple it with the copper wire to produce a range of “not too expensive” jewellery but keeping it in the same class as our Sterling Silver wrapped jewellery. I also like the Flint because it’s a material I collected myself from an excavation site, so there is more of a bond to it than the bought in rough that we have.

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Aluminium end spacer tube

Lapidary Workshop Prepared for use

After the long hard winter we have all just endured the Lapidary workshop was just too cold to be worked in, even the wood burning stove couldn’t cope, so it’s lain dormant for a quite a number of months. So yesterday we spent much of the day cleaning up out there, sorting out rocks, while […]

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This one fractured when it was being polished

So How Did Our Gem Stone Crosses Turn Out

In a previous post I described how we cut the crosses out of green Aventurine, since then we cut some more out Orange Aventurine, Rose Quartz, Sodalite and Lapis Lazuli, just to get the feel for using different materials for making crosses.

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aventurine crucifix showing the hole for the leather thong

Teaching ourselves how to make Gemstone Crosses

We recently had a request from a lady who wanted a cross made from rose quartz, fortunately there is no rush for this item as we need to figure out how to make these, good job as we needed to teach oursleves how to do it.

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How I Polish Lapis Lazuli

Now regarding the Lapis Lazuli, well the first step is the shaping on the harsher silicone carbide belts then I continue through the steps on these belts through to 600 grit.

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Lapidary Activities on Hold

I am sorry I haven’t made any new posts here for a short while it’s because I am recovering from a broken left collar bone at the moment which happened as a result of a motorcycle accident back on July 17th.

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Labradorite Slabs

I am considering offering Labradorite slabs soon in our shop.

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When is black agate not black agate – when its flint!

Well I had a “field day” no pun intended, as you can see from the picture I filled my boots, this field has lumps of flint all over the place.

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