Cabochons...

[T.R. Hayward]

I am interested in creating cabochons, does anyone know where I can get inexpensive equipment?

[Frances A Lindblad]

Welcome T. to Canadian Rock Hound. Inexpensive/used equipment, many of us are looking for the same. I think the place to search would be the USA as lapidary is more popular there than here in Canada. I too am trying to make cabs w/ equipment not quite made for this purpose.  Have you checked your area for local Rock and Mineral Clubs as they may have lessons and lapidary equipment available. I know Montreal has such a facility. Best of luck in your search.

Frances

[T.R. Hayward]

There are no local rock and mineral clubs....

 

What equipment are you using?

[Frances A Lindblad]

I have a 4 inch wet tile saw for cutting small rocks less than 2 inches thick. My son bought me a grinder (which I can't use for two reasons) before consulting me. It's a dry grinder and he didn't get the stationery stand for it at the same time. Canadian Tire has a couple of wet/dry grinders I am interested in that should be good for shaping. I was thinking of using a tumbler to do the polishing.

[Frances A Lindblad]

Hey M...the wet tile saw cuts pretty well. It is noisy though and very wet operating. I wear a full face mask, protective ear/hearing head set, a rain coat on backwards (looks funny yes) and plastic bags covering my legs and feet where exposed to over spray. You have to remember this saw is meant for cutting ceramic tiles, so you have to "force" the stone along carefully. I have also cut ply board to make shims for holding the stone while cutting. It is too impossible to get a straight cut by hand. I know there is equipment meant to do this but finding outlets that sell it are hard to locate. There is a "rock shop" in Toronto I would like to visit, I think they may have equipment or access to it.

I suggsted we return the dry grinder but he couln't find the receipt. The wet grinder I am interested in was on sale two weeks ago and it was all sold out!  gggrrrr! They don't do rain checks.

After slabbing I have tried honing the cut flat cut side on coarse emery paper (I bought, from the coarsest grit possible to the finest grit) on a marble tile as a hard flat surface. It works but you need LOTS of elbow grease to keep enough pressure to grind the surface by hand. If one thing, it teaches you alot about minerals on a spiritual level.

Its like lifting the lid off a box cutting a piece from a stone. The inside is always better than the outside.

Frances

[Frances A Lindblad]

Hello Myrna...It would be wonderful to be able to go out and purchase the right equipment right from the start but I have always done things unconventionally. Lapidary and equipment is more popular in the States, Canadians don't think there are any minerals of value or of interest here but there ARE many beautiful stones and pebbles (and bigger rocks), you know or you would not be a member here. My friends think I'm crazy always scanning my path for "whatever".

Amusing how Jade can become "scrap" in some eyes, the negative space cut away and discarded....useless.  I desgn and make jewellery and have found that scrap pieces of silver, with their unusual shapes, inspire components for other jewellery designs. When it comes to "precious things", there is no such thing as "scrap". Good for you for acquiring it. Do you have pictures of it?

[T.R. Hayward]

Frances, what kind of disc did the grinder have? I am assuming aluminum oxide since it is a dry grinder....

[Paulette Egeli]

Equipment is available on the Net - the problem is, if there is a problem you don't have someone local to interface with.    Look at the Gem and Mineral Federation of Canada (GMFC) for the nearest clubs.  You could contact one and if you join you are allowed to go on any sanctioned field trip in Canada and also in the USA. Even if you made contact once or twice a year that would be worthwhile.

You don't seem that far away from the Great Lakes - a source of beach agates.

Some people have an elitist attitude about what to pick up.  Some pick up whatever pleases them and turn them into artwork or specimens.  I was on a river bar and my husband and I were filling our packs with interesting-to-us stuff.  Another person on the trip had one agate in his hand at the end.  He was a specialist.  The term "leaverite" as in "leave er right there" was invented by elitists.  If you have some beautiful material - even if it is soft you can cap it with clear quartz - window pane epoxied onto your material.  This may not be accepted as high lapidary art - but so what?  The opal dealers have convinced us that it is a good product.

I have found (not recently) lapidary trimmings of jadeite at a Dollar Store.  There is frequently colored chert and jasper for sale there as "landscape rocks" - they are tumbled.  Many are fractured but some clean up with some grinding down to be interesting cabs.  If you go to a rock show you'll have access to lots of material at all price ranges.  Scape jade would be well worth playing with IMO (in my opinion).  Increasingly if you go on to Facebook or Itsy or Ebay and look at cabs - they are eccentric shapes.  This is what is now more cut than the standard shapes cut from templates.  It also maximizes how much you get out of your piece.

This I can assure you.  As you hunt your eye gets trained.  At one time all I wanted to find was crystals and maybe red jasper.  And gold.  What I found was some of the above and none of the other stuff.  Now I'm content picking up things that are a metamorphic mix that might be chemically serpentinite or maybe a breccia with who knows what embedded in it.  We now realize that we live in an area of green jasper, serpentine of many colors, breccias of many colors (some copper mineral hued in shades of green and blue), rocks with pyrite in them (polishes to silver - messy when ground or cut - its shavings are black).  We walked past stuff which I now wish I had captured. 

Good luck and good hunting - for rocks and for rock people to hang out with. Paulette

[T.R. Hayward]

Close to the Great Lakes? Nope. Though I'd like to go there....

No close clubs, no local sources of equipment. No luck in finding substitute equipment. I found a couple of plans for making equipment, but am not confident in my ability to create such a thing.

Still picking when I can, found a local site with selenite crystals and a few more sites for jasper and petrified wood, but nothing really different.

[Frances A Lindblad]

Hello T.R......My son bought a small lapidary for christmas from RIO GRANDE. What I have is a SWAP TOP 8" Flat Lap Machine.
It is made by Inland Craft Products, Co.    www.inlandcraft.com or Google RIO GRANDE, which is a jewellery tool supply company.
I have been finishing the cabochons I started last summer and I am very happy with the machine. I am still using the wet/dry grinding wheel for heavy pre-shaping.

Frances

[Kim Lentz]

Hi T.R.

I picked up my first cabochon grinding unit (silicon carbide type) at a garage sale for $80.  It didn't look all that pretty but it worked and I cut hundreds of cabs on over a period of several years.    I  have also picked up lots of local materials within 150 kilometres drive of my home, some of which are shown on my Canadian Rockhound photos.  In addition, there are many websites on the internet where you can purchase both equipment and rough rocks from all over the world.

Kim