My first commissioned lapidary piece - a pictorial

Last year I was given the opportunity to cut a cabochon to order for Belinda Newick. She was producing some beautiful forms for the up coming celebration of The Jam Factory turning 40 and wanted a piece of nephrite jade to be included.
The exhibition, Designing Craft/Crafting Design has had such a positive response that it will be touring Australia! They have also constructed a separate website for the occasion. I am pretty excited about this as I will actually get to see the exhibition in person when if eventually comes to Victoria (Yay!).

I must admit to having some nerves along with the excitement starting out on this adventure having never cut anything to order before.
I LOVE cutting cabochons as I find it SO relaxing. It is noisy, messy and thoroughly satisfying! You start out with a hunk of rock or stone and finish with something that can be set into jewellery or simply be displayed and admired. Cutting to order was very different than cutting for myself. I noticed that I took more time on each stage and checked the progress a lot more frequently! lol

Belinda need the nephrite to be a specific shape and size so we met to discuss the brief and for me to collect the piece she had selected to be cut. I got to handle one of her silver forms and the shape was ridiculously tactile. It seemed to nestle into the palm of your hand and warmed to the touch beautifully.

I took many photos during the cutting (but still somehow missed a few stages) so here are the phases of cutting a double sided free from cab:

First step is to mark out the outline of your shape onto the slab. This is done with a sharpened 'stick' of aluminium then sprayed with hairspray to fix it in place. Due to the dark green of this piece I instead used a fine tip permanent marker. A diamond saw is then used to trim off any excess.

Next onto the grinding wheels

From here you need to be able to manipulate the stone on the grinding wheel on various angles so to achieve this it must be mounted onto a dop stick. I marked out some general guide lines and proceeded to warm the piece of nephrite to help the wax adhere to it. At this stage it is very chunky and took a very long time to warm up!

To remove the nephrite from the dop stick you simply cool it making the wax brittle and 'snap' it off. Some times it simply falls off in the cold. I repeated the cutting and re doping of each side a few times as I wanted them to be nice and even.

In the background you can see the various grinders of different grades along with the mess you make!

At the clubs rooms the lights are long fluorescents. One of the other members taught me to use the reflection of the lights on the piece you are working on as a guide to see if there are any flat spots/if your curve is even. In this photo you can see where I need to do some more work.

I missed photos of the sanding phase but in the above two photos you can see on the left the sanding wheels. They are wheels that spin clockwise or anti-clockwise and have various grades of wet/dry sandpaper mounted on them.

This is the stage I handed the nephrite over to Belinda - though I admit I miss handling this lovely piece! The shape she chose is so lovely I am sure who ever becomes the lucky owner will constantly be holding it.
She then engraved it giving it its finishing touch.

The above photo is taken from the Jam Factory's website showing it along with Belindas other forms made from; pine, yellow gold, copper and silver. I think they look fantastic together and I am so thankful to have been given the chance to play a small part in this.
Thank you Belinda for the opportunity and also for the permission to post photos! It was a really enjoyable experience :)

If anyone has seen this exhibition or has any questions on cutting/lapidary please fire away. Comments and questions welcome!

Minor Gemstone rant.....

I used to LOVE scrolling through the loose gemstone category on a popular online auction site but tonight I found it more disheartening than fun.
It has been awhile since I have looked and was surprised (though I guess I shouldn't have been) to see misleading names and descriptions that were more confusing than enlightening. I have nothing against man made gems or natural ones that have been treated but I DO BELIEVE IN FULL DISCLOSURE!
Titles like: Tourmaline quartz druzy, Natural reddish pink labradorite - treated ultra rare, 'Designer' Turquoise....

These are the three stones fitting those descriptions and the only redeeming factor is that anyone duped is only going to loose a couple of dollars not hundreds.

The reason it prompted me to post? It is SO frustrating that these people doing what they are doing they are simply making the gemstone/jewellery trade look bad which hurts EVERYONE.

Countless times I have had customers come in to work thinking that they have bought one thing (usually while on an overseas holiday or online) when it is in fact something completely different. I hate being the one to break the bad news when they ask me about the stone. Sadly it only takes for someone to be burned once by misleading sales tactics to be wary of ALL sales people in the future.

I myself have experienced how easily it could happen. While overseas I went into a wholesale and retail gem merchant. I had a look around and asked if they had any tourmaline cabs. The man working there proceeded to show me fluorite cabs! I said as much and he insisted that they were tourmaline. Needless to say I left without buying a thing!
I still dont know if it was an honest mistake or he was intentionally being misleading but either way if I hadnt of known the difference.....

The below images have been taken from google images:
Fluorite

Tourmaline

Anyway. I would prefer to leave on a happy note.
True and correct listings far out weighed the misleading ones and if you use a little common sense you should be able to avoid getting burned. A super rare stone of massive size is not going to be for sale for a couple of dollars...it would be in a museum!
If you do want to take a chance on something that you are unsure about check their return policies and decide: if it turns out the stone is in fact either man made or a different gemstone - Would you still like it and pay the amount listed?