Lapidary, my new hobby

 Earlier this summer I began a new hobby. I joined the Sun City West Lapidary Club. I underwent the basic training program and then began going several days a week to acquire skill crafting rock.

 

A lapidary is an artist or artisan who forms stone, minerals, or gemstones into decorative items such as cabochons, engraved gems, and faceted designs. A lapidarist uses the lapidary techniques of cutting, grinding, and polishing

 

I am of course only at the beginning levesls. There are many in the club who are true artisans, making incredible jewlry and other items. But everyone has to start somewhere.

 

To show you the process I undergo I will show you what was involved in creating one piece.

 

I took a friends rock he gave me from Montana rock, and was told it was Jasper.

Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or chalcedony and other mineral phases,[1][2] is an opaque,[3] impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in color; and rarely blue. The common red color is due to iron(III) inclusions. The mineral aggregate breaks with a smooth surface and is used for ornamentation or as a gemstone. It can be highly polished and is used for items such as vases, seals, and snuff boxes. The specific gravity of jasper is typically 2.5 to 2.9.[4] A green variety with red spots, known as heliotrope (bloodstone), is one of the traditional birthstones for March. Jaspilite is a banded iron formation rock that often has distinctive bands of jasper.

 

 

To begin I had to slab it with an electric saw.

These slabs were the result.

 

 

 

This was the slab I chose to work with.

 

 

I then decided to make two separate pieces from that rock, so I cut the piece of the slab I was going to use and rough ground it. Then I ground it down to the rough shape I wanted to work.

 

 

 

At that point I mounted on a short stick with what is hot wax and I was then able to perform other grinds. Of 80 grit, 220 grit, sanding of 600 grit and finally a fine diamond grind.

Then polishing the rock and waxing the finished rock, this is what I got.

Then I placed in a freezer to remove it from the wax hold it, and I was finished.

 

But there are unlimited things that can be accomplished.

 

By example this is another piece I recently finished.