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Post by rockjunquie on May 2, 2019 10:44:52 GMT -5
See update below (as soon as I finish anyway)
I am taking today off. Tomorrow, too. BUT, I will be cabbing tomorrow. I am going to try my hand at some more jade. I've got a whole stack of jadeite and nephrite to experiment with. I have some pretty worn wheels except for a fairly new 600. I plan to spend the day at it and take my time- I might even take notes. I have been pretty successful at what I HAVE done, namely some purple Turkish, but I have room for improvement.
Any advice?
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Post by rockjunquie on May 3, 2019 14:21:05 GMT -5
Took the day to work on a bunch or preform practice pieces marked jade. They were either jade or nephrite, pretty easy to tell once you start cabbing. They all took the 80 like a flippin' agate. Very, very hard and loud. But then moving on they seemed progressively softer. My 220 is worn in, my 600 is broken in and the rest are well worn. I went to 50 on them all. First the only one that obviously orange peeled. This actually took a polish on 8000, but still has orange peel. From WY I believe. Pretty obvious orange peel.   The next few I think are also nephrite and went much better. A teeny weenie bit of occasional orange peel. Probably my careless fault. The middle one is out of sequence. The other 2 are the same high dome stone. Look better than pictured. (Edit- The middle one was CA jade.)    The next is probably BC jade. Very pretty and finished well. The polish is extremely nice despite the pictures. Wish it didn't look like it was cracked. I might redo this one.   This one is a flat out jade and polished to perfection. The pictures make it look like there is some orange peel, but you can't see that in person and it might be smudged.     The last one was marked jade but I don't think it was. Kinda ugly anyway.  So, overall, not too bad. Not glassy like an agate, but I think I could get there. I was in a hurry today and not taking my tie with it. Going easy on the soft wheels was key. By the time I hit 8 and 14k the polish really started to come out. Everyone of them produced white water, too. One of them even had a tiny bit of pyrite. |
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julieooly
Cave Dweller 
Member since October 2018
Posts: 721 
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Post by julieooly on May 3, 2019 14:29:01 GMT -5
What is orange peeled? Is it good or bad. I’ve worked with both California Jadeite and Peruvian nephrite Jade. There’s cabs in both materials in my shop if you want to compare. The Cali came straight from the mine it was very dense. The cab I made was pretty flat if I remember correctly.
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Post by rockjunquie on May 3, 2019 14:30:57 GMT -5
What is orange peeled? Is it good or bad. I’ve worked with both California Jadeite and Peruvian nephrite Jade. There’s cabs in both materials in my shop if you want to compare. The Cali came straight from the mine it was very dense. The cab I made was pretty flat if I remember correctly. Orange peel is where the polish looks micro bumpy- like orange peel. It's when certain materials in the jade undercut. |
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Post by rockjunquie on May 3, 2019 14:33:12 GMT -5
What is orange peeled? Is it good or bad. I’ve worked with both California Jadeite and Peruvian nephrite Jade. There’s cabs in both materials in my shop if you want to compare. The Cali came straight from the mine it was very dense. The cab I made was pretty flat if I remember correctly. Hard to tell from the pictures, but yours look pretty damn good. Maybe a little orange peel. |
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Post by miket on May 3, 2019 14:35:42 GMT -5
Very pretty, loving the different shades of green.
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julieooly
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2018
Posts: 721
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Post by julieooly on May 3, 2019 14:38:11 GMT -5
What is orange peeled? Is it good or bad. I’ve worked with both California Jadeite and Peruvian nephrite Jade. There’s cabs in both materials in my shop if you want to compare. The Cali came straight from the mine it was very dense. The cab I made was pretty flat if I remember correctly. Hard to tell from the pictures, but yours look pretty damn good. Maybe a little orange peel. Thanks! All three were cut from rough vs slabs. |
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Post by pauls on May 3, 2019 15:28:01 GMT -5
The Chinese use Chrome oxide to polish Jade.
I have tried it and got a better finish but still orange peely. I have been told that the sectret is to use a lot of pressure when polishing I haven't tried that yet because I have given up on Jade for now.
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Post by rockjunquie on May 3, 2019 15:38:21 GMT -5
The Chinese use Chrome oxide to polish Jade. I have tried it and got a better finish but still orange peely. I have been told that the sectret is to use a lot of pressure when polishing I haven't tried that yet because I have given up on Jade for now. I've always been told to use light pressure on the soft wheels because of undercutting issues. My last 2 wheels are super worn, but I went easy anyway. But, by the 8k, I was pushing it and it was polishing pretty nicely without orange peel. I'm not sure what to make of that, but I have some nice black jade and some Guatemala jade that I will be just as careful with. It's not my favorite stone by a long shot. |
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julieooly
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2018
Posts: 721
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Post by julieooly on May 3, 2019 16:24:12 GMT -5
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Post by hummingbirdstones on May 3, 2019 18:22:31 GMT -5
This is an excellent article by Michael Hoover. He is an exceptionally talented knife maker and used to work an enormous amount of jade from one of the well known jade mines in Canada. He has retired from professional knife making, but he still has an Ebay shop and has some of the real good jade up for sale there.
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Post by rockjunquie on May 3, 2019 18:36:46 GMT -5
Yeah, I've seen his article before. Lots of good info!
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Post by stephan on May 4, 2019 11:52:06 GMT -5
Nice pieces, Tell. I have found that it can be difficult to photograph jade. What is often a re tire that is invisible to the eye is enhanced.
One reminder of what I've found helpful. Is to let the stone get hot during the final polishes. Less water and moderately hard pressure. It doesn't work for all of them, but, in general, I've been successful with that technique.
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Post by rockjunquie on May 4, 2019 14:37:27 GMT -5
Nice pieces, Tell. I have found that it can be difficult to photograph jade. What is often a re tire that is invisible to the eye is enhanced. One reminder of what I've found helpful. Is to let the stone get hot during the final polishes. Less water and moderately hard pressure. It doesn't work for all of them, but, in general, I've been successful with that technique. I just reworked one that was pretty nice, but cracked. I piddled with it quite a bit. I got the very best shine on a dry 1200. I did take it to a dry 3000 and 8000, but the polish got worse. I went ahead and finished with the polishing wheels when I did the others, but it still looked best at 1200. I'm gonna take it back and redo it. I wouldn't, but I think it's pretty. It was #5 and 6. I started to grind the bad edge off and it just popped off leaving a perfect triangle. Good fortune smiled on me.  |
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Post by stardiamond on May 4, 2019 15:11:39 GMT -5
I think I worked on one nephrite cab. I work all diamond and couldn't get the finish and shine I wanted. There are polishes made to use with jade.
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Post by stephan on May 5, 2019 18:32:00 GMT -5
Nice pieces, Tell. I have found that it can be difficult to photograph jade. What is often a re tire that is invisible to the eye is enhanced. One reminder of what I've found helpful. Is to let the stone get hot during the final polishes. Less water and moderately hard pressure. It doesn't work for all of them, but, in general, I've been successful with that technique. I just reworked one that was pretty nice, but cracked. I piddled with it quite a bit. I got the very best shine on a dry 1200. I did take it to a dry 3000 and 8000, but the polish got worse. I went ahead and finished with the polishing wheels when I did the others, but it still looked best at 1200. I'm gonna take it back and redo it. I wouldn't, but I think it's pretty. It was #5 and 6. I started to grind the bad edge off and it just popped off leaving a perfect triangle. Good fortune smiled on me. I've had that happen, too. Except for when the higher wheels were too new, I can't, for the life of me, figure out why. For the most part, I does well with the 100K supercerium on leather -- especially those that are solidly jade, not still transitional from serpentine. |
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