A Couple Miscellaneous Cabs

I love the unakite. Of course, I always love unakite.

I like the first one a lot !!

Yep, me too.  

Thanks

I kept it for the pattern.   I think I was just hoping for a little sharper edges on the patten and a little better polish on the black.  

Nice cabs. You know what I’m actually really excited to see you cut? That slab of rocky butte picture jasper. I know that one is going to produce some killer cabs.

jasoninsd, when I picked it up on the beach I thought the basalt was going to be hard and the white stuff was quartz so figured it would be good.  But as mentioned, I think the white is calcite and that extends into the black in small quantities which you can see in the before picture.   They don't show up well in the photos but there are also clear veins which I think are quartz.   But I am happy with the results.   

Also, how do you "quote" someone and delete the photos?    

Google "michigan rocks videos christmas ornaments" and you will see the type of rocks Rob Jugglerguy uses for the ornaments.   

The forum is supposed to automatically delete the pics...

When I use Tapatalk to view a reply, it still has the pics in the reply...but not when I'm on a computer.

** If you want to actually delete the pics, you can put your cursor into the person's quote...then backspace or delete the pic manually...

chris1956 - Ok, video watched. Do you think slabs are too thin to work with? What thickness is desirable?

tribeunited.  Well, this might be a more complicated answer than it has to be but here goes. Most people I recall on the forum usually talk about cab thickness somewhere around .25 inches or about 6 mm. This is probably too thick for ornaments (although I have done some that thick and a little thicker) because cutting something like a Christmas tree on a trim saw when the slab is .25 inches thick and a hard material like quartz takes time and effort.  I have been tending to make them thinner the more I have done.   First you need to determine if you are going to do an actual ornament or a refrigerator type magnet.



If you are making a magnet, you can make them as thin as you can. But remember, too thin and they may break when trimming in the saw or in the vibratory tumbler (rotary tumblers generally won't work because they tend to break the ornaments). Although maybe someone could try by putting in way more ceramic or plastic media than you generally would and make it work.



If you are making a Christmas tree ornament, it depends on how you are going to hang it. Two ways I have done it. One is to epoxy a small eye pin in the top of the ornament. To do this you have to have the ornament thick enough to drill a small hole in the top (not easy on the top of a Christmas tree ornament made from quartz). I have generally used 1mm drill bits but they burn up pretty fast. I am going to try slightly bigger diameter bits on the next ones. The other way is to drill a hole through the ornament and put a string or fish line through the ornament to hang. Using the fish line method, you could make the ornament thinner.



I measured a few that I have done. The ones with the eye pins expoxied in tend to be around the 6mm thickness. Ones for magnets (thinner is better for reducing weight for the magnets) tended to be in the 4 to 5 mm thickness. You could go thinner but at some point you are wasting a lot of material sawing and as I mentioned they tend to break more (in the saw and in the tumbler).



Here are a few photos. The first two show an eye pin in the top of an ornament.





Next photo is a Christmas tree with the eye pin in the top.  This is hard to do on a point like this.  You have to go real slow and get it started before drilling hard into it.  I have a couple small vices and a drill press for my Dremel (plus water jet directing water on the drill site).   



Next photo is a candle with a hole drilled through it for fish line.    The points on the candles are too small to drill a hole into the top so I have always done them this way.





Hope this helps and doesn't sound too complicated or hard.

Chris