adrian65
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Post by adrian65 on Dec 17, 2007 14:10:55 GMT -5
Hello, everybody! I've done today five cabs which are a set for my half (Ina). Karen - karenfh gave me a slab of Turitella and I selected some patterns in it and made that set. Ina loves it. The shine is camera shy, but it is great. Very hard material, my fingers ache as I'm typing. I grinded my left thumb skin on the grinding wheel and didn't notice until the water was pink because of the blood. Very strange. Now that area is incredibly sensitive, I feel normal warm water like boiling. Here's the set: rhombic pendant, ear-rings, ring and broach.   Thanks for looking and thanks again Karen! I have more slabs with some other great stuff (not turitella) from other members and I think I'm gonna start cabbing them soon. Adrian PS. now that's really weird: yesterday the pics above were twice smaller, now they grew!!! |
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adrian65
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Arch to golden memories and to great friends.
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Post by adrian65 on Dec 17, 2007 14:17:35 GMT -5
I don't know why are those pics so small, but by chance they reveal the exactly size of the cabs (the rhombe length is 54 mm). I post again the pics with the hope they'll be bigger:   I posted the 2nd pic in order to see better that the cabs are flat, with a unique slope and an edge between this slope and the flat top. I was affraid that if I would have domed the cabs normally, I would have lost more of the snails' patterns. Thanks again for looking, Adrian PS. And here's another couple of pic for picturing the shine. The daylight seems to be much betterfor that:   |
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Post by midnightrocksi3 on Dec 17, 2007 14:39:48 GMT -5
Hey Adrian..
I bet she does like those.. they turned out great. Ya know I do mine like that angel cut. I like it better than the dome look.. anyways.. great set.
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Post by stardiamond on Dec 17, 2007 14:41:10 GMT -5
Absolutely wonderful set of turitella cabs. A wise decision to not mess with the patterns.
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Post by Tweetiepy on Dec 17, 2007 14:57:38 GMT -5
WOW great job Turritella is finicky for getting a great shine - the light brown stuff is pretty soft but the dark brown takes a fabulous shine - which seems to be what you have all over those pieces! Great shine too - I can see it on that bottom cab in the second pic! It stinks doesn,t it - cabbing that stuff!?  Oh... I wear cheap band aids on my main cabbing fingers - I have a box of 500 next to my cabbing machine - it really helps, cuz I'm always whipping off a nail at the wrong angle in a bad way or grinding down a fingernail - dop sticks are also your friend - and as you know super glue is NOT mine! |
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adrian65
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Post by adrian65 on Dec 17, 2007 15:16:01 GMT -5
Tweetie, this turitella was a pleasure to work with: no soft areas at all. Also very discrete stinking (compared to some of my pet woods). Band-aids could solve the problem, but I doubt I can use dop sticks while rough grinding. I press pretty hard and the dop stick would not resist.
Adrian
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Post by Titania on Dec 17, 2007 15:31:06 GMT -5
Very nice, Adrian!!! You really did a fantastic job. I really like the angle you put on the sides of the cabs...a nice change.  |
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Post by Tweetiepy on Dec 17, 2007 15:31:20 GMT -5
Tweetie, this turitella was a pleasure to work with: no soft areas at all. Also very discrete stinking (compared to some of my pet woods). Band-aids could solve the problem, but I doubt I can use dop sticks while rough grinding. I press pretty hard and the dop stick would not resist. Adrian Don,t press too hard - you'll eat away at the diamonds, light pressure is better, but my dop sticks don,t survive either on the rough grind - band aids are great - some just use masking tape on their fingers too - anything to protect your fingers - you could have someone else hold the cabs & you hold their hand to grind too hehe  ;D that'll save your fingers |
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adrian65
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Post by adrian65 on Dec 18, 2007 1:18:03 GMT -5
Thank you everyone.
Adrian
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2007 1:59:42 GMT -5
Adrian those look great! Your cabbing top notch, look forward to more. The Turitella is one of my favorites and is tough to do. Looks like it was a piece of cake for you, excellent job!
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Post by texaswoodie on Dec 18, 2007 8:27:17 GMT -5
Wow Adrian! Those look great!! I have a huge chunk of that stuff and if I can ever get my saw going, that's the first thing I'm going to cut!
Curt
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grayfingers
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Post by grayfingers on Dec 18, 2007 8:49:48 GMT -5
Very impressive!! I have noticed that Turitella rough is fairly spendy on ebay, I have been way out-bid on several auctions lately... I have some tumbled pieces from a rock shop that got me wanting to get some to work with. Great job of creating matching set, I have not seen such beautiful finished pieces before! Adrian, Really enjoy reading your posts,
Bill
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Post by krazydiamond on Dec 18, 2007 8:57:17 GMT -5
super set, Adrian!
be kind to your fingers!
KD
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luv2hound
freely admits to licking rocks
I try & I try, but dang it! Those rocks just keep ending up in my pockets
Member since June 2007
Posts: 890
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Post by luv2hound on Dec 18, 2007 9:05:11 GMT -5
Adrian these are fantastic. Ina will surely enjoy wearing these. I know I would.
~~Mitzi~~
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Sabre52
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Me and my gal, Rosie
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Post by Sabre52 on Dec 18, 2007 11:33:08 GMT -5
Very nice set of cabs Adrian. Sometimes that's a hard material to work with due to breakage and the shells chipping free of the matrix. Mine smelled too and I guess that's the odor from the original shells calcareous nacre because fresh abalone shell gives off that same stink.....Mel
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Post by BuiltonRock on Dec 18, 2007 12:03:09 GMT -5
Wow!
Those are killer!!
john
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floydrocks
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since December 2007
Posts: 177
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Post by floydrocks on Dec 18, 2007 12:29:38 GMT -5
WOW!! Those are great... Just bought a box of rough off ebay and can't wait to see how it slabs up. Hope it's as pretty as yours..
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Post by stoner on Dec 18, 2007 14:35:04 GMT -5
Now that's an awesome set of cabs adrian. Excellent job on a difficult stone. I'm impressed with how well you're doing.
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Post by larrywyland3 on Dec 18, 2007 19:28:57 GMT -5
Those came out great. And that is one super shine. Nice shell patterns too.
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adrian65
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Post by adrian65 on Dec 18, 2007 22:48:25 GMT -5
Thanks again all for the appreciation.
I think the quality of the material helped me a lot. I think I can get what you mean when you say it's a difficult material only if I look carefully to the ear-ring in the left. The beige "filling" of the snail is not as hard as the rest of it and didn't shine exactly as the surrounding areas. Lucky me that was the only soft area.
Adrian
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;D that'll save your fingers
