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Post by holajonathan on Oct 3, 2021 11:31:54 GMT -5
Finished a few last night. Amethyst lace from Mexico. Marginal material, but took a good shine.  I posted one of these a few days ago. Last night I finish its sibling. More on the way from the same rock. White specs are dust.   Mexican lace. Nice material from The Gem Shop.  More crazy lace from the Gem Shop. I think this could be called Noriega Lace.  Cactus lace from Mexico. As an experiment, I tried to cut a faceted dome using wheels only. It was very angular coming off the hard wheels, but the resin wheels rounded off the edges a little.   A small (about 15mm x 8mm) Singleton Ranch, Texas plume agate. Would make a nice ring.  For size comparison  Cheetah agate (jasper) from Brazil. This stuff is a pleasure to cab.  Mexican picasso "jasper." Not jasper, but rather, something like silicified mud -- similar to Mookaite, Noreena, and many of the picture "jaspers." This looked much better coming off the 3000 wheel. It started undercutting with the 8000 wheel, and the rawhide + AO polish pretty much ruined it as all the white spots are undercutting. I will need to figure out a new strategy for polishing this material.  A bonus tumbled rock -- a tiny Bahia agate (Brazil) with impossibly fine banding.  |
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Post by opalpyrexia on Oct 3, 2021 12:40:13 GMT -5
Great group of cabs — my favorite is your Singleton Ranch plume agate. It's a beautiful, complex landscape with flowers, vegetation, distant trees, clouds and sky. I also like your 6-sided crazy lace. I'm going to borrow and play with that shape.
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Post by holajonathan on Oct 3, 2021 15:08:02 GMT -5
Great group of cabs — my favorite is your Singleton Ranch plume agate. It's a beautiful, complex landscape with flowers, vegetation, distant trees, clouds and sky. I also like your 6-sided crazy lace. I'm going to borrow and play with that shape. Thanks. There is indeed a whole world inside that little plume agate. I didn't have a template for the 6-sided cab. I started with an equilateral triangle, but had to improvise when a corner broke off. I ground the points of the triangle down until the 3 larger sides were exactly 1-1/2" wide, the width of my grinding wheels. Although it was a lot of grinding, starting with an equilateral triangle made it easy. The proportions look slightly off in the photo because the camera angle, but the 3 longer sides are all the same length, and so are the 3 shorter sides. I plan to experiment with more with crazy lace + geometric shapes. Straight lines on the cab seem to compliment the lacy and erratic patterns in the rock. More generally, I have been trying to pay attention to the relationship between cab shape and the colors / patterns in the underlying rock. |
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Post by jasoninsd on Oct 3, 2021 15:50:21 GMT -5
Amazing group Jonathan!  I love that first Mexican Lace (from The Gem Shop! Great capture on that one! I really liked the size comparison pictures...and yes, that plume agate has a TON going on it. |
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Post by holajonathan on Oct 3, 2021 16:51:35 GMT -5
Amazing group Jonathan! I love that first Mexican Lace (from The Gem Shop! Great capture on that one! I really liked the size comparison pictures...and yes, that plume agate has a TON going on it. Thanks, Jason. I got lucky with the first Mexican lace one because as I domed it the round "flower" at the top kept getting bigger and bigger. The pattern in crazy lace changes so quickly it seems like what I end up with after grinding is never quite the same as what I saw when I marked the preform. |
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Post by jasoninsd on Oct 3, 2021 17:00:08 GMT -5
Amazing group Jonathan! I love that first Mexican Lace (from The Gem Shop! Great capture on that one! I really liked the size comparison pictures...and yes, that plume agate has a TON going on it. Thanks, Jason. I got lucky with the first Mexican lace one because as I domed it the round "flower" at the top kept getting bigger and bigger. The pattern in crazy lace changes so quickly it seems like what I end up with after grinding is never quite the same as what I saw when I marked the preform. That's a great example of something in the stone that immediately draws the attention. A VERY simple kind of wrap should be done (in my opinion) to "accent" this particular piece. Gorgeous! |
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Post by holajonathan on Oct 3, 2021 17:57:44 GMT -5
Almost forgot this one. More cactus crazy lace. This stuff sure is easy to cab. Mohs 6-ish, even hardness, no fractures, and scratches melt away on resin wheels.   |
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Post by drocknut on Oct 3, 2021 20:43:13 GMT -5
Very cool cabs for sure, great job on them.
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Post by Pat on Oct 3, 2021 21:23:47 GMT -5
What a beautiful show!
What a pleasure to work with.
A feast for the eyes…
Thanks.
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Post by stephan on Oct 3, 2021 23:28:34 GMT -5
Ah, holy smokes, those are nice! That’d be a tough batch for picking a favorite. The Texas plume is amazing, as are the crazy lace cabs. I think that’s the first rescue cab (or one of) that still ended up as a symmetrical shape. For the Picasso, the white speckles wouldn’t have bothered me, if you hadn’t told us they were pits. The color on that one is quite cool (hard to go wrong with shades of purple) — it almost looks like lepidolite, but with cool patterns.
The Bahia is very cool. I bet it has killer shadow agate.
The cheetah is super cool too. Looking forward to working it soon… when it get the fish tank pump. I worked a little this weekend (three cabs). One is piece of the peanut obsidian you sent. I cabbed on-handed and used a squirt bottle with the other. Not the fastest way to go, but it worked.
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Post by holajonathan on Oct 4, 2021 1:13:22 GMT -5
Very cool cabs for sure, great job on them. Thank you. What a beautiful show! What a pleasure to work with. A feast for the eyes… Thanks. I'm glad you like them, Pat. I sure enjoyed making them. Ah, holy smokes, those are nice! That’d be a tough batch for picking a favorite. The Texas plume is amazing, as are the crazy lace cabs. I think that’s the first rescue cab (or one of) that still ended up as a symmetrical shape. For the Picasso, the white speckles wouldn’t have bothered me, if you hadn’t told us they were pits. The color on that one is quite cool (hard to go wrong with shades of purple) — it almost looks like lepidolite, but with cool patterns. The Bahia is very cool. I bet it has killer shadow agate. The cheetah is super cool too. Looking forward to working it soon… when it get the fish tank pump. I worked a little this weekend (three cabs). One is piece of the peanut obsidian you sent. I cabbed on-handed and used a squirt bottle with the other. Not the fastest way to go, but it worked. That Texas plume was a tumble that kept getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller... If I had tried to tumble out all the little vugs and cracks, it would have disappeared. So it had to be cabbed, despite its diminutive size. And I cabbed it with my bare fingers -- no dop stick -- the way I do 90% of them. I lost at least 2 or 3 layers of fingertip skin on that one. I usually only use dop sticks when my fingertips are raw and painful. The Picasso "jasper" would be fine if it weren't for how cool the rough looks without the white dots. I'll post a photo so you can see what I mean. |
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Post by holajonathan on Oct 4, 2021 1:16:46 GMT -5
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Post by stephan on Oct 4, 2021 8:39:13 GMT -5
Picasso and Noreena had a baby
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Post by holajonathan on Oct 4, 2021 11:02:37 GMT -5
Picasso and Noreena had a baby Reminded me of Noreena, too, with more subdued colors and less fractures. |
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