Various Cabs - Most Need IDs

Wow! I'm so bowled over by your polish and pictures! I think I like the sagenite best but the first one is really nice, too.

Numbers 1,5,7 and 8 are my favorites, but 2,3,4,6, 9 and 10 are a close second!

Well, if we're saying our favorites... 5, 7 and 1, but that's a badass bunch of material!

Nice work jasoninsd

#1 might be a Horse Canyon Agate from California.
I've seen similar moss from Oregon too.

I was gonna say horse canyon, too. Your cab is top notch, for sure.

jasoninsd

Another great batch. The sagenite are my favorites.

I want to offer something more constructive than just telling you that these cabs are beautiful (which they are.) Here's the thing -- you have mastered the fundamentals, and I can't see any way you could have turned this set of preforms into better cabs.

So... I am interested to see how you will continue to develop your skills.

A few ideas.

1. I would love to see you try some cab shapes that really stretch your skills (like your cat cab . Perfect circles are hard for me, but can be gorgeous when well executed (think picture jaspers). Inside curves can be challenging and beautiful as well. I am sure that you are still working through your treasure chest of preforms, and I know you cut shapes compatible with your slant cabber. When the time comes to cut more preforms, I don't want to see any tear drops. Just joking. The tear drop is one of the best cab shapes. The thing is -- you've mastered it. If you want to make a bunch of cabs to sell, I would say -- pump out a bunch of tear drops. Yours are very good, and no doubt people would buy them. But I want to see how good your cabbing skills can become (and learn something from you in the process).

2. Have you tried any really low domes? I know that might have been tough on the slant cabber, but it is very doable with you cabbing machine. Slab thickness comes into play, obviously. You may decide that you like how high domes look on most material, but mastering the low dome could give you another option.

3. There is always room to improve, or at least experiment, with composition. I don't have any specific ideas here, but I'll share something I did recently: I laid out all of my crazy lace cabs side by side and looked at them as a group. I thought about which ones I like best, and why. By viewing a bunch of similar cabs side by side, I started to noticing things like the relationship between the shape of the cab and the shape / orientation of the bands. I think it I would have marked out some crazy lace preforms right after that, they would have been good ones.

4. Some of your best cabs have come from capturing the most difficult parts of slabs, like druzy vugs and druzy holes. I am thinking of a few of your TeePee Canyon cabs. If you're like me, your instinct, however, is to cab the most solid / stable parts of a slab. There is another approach, which is to cab the most interesting part of the slab, regardless of flaws, and just deal with the flaws the best you can. The final result might be a free form with a funny shape, or a cab with a fracture or vug on the surface... but if what you capture is interesting enough, the funny shape or surface imperfections won't matter much. I am not good at this, but stephen and others do it all the time with success.

5. There is always room to experiment with new and challenging materials. I mostly cab hard agates and jaspers because they are forgiving in a lot of ways. When I try to cab materials with mixed hardness (things like quartz / chrysocolla / malachite mixed up in a single rock) I often end up with a funky shaped cab with a poor dome. One of the things that I admire about Tela's (rockjunquie) cabs is that she uses a lot of gorgeous but uncommon and challenging materials. Hers almost always turn out good, though. You have already done more experimenting than me in this regard (lots of good obsidian cabs recently), but I'm sure you can do even more. How about some granite cabs?

That's all I've got. I'm in not position to be giving advice, but sharing ideas can't hurt. Don't feel the need to respond to all of this.

Thank you so much for your well thought out and very time consuming post. I've come to realize over the years the biggest "gift" anyone can give is their time...it's the only thing in this life that can't be reacquired in one way or another.

I appreciate the compliment of "mastering the fundamentals"...I'm not sure I'd categorize myself as a master of anything...but I feel I'm definitely getting better at the basics. 

I definitely would like to respond to what you wrote...

1. I've talked about it before and you even touched on it. I'm in a position right now to have an "overload" of the basic teardrop shape. It was one of the easier shapes to do on the flat lap - and quite honestly, it's one of my favorite shapes from a visual sense - it very much is a "classic" design. Because I'm not able to utilize either of my saws any time soon, I'm stuck with what I have. I have every intention...when I'm able to...to "venture out" into other shapes. That being said, I did get one last chance to get some more preforms cut before the weather took a dump and was able to choose some shapes I've never done before - some with an inside swoop. Problem I'm going to have, is they're in obsidian. I would have much preferred to have the new shapes out of an agate or jasper so there was some allowance for errors. However, with it being in obsidian, I have one shot to get it right...no added pressure or anything! LOL

2. Of course I've done low domes...I don't like them! I am kidding on that. From a visual standpoint (for me), I prefer a cab with a higher dome. Quite a bit of my material was cut thick. When I first started cutting, I didn't control the saw like I do now, so I'm stuck with material that allows for a higher dome. I don't plan on dome height most of the time...I go off the thickness of the slab. However, I have taken domes lower than what the preform is cut for...for various reasons. Sometimes it's WAY too high...other times I'm trying to get past vugs...and other times I just want a lower dome rather than a higher dome. Take number 3 for example. It's a low dome. The cab measures 46mm x 28mm x 5.38mm. I think this one is a very low dome on a very large cab. I didn't have any issues with trying to work out a "flat spot" in the middle of this cab. I think I'm very conscientious with regards to seeing the slope of the dome as I'm shaping on the coarse grit wheel...and I think that's due to the magnification I'm using while working the wheels (magnifying lamp, optivisor, and reading glasses). Being able to see the curvature of the dome in this first step enables me to cut out the "fix it" time in the next step. (That being said, I'll probably mess this up all day now! LOL)

3. For me, I think the only "artistic" part of cabbing is the selection of where to take the cab from on the slab. I actually find it fun to pick out where on the slab the "best" cab is going to come from, whether it contains imperfections or not...and then choosing the secondary or tertiary locations. I've started wasting more material with my latest ones.

4. Refer to #3...

5. I do believe I have "branched out" with regards to more challenging materials - when the opportunity presents itself. However, I will be doing more so as time goes on. My entire cabbing experience has been just over a year...so my acquisition of material is only in its "infancy"...when compared to some people...


I really do thank you again for putting your thoughts down...it definitely is how ideas are sparked and new ways to look at things are encountered. 




Thanks Beth! 

Yeah...number 5 is definitely a material I wish I knew the exact ID on...I'd love to have about 50 more pounds of that one! LOL



Thanks Tela! 

Definitely a lot of thought and time was put into his post. 




hummingbirdstones - Thank you Robin!