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Post by stardiamond on Jul 12, 2023 20:21:18 GMT -5
I'm not sure about the descriptor of original Owyhee. I call it Gem Owyhee and what is distinctive about it is how hard it is. It is on my search list and is hard to find. I bought a onepound piece of rough with nothing showing from Tony at FB full moon last year and my saw wasn't working so it took me a while to cut it. I saw the blues and went wow. The third picture (without blues) can be treacherous with partially healed fracture that like to go boom. The Blue Owyhee takes a long time for me to work on. I have an aggressive 80 grit that eats rock but I must have made three or four passes getting the scratches out. Soft material can be forgiving but this hard stuff puts up a fight. I like the blues because of the water an sky possibilities in the designs.
Great job on all of them.
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 12, 2023 19:19:52 GMT -5
I wasn't feeling 100% and was not motivated to grind. I took at look at my inventory to see if I wanted to list some things in Etsy. I was thinking Tahoma so I searched for my listed Tahoma cabs. I had 35 listed and hey were scattered in multiple riker boxes, so I decided to consolidate them into one. It took me some time to find 34 of the 35. I gave up on number 35 and deactivated it. I have a good eye for finding stuff, but the pictures don't indicate size and I realized my pictures weren't very good. They were taken a while ago with another camera and lighting set up. My new set up is much better. Tomorrow, I'll add a new primary picture for all of them. I was looking for some Nipomo Marcasite slabs which have become tough to find. A found a seller on FB who had some and they arrived today. I look for Nipomo with a lot of clear area. Buying from pictures is tough so i was very pleased with the material; a lot of clear and interesting metallic shapes. I laid out one preform just as a test. I'll do the actual preform design when motivated.
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 12, 2023 18:42:11 GMT -5
I have one of these and it works fine for larger cabs, but the small ones fall trough the gap.
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 12, 2023 18:39:40 GMT -5
I’m not sure what shape you are looking for exactly but would it be buildable? Using the plexiglass from the hardware store and a heat gun to bend it? We’ve used this to make guards for our machines. Maybe a thinner sheet could be cut and bent to hold a cab? I bought 20 or these from Amazon. The problem is the base is arced and slopes forward. I decided to sacrifice one as an experiment. I heated it with a triple flame torch lighter hoping to adjust the tilt and it just collapsed. I can put a piece of double sided exterior tape on it so the cab won't move, but the tape looses the stick quickly. Plan b, is to grind a notch using a Dremel. Maybe I'll try the tape.
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 12, 2023 17:48:11 GMT -5
Thanks, I looked. Baseballs, hot wheels no easels for small objects.
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 12, 2023 17:11:19 GMT -5
I had a couple and they disappeared. I use them to photograph. I bought some rock/slab stands but the bottom is curved and the cabs do a dance. I bought some easels from Amazon and they were way to big. I have a smaller one but it doesn't work with small or narrow cabs.
I've checked Amazon, ebay, etsy, johnson brothers, Kingsley North, Rock Peddler and Fire Mountain.
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 11, 2023 17:42:31 GMT -5
This was a splitting fail: I should have got two slabs from the Bruneau. I only got one extra slabette from the heels.
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 9, 2023 15:44:29 GMT -5
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 8, 2023 21:34:23 GMT -5
When a person finds material they can do whatever they want with it. I have to buy all my material and the good stuff is expensive. When I see tumbled pieces of gem Owyhee or Morrisonite..... Tahoma has become a very tough find. I picked up this parcel of Tahoma on ebay and will convert the larger pieces to cabs.
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 8, 2023 21:30:34 GMT -5
Gem means to me high quality. When a person looks at a piece of material called bone and one called gem bone, the gem bone is nicer.
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 8, 2023 21:06:13 GMT -5
The state should be renamed Plumegon. There are so many plumes they all haven't been given a name. When I buy Stinking Water, I look for a lot of water and spaced out stink. Regency Rose, Graveyard point, Pink Lady, Nyssa and Warm Springs all have a dense pattern. This is airy.
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 8, 2023 16:37:26 GMT -5
The biggest advantage to making earrings is that I can use material that is unsuitable for larger cabs, so the cost of material is free. My buying approach is to get material that produces cabs worth three times the cost of the material. The main reason I make earrings is that I have a very good customer who is a silversmith that wants to make pendant earring sets. My cutting skill on earrings is c+, but the customer is satisfied with the work. I've made about 20 pairs of earrings for her and sold them at a negotiated price of $20 a pair which is ridiculous, but I have sold her thousands of dollars worth of pendant cabs.
I bought a small nodule of super seven on FB and when I got it, it was too small for a pendant, so I made earrings. I paid $32 for the piece so I charged $96 for the earrings. They didn't sell for a long time. I got another piece and made two large cabs. The material was a good match and when I listed one of the cabs, a customer bought the set.
If I was trying to make an hourly wage, earrings would be a waste of time. Making cabs is a hobby and the selling allows me to buy really nice material to work on. When I was a pure hobbyist I had to watch what I bought.
I have another customer who makes rings which for me is a half a pair of earrings and they don't have to match and I charge the same as a small pendant cab.
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 8, 2023 15:58:35 GMT -5
stardiamondWhen making earrings try using a slab approx. 8 mm thick. Shape one preform only and then split in two on the trim saw. This will result in two preforms that are mirror copies (<4mm thick) and if you dome the inside faces you should have identical patterns. I've done that with material that I have slabbed. Purchased slabs are usually thinner. I tried a technique where I glued together a stack of preforms and ground a cylinder. Marked the girdle on the top one, ground the dome and then separate it from the stack. Repeated on the next one in the stack, etc. It worked but wasn't a time saver. Getting the shape to match is easy, getting the domes to be an exact match is more challenging.
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 8, 2023 14:40:36 GMT -5
I listed them so I needed to take measurements. The length width and height are the same which is scary. One of them weighs .15 gram more than the other.
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 8, 2023 13:57:26 GMT -5
One pair is done and they are done to the best of my ability. Normally, I mark the bottoms and stay outside the lines. With these I had to use calipers. I don't think I want to look at the others for a week. The set are better than the pictures.
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 7, 2023 18:20:19 GMT -5
I hate making earrings. Having watched cabbing videos, I see a lot of rock tickling; grind a little, check, grind a little, etc. I like to work fast and bulldoze. Making a cab is getting the shape and dome right. Earrings require getting a pattern match and a shape and dome match. A customer wanted some Tahoma earrings made for a friend. Tahoma has different materials together and tends to fracture. Tahoma is tough to find and I didn't have any. I bought some BMJ from an FB seller and asked if he had any Tahoma. He said he would look. When my order arrived he gave me a Tahoma slab. Not suitable for cabs but good for earrings. I marked up the slab. Two of the patterns were overlapping on both sides. I trimmed the stand alone and then sent a picture of the other two so the customer could choose. The customer chose the design in the second picture. Trimmed it and naturally it fracture. Fortunately, the designs didn't overlap so I trimmed the second pair. The first pair I trimmed also fractured, but I thought I had enough room to work around the fracture. I rough ground the two pairs. I was able to get rid of the fracture. It is dopped and I will work on them tomorrow. When I have to be more exact, I like to start fresh. I'll complete the other pair even though the match isn't as good.
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 7, 2023 17:54:07 GMT -5
My aim isn't great with a trim saw, so I like to leave room outside the lines and then finish the shape grinding. A fine tip sharpie line is not likely to go away.
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 7, 2023 15:26:08 GMT -5
The mailbox has been busy, now the saw. 5 completed
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 7, 2023 15:23:26 GMT -5
Fine point sharpie for the trim saw. Extra fine point for drawing shape on the bottom using a template, pencil for girdle. I previously drew the shape using a pencil but the lines washed off frequently.
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Post by stardiamond on Jul 6, 2023 11:11:39 GMT -5
This is the listing picture I bought from. I also use a quarter in my cab listings. I didn't consider the picture of the small slab, deceptive. I saw that it was a single cab slab and I wouldn't know the shape and size until trimming it. The purpose of the post was that buying from a picture is not as accurate as looking at the actual item. Live sale prices are higher and the inventory to choose from smaller. Buying from pictures there will be surprises and disappointments. The small piece was expected and the big piece was a surprise.
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