Wonderstone Rhyolite Holy Cow Polish Verses Oxide Gemstone Cabochon Jewelry Design
I had only cabbed some Wonderstone Rhyolite one time back when first learning to cab. Took me a while to learn that the polishing difficulties I was having were not me, but the lack of silica content in the Wonderstone. As a result did not think would purchase again until I met Linna of Stone Age Industries via their Facebook page.
Linna had posted some pics of some beautiful looking Wonderstone.
We started talking a bit on Facebook. I had commented about one and only polishing experience, and had mentioned how a member of my forum had success with a Holy Cow and vinegar mix for polishine this particular mineral. Linna then asked if I would mind doing a little experiment for her and compare a final polish using tin oxide on one cab, and the Holy Cow/vinegar mix on another so she might be able to share how to potentially aquire a nice polish on what is normaly a difficult material.
Turned out to be a neat experiment and really changed my perception on purchasing more Wonderstone for future cabbing !
Of course shared the outcome within a thread on the forum too. Here are a few comparison pics. The shield cab is a tin oxide polish verses the oval that I used the Holy Cow/vinegar mixture. Which by the way is mixed the same as the oxide. Sort of creamy… I do use a synthetic leather instead of cow or elk hide for my polishing. Same here..
Linna wrote a great little article about our little Wonderstone polishing experiment as well..
As of this blog entry I am pretty sure that Stone Age Industries is still offering a few remaining slabs of this Wonderstone. It is worth noting that I noticed these slabs were quite a bit higher quality than the material I had previously worked. Much more dense than the more porous material I have seen. Even just using the oxide polish, the end result was much better with these particular slabs of theirs.
I was left with enough remaining material from these two slabs that pretty excited about cabbing more for customer jewelry designs as well as my own jewelry !
You can contact Linna at Stone Age Industries for info about available slabs.
Of course if you would like cabbing info from me using this Wonderstone, feel free to contact me as well !
Thanks for stopping in !
June 2nd, 2010 at 8:35 am
Wow, these are gorgeous. I love the markings. Nice cabs. Thanks for sharing the process too.
June 2nd, 2010 at 9:06 am
Thanks Kathleen.
Hey.. I sure do like your website and items.. Really exceptional !