Fine silver bezel wire. Wrap a strip of fine silver bezel wire around the base of a cabochon. Test fit and adjust the bezel over your cabochon on a flat surface. There shouldn’t be any gaps but the stone should slide in and out of the bezel easily. When you have a good fit, mark the spot where the wire overlaps. Cut it flush (err on the side of too long vs. too short) and file the ends, if necessary, to create a tight seam when the ends are butted together. Check the fit again before sealing.

Method 1: Embed the bezel into the clay and seal the joint neatly with paste clay. (Keep most of the paste on the outside of the joint so you don’t change the fit of the bezel.) Let the clay dry, fill any gaps, dry and fire.

Method 2: Seal the joint of the bezel with paste clay or, better yet, Art Clay Oil Paste. When dry, fire the bezel separately, file the seam smooth and embed in “raw” clay as above.

Tips:

1) The bezel wire must be wide enough to hold the stone in place securely after burnishing, plus 1mm to embed in the clay.

2) Scuff/sand the area of the bezel that will come in contact with the metal clay to give it some “tooth.”

3) With a fine-tipped marker, draw a guide line scant 1mm away from the lower edge of the bezel wire to help you embed the bezel in the clay to an even depth.

Paper-type or sheet metal clay bezels for cabochons. Beautiful custom bezels can be created with paper-type (sheet) metal clay to accommodate cabochons of any size and shape. This technique was pioneered by metal clay artist Jennifer Kahn. Her excellent chapter in the superb book “PMC Technic” (see “Books About Setting Gemstones In Metal Clay,” below) explains in detail how to size the bezel setting so that it fits correctly after firing and offers some variations.

Embedded silver bezel cup settings for calibrated cabochons. For calibrated cabochon stones, you can embed either 1) fine silver bezel cups or 2) sterling silver bezel cups that have been “depletion gilded” (heated and pickled repeatedly to bring the oxides to the surface and remove them, leaving a layer of fine silver on the surface). The settings must be embedded securely into the clay in such a way that the clay can shrink-lock them into place. For depletion gilding sterling silver findings, you can use a traditional pickling product like Sparex, or Silver-Prep from Cool Tools which is supposed to be safer.

For myself it became readily obvious just how competitive jewelry and gemstone internet sales are. To simply sell jewelry, and or gemstones can result in being lost in the grand and vast world of cyberspace. The internet is plagued with never ending numbers of gemstone and jewelry sales galaxies.

It was suggested to “pick a specialized niche” within these. I decided as a gemstone site, to develop my niche specific to flat, and beveled gemstones that were specific as well within an associated jewelry niche that revolved around designers who had a particular need for gemstones that are designed for bezel settings. Everything I did and still do revolves around anything and everything related to gemstones specific to bezel settings. Everything from all my various sites meta descriptions, meta tags, key words and the like.

Why am I rambling on a bit about this? Because I would like to share a little bit about what exactly I have to offer jewelry designers and why a designer might truly consider to start to purchase from me and like so many others, become a valuable and regular customer.

I shared in a previous blog posting the advantages for a gemstone jewelry designer to develop a relationship with a specific lapidary shop. This is so true.

Today, I feel really comfortable knowing that I truly do offer some really interesting, unique and unusual gemstone cabochons specific to bezel type gemstone settings, and have built a nice little shop equipped to fill most any gemstone jewelry designers requests.

If your a jewelry designer who creates a lot of bezel type jewelry, you will really enjoy shopping my store. Just as important is for designers to feel totally comfortable in contacting me for special requests. When I designer sees there is an option to just buying what is offered to them and realizes that they can create a piece of jewelry around a particular mineral type and gemstone design it literally opens up a whole new world of designing possibilities.

It is exciting to see gemstone jewelry designers creative juices begin to flow when they start to design their own gemstones. I especially enjoy cutting and shaping matching and or multiple gemstone sets for a designers unique jewelry ideas. Here are just a few examples of what is possible. The possibilities are endless. Gemstone necklace and bracelet sets, mix and match minerals, beautiful matched sets, and any number of other possibilities. They are endless and fun too !

Presently my store is running a significant discount sale. I do it twice a year. My prices are already extremely reasonable, so to mark everything down an additional 20% is huge, and everyone has been on board.

Lots of customers also frequent the Community Forum too. It has grown over the last year. I truly feel that we have a truly interesting, unique and extremely knowledgeable group. It gets really fun when new members join up who are just getting started. I love it !

Well, I have been rambling on and on now…… Just another blog entry…

Hey, I did create yet another Squidoo Community Lens yesterday. Still a little new and rough around the edges. Another example of building on my little cyberspace gemstone bezel niche, as it is called.. “Gemstones Designed For Bezel and Metal Clay Jewelry Design”.

I really like Squidoo.

Well, I guess have created enough outbound links within this blog post. Hopefully a few jewelry designers who use bezel techniques with either silver backing or metal clay have stopped by and read through this post. If thats you, then thanks for hanging in there while I rambled on.

Hope you took a minute to check out the store, my new Squidoo lens and maybe even bookmarked the Community Forum !

If you really enjoyed then maybe subscribe to this blogs feed.

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Initially I was very disappointed because for the life of me, I could not get a polished finish.

With this chatoyant type Malachite, you have to slice the piece of rough a certain direction to fully take advantage of the chatoyant effect. Even more so with a Feather type chatoyant Malachite because if sliced improperly, the majority of feathering can be lost.

After much discussion on our forum, this ended up sitting on the bench for about four months. Part of the problem was the amount of copper within this. Finally, I sent some off to one of our forum members (Seth) who posted his success with completing a beautiful cab from what I sent him. My interest was sparked again and dove in to give it a try once more!

I thought might share the process from beginning to end just for fun. Visitors have commented how they enjoy seeing the process from the original piece of rough right up through the finished cabochon. I enjoy showing it too!

This first image is the rough as I received it. Before I even cut into it I was sure this was going to be something special.

As I mentioned earlier, there is a way to cut this so as to get the best feathering effect within the finished cabochon. Because of that I had to make a mold. Poured plaster of paris in it and then positioned the Malachite rough on it’s side so that once the plaster dried I could then cut this in the direction I wanted too. Otherwise there would have been no way to either hold it by hand or even begin to think about clamping this fragile mineral down in the slab saw.

The dark areas are copper. It was not long before that became a real problem for me in regards to polishing. As I shared on forum, for the life of me, I could not get a polish. the copper continued to smear as I tried to polish with tin oxide polish on a leather type polishing pad.

Here are a couple of pictures of my first attempt prior to sending some off to Seth from the forum.

Ok, so on to my recent successes !

First off, the oxide polishes were not the way to go. Seth mentioned his success came from the use of diamond abrasives. I believe he used some diamond paste as well. Since I was not set up with diamond, I have since made a few special wheels with a very soft leather that I can now use diamond pastes on. They are a small 4″ diameter, and simply placed them on a spare polishing unit.

Then…… the real success for me came when I set up a unit with a cotton buffing wheel. Mirkaba (Bob) from the forum had mentioned that he had some great successes with Zam.

Zam gemstone polish is used to polish soft materials, such as sapphire and gold (the softest of all metals).

This is when the shine really started to pop. Since this success with using Zam, I have began working again with this and other types of Malachite.

Here are a few pics showing my cabbing and polishing successes of this absolutely beautiful Chatoyant Feather type Malachite.

These, like most all my cabochons are bezel setting ready. These pictures were taken prior to adding the beveling for a bezel setting of which I have since added.

If you would like to see more details on these particular gemstones, you can check them out by going to this link.

As always your welcome to contact me about pricing details for special cut and shaped gemstone requests.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and reading about this Malachite.

If you noticed that in the right hand side of this blog there is a widget. I have signed up for a free account with Blog Rush. Blog Rush is in Beta testing right now according to their front page of their website.

What can Blog Rush do for my blog? By signing up for a free account and following the prompts to give them your blog title, blog address and blog feed, the people at Blog rush have created a widget that can automatically have your posts promoted on related blogs across the net. there is a video on their front page that goes into greater detail. Check it out and see for yourself. TaoGem is looking forward to seeing an additional method of targeted traffic with their new widget.

Link to store wide sale.

If your familiar with TaoGem prices, then you already know how inexpensive they are.

Twice a year I like to have a nice little sale and mark everything down twenty percent. On top of that, there are no shipping costs either for National or International gemstone orders.

This is also an excellent time to contact me if you have been thinking about special requests for unique and unusual shaped gemstones. The same twenty percent discount applies.

Stop on by and take advantage of the markdowns. The next one will not be for another six months!

Enjoy the sale and have a great day!

So this blog entry is simply to show off a few pairs that I have made while including a link to my gemstone store for jewelry designers to check out. Hopefully so as to find something that they can use for their own matched earring pair type jewelry designs.

Also to offer a link to contact me should a designer like to have a special design cut from any number of minerals available.

I don’t usually use my gemstone blog for promoting. But what the heck…. Once in a while can’t hurt!

Making a special request does not mean special costs! There are no “special” shop rates for special requests.

The above matched earring cabochon pairs are just a very few examples of what you will find within my store.

This mostly Azurite with druzy mixed with a little Malachite rough I purchased at a local fair. I had been befriending the owner who together with his wife spend the summer setting up their jewelry booth throughout the Pacific Northwest.

He has been rock hounding and cabbing for several years and had brought a few pieces of this Azurite with druzy rough with him this trip.

I had been looking for some druzy material for a customer. One thing for sure. When trying to shop for “druzy”, ya sure don’t want to search the internet using that term. Everyone wants an arm and a leg for decent druzy.

If you spend the time shopping rough, and patiently look closely at certain mineral types, you can find people selling various rough with druzy. They are not selling it with the intent of labeling it “druzy”. It’s the only way that I have found to stumble upon druzy at reasonable prices.

Here is a pic of a piece that was about four inches round. Just for fun, here is a link to a thread within the fourm about this and some other interesting and unique druzy minerals as well.

Any way here are a couple of pics prior to slabbing while trying to also cut out the areas of druzy.

After cutting out the primo areas of druzy and a few nice slabs, began to really start playing !

When we first started talking about druzy on the forum, I began hunting for ideas on shaping cabochons in a way that would let me blend the druzy into the finished cab. Something I was not at all familiar with until I began searching the internet for “druzy” topics and gemstone sites.

As with the druzy rough, the price of a nice cabochon with exposed druzy are rather pricey as well. It’s just my two cents worth, but many seemed overpriced.

Some of the druzy areas had sort of a dirty appearance to it. I am still trying to find out if there is some type of chemical that will remove it. Although I am not entirely sure that beneath the stained area are nice clean druzy crystals, or if what I see here on this cab is just all there is and nothing more.

One other thing I ran into right off the bat was dealing with a lot of porosity. As a result I began experimenting with Opticon, and also some epoxies to fill these pitted areas. I would have to coat the entire surface of the stone and then completely sand that all off without over sanding resulting in cutting right on through the filled pits. Very difficult to do with this soft Azurite mineral.

Here are a couple of pics where you can see the coatings and the attempts to sand them clean. None of them turned out at all. That really narrowed down the amount of quality cabs that were yielded from the entire piece of rough. A lot of the rough was just not working out for cabbing.

Here is probably the best of the Azurite with druzy cabochons that turned out well enough that I was comfortable selling to a customer.

The next thing to try is to accent other minerals with the druzy areas cut from the original piece of rough. Similar to this Imperial Stichtite with the Zoisite crystal accents.

I just cut this high grad Sodolite cab with the same intent. I think may well do the same with it, except use the Azurite druzy in place of the Zoisite crystals in the above set.

I have some of the Azurite druzy areas left over. So if something like this is interesting enough that you would like information about how to have me cut you a gemstone, feel free to contact me for details.

Hope you enjoyed. Be sure to leave any comments. I would enjoy talking more about this or your experiences with similar attempts at these types of minerals and druzies.

The black Tourmaline really did not cluster or run any more or different through out the piece of rough.

As you can see from this image.

So I just sliced a couple of small slabs off for my first attempt at a cab. Thought might just post a blog post for anyone who might stumble upon it. Hopefully maybe like the finished cab as much as I do!

Really beautiful material…..

Another somewhat similar mineral is this Rutiliated Quartz. I have yet to slice a piece from this. I am sure will post an image of a finished cab on the forum once I do.

As you can see it too has very similar rutiliated lines running through it as the Tourmaline except these are gold in color. This will make some beautiful cabs as well.

As usual, should either of these appeal to you like the Tourmaline does to me, feel free to contact me for details on how to get a cabochon cut from either of them.

After slabbing up the couple of small slabs thought might share one of my favorite cabs that finished.

I have a couple more on the bench that will post in a couple days on the forum under the finished cabochons board.

Since I seem to have the Pietersite bug going on, could not help myself and ordered up this absolutely stunning piece wit some beautiful coloring. Especially check out the blue at the one end.

It is on it’s way from China. Takes a couple weeks.

Can’t wait to get this beauty!

If your like me and find this mineral to be something you would like to have a special shaped cab cut from, feel free to contact me for details.

My disc is an eight inch, so I order ten inch leather so it is much easier to hold in place while trying with three hands and a foot to keep everything together.

I like to add a quarter inch thick piece of foam padding between the leather and disc. It is a lot nicer to have a little give while polishing and not push against the hard metal disc behind.

Soaking the leather in water prior to strapping it down works extremely well. The best part about it is the ability to use pliers and actually pull the wet leather tight from beneath the wire strap all the way around the leather. It stretches nice and tight. Then I place it in the sun to dry. Since the outside of the leather and disc do not get wet, once the leather has dried in the sun, the banding has created a nice tight impression on the leather holding it nice and tight.

I have used both cow and elk hide along with either tin or aluminum oxide polish with this type of setup.

I always cut gemstone cabochon sets like these from the same slab. The idea being to have an awesome matching appearance by utilizing colors, grain, and or combinations of mineral types.

I have just received most all the items necessary to do my own bezel settings. The silver backing, bezel tape, soldering paste, torch setup, jewelers files, saw, etc…

I keep hoping for the opportunity to have someone show me in person how to do the actual soldering so as not to waste the rather pricey silver.

A member from my local rock and mineral club offered, and just a matter of getting with her and her husband when they have a minute. Hopefully in the next few days. Then will come back and show off my first bezel setting!

It was the anticipation of doing bezel work as well as learning how to set the bezel tape in silver metal clay that started the creative juices to flow in regards to these multiple sets. The anticipation is killing me, and can’t wait to start offering a few in my store.

When asked a few months ago what some of my long term goals are, one of my responses was to have a little line of my own jewelry to be able and offer. Seems like it is coming together, but rather slowly…

When I do a search online for gemstone jewelry in bezel type settings, it is a little discouraging when I see how cheap some top of the line jewelry can sell for.

Just like the selling of gemstones. Very competitive and ya have to have especially unique minerals to work with so that the gemstones cut from it are more appealing than the next guy.

Seems the same with silvers mithing, silver metal clay, and even bezel type settings. So my little special niche that I hope will make a little difference are going to be these multiple gemstone sets.

Maybe it’s just me and the thought that the beauty is only in the eye of the beholder, but I sure want to believe that really unique matching sets like these will give me a little edge in being able to sell the pieces I make.

Any way…, here are just a few examples would like to share with anyone who stumbles upon this blog entry. You can click on each of the descriptive links to enlarge for a better look.

Brazilian Rainbow Agate

Imperial Stichtite accented with Zoisite Crystals

Mexican Lace Agate

Imperial Spider Jasper

Rainforest Jasper

Lemon Chrysophase

Another Mexican Lace Agate

Another of the Imperial Stichtite with the Zoisite Crystal accents

Of course, as always, if you see something that strikes your fancy and would like to have something along these lines made for you. Feel free to contact me and will be happy to cut and shape similar multiple sets from a variety of minerals available.

I decided to get right to it and try making some necklace and bracelet sets. Since I had a request for a set made from some fossil coral, it seemed like a great place to get started!

I started of of course by cutting some up into slabs. I knew that if I was going to make a nice set, it would have to be nicely matched. So using slabs cut back to back from the same piece of rough, I laid them out and began to cut out pieces in an order that would result in matching the right side of the center piece to the left side of the center piece/pendant.

Here is the results for the first bracelet set prior to drilling and of course prior to shaping so as to be able to drill into a flat surface.

Then moving on to the necklace piece. The request was to make a set like this one, except with drilled holes.
So the process was the same up to when it came time to figure out exactly what angle to drill the holes so that the tooth like stones would hang properly.

After asking for some suggestions, it was agreed to drill at an angle shown on the right set of stones.

So for now, until the vise I ordered shows up, which I hope is Monday, I have things to a point for both the bracelet and necklace sets where I will be ready to drill.

Will make another blog entry as things progress !

Of course if your new to my blog and have not visited our Lapidary / Gemstone Community Forum, you can follow along there too!

Been playing a little with druzy materials. Ever since we started talking about it on our forum.

Some of the members showed some pretty cool druzy gemstone cabochons. I instantly began to find sources for different types of druzy minerals. Hard to find at a good price when searching the term “druzy”. The best opportunities seem to show themselves when I search for various pieces of rough with either a druzy exterior or geode interior.

From what I have read, the gemstone mineral Stichtite comes from Tasmania. The articles I read all talk about Stichtite, but not the Imperial Stichtite that I am showing here. So can not say for sure it the Imperial comes from the same area. Most likely though.

Then for additional druzy top, I cut some black druzy from a piece of Ruby in Zoisite. Although the piece I have is for the most part Zoisite. It is generally referred to as Ruby-Zoisite, or Anyolite. It is a natural combination of ruby and zoisite crystals in a single specimen. This too is from Tasmania. That made the combination of the two in a single cabochon design that much more unique and interesting.

Well, this is the set I ended up making. I really like the color combination of the pink Stichtite and black druzy from the Zoisite.

Thanks for stopping by my lapidary blog, and hope you like the cab set!

Ever since I started using the Wordpress e-Commerce Plugin by Instinct Entertainment customers have been lining up complaining about how difficult it is to shop with. Not user friendly at all.

In response to that, I created a new ZenCart for shopping gemstone cabochon jewelry supplies.

Much more user friendly.

Gemstone categories are broken up into the following:

Agate Gemstone Cabochons
Fossilized FreeForm and Matched Cabochon Pairs
Jasper Gemstone Cabochons
Mixed Gemstone Cabochon Pairs
Mixed Unusual Gemstone Cabochons
Agate Matched Gemstone Cabochon Pairs
Jasper Matched Gemstone Cabochon Pairs

Hope you will stop by and check it out!

Here are just a few examples of different types of jasper gemstone cabochons available at TaoGem Gemstones. Available in any size or shape. Both in individual freeform cabochons, or matched earring cabochon pairs.

I am happy to cut and shape any of the many available jasper material that I have in stock to your specs. It is a great way for gemstone jewelry designers to be able and complete that unique piece of jewelry. Multiple matched stones available too!

Beautiful Rainforest Jasper gemstones!

Leopard Skin Jasper gemstone cabochons

Rare and Beautiful Red Ocean Jasper Gemstone Cabochons

Fantastic Owyhee type Picture type Gemstone Cabochons

One of a kind interesting and totally unique Picture Jasper gemstone cabochons!

These are but a very few examples. Just a little something to get you to consider purchasing from my store or using the contact form and contacting me for your special gemstone cut requests

Have a great day!

Here is an example of what I am most familiar with shaping cabochons from.

Here are just a few examples of what this material looks like in cabochon form. Both earring cab pairs and freeform.

Here is an example of a piece in a bezel setting with Silver Metal Clay as the medium for the jewelry backing.

A friend of mine gave me an interesting piece of Fossilized Coral. Different from what I am use to working with as it is a single tube form. I have this in the saw as I am typing this entry, so only have a few preforms to show. These will make some beautiful cabochons.

As always, if you like this Fossilized Coral your welcome to make a special request to have it cut and shaped to desired specs.

Thanks for stopping by and hope you enjoyed!

The other day a friend of mine gave me another piece of rough of this same mineral. Since I was still unsure, I requested an ID for it on our gemstone forum. It is nice to finally know that it is Dolomite.

Here is a picture of the piece of rough as it was given to me. Prior to slabbing.

I will bypass showing the slabs I cut from this and go directly to showing some preforms. Although I would like to mention that in order to get nicely matched pairs, it is necessary to use two slabs cut back to back from this same piece of rough. That is the only way to really be able to design quality matched pairs. It enables a lapidary to match the grains properly.

Then another picture as I have started to shape and on into the beginning sanding stages.

Finally, the finished matching earring cabochon pairs. Each with a neat matching pendant gemstone to go with.

These matched earring pairs are very slim, at two millimeters. The original preforms started out at about three millimeters. The pendant stones finished at four millimeters thick.

As always, if you would like to have a different design cut and shaped from this Dolomite mineral for a custom jewelry designed piece you have in mind, feel free to contact me for a special request.

Hope you enjoyed this entry!

Believe me.. I remember all to well. Bought my first combo unit. A Highland Park. It came with one course 80 , and 400 grit diamond sintered wheels. Then on the end of the unit I can attach either a flat metal disc with felt padding and a leather pad over the top. Then I have two other flat rubber padded discs that I can place silicon papers on. I have to use a spray glue that comes in an spray can. I found myself using a 400 grit on one, and a 600 grit on the second.

I also decided to bring home a double sided arbor that I placed expando type wheels on. This let me have the ability to have another 80 and 220 grit silicon carbide papers as well.

Here is my start up equipment, and I still use them every day.

The basic idea was to the best of my ability have some sort of progression of grits and work them to the best of my ability with this limited equipment that I was limited to because of cost.

This combination worked excellent through my first year of cabbing. Truth is I have added a few additional arbor type set ups. The only real reason is for convenience. I do not do anything any differently in regards to progressions between grits now than when I first started except that now with the additional arbors, I can move easily between a greater variety of papers abrasives.

If you can not invest in an additional arbor as I was able too, then you will simply need to spend a little more time removing and replacing various grits of paper out on the one or two wheels that came with your combo cabochon trim saw unit.

We have had several folks join the forum who are in the beginning stages of setting up shop. Like yourselves, I remember all too well having brought my new toys home, preparing a work area, and bolting the equipment to a workbench. I was eager to get started, but just had limited knowledge about how to cab.

One thing you will find, is that you will be working differently with various minerals. I would like to share the most basic steps with a couple of most basic minerals based on hardness.

Again……. this is very basic and there are a great many types of minerals varying in hardness on MOHS scale of hardness from one to ten. Ten being the hardest.

I thought would use a basic Jasper as well as a run of the mill agate for the following guide.

The jasper being about a 5 in hardness and the agate upwards of about an eight. The difference and reason I decided to use the two is because as an example, an 80 grit will leave heavier scratches or a courser surface on a Jasper than will it on an Agate.

Bypassing the entire process of cutting out your preform, and shaping it we are going to get right into the initial grinding. Although, it is important to note the importance of creating at least a slight dome to the surface of your cab. Otherwise you will not be able to polish the cab completely. A completely flat cab will not polish at the center of it’s surface.

Here are the surfaces of both the Jasper and Agate right off a 80 grit diamond sintered wheel. Your initial course grinding tool may be any number of things. From carborundum, diamond, sintered diamond, or maybe your limited to silicon carbide. No matter…..

The surface is going to be rough and will show lines created by the heavy, course grit. One thing to remember as you proceed through the stages of grinding and sanding as well, is that there is no need to press hard against your wheels or paper. Your just going to wear your wheels out sooner and replace your paper out every other day. You will find yourself spending a lot of wasted money on paper belts that should have lasted a long time.

Let each and every grit grind as it will with hardly any pressure applied. I do not work with diamond paper. I am told this is especially true with it though. Other wise a person will spend about 50 bucks a belt real fast if pressure is applied instead of just letting the diamond cut at it’s own pace. Pressure makes absolutely no difference at all.

Now take a close look at your cab prior to moving on to your next grit. I took the agate cab to a 220 grit silicon carbide belt, and the jasper to a 400. The jasper is softer and find that as with a lot of minerals we can skip a grit sometimes. I do not want to remove any more material than I have too.

Work it your stone nice and easy……

View video one for a short glimpse of the Agate on a 220 grit, and view the second video for a glimpse of the Jasper on a 400 grit.

Here is as good a couple of pics of the surfaces for both the agate after being sanded on the 220 and the Jasper off the 400.

You can already feel the difference with your fingers not to mention see the difference as well. It is a dramatic difference. Make it a habit prior to moving on to your next finer paper to inspect closely for any scratches that stand out. Scratches that are obvious and stand out over the course surface as a whole. The surface of the cab should be consistent. If you see a scratch that stands out, continue with the grit you just finished with until you have achieved a surface without any irregular scratches.

Move on the your next finer grits. I moved on to a 400 for the Agate and and a 600 for the Jasper.

A video if you would like to see a glimpse.

Here are the surfaces once the Agate was removed from the 400 and the Jasper off the 600. Again, look closely for abnormal scratches, and any pitting that may show themselves.

You can if you like, take the Agate to the next finer 600 grit paper if you like. I did not find it necessary. But this was just me. Everyone sorta works a mineral a little differently I think. Lots of variables.

I found that the 400 was fine and I was pleased with the surface of the Jasper after it’s round with the 600.

Now I want to do a real fine paper combined with some tin oxide paste. You can use this step like I am showing on a circular wheel or you can do the same with a flat disc that we talked about earlier included with most combination cabbing machines.

This video gives a glimpse of me using a somewhat worn 600 grit paper with the oxide paste. I took the Agate and Jasper through this step. The final sanding step to polishing.

I spent quite a bit of time on this step. More so with the Agate than the Jasper. Again, only because the Agate is softer.

Here are the two stones after some time on this step. The Agate is a bit easier to see the changes in. Only because of the quality of the pictures. Hard to show like I would like to have been able too.

Now we are ready to hit the polishing pad. I have talked before about the use of building up friction while polishing in order to create heat so as to sorta melt the oxides into the stone. This can result in a great shine.

For this tutorial, I would like to have you disregard that theory, and consider working with it as you become more comfortable with the polishing process. There are considerations like cracking of your cab due to the heat.

Continuing with the basics, we will treat the oxide polish just like any other abrasive step.

Take a look at this video clip. It shows the application of the oxide paste to a leather pad. Once I applied the paste as shown in the clip, I leave the wheel running long enough to dry out the paste on the leather polishing pad.

What this does is turn the polishing step into more of an abrasive step. It is dry not wet. Polishing with your oxide as a wet paste on the pad has it’s place too. For this short guide, I am using it dry.

What I am going to do is continue on through the final phase, the polishing phase, but I am using the paste in the same way as I did any other step prior. Letting the abrasive polish in this case in accordance to it’s own grit. Not pressing hard. Letting the oxide polish as it will naturally in accordance to the oxides grit ability. Nice and easy……

Here is a short video clip showing this step. Nice an easy.. Gradually pressing just a little more. Not a lot. Pressing just a little more, but not enough to let the stone develop any heat. Another short video showing the same.

For what it’s worth, these two clips give the impression that the polishing pad is moving sort of slow. In fact it is moving rather fast. I find better results with a faster moving pad than a slow one. I don’t know why the video gives the impression it moves so slow, but I would guess that in fact it moves about twice as fast as it appears in the clips.

Finally, we can see a pretty nice finish on the two cabs we started with. Neither of these have been beveled or had the edges rounded. This short tutorial was just to show basic grinding, sanding and polishing. Another blog entry will be along shortly showing how to complete these cabs in preparation for your bezel and or metal clay type settings.

The truth is that there are variations of these steps. You can find yourself using a worn 400 grit belt instead of a new 600 grit belt as an example. There are many variations, but the end result and the basic process is the same. That is to work through a series of different abrasives that will bring your cabochon to a desired state that you believe will allow you to move from sanding to polishing. Remember too that it is not uncommon to realize that you have to repeat a step. This is discovered as you spend more time sanding. It is a learning process. Just keep at it and have fun.

If you would like to see something specific in the form of a tutorial or guide, please feel free to request it.

Hope you enjoyed this!

I like to share with anyone interested how these minerals look when first starting to cut cabochons.

Here is the first material I was talking about in slabs.

Here is what a first group of larger cabs looks like from it. I say larger, because the following pic is from the same gemstone mineral. The cabochons are smaller, so the color variation is limited.

Then just a couple of days ago, I was visiting a member of our local gem and mineral club. He traded me a slab of some beautiful green Serpentine from the Chewelah Washington region. Here is a picture of that Serpentine gemstone mineral again, in slab form.

Not having worked with any serpentine except for the above, I expected to get the same satin finish instead of a nice glossy polish. After sharing about this on our forum, other members suggested the need for diamond abrasives to bring out the shine on the first material above.

It was nice to see a great shine on this second Serpentine from the Chewelah area. Still when you compare the two. The one with the satin finish and the nice green material with a great looking gloss finish will both look excellent in any piece of gemstone jewelry. These particular cabs are cut, shaped and beveled to fit best in bezel settings.

The location for the nice green material is only accessible through the Colville Rock and Mineral Club. I am looking forward to going on a trip with them soon.

If you have subscribed to my site then you have probably been following along as I add new blog entries. More to the point of this blog post is another recent blog entry about how excited I am about the learning of metal clay as my choice towards beginning to make a special line of jewelry. We are talking a bit about it on the forum too. We are fortunate to have a certified metal clay artist sharing here expertise with myself and other members there as well.

Any way, lets get to the point of this post regarding Jasper Minerals that are available to jewelry designers.

The list is certainly long, and there is no such thing as a poor looking Jasper cabochon. When it comes to designing gemstone jewelry, a favorite among Jaspers, are the Picture types. When I start to day dream or sketch out jewelry pieces, I imagine many of them with a Jasper of some type set in them. Usually a really interesting and unique picture jasper! Here are a very few recent Picture type Jasper favorites of mine.

Remembering that we have to start with a chunk of Picture Jasper rough, and slab it up for preform cabochons before we can get a great looking picture cabochon. One thing for sure is when I cut into any Picture Jaspers, it is just one big surprise waiting to happen. I never know what the piece of jasper rough holds until it is slabbed up.

Another reason that the Picture Jasper makes for interesting and unusual jewelry is the ability to make stunning matched pairs ideal for earrings. Here is one pair of Picture Jaspers and a few Owyhee Picture matched pairs. You can see what I mean! Another interesting part to being able to even think about making quality matching cabs is the part about how it takes two back to back slabs from the same piece of rough to be able to accomplish identical pairs.

These few pictures hardly begin to cover just how much interesting and unique variety there can be when considering Picture Jaspers for our gemstone jewelry designs.

Once I get to setting some of these beauties in some nice bezel / metal clay settings, you can bet that I will be posting some blog entries all about them!