I like to carve my gemstones

[3rdRockFromTheFun]

Thanks Daniel, that's awesome of you to show that.

I've been playing with sandpaper on the slotted mandrel concept with mixed success. On some materials and some days (yes really) it seems to work too good to be true. On other materials and other days (bad days I guess, lol - my hand must get unsteady maybe) it just doesn't want to cooperate. Since you're the second person I've seen using this method I can see it means I just need to practice a lot more. You're using a thicker mandrel than I do also - I may have to slot an old bit and make a thicker one too - try that and see if I can get more consistency.

When you wrap that sandpaper do you wrap it several times around then tear off a little bit every few swipes or do you just insert a fresh small piece every few swipes? I'm doing the former using a several inch long strip - wrap then tear, spin, tear, spin... re-wrap and repeat. Maybe I need to rethink that.

For curves I was having some really good success using greenstone (sic knife blade honing sticks in the 400'ish grit range) sticks but only on materials in the obsidian hardness range and slightly harder - not so much with agate.

I still plan on calling a guy Krystee recommended for some material (blocks of sic embedded rubber I think - like cratex in a block) but I got stuck working some ideas out that put carving on the back-burner. Thus far it's never been on the front burner for very long because these pre-polishing issues get me so frustrated I want to toss rocks into the hopper and hit flush 

[lonelygems]

I did abrasive wrap several times depand on surface i need to polish, small one for deep line or any difficult area bigger for the rest, tear the tip if necessery, go slow with a drop of water to decrease tearing and a short abrasive wrap will much stabel than longer one.

Green stone (sic) is good, i cutted my old sic wheel to small bit, shaped it with diamond wheel or sic wheel, made a 5mm deep small (1 or 2 mm diameter) hole and glued with old bit, you can adjust it size depand on what you need....go slow with this artificial sic bit  and drop water.

[lonelygems]

Hello guys.....finaly i started to carve again...........I received nephrite jade from Mick B a month ago, very nice stuff.... did some cabs for my customer and wait for free time to carve it.

Basicly i want to carve a scary face arise from something, i strarted this morning and i hope i can finish it not too late....this time will be a lot of fun for me because this is my first nephrite carving....here's some pictures and thank's for looking     

[ScarlettoSara]

Daniel I dont like scary stuff. LOLOL I have to look under my bed and in my closet before I go to sleep and my bed sits on the floor !!!!! I want to make sure there are no monsters hanging around.

[asianfire]

Scary movie ?

Interesting way of starting with the outline.
Looking forward as to how you going to proceed.

[lonelygems]

Lol Sara.....I'll make sure this one can't jump out and playing around....

Day 2..........





 

[asianfire]

Ahhh now I get it,  covered in cloth!

Great idea, looks fantastic as is already. Will be a lot of work polishing though if you want to keep all those edges. Way to go, looking forward to the final look.

 

[lonelygems]

Hi Kurt.......i still need to do some final grind to perfection, i hope tomorrow i'll be ready start to polishing.....it's a lot work. I considering to carve some holes between each 2 tides to get more detils, what do you think about that?

[mehoose]

Looking forward to seeing this done. good size!

[3rdRockFromTheFun]

Wow Daniel, I love how simple yet effective you made that. It's looking awesome so far! I need to come visit you and Kurt (that's a lot of airtime yah?!) to get schooled.

The rocks are piling up here and some are begging to be worked into things other than cabs.

I am thinking of doing some saw sculpting or inverse quartz carving ( because I could do either without having to polish - maybe that will give me an easy way to work into it without so many disappointments - who knows)

Anyway, I can't wait to see the finished scary!

[mick B]

Haunted jade, like the look Daniel, I think thats the core out of the bangle I cut, use diamond to final polish this material, this is the same material that David posted, all oxides will undercut- orange peel, 50k than 100k diamond, should make it gleem. some NZ carvers only go to 1200 silicon carbide- wet & dry paper, they like a matt finish.
I can understand it having a face like it does, this stone has been to hell and back, forms at a minimum depth of around 400 meters, Jadeite forms at several kilometers.
cheers mick B

[ScarlettoSara]

Its a Haint....I used to live in this really old house and it had an open well under it where the haint lived. I didnt bother the haint as I figured it had a shallow life:) But the Haint kept opening the closet door in my bedroom so I nailed it shut with about 20 - 16 penny nails one night and that was that:) People in the south believe in ghosts and UFOs and marrying our cousins if we love them:) 

[pete]

Wow! What lovely coloured material and an exciting carving in progress. Looking forward to the final product and your experiences of working with it.

[3rdRockFromTheFun]

Its a Haint....I used to live in this really old house and it had an open well under it where the haint lived. I didnt bother the haint as I figured it had a shallow life:) But the Haint kept opening the closet door in my bedroom so I nailed it shut with about 20 - 16 penny nails one night and that was that:) People in the south believe in ghosts and UFOs and marrying our cousins if we love them:) 

Hey cous! 

[lonelygems]

lol....i really confused many times, i always open my dictionary on other tabs to search any words i don't understand it but some of words i didn't find in dictionary...   i guess it's a slank....this "cous" is also one i can't find Frank...