Thanks John, its slowly taking shape, still on 400 grit but I have smoothed out the bumps, and drilled the string hole, picture taken dry this time, may finish this one on 1200 carbide paper dry to try the satin finish.

Hi Michael, its boulder creek, I swapped Kristine for some Aussie imperial red rhodonite, and she sourced from you, great piece, only one black iron spot.
Cheers mick B

My latest mobius arrow head carving, this is the first time I have carved Canadian jade, very much in the rough stages 220 grit sanding, given to me by a friend in the US, great jade well worth the hours I will spend.

Some great cabs worked to perfection there, my entry, Aussie imperial rhodonite from my region.

A gift to my wife for our wedding anniversary.

My little fish all finished, finally a picture that does it justice, one of my entry's in our National show at Easter.

Thanks for the great comments, my little fish is slowly taking shape, I have chosen some Aussie ferro actinolite for the eyes, they are set back into the green jade about 1.5 mm, there is still some debate about this black stone as its being sold as black jade, I have a test that states its nephrite but others refuse to agree, polishes awesome.

Thanks, great feed back, the color of my rhodonite fish is great but it has many cracks, after I roughed carved there were 3 visible, then after smoothing even more appeared, I will keep it as a my reference for carving others, the cracks are easily visible in the mouth section in the attached picture, I have treated fractures in a vacuum with epoxy and with opticon, I may do at a later date.

My New design in Aussie jade, only up to 400 grit, some small flats to fix, and the eyes will be a challenge.

Thanks for the great comments, this is a slight change for me, abstract and figurative in one piece, just shows how the two can be mixed in one carving, 3 years back I would have never attempted this shape in a stone like rhodonite, did not have the knowledge to keep it in one piece or where to start, it has small cracks that did not show up until carved, I might try opticon under a heat lamp for a few hours, or in a vacuum, both work.

Its been quite a while since I have posted here, I started carving this little fish recently, its from the same rough Margie won the killer cab contest with, close to the best color rhodonite ever found in AU, if not the world in massive material, we found this rough a few months back left by miners from a mined out deposit, I will be in laying opal for the eyes, not sure what color yet, sanding on 240 grit, has some cracks that I need to treat.

Congratulations Margie, she done a great job on this little Aussie rhodonite cab, its from a mined out location in our region, I did give guidance to achieving that final polish but all the hands on work is 100 % Margies, its been 7 days since the voting ended here, is there any reason why the September winners are still posted, or do members need to be a supporter member to have there winning cabs posted. 

We went back to our new rhodonite find today, found the main solid manganese seam, left a 100 kg piece that is dug in like a tick, contains good pink, I think the gray green material surrounded by pink rhodonite is tephrite, heaps of jasper in the mix, the large boulders above Margie are jasper.

LOL, I came second last and you put my rhodonite cab up, when I click on my cab to look at the picture Lithos cab comes up and vise versa, was this reflected on the vote ?, congrats to both winners.

My entry, our new rhodonite find, I think this is the best piece we have found so far, its Tamworth rhodonite Australia, will be called Jindalee rhodonite, our property name.