Jewellery from a Jaka Gems stone

I have been cutting stones for many years and recently I started making simple jewellery from them by either drilling a hole through the stone and attaching a bail or by gluing the stone

There are, however, far more clever people than I that can create beautiful jewellery from both cut stones and rough or tumbled stones.

Agate Cabochon

This is an agate cabochon that I cut some time ago and listed in my store. A lady from Canada bought this piece and I shipped it across there in early November.



In a small twist, I was contacted by another customer of mine from Canada, Shelley of Shelley's Stoneworks who I had sent some rough boulder opal to a little while before hand. She told me that she had been contacted by the purchaser of this cabochon and had been asked to set the stone.

This is the resulting pendant:

Wire Wrapped Agate Cabochon

This form of jewellery is known as Wire Wrapping and as you can see, it is a very effective way of setting stones. Shelley does some amazing work - You definitely need to check her stuff out! Head over to her Facebook Page: Shelley's Stoneworks. Let her know I sent you!

New Equipment for Christmas

Prior to Christmas, this is the tool that I had been using to drill holes in my stones:

'Ozito' Rotary Tool

It is a cheap little 'Ozito' rotary tool which I bought for about $30 from Bunnings. The flexible shaft that came with it broke some time ago, and I am pretty sure it is on its last legs.






But my Wife, being the lovely lady that she is, bought me a new piece of equipment for Christmas!

Dremel 300 Series Rotary Tool

This is a Dremel 300 Rotary Tool: I am told that Dremels are the bee's knees of rotary tools so I am pretty excited about it.

What makes this present even better are the accessories that my Wife bought with it!

Dremel 220-01 Workstation

This is  photo of the Dremel housed in its 220-01 Workstation!

This thing is great! It turns the Dremel into a drill press which makes drilling holes in the stones much easier and far more accurate, not to mention neater holes. I can also turn the Dremel so that it is horizontal which will make carving easier when I get around to teaching myself how to do that.

Dremel Multi-Vise

This bit is a bench vice which the Dremel also hooks into. Again this will be VERY helpful when it comes to teaching myself stone carving!







So thank you very much to my wife for this new equipment! It is VERY much appreciated!

A Jaka Gems Christmas

Merry Christmas to all! Jaka Gems created quite a few unique Christmas gifts this year which were handed out yesterday.

Bread Knife with Stone Scales

Handles/scales for this bread knife were cut out of a form of Jasper for my Mum - It was very well received with Mum taking it straight out to the kitchen!

Swiss Army Knife with Stone Scales

This customized Victorinox Swiss Army Knife with Marble Bar Jasper scales went down an absolute treat with my Dad. His comment was 'I will treasure this! You can have it back when I die!'. I thought that was fantastic as he clearly appreciated it!









I received a last minute message from a good friend of mine on Sunday hoping to get a couple of pendants to give to her Mum. She couldn't quite decide between a couple of items in my online store so we worked a few things out and decided that instead of ready made pendants, I would cut some custom ones for her. She had been eying off a tiger iron pendant and a green banded jasper pendant in the store. I still had plenty of both materials left so she decided on one of each.

Tiger Iron and Green Jasper Pendants with Sterling Silver Bails

The Tiger Iron free form pendant on the left and the 30mm round green banded jasper pendant on the right are the ones that were given to her Mum. The one in the middle is a free form green banded jasper available for purchase through my store here.

My wife's family had a Kris Kringle this year where the theme was 'Home Made'. The person I ended up making for was my Sister in Law. As cutting stones is the only thing I am competent at as far as handmade goes, I obviously decided to make some jewellery. I ended up cutting 2 x 25mm round Northern Territory Prehnite cabochons. I set one in a round bezel pendant setting, the other I set in a round bezel ring setting so she had a matching set. I did however, forget to take a photo! If I manage to get a photo of these pieces I will update this entry! The pendant is similar to this one.


Update 28/12/12: I managed to get a photo of the ring/pendant set:

Northern Territory Prehnite Cabochons set in silver plated settings

There were many other pieces from the Jaka Gems store that went out as Christmas presents for others. I hope that the recipients of these enjoyed their gifts as much as I enjoyed creating them! If you recieved a Jaka Gems stone for Christmas, drop us a line and let us know what you think of it!

Until next time, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and I hope everyone has a safe holiday season!

Competition Time!

At the time of writing this blog entry (19th December 2012 at about 8:30pm!), Jaka Gems has 316 Facebook fans.

I have decided that to increase this number, I will have a little giveaway! I had one small piece of Green Serpentine left, so I cut this small pendant out of it. The pendant is finished with a simple sterling silver pinch bail.

Serpentine Pendant with Sterling Silver Bail

So whats the giveaway I hear you ask? If I can make it to 350 'likes' on my Facebook page by 2013, that is by 12:01am on the 1st January 2013 (Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time of course!), one of my Facebook fans will be drawn at random and will receive this pendant as a prize! Simple as that! So if you haven't already, head across to the Jaka Gems Facebook Page and hit the big 'LIKE' button at the top!

This is a rubbish photo I know so I will take a better one in the daylight tomorrow and update this post as appropriate! Good luck and I will see you over on Facebook! And don't forget to SHARE!

Success! Second times a charm! Stone scales for a Bread Knife

After the disaster that was my first attempt at cutting scales for a bread knife - with the scales breaking right before gluing them onto the knife, I went back to the drawing board with a few extra slabs, ones that were big enough for the scales, and ones that went under far more scrutiny looking for cracks and weak spots.

I ended up deciding on a couple of slabs of a yellowy orange jasper which had a lot of dendrites and other interesting looking inclusions:

Marked out slab and Pre Form Scale Cabochon

Although the colours in this piece are not particularly striking, the pastally colourations are quite interesting, especially with the dendrites running through the yellow banding. I am pretty sure this is a jasper of some description, however its origins are unknown to me.

Pre Form cabochons for Stone Knife Scales

I was feeling pretty good about this material right from the start when I cut out the preform shapes. It seemed pretty solid and there was no visible weak spots. There were a couple of small cracks which I was keeping an eye on, but they were of no real concern.

Stone Bread Knife Scale

After a couple of hours of grinding, cutting and polishing, the resulting large scales came up with a really nice shiny finish. The small cracks did not give way and the colours in the material ended up being nice and soft. Certainly a couple of cabs to be quite proud of in their own right!

Bread Knife with Stone Scales

All that was left to do was to glue the scales onto the knife! As was the case with my Swiss Army Knife project, the glue I used on this piece was Araldite, which is a 2 part epoxy glue. Prior to glueing, all I did was scuff the metal handle up a bit with a 600 girt carbide sand paper to give the glue something to hold onto.








I am extremely happy with the result of the project, although it was quite a frustrating process. Obviously there was the major issue of the first set of scales breaking as I was about to start gluing them onto the knife, but also the size of the stones themselves was a little bit awkward. Its because of this that I am really looking forward to cutting the scales for the Filleting Knife which I also purchased as the handles will be smaller and more manageable.

Here are a few more photos of the finished knife:

Bread Knife with Stone Scales

A closer photo of the scales

Bread Knife with Stone Scales

Top of the knife handle

Bread Knife with Stone Scales

Underside of the handle











The sun wasn't out when I took these photos, so they aren't brilliant. I am pretty confident that my Mum will love this knife when I give it to her for Christmas! Stop on over at my Facebook page - Let me know what you think of it!

Until next time!

Things don't always work out how you hope - Broken Knife Scales

This post is to show that, like anything in life, lapidary and stone cutting does not always work out as one would hope it does.

As Christmas is almost upon us, I have been working on a few little projects that will hopefully end up as very personalised gifts for a few members of my family. I recently cut some scales for a Victorinox Swiss Army knife for my Dad - I decided to take this idea one step further and cut larger scales for a larger knife for my Mum in the hope that she would end up with a gift that was not only aesthetically pleasing, but also useful in her daily activities.

I went on a search, and thanks to a couple of the guys on the Aussie Lapidary Forum, I located a business based out of Tasmania - AKC Mail Order Knives. These guys were brilliant by the way! Extremely helpful and friendly and I had the knives in my hand within a couple of days!

I bought 2 knife blanks from them, one being a large bread knife which I considered one of the more usable knives for my Mum:

Bread Knife Blank

My initial problem with this knife was the size of the scales needed. I had quite a few slabs of material which were large enough to accommodate 2 scales big enough for this particular knife, but very few of them were in good enough condition. Many had cracks running through which would effect the integrity of the scales, others had holes and pits throughout. I ended up choosing a large slab of Jasper which appeared to be in pretty good shape. I went to work by marking up the scales using the knife itself as the template and created the pre formed shapes:

Pre Form Stone Bread Knife Scales

Around 4 hours after initially marking out the shapes on the stone I ended up with 2 scales for the knife. I was relatively happy with the resulting large cabs, even if the material itself didn't end up with the shiny finish I was hoping for (this particular jasper did not polish as well as others I have cut):

Stone Bread Knife Scales

This was where my happiness ended and everything turned sour! I was in the midst of bluetacking the scales to the knife to ensure that they were the right shape and size when this happened:

Broken Stone Bread Knife Scales

A natural weak spot within the stone gave way and one of the scales snapped in two! Several curses were thrown, none of which can be repeated in this forum, and I realised that not only did 4 hours of work go down the drain, but possibly the only material that I had which was of suitable size turned out to be useless!

So as the title of this entry suggests, not all of my projects turn out the way I plan. I have a collection of half cut cabochons, broken cabochons or slabs that are cracked or broken and have been discarded because of some weak spot or crummy looking pattern. Most of these rejects can, and probably will be reused at some point, but generally get sworn at or thrown at the time!

I have since turned my shed upside down in search for more suitable material for this particular project. I have located a couple of different options for attempt number 2 - I figured I needed at least one back up plan! I will be sure to keep you all updated as it progresses, but I am certainly running out of time before Christmas arrives to get this one finished! I will hopefully get it done this weekend without any further hiccups!

Keep an eye on this blog and my Facebook page - I will upload photos of the finished project when I get it completed!

Until next time!

Update: Check out the finished piece here! I managed to get the knife done in time for Christmas and my Mum loved it!

Chrysoprase - The apple of my eye!

Chrysoprase is one of those stones that people either love or hate. I for one am quite a fan, both from a lapidary and an aesthetic point of view.

16.3 carat Free Form Chrysoprase Cabochon - This piece is sold


Chrsyoprase, a variety of chalcedony, gets its apple green colouring from trace amounts of nickel found within its make up and the colour variations can range from pale to deep shades of green. It is this colour variation that makes the material more sort after than other forms of chalcedony.


18mm Round Green Chalcedony (Chrysoprase) Cabochon pendant - This piece is available for purchase here

Its structure is cryptocrystalline which essentially means that tiny crystals, crystals that are so small that they cannot be seen even under normal magnification, are packed together tightly to form the semi precious material.

15.35 Carat Free Form Chrysoprase Cabochon - This piece is available for purchase here

I personally find chrysoprase an absolute pleasure to cut. It is relatively hard, with a hardness rating of around 6 on the Mohs scale, which helps to give it a wonderful shine on the finished piece. It finishes well and the colour can be spectacular.


11.95 carat Free Form Chrysoprase Cabochon - This piece is available for purchase here

Australian Chrysoprase, particular that which is found in Queensland (In particular around the Marlborough Region) is amongst the worlds most sort after. These deposits occur in veins surrounded by geothite - a brown iron rich rock. It can also be found in Western Australia, Germany, Poland, Russia, the US and Brazil. One of the biggest known deposits is located in Szklary Poland.


Chrysoprase rough - Picture obtained from here

I will generally have at least a couple of pieces of Chrysoprase available in my store, so check back regularly! And dont forget to check out our Facebook page - Stop in and say hello!

Until next time!

Custom Scales for a Victorinox Swiss Army Knife - Gemstone Scales

This blog entry begins with a simple second hand Victorinox 'Classic' knife (or Swiss Army Knife) that I picked up off Ebay for $10:

Victorinox - Swiss Army Knife - Classic

I have seen a number of people revamp old knives in various different forms over the years and I decided a little while back that I would give it a go with custom gemstone scales. I thought that IF (and it was a very big if!) I could pull it off it would make a nice personal Christmas present for my Dad.

Here is how I did it:

The Victorinox with scales removed

The first step of this operation was to pull the knife apart. Easily done - the plastic scales on these knives simply click into place. All you need to do is remove the tweezers and tooth pick and slide a small flat head screwdriver under the scale and 'click' them out. If your not sure what I mean, do a quick search for 'remove scales from victorinox' in youtube - I am sure you will find something! Because of the difficulties involved with the tweezers and toothpick, we will discard them at this point.

Marble Bar Jasper Rough Slab

The next step is to pick your stone. I couldn't decide between a number of different slabs I had, so I made my wife decide. She thought that this piece of Marble Bar Jasper would look great because of the layers and banding. Marble Bar Jasper is found in outback Western Australia. It derives its name from being mistaken for Marble when it was first discovered in the Coongan River. A town near the deposit has also been called Marble Bar as a result. It is a relatively soft jasper compared to most which makes it easier to cut, but generally doesn't get as much of a polish on it as other jasper's.

Preforming the Swiss Army Knife Scales

Mark the slab with the required shape using the old scales as the template for the new. Trim the material and create the pre-form scales. You can check out my How-To guide on cutting cabochons if you would like to know how this is done.

At this point I blue tacked the old scales onto the preform and continued to grind away the edge of the stone to create the right shape. This makes it easier to get the right shape without having to constantly stop and check that you haven't taken too much material off.







After following the normal cabochon cutting process (more info here), I ended up with 2 identical cabochons which will eventually be the new scales of the Victorinox knife:

Custom Stone Scales for the Victorinox Swiss Army Knife

That was the easy bit! Now we need to make the stone fit on the knife!

The picture on the left shows the side of the plastic scales that you don't see, and the below picture shows the 'naked' Victorinox. You will notice that the knife is put together with 4 rivets (which protrude on each side) and the scale has corresponding holes. This is how the plastic scales are attached - the rivets on the knife click into the holes on the scales. We are not able to do this with a stone scale, but if we were to remove the rivets the knife would fall apart.

'Naked' Swiss Army Knife

Because of this issue, we need to improvise a wee bit. We need to allow for the rivets in the stone, which does take some precision work.

To ensure that I am allowing for the rivets in exactly the right spot, I drilled the rest of the way through the plastic scales so that it could be used as a template............

Then using that template, I marked the exact location of the holes on the back side of each of the cabochons. X marks the spot!

Using a rotary tool, diamond burr, and leaving the cabochon immersed in water, I drilled holes in the back side of the cab where the X had been marked. You need to take great care with this part as you don't want to go right through the stone, nor do you want to slip and ruin the cabochon. The stone is covered in water to keep the diamond burr cool and lubricated

Repeat process for both scales!

The cabs should end up looking something like this. Not pretty I know, but who is going to see that side of them? This ugliness will be hidden once the new 'Victorinox' scales are attached! The drilling was probably the most difficult part of the process, mainly because it was awkward more than hard. It is important that you do not polish the back of the cabochons so that the glue has something to grab on to.







The next step is the final part of the whole process - Gluing. You want to use a fairly strong 2 part epoxy glue. My weapon of choice is Araldite which is available from pretty much any where including the supermarket and most hardware stores. You only want to glue one side at a time and give the first side a good 10 to 15 minutes to solidify before moving to the next. Any spillage can be cleaned up with acetone (nail polish remover). I made sure that there was plenty of glue in the holes that I drilled and also a decent amount on the back of the cab. Hopefully this holds everything together ok!



When you have finished gluing, you should end up with a finished product like the below. The old Victorinox with scratched plastic scales now looks a million dollars with a bit of a clean up and some nice new stone scales!

Classic Victorinox SD Swiss Army Knife with Custom Gemstone Scales

Thanks for checking out my blog! You can find out more about Jaka Gems at our Facebook page, or our Online Store. I am also looking at adding these knives to the store so if you would like something similar, feel free to contact me at jakagems@hotmail.com - I am more than happy to sort out custom orders!

Cheers!

Update 24th March 2013: I have just finished uploading the first release of these customized Victorinox Swiss Army Knives! Check them out here!

Custom Goldstone Pendants

About 12 months ago I cut a small oval monkstone cabochon for a friend of mine at work. It was a fairly small stone, from memory perhaps 34mm x18mm, and it was cut at her request as it was one of her favourite stones. Her intention was to have the stone set by a jeweller.

Goldstone (sometimes referred to as monkstone) is a man made material with official origins dating back to seventeenth century Italy. The 'stone' sparkles or glitters as a result of the tiny metallic copper crystals within. The most common form of Goldstone is a reddish brown colour but it can also be found as a deep navy blue.

Unfortunately, not long after I cut the stone for her, her house was robbed and her jewellery box was taken. The stone I had cut for her was inside the jewellery box at the time. I only discovered this recently when she asked if I was able to cut her another piece. This pendant is the result:

Free From Teardrop Goldstone Cabochon Pendant

Although this picture isn't brilliant, you can see the sparkle or glitter within the cabochon. The material is made by melting together silica, copper oxide, and other metal oxides. This mixture is melted down in a vat to chemically reduce the copper ions to elemental copper. The vat is then sealed and the material is allowed to remain liquid long enough for the crystals to form. Once opened, the material hardens into what is seen above. You can find more information on Goldstone here.

Subsequently, my friend has asked for another couple of pieces which I have now cut for her.

This is a blue goldstone heart finished with a sterling silver bail:

Blue Goldstone Free Form Heart Cabochon Pendant

And this is an 18mm round Amethyst cabochon which she is giving to her daughter in law for Christmas:

18mm round Amethyst Cabochon Pendant

The amethyst is set into a small silver plated bezel setting.

For more pendants and cabochons please check out my facebook page and Storenvy store. You can also follow my blog to keep updated with all my lapidary work!

Bye for now!

Preparing for a massive market

I was recently accepted as a stall holder for a large annual market held at the Pleasant Street Primary School in Ballarat (Australia).

Christmas Fest by the Lake 2012 is a massive market that is held each year by the Primary school and is used as one of their major fundraising efforts for the year. It is a market that attracts thousands of people every year with a vast array of attractions for families.

To prepare for this event, I have been cutting like mad whenever I get some free time! Unfortunately spare time has been harder to come by than hens teeth of late. With a trip to Echuca for a long weekend with family, then a trip to Sydney for my 5th wedding anniversary, in between a full time job (working plenty of weekends) and 2 kids under 4, finding time for cutting has been difficult to say the least!

I managed to get off work early yesterday though, and today being Saturday, I have been able to get a few bits cut:

Along with a whole bunch of other cabochons and pendants, the above pieces will be available from my stall at the market on Friday afternoon from 5pm - 9pm.

Whatever is left over will also be with me at a smaller festival the following day as I will also be holding a stall at the Gordon Tick-Tock Festival. This is an event to celebrate the re-awakening of the Post Office clock after 35 years in Gordon, Victoria (which is the small country town to which I call home).

It would be great to see you there!

Jaka Gems: Find us on Storenvy and Facebook!

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Cutting a rare Australian mineral - Gaspeite

Gaspeite - An extremely rare Australian mineral

I was recently talking to a friend of mine and we were discussing various different stones. She mentioned that she had seen a bright green stone pendant at a jewellers which she loved and asked if I could cut some for her. She couldn't remember the name of it, but said that it was apparently a very rare stone from Western Australia. I couldn't think of anything off the top of my head, but after we both did a bit of googling we figured out that the mineral she was talking about was Gaspeite.

Although the mineral was originally discovered in Canada, one, very small deposit of the nickel carbonate rock was discovered in the West Australian Desert. The Australian Gaspeite from that deposit is considered to be amongst the best and is the most sort after.

Gaspeite has a Mohs rating of approximately 4 1/2 to 5 making it relatively soft. I found it quite similar to cutting serpentine, and it was just as messy.

The Rough:

After a bit of searching, I managed to track down a small, cuttable piece of Australian Gaspeite from a dealer in Melbourne:

Australian Gaspeite Rough from Western Australia

Initially, I was a little bit disappointed with the piece once it arrived as it had a number of large cracks that ran quite deep. You can see one of the cracks in the photo above, which was the one of most concern to me.

The Custom Design:

After showing my friend the rough, we figured out what sort of shape she wanted, and that she was hoping to get a set to have a pendant and earrings made.

Here is the resulting cabochon set made up of 3 rectangular cabs:


Set of 3 Australian Gaspeite Cabochons

It turned out that my concerns about the cracks were warranted in some regard - you can see the remnants of one of the cracks in the small cab on the right in the picture. In saying this, it ended up giving the pieces a little bit of character with the small cracks and depressions surrounded by a nice polish. The stone itself polished well and was soft and easy to cut.

An Extra Cabochon:

After cutting the cabs for my friend, I had enough material left over to cut a free form cabochon:
 

Free Form Australian Gaspeite Cabochon

The crack in the middle of the stone seen above is the remnants of the large crack visible in the photo of the rough, but again I think it gives the piece a bit of character.

In the end, I didn't mind cutting Gaspeite; It finishes well with a nice shine (although plenty of other stones get a much higher polish) and it was relatively soft so was easy to cut. The above free from cabochon is currently available for purchase via my store:

Gaspeite Cabochon

And dont forget to check out my facebook page:

Jaka Gems on Facebook

Until next time!