How do I cut Chrysophase

Hi all I have come across some nice bits of Chrysophase and would like to know how I go about cutting it, cleaning it and polishing it up?

You would probably have a few options depending on size and quality and available tools.
Generally you would want to slab it or cut specimen halves, then you could polish pieces for specimens or mark shapes and cut cabochons. This would involve a flat lap or grinders and polishers. If not great quality then a rock tumbler may be easier.

Hi shakergt. Sounds like you don't have lapidary equipment at home?

If you have a lapidary club in your local area they have everything you need here but you would probably need to join up to be allowed to use it. Like shivan says, they would have the rock saws for cutting slabs of the material, which you can then polish the face of on a flat lap or mark out to cut cabochons. Cabochon cutting is not difficult to learn but does take some practice - experiment on a few bits of stuff other than good chrysophrase first.

By which I mean learning to shape the cab properly - chrysophrase is actually fairly hard, tough stuff and is not that easy to damage. A club will probably give you a piece of petrified wood as your first cabbing project, which is about the same hardness as chrysophrase.

No such clubs in my area.

shakergt said:

No such clubs in my area.

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Face to face tutorial is usually the best way of learning things imo but I don't believe it's totally necessary here. Ideally, make a trip to the nearest town with a lapidary club and go along and watch, people are usually more than willing to show you their craft in action. Spend a couple of hours watching and listening and you'll get the idea of making polished slabs and cabochons. It really is a very simple idea to understand when you see it being done, just takes a bit of practice to then perfect.

You will need some basic lapidary equipment to do it yourself though. Second-hand trim saws and cabbing machines often seem to come up for sale on the classifieds.

There are a lot of instructional videos out there as well, here's one here. There would be many, many others on the web.

If you do decide to make a start, you won't regret it - it's an awesome hobby that you can pursue you life long as long as you aren't totally blind and your hands don't shake so bad that you can't use a knife and fork (sister-in-laws grandmother finally laid down the lapidary tools at age 92!)

As what Lefty said shakergt, Have a look at Club Members in action... Starting off in Lapidary can be very Daunting... Don't let this put you off. Mr Google is your Friend .. Some of the Specialist Machines can be rather expensive, but there are a few cheaper options available to you.... For an Example, you can use a 'Tile Saw' for doing small cuts of Material of around 30-50mm thick... Some of these set-ups only cost around $80-100, instead of buying a Lapidary Saw for around $$$.. 4-6 Wheel Cabochon Machines can be built quite reasonably cheap, compared to Purchased ones... The list is quite extensive. My Flat Lap machine is made out of a victor Lawnmower Base :lol: :lol: .. If you are 'Handy' with your hands and Power Tools, the Sky's the Limit.....Main issue is Water... Make sure that water doesn't come in contact with Electricity.... Other-wise it might be the 'Last' thing you do... One thing to take on board is that Dedicated Lapidary Machines are built to a very high Standard, Hence the Price... But If you want more on the 'Cheaper' Options PM me and I will send you some Info.... :Y:

Perhaps we could Set-up an Area For Home-made and Store bought Lapidary Equipment... seems that We Do have a few who want to get into or are into Lapidary Already ......... .... Mods?

LW...

My Flat Lap machine is made out of a victor Lawnmower Base

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Now that's ingenuity there LW! :lol:

Shaker, as LW says if you're a bit handy with mechanical stuff you could build many basic lapidary machines for much less than the cost of buying a new one.

My grandfather had a huge rock saw (sadly it was sold after he passed away, back when I was still only digging for rocks and not yet cutting them) that he and a couple of workmates made. Most of the large sawn rocks with polished faces in my father's display cabinets were cut with it. Building an actual faceting machine such as someone on one of these threads is doing would require some specialized knowledge I think because faceting machines are very high precision pieces of equipment. But virtually every other piece of lapidary equipment I can think of off the top of my head could probably be built by someone with a bit of mechanical know-how.

I have managed to set up all my equipment from second hand machines. There are some really good bargains every now and again on ebay and gumtree if you are patient, but you need to do a bit of homework to know what the machines will need to get up and running.