At work in my studio
Working some turquoise, starting from the raw material to the finished pieces.
Eight minute video at the bottom of this page shows the major steps in order.
For small pieces like this, the first step is cutting (in this case using a water cooled diamond saw).
For larger pieces, the rough material is "slabbed" (cut into 1/4 inch thick slices) using larger diamond saws that are oil cooled.
Multiple cuts to get the rough shape and then each piece is cut in half to yield my trademark mirror images. Here, you can see two pair that have been cut and are ready for the next stage.
And now the grinding starts using water cooled diamond embedded grinding wheels to achieve the final rough shape
After grinding the first piece, mirror image mate has to be worked to match it.
The full grinding, sanding and polishing process uses 8 different diamond wheels with grit sizes ranging from 40 to 100,000.
Some pieces require an additional polish using a metal oxide polish and felt wheel
And here is an example of the before and after showing the rough native material and two pair of earrings created from that piece.
This first video is a companion to the above images, showing the actual process in full. Since the grinding process can be extremely loud (occasionally over 100 db), there is no sound with any of the following videos. All videos are shot “over the shoulder” to give you my perspective.
Finished Nacozari Turquoise pieces here
The following videos show individual sculptural pieces with a much longer grinding and polishing process due to the size of the pieces. The process for most of these is quite similar, varying only by the amount of time required at any given step due to the peculiarities of that particular material.
Finished Lapis Lazuli jewelry pieces here
Finished Silver Lace jewelry pieces here
Finished Sonoran Dendritic jewelry pieces here