Creating Cabochons - Hand Cut And Polished

By Michelle of Evie's Tool Emporium

The Etsy Supply Street Team - ESST - is very lucky to have a very diversified group of sellers. Each seller brings a level of expertise to our team with their unique business backgrounds. I'm excited to share with you today the expertise of Mary Lou and her husband, of azbluerockers. Their shop is filled with all kinds of glorious rock cabochons, rough rock, polished rock and cabs! Agate, Jasper, Petrified Wood - you name it and they probably have it! Mary Lou shares with us how a cabochon is created!

Our rock cabochons are all hand cut and polished by my husband - there are many rare and beautiful natural rocks out there originally made by nature - We either find them by going out rock hunting, or we purchase them, as many of the beauties come from all over the world. We go to two of the largest gem and mineral shows in the world, Quartzite, AZ and Tucson, AZ, and many small ones in between. We have a full rock shop with all the equipment it takes to create our great cabochons. A cabochon is the final result of an artful process of cutting and polishing Mother Natures incredible rocks!

My husband starts by taking a large rough rock, putting it in one of his rock saws and starts to cut it - he cuts it into approximately 1/4" slabs, then takes those slabs and finds the most incredible pictures, patterns or scenes in them and cuts them down into natural shapes and sizes. There is then another process! After he gets them down to the general shape and size he wants, he then glues each one to a dowel stick - he hand shapes and polishes each one to an incredible shape and the perfect size and polish for jewelry. He makes large ones for belt buckles, bracelets and large pendants, all the way down to very small one for the dainty pendant, and all sizes and shapes in between. Some of them he can get a complete polish on with all his grinders and polishing wheels by hand, and some of them he will finish off in large tumblers that he runs.

Thank you so very much Mary Lou for sharing your expertise with us today! Amazingly beautiful!