Lapidaryforum.net
Rock Art => Carvings and Sculptures => Topic started by: wampidy on December 02, 2015, 06:40:50 AM
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When I was in Q winter before last I was very fortunate to meet the owner of one of the Arizona fire agate claims where Chris gets some of his AZ fire agates for free. Well, I got some for free also. I was given a small bag (large bag when you are talking fire agates) of rough from fingernail to fist size. The owner of the claim is a very generous man who turned into a great friend.
I also picked up a few pieces from the cheap bin at the Mexican's fire agate booth. Somehow I got them mixed together and do not have a clue which are which except for a couple of windowed and cut pieces from Mexico.
Last summer I started carving a few of them outside but setting up and taking down the tools made it a short lived project. A week ago I set up a carving station mess that holds my flex shaft handle and shop vac so I can work inside. Looks like hell but works great except for the larger pieces falling onto my lap. Fix idea and photos to come later.
I will start with what I think Phish was calling a flat. The problem is they are not totally flat so I could not get all of the matrix of with my grinding/polishing machine so the carving begins.
This piece is the flattest piece that I have and it has been ground off on both sides making it super thin. The coin is a quarter and it is thicker than some parts of the piece.
(http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h375/wampidy/carving/P1310032.jpg) (http://s1106.photobucket.com/user/wampidy/media/carving/P1310032.jpg.html)
(http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h375/wampidy/carving/P1310033.jpg) (http://s1106.photobucket.com/user/wampidy/media/carving/P1310033.jpg.html)
What I call the top and it has fire in the lower left and the bump at the top.
(http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h375/wampidy/carving/P1310031.jpg) (http://s1106.photobucket.com/user/wampidy/media/carving/P1310031.jpg.html)
Next piece is not quite so thin because all the chalcedony has not been ground off of one side but the dark fire area is just as thin. Again, not perfectly flat.
(http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h375/wampidy/carving/P1310016.jpg) (http://s1106.photobucket.com/user/wampidy/media/carving/P1310016.jpg.html)
(http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h375/wampidy/carving/P1310019.jpg) (http://s1106.photobucket.com/user/wampidy/media/carving/P1310019.jpg.html)
(http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h375/wampidy/carving/P1310020.jpg) (http://s1106.photobucket.com/user/wampidy/media/carving/P1310020.jpg.html)
No fire yet but high hopes.
(http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h375/wampidy/carving/P1310021.jpg) (http://s1106.photobucket.com/user/wampidy/media/carving/P1310021.jpg.html)
This piece is flat on one side but only because they cut it on the wrong plane which shows a bunch of specks of fire. Not sure how I will work this one.
(http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h375/wampidy/carving/P1310023.jpg) (http://s1106.photobucket.com/user/wampidy/media/carving/P1310023.jpg.html)
(http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h375/wampidy/carving/P1310022.jpg) (http://s1106.photobucket.com/user/wampidy/media/carving/P1310022.jpg.html)
This piece was cut at 90 degrees to the fire layer. The agate is beautiful so I am going to take a slab off this side before I start carving the other part. This piece is really rough and you can kind of see where I have ground out a lot of the matrix.
(http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h375/wampidy/carving/P1310028.jpg) (http://s1106.photobucket.com/user/wampidy/media/carving/P1310028.jpg.html)
(http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h375/wampidy/carving/P1310029.jpg) (http://s1106.photobucket.com/user/wampidy/media/carving/P1310029.jpg.html)
This little piece came from the traveling rock box on RTH a couple of years ago. Smooth rounded chalcedony without fire on the bottom and totally botroydal (sp) top with a lot of flaky stuff everywhere exposing many layers. We shall see but no high hopes on this one.
(http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h375/wampidy/carving/P1310034.jpg) (http://s1106.photobucket.com/user/wampidy/media/carving/P1310034.jpg.html)
(http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h375/wampidy/carving/P1310035.jpg) (http://s1106.photobucket.com/user/wampidy/media/carving/P1310035.jpg.html)
(http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h375/wampidy/carving/P1310036.jpg) (http://s1106.photobucket.com/user/wampidy/media/carving/P1310036.jpg.html)
The whole shooting match in this first go around. Bottom center piece is almost totally black so it should be pretty interesting to see what is inside.
(http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h375/wampidy/carving/P1310037.jpg) (http://s1106.photobucket.com/user/wampidy/media/carving/P1310037.jpg.html)
I would say "wish me luck" but this is going to take some monumental concentration and skill to turn them into dust and road gravel. To be continued some day.
Phish, I will look through the rest of my bag to see if I have a piece that looks like it will be fairly flat. If I do I will let you know and send it to you to fool with. I figure it is going to take a few blunders to get even half way through the learning curve so if I throw in the towel I will send more. lol
Jim
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Will be interesting to see what comes out of those pieces.
Cut the wrong way? Maybe not! Just needs uncovering from the edge inwards. All you might see right now is the edge of a sheet.
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Will be interesting to see what comes out of those pieces.
Cut the wrong way? Maybe not! Just needs uncovering from the edge inwards. All you might see right now is the edge of a sheet.
haha Kurt, that is what I was trying to say but did not do a very good job of it. Thanks
Jim
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i cant wait to see what comes in my 10lb order from facebook monday or tuesday.
Probably not big huge pieces as yours are, but im hoping for a couple nice ones in the box
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As always I somehow got side tracked by a bunch of druzy pieces and have not worked these any more. I really need to finish something.
Good luck with your new batch. It is exciting even if you do not get a lot of fire. More difficult but kind of reminds me of when I was working with the precious opal.
I did figure out one thing that made removing the matrix much easier. I chucked up a diamond burr in the drill press, lowered and locked the drill press so the burr was just above the water then dipped the stone over and over as I worked it. The drill press only goes to a little over 3000 rpm but if you are using a larger burr it cuts as fast as I want to go on a fire agate.
Jim