Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Phishisgroovin]

We "DO" need a new cabochon image up top this montana has been up there since 2020.
Lets do this!

Rules:
1) Cab must be made by you.
2) Cab must be made within the time period of this contest.  Contest begins on the first of the month and ends on 11:59 p.m. on the last day of the month.  NO pulling old cabs from your storage baskets!
3) As long as the basic shape is considered a cab it's golden.  You can enter intarsias and carved top cabs such as cameos etc.  After all, this is the OUTRAGEOUS cab contest!  We love free form cabs!  Pull out the stops and give us the best you have!
4) One entry per person please!
5) Please show photos of your slabs and preforms if you can so we can see your thought process and how you did things.
6) No finished jewelry pieces.  Just the cab.
7) Cab sets are OK.
8) This is only for bragging rights and your cabochon photo posted up top in the forums unless someone posts a lapidary related prize and wants to ship it to the winner of the contest.

Let the games begin!!!

[R.U. Sirius]

How is everyone doing? 

I hope the silence here means your grinding wheels are noisy. I started working on two cabs, and will submit whatever turns out best by the end of the month. If both projects end up disastrous, so be it - I will share pictures of shattered pieces.

Looking forward to seeing all the creations...

[auscarver]

I have a small carved piece done for this but pictures dont do it justice. Is it difficult to allow small video uploads for this fun contest. Better for mine and most likely everyones piece.

[R.U. Sirius]

My submission is a guitar pick-shaped cab cut from an unknown jasper. I tried to complement the red of the jasper by inlaying a round piece of natural turquoise. Started by cutting the preform and drilling a hole for inlay. I had two candidates of light-blue colour - turquoise (from untreated rough), and Owyhee blue opal that developed a fracture and was thus disqualified. The two pieces were fit perfectly together by using 220 SiC paste and manually rubbing the turquoise preform in - the hole and the inlaid stone grind themselves to a perfect fit.

The pair was epoxied together, then cabbed as usual.  Final polish was Linde A on leather.

[auscarver]

Great idea. That turquoise sure is eye catching. Cant say I have seen that stone ever. Some type of jasper. I will put my entry in shortly. A video would be much better for mine. [ Invalid Attachment ]

[auscarver]

My entry. Not sure its even eligible being a carving. I swapped some rough at a gem show in my region for this. I was told it was Marra mamba tiger eye but some said it looks more like South African material. Sixth planet from the sun. Saturn. Wicked chatoyance. One picture in sunlight other indoors.

[R.U. Sirius]

I like Saturn (is it a timely reference to Saturnalia?), especially how you managed to add contrast between the ring and the planet by carving a groove along the border. Tiger eye is tricky to polish, this one turned out really nice.

[auscarver]

E116D16B-3BE4-4495-8477-0FF5B6C28291.jpeg (28.23 kB . 744x143 - viewed 125 times)Thanks. Well It proves we can learn something new every day. And its even the correct month and I started before Christmas.

[auscarver]

Only 2 entries. A bit sad. Very obvious why. The lapidary groups on Facebook and other social media pages have driven forums like this to near extinction. Not just this one but one I use at home in Australia. And the carving path forum. This one and more so the previous older forum were great places.

[R.U. Sirius]

Agreed, not much of a contest with only two entries. A decade or two ago, people were maintaining and contributing to forums like this one to connect with other humans who shared same interests. Somewhere along the way, a takeover happened - people now volunteer their knowledge and work to the algorithms and corporations, and the promise of human connection is becoming dubious at best when the main drivers are monetization, user data collection, and marketing. Even this forum, with all its wealth of knowledge, is publicly accessible for algorithms to scrape, remix, and serve back as a product, to train AI agents on.

I am fortunate to have a local lapidary club here in Edmonton, with several tens of active members still meeting regularly, operating a shop, running auctions, and sharing the knowhow.

[irockhound]

I'm sad I missed the post last month, Life has been chaotic of late or I'd have added to the mix. 

[R.U. Sirius]

Can we give it one more month?

[Phishisgroovin]

Sorry been busy working.
I will post the contests voting tonight.

If any other admin get a moment they can also

[Phishisgroovin]

I can't get on my computer to post the contest voting 😫