Cutting Cabochons

Although at first you can be quite intimidated by the prospects of cutting cabochons for your own use in your art. Cutting your own stones is one of the most economically friendly and cost saving ways of improving and pushing your work to the next level. This is a simple breakdown of the process and how easy it can be despite the intimidation it presents.

Selecting your stone- Color is everything with cabochons, often when you have an idea or in professional settings a client the first thing that you know is what color or colors you might want to use. Often people have a specific stone type they want to engage with, this may seem like you grab anything of that stone and get to work however the color is specific even here. As you can see above here are a few color options that many stone types may hit the mark. (example, iron based Turquoise has a different color tone to copper based Turquoise)

In the Cedar mountain range where these agates were found you’ll see all of these are different shades of oranges, creams, blues, and blacks. These are all the same mineral.

These Kingman Turquoise cabochons were shaped by cutting the stone into slices then for the ovals using a stencil to get consistent ovals. the free form shapes are a lot of fun to cut and shape and are best chosen when you have a split or seam down a stone that you want to remove in the grinding process or through cutting away.

The rough shaping for these nephrite Jade cabochons is finished and the polishing process will start soon. When polishing you can jump through polishing mediums quickly but it is crucial to pick grit types based on what is most effective for your stone.

(example: Tough stones do best with spending more time on earlier grits 100 - 360. Soft stones should not be ground with lower grits. a turquoise may chew up fast from 80 or 100 grit. but a 240 or 360 could shape it nicely before you polish.)

Finished cabs often work to a high polish then a finishing medium to add luster. Many Turquoise cutters swear by ZAM as their finishing polish. You can see here that shapes and sizing can vary but all the stones present are ready to be turned into something beautiful.

finished stones can create a variety of beautiful jewelry. Present are rings made with Turquoise, Variscite, Malachite, Spiny Oyster and Sterling Silver. Each present shows a different variety of colors present despite only a few stone types.