Cabbing soft stones

Have you ever wanted to make a cab out of a soft stone, but worried about ruining the stone in the grinding and polishing process?  Soft stones include such things as talc, gypsum, anhydrite, angelite, and even calcite.  One advantage of soft stones is that they are easy to cut and shape into whatever shape you desire.  Here I present the method I used to make an angel cabochon from angelite.

First, I rough cut the cabochon from the slab.  It was easy to cut fairly close to the shape I wanted even with the trim saw. 

Next, I finished cutting and shaping the angel with a diamond saw blade and stone shaping tool on a dremel.

Next, I ran the stone under hot water for 15 minutes.  This smoothed the rough edges fairly well.

 

 

Then, I used a 600 grit diamond wheel, very lightly for a short period of time to remove the scratches from my drawing the shape.  Then I moved to a 1200 grit diamond wheel until it was smooth.  Finally, I finished the polish with a 14000 grit diamond wheel.  None of these steps took more than a couple of minutes.  

Angelite finishes to a nice satin finish.

Finally, I wire wrapped the stone into an angel.

Dr. Janet Bertog, owner

Ruby Mountain5 Rocks