2. Workshop

Diamond Shaped Necklace Pendant

A rock from a beach carved to shape and wrapped with sterling silver.
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Polishing this piece was a whole new ball of wax for me as I had only polished ivory to this point, which is a lot softer. I purchased some lapidary compound in varying levels of grit and spent many hours with a drill with the handle taped down and a felt polishing ball working on smoothing out the rough grind marks from what may have been a poor job on the dremel grinding. I don't know exactly where exactly I went wrong, but this took a whole lot longer than it probably should have.
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Polishing this piece was a whole new ball of wax for me as I had only polished ivory to this point, which is a lot softer. I purchased some lapidary compound in varying levels of grit and spent many hours with a drill with the handle taped down and a felt polishing ball working on smoothing out the rough grind marks from what may have been a poor job on the dremel grinding. I don't know exactly where exactly I went wrong, but this took a whole lot longer than it probably should have.

  • This project started with another birthday coming up, and this time I picked up a rock on the beach at a lake while hanging out with the recipient. This is the raw rock in the summer sun on location at the source.
  • Some grinding work got me the rough diamond shape. Working with this rock was surprisingly difficult, I found that most of my dremel tools wouldn't really touch it for hardness, which I gradually learned is the case for a lot of rocks in general. I don't know the hardness rating of this particular one, but it seemed pretty hard to me!
  • During the course of this project I managed to find a great deal on a package of dremel gear at a garage sale, which included two sets of diamond carving bits that made a world of a difference in carving this piece. I think this photo was taken after rough carving with a 600 grit bit.
  • Polishing this piece was a whole new ball of wax for me as I had only polished ivory to this point, which is a lot softer. I purchased some lapidary compound in varying levels of grit and spent many hours with a drill with the handle taped down and a felt polishing ball working on smoothing out the rough grind marks from what may have been a poor job on the dremel grinding. I don't know exactly where exactly I went wrong, but this took a whole lot longer than it probably should have.
  • Having achieved a good level of shine on the polishing, I moved to the wire wrapping stage, practicing on a couple different designs before I decided on one and reworked it using sterling silver wire. The internet was a decent source of tips for wire wrapping and design inspirations, and in the end I wound up going with the graceful spiral shown in the next photo.
  • A rough copper wire test of the final design.
  • This piece turned out really neat, and I'm quite happy with the final results, as was the recipient! The stone is held in place fairly solidly with a second thin wire across the back a bit lower than the one visible here on the front.
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