A good friend of mine Jiapisi has been work to better understand how to make jewelry from stones. He has been study up on different kinds of stones he has shown be a couple of interesting rocks such as Rose Quartz, Obsidian, Quartz, Red Jasper and here some are ::
He learned how to use a lapidary machine and when we got one he showed me how to used it too. With a lapidary you are able to shape, smooth, and palish rocks to make jewelry. I then after learning how to use the lapidary machine. The lapidary machine is similar to a grinding wheel except it has the grits on the top not the sides, you are also able to use a lapidary machine to polish stones as well as shaping them. Lapidary machines have different wheels for different tacks on for grinding and shaping others for smoothing and polishing. It has a small dipping cup that needs to constantly cover the wheel with water it needs to always have water. It helps it smooth rocks better and it helps to keep the wheel in a good condition. For the excess water and clay that comes of the stone there is a funnel to another cup you need to make sure does not over flow constantly empty.
I then found a stone I liked: from the bucket of rocks one of the teachers had found at his new house. The stone was rose quartz, it was to big so using a table saw Jiapsi helped me to cut a piece the size I wanted. From there with the lapidary machine I sanded down the sides and got all the bits of rocks of it that was not Rose Quartz. The day after that I rounded the edges the way I wanted them. After that grueling process I had my stone the way I wanted it and then I got the other wheel for the lapidary meant to sooth out stones. I was difficult because others were still using different wheels for other jobs on the same lapidary so I had to wait until they were done. I still need to palish it now and after that I will make it a necklaces. Its funny most of things I make in this class tend to be necklaces.