In the beginning of September, I began attending Metalwerx's lapidary at the bench course. As a self-processed gemstone nerd, I was so excited to learn this new skill and put it to use in my Vanity collection.
To start, during the the first class I picked out slab of agate from the professor. I chose agate with a nice gradation of color. The wise professor suggested we aim to cut something round, not faceted as it was our first foray into lapidary. So naturally I did the opposite, something square and faceted.
We cut our gems with diamond wheel into our desired shapes. From there, I ground down the agate with diamond grit, and polished it into the piece that is now! This process very time consuming, so I am not sure how many more I will be cutting in the near future.
While creating this ring, I was able to make an emerald shape that is a rose cut, which was really exciting for me. I learned that not every stone has the same hardness all the way through; the MOHs hardness varies within each gemstone, which I wasn't aware of until this ring. Within each gemstone there's obviously variation – different crystals, colors or growth patterns etc. When I began polishing the agate, it began to ribbon.
Shop this truly one-of-a-kind ring here!
