How I make what I make

A visitor to my booth at a recent art show looked at my jewelry and asked if I cut the stones as well as forming the metal. When I responded in the afirmative he said he was totally amazed that I could make these items from raw materials and asked, "But how?"

The following is the condensed version:

I start with a piece of rough stone.
This is a Turritella rough. Turritella is a fossil, a type of shell

First I cut through the stone, the next cut will be a thin slab

After I've cut the slabs I mark the material to cut on the trim saw, These pieces will end up being cabochons

Cutting out the cabochons

I wet the little trim slabs with water to get an idea how the finished cabs will look

I grind the cabochons on a disk grinder using a finer grit disk at each of several stages

Here are the finished cabochons

Next I start preparing the silver

Stamping my jewelrs mark and .925 Sterling stamp

Soldering bezel to the backing plate

 Some parts, it's starting to look like jewelry, a little bit anyway

I file and pre-polish areas where parts wil be soldered together

Soldering the pieces together

After final soldering, the silver is pickled in acid, then I set the stones

Polishing the silver, It's very nearly done

Some finished pieces. I hope you were looking at the jewelry insted of the mess  :0)
You can see more of my jewelry and sculpture too at my web site: http://www.lunarksies.com 

And also at my etsy shop (where I'm currently having a 25% OFF Sale): http://www.etsy.com/shop/LunarSkiesJewelry