Cutting Slabs at the Reno Gem and Mineral Society

Today I wanted to share to with you my journey that transfers from finding my rocks to cutting them into slabs so I can make jewelry or even window hangers/suncatchers. I hope you find my thoughts and struggles about this process beneficial for those just reading my journey or those in the same journey as myself.

Decisions to continue my education

To further my education on this journey, I decided to take a class on how to make slabs using the slab equipment at the Reno Gem and Mineral Society in October 2023. I’ve used older slab saws back in my undergrad years at University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, MO, so I wasn’t unfamiliar with them which is a bonus. This go around I had four consecutive Monday night classes from 6-830pm. I glued a round agate and a red jasper to different wooden blocks using Gorilla construction adhesive in order to learn how to cut them differently and with the intention to eventually cut them all the way down to the block to get as much of the rock as possible. I want explore this more in the future with other rocks I have that are smaller and I want to get as much cut off them as possible for making jewelry or for gifts.

Cutting slabs from the rocks

Spotted and banded Jasper

There are a few rules to follow with regards to cutting slabs; no overhang below the clamp of the rock, this could warp the blade which is costly to replace, it is quicker to cut along the long edge of a rock rather than the short edge. The following are a few pictures of slabs cut from the rock found outside of Lovelock, NV in the last blog post. So with this rock, we cut off a side of it, then used that as the base for the clamp so I had better stability. I did repeat this with my longer agate you’ll see later. I have already cut some of theses slabs up for future cabochons, one has been polished already, I’ll show this one in a future blog. I love seeing the grey, green, and red bands and dots. So pretty and interesting how they look like they flow together.

Red Jasper

This is a slab of the red jasper I acquired in Tucson, AZ last fall which is one of the rocks I adhered to the block I talked about earlier. I was surprised by the spots, to which some turned out to hematite after they were polished which is really interesting. I’ve already made a piece of jewelry with this one which I’ll show in a future blog post along with other pieces I’ve already made. This one was fun to shape into what I was able to wire wrap and at that point was one of my most ambitious ones to the point in which I made it.

Agates

I’m enjoying cutting the rocks into slabs. It’s fascinating revealing the rocks interior, sometimes you truly have no idea what you’re going to see. Then again sometimes they take considerably longer to cut than expected.  This happened when I was cutting open one of the agates I acquired in Arizona. So much banding it’s beautiful and leaving me with a dilemma, where to cut the cabs from. I have no idea which show off the banding of the agates more. One of the slab saws has a window on the side so you could watch your rock cut, sometimes it was like watching water boil other times it was very exciting just waiting for that last little bit to cut. You find yourself internally cheering it to cut quicker so you can take it out of the saw.

If you enjoyed this blog, please let me know. If there’s more information you’d like me to expand on please leave me a message below. If you ever found yourself looking at a rock, piece of wood or whatever and are completely stumped as to what to do with it or how to proceed, please let me know how you handled it. I’d love to see how you have attacked such an issue.

If your interested in learning more about the Reno Gem and Mineral Society I have have added a link to their home page (https://renogms.org/). You may have something similar where you live, if you’re curious about anything I have talked about I highly recommend you seeing if you have one near by you.