A Berrendo Agate piece

This is a piece that I made for the contest on the Taogem forum. I made a few pieces and decided on this one. I will post pictures of all the pieces at the end. It was hard to decide which piece to enter. The pieces that had the most votes from family and friends were the Velvet obsidian and the Berrendo agate. The Mexican fire opal kept being chosen as the one everyone wanted tho. Confusing me even more. So I went with the original piece I had in mind to enter. Besides I had taken more photos of the that one while I was making it.
Here are pictures of most of the process.


It had been awhile since I put a piece together with solder instead of wire. It was fun tho and I just might make a few more.

Dino bone

Today was a great day for cabbing. Not too hot and no interruptions. I had a few cuts of dino bone and a couple of others. So I just had to use them up. My saw blade is busted so I have to use up what’s already cut up. I go thru these stages where I really like a certain rock for awhile and then go on to another. But while I’m obsessed its all about that rock. lol Right now its dino bone. Boulder opal is always at the top of my list tho. There’s always time for a boulder opal.
I also finished up a wrap of the Berrendo agate from last weekend. My goal was to showcase the cab since the color is so intense. I also wanted to keep the middle of the cab unobstructed all the way thru where its transparent.
Here’s the pics…


I hope your weekend was wonderful!

Sunday cabbing

I got to cab for a short while today. I was wanting to polish up some of the Berrendo agate slices from a few weeks ago and I couldn’t find them. I had put them away. So away that even I couldn’t find them. Finally after going thru all my other lil slabettes and I have a few, It dawned on me just where I had stashed the Berrendos. Well by that time I only got to cab a couple of things. The Berrendo of course and a slice of a thunder egg I picked up last summer in NM. I am also going to add pictures of the Dino bone wrap I finished last weekend.

Have a great week!

Dino bone and agates

I was given some really nice dino bone on the Taogem forum from the Taogem himself. Its a really nice agatized slab and it has some amazing cell structure.  I had also bought some Berrendo agate nodules and love the bright red colors. This morning I took advantage of the cool morning and cut some the stones.

There’s a new contest on the Taogem forum and I will be cabbing a bit so I can find just the right stone to put in the piece.  Its been a lil while since I made a piece by just silversmithing. Lately I have only been setting a stone now and then.  This will be interesting.  Here are the pictures of the slabs and cabs.