honeycomb calcite NE

[laurie sullivan]

Hey everyone, last week I purchased a grab box of alabaster and in it was this cool looking disk shaped orange stone. not knowing what it is, I jump at turning it to see what I had. Now you get to see it. Also, it's not quite finished. I still need to finish the bottom. I'm waiting for a smaller chuck head for my vacuum chuck. oh yea the this stone dulled the heck out my HSS scrapers.

It's about 5 inches across and was only 3/4 thick, now thinner. the wood I used was maple burl, which you really can't see.

As soon as the finish dries I plan on buffing it out should smooth out a bit.

thanks for looking, Laurie

 

[Aderhammer]

Has a really cool "artifact" look about it. I really like it!

 

[jtate]

Is it not alabaster? Doesn't alabastwer sometimes have that orange color?

Pretty!

 

[louisbry]

Nice and a creative use of materials!

 

[Brewmeister35]

Very nice piece! Love the color.

 

[laurie sullivan]

thanks for the comments,

jtate, I thought it was to. check out this site http://www.honeycombcalcite.com/
some real pretty stuff. the supplier has just started stocking it.

Laurie

 

[Kalai]

Very nice, I like it a lot. Aloha.

Kalai

 

[jwoodwright]

I like the warm glow from it. Great job.

 

[R2]

What fantastic colour! and a great use of the stone.[]

 

[workinforwood]

Very cool. I had no idea you could turn calcite on a lathe with HSS chisels. I have a few big chunks and some with perlite <sp> in them. I think it's perlite if memory serves me right, a green long tubular stone. I picked up my rocks in the Bancroft Ontario area with my wife, just doing surface mining around the area which is the mineral capital or something like that. They have maps available for all the area's you can go to for free and what types of minerals are there. All my calcite is whiteish color though. Seems like it would break if I tried to spin it.

What's the bottom going to be like? Is it a small bowl, like a little finger bowl? Can it be drilled and turned into a pen?

 

[Randy_]

Originally posted by laurie sullivan

.....oh yea the this stone dulled the heck out my HSS scrapers.....

Nice job, Laurie!!

You might want to consider investing in a carbide tool for your stone turnings??

 

[Randy_]

Originally posted by workinforwood

.....I had no idea you could turn calcite on a lathe with HSS chisels.....

I haven't looked at my Moh's scale in a while; but calcite is a relatively soft mineral. From Laurie's experience, it is obvious that it can be turned with relatively simple tools. Rather than hardness, the real issue may be how fine-grained the material is. I would think that coarse-grained material might be more likely to "tear out" than the finer-grained material. Certainly, light cuts would be an absolute necessity.

 

[Chasper]

It sure looks like honeycomb calcite to me; and it is very nice. Calcite is the standard for a mohs 3 hardness. It should turn well. It is right at the point where it can be scratched with a fingernail; sometimes a little too hard, sometimes easily scratched. This calcite needs light passing through it to appreciate how nice it is, I doubt that it would make a good pen. . .but I'll probably try anyway. Thanks for showing us.