Jade - mini gloat and question

[BRobbins629]

A couple of months ago I made a pen for an old business friend. He just returned from a trip to China and brought me some jade.

Anyone ever work with this stuff? Can I just drill it with a diamond bit? Can it be turned on a Shopsmith?

Hope to get a pen, some centerbands and finials for closed end pens from it.

 

[elody21]

Wow! It is beautiful! I bet there is something on the internet on turning stone.

 

[Tom McMillan]

There is a stone turner's group on Yahoo, I think still headed up by Pat Lawson.

 

[samuel07]

DON'T DO IT!!!!

At least not the whole piece. Just use it for some accents or the center band. I'd hate to see how much of that beautifuljade would end up unusable by making a pen out of it.

I was in China a little over a year ago and went to one of the goverment run jade shops and saw some being carved. they used lots of big grinders and lots of water. I believe its very hard.

 

[johncrane]

wow nice gloat l agree with Samuel.[]

 

[PenWorks]

Bruce, why not send it my way and I will see what I can do with it [:0] []
Beautiful, you can be half way there to a 1,000 pen ! Good luck.

 

[BRobbins629]

Originally posted by PenWorks
<br />Bruce, why not send it my way and I will see what I can do with it [:0] []
Beautiful, you can be half way there to a 1,000 pen ! Good luck.

Be happy to as long as you'll send it back with a few dragons carved on it.

Actually I'm going to see if I can buy a bunch of these and will offer some to the group for trades. Don't want to do a group buy as it make take too long to actually get them and I'm not sure how reliable the source is. In their current form they look a little like some of your pen rests which may be cool as well.

 

[JimGo]

Those are beautiful Bruce! Good luck with them!

 

[Rifleman1776]

It may require developing a turning/carving technique. But, with luck and work, the results could be incredible. Go for it. Good luck.

 

[Boomer]

It may waste some of the material it uses to make a pen but not many people can say that they have turned a jade pen. I suggest make the pen

 

[wudnhed]

Beautiful blocks! I would do alot of investigating before trying to cut, drill.

 

[workinforwood]

no doubt..that's impressive. Let us know how you turn it...make one big fat solid pen !

If you have a scroll saw, you can buy diamond glass/stone cutting blades. requires a drip system, which is available by Hawk / RBI industries. That's one way to slice it anyhow.

 

[laspringer]

Bruce,
I have made some pens from marble and malacite,give it a try.
I only used the lathe for sanding the stone.

Alan

 

[huntersilver]

Wow nice pieces of Jade, I agree don't do the whole
pen of Jade.