In this how to Carve on Glass and Stone Course online class, Jack Hoque will teach his techniques and tools he uses to cut, carve and polish semi-precious gemstones and glass into freeform shapes with polished grooves and bubbles. These cold working techniques (also known as a form of lapidary) will help you create one of a kind pieces that will definitely set you apart from the rest!
“And again, this is really messy. So this table may be covered with, white dust, but it’s easy to, it’s easy to clean up Right now. I’m just going over the lines. I want everything to be a nice, smooth motion. I want everything to be as deep as all the way around the cuts. So the cut, I want it to be completely the same depth so that there’s no rocky movements in these cuts. So if there’s a lot of rocky movements in the cuts, it’s going to be hard to get those scratches out with the polishing steps.”
“With larger pieces of glass, sometimes it is easier to isolate the thing you want to cut out, before you start cutting the details, because if you have an errant run, like for example, if I were trying to run this little square right here around the edge of the head and it went wrong, it could actually take out that whole side of the glass too. So this way, if I do go right down that centerpiece, I minimize the possibility of ruining the whole piece of glass. And this is true of art glass as well. Just gives you a greater ability to maneuver around it.”
“So this table may be covered with, with white dust, but it’s easy to clean up. Right now. I’m just going over the lines. I want everything to be a nice, smooth motion. I want everything to be as deep as all the way around the cuts. So the cut, I want it to be completely the same depth so that there’s no Rocky movements in these cuts. So if there’s a lot of rocky movements in the cuts, it’s going to be hard to get those scratches out with the polishing steps. And I’m going to kind of want to, change the shape of this stone to make it a little interesting. So I’m going to go around the side of it as well, and kind of change that shape of the sound, just so that….”
“So what I’m doing here is just putting acid etching cream on the high parts of the pattern. Now don’t worry too much if you color outside the lines with this, because when we fire it again, the parts that are acid etched, that don’t have mica, we’ll just fire polish. So they will not even be visible. So don’t really, don’t get so wrapped up in the perfection of this, that you paralyze yourself with inactivity. So, there’s the shell and we’re going to do the lighthouse and the turtle very quickly.”
“When you’re working in rock mainly silica, make sure you have a good mask. I have a better one at home, but it’s gonna, it would be hard to talk through it. So I’m hoping this one’s better because at some point in this carving course, I’m going to be using this Silicon carbide wheel, which is not good to breathe in. It’ll silicate, your lungs you’ll get silicosis or whatever. It’s just really, really bad to breathe in. Pretty much any dust from lapidary is bad debris then. So if at any point you’re hafting to work at dry, which you shouldn’t really, unless it’s part of my policy. For pre polish, but mainly you work in water. So if you’re working in water and you keeping it wet, or you’re working with, with a, extended fluid, which is a Silicon based fluid that keeps the diamond on your bits. You’re not going to have to worry about a mask as much.”
For plaster of paris, we use two parts plaster to one part water. We’ll just do it that way. Let’s just regular plastic. Regular plaster paris. You can get at a home Depo or a hardware store or a craft store. Two parts class, or one day. Part water, two parts plaster, one part water. By volume. Get it in the mold before it sets up too much.
