[magnus homestead]

nt] Just wanted to put up a couple of photos of a jade carving I'm working on. It is about 83mm in length and will be joined together with gold. The black jade is from Wyoming U. S. and the green is Siberian. The green is only just roughed out - it will have a lot of surface design and become a blade of sorts to act as a letter opener. I'd like to find a bigger piece of the Siberian jade to carve a perfume bottle.
Sorry about the poor quality of my photos.

Also wanted to show Jim sort of an idea of what I am working on for the boxwood carving - this is a photo of a head I carved in wax and cast in copper. When I get into the wood I would love some ideas of eye inlays for humans. This head is about 22 mm tall.

Magnus

[Jim Kelso]

We'll look forward to the finished pieces. Is the head part of an ensemble?

[magnus homestead]

Well, I finished out the black jade piece between custom jobs - decided to drop the letter opener idea and attached a 9.5mm Tahitian silver grey pearl instead. I'm calling the piece "Windswept".
Magnus

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[stonecutter]

beautiful work :-) i especially like the flowing curves ...
i would like ask about sanding jade, since i do have sometimes problems with it. i have learned that a good sanding on jade, makes easy and good polish, but sometimes on some pieces making good sanding seems difficult : ... what is reason when during sanding an orange peel effect occurs, and how can i avoid it ? i hope you not mind this question. any hint is very appreciated.

[magnus homestead]

stonecutter, on Sep 6 2006, 11:23 AM, said:

beautiful work :-) i especially like the flowing curves ...
i would like ask about sanding jade, since i do have sometimes problems with it. i have learned that a good sanding on jade, makes easy and good polish, but sometimes on some pieces making good sanding seems difficult : ... what is reason when during sanding an orange peel effect occurs, and how can i avoid it ? i hope you not mind this question. any hint is very appreciated.

Thank you Doris,

As to the sanding and polishing jade to avoid orange peel. It seems to vary somewhat depending on the jade but I believe that the orange peel effect is from the varying hardnesses within the stone. I generally do much hand sanding with wet/dry silicon carbide paper ( sometimes I will use a diamond paste of the same grit size together with the paper) One can generally get a fairly high sheen this way if you take the sanding out to 1200 - 3M makes some clothlike paper that they produce all the way to 8000 grit but it is not wet/dry. I use a sanding stick as much as possible to give a hard surface behind the sandpaper. A hard leather wheel with tin oxide will often give a high finish polish - start wet and heat up jade till it starts to dry the wheel - very hot to the touch. These are ways I use. I'm sure there are other tricks or techniques out there. I like your carvings by the way - thanks for sharing them with all of us.
Magnus

[Ekrem]

magnus homestead, on Sep 6 2006, 06:35 PM, said:

Well, I finished out the black jade piece between custom jobs - decided to drop the letter opener idea and attached a 9.5mm Tahitian silver grey pearl instead. I'm calling the piece "Windswept".
Magnus

It came out as a beautiful piece of art. Thank you for sharing.

Best regards,

ekrem.

[stonecutter]

thank you, magnus for info. i will try handsanding next time, maybe machine sanding is not sensible enough. yes, various hardness makes sense, maybe i can learn to see. thanks again :-)

[Benzart]

stonecutter, on Sep 6 2006, 01:23 PM, said:

beautiful work :-) i especially like the flowing curves ...
i would like ask about sanding jade, since i do have sometimes problems with it. i have learned that a good sanding on jade, makes easy and good polish, but sometimes on some pieces making good sanding seems difficult : ... what is reason when during sanding an orange peel effect occurs, and how can i avoid it ? i hope you not mind this question. any hint is very appreciated.

Looks like Beautiful work Magnus, My experiences with sanding jade have been varied. Using rubberized abrasives for me has always produced the Orangepeel effect, Also usind Dull or Blunt sandpaper does the same thing. Sanding with wet/dry paper and following the grit progressions will produce an even, smooth surface then the tin xide on leather gives the best shine as Doris explained.

[magnus homestead]

Thank you Benzart for the compliment. I agree with your polishing method as well.

I did finally finish the green jade carving into a letter opener - posted photos here a couple of months ago.

Thanks again,
Magnus