A couple of years ago my father gave me a big container of stones that he and his mother had collected on the shores of Lake Superior when he was a child. They are mostly small round agates that have great banding and after picking through the top layer I pulled out one to try to shape on the JoolTool. I don't have templates for stone shaping so I'm just playing around with possibilities at this point but I can see some potential in my first attempt. Maybe another pass with each wheel to make things more uniform and I'll call it done.
It's surprising how much time and grinding it takes to shape material - I never thought it was a simple job but even taking the stone down a couple millimeters is time consuming.
I also shaped these ammonites to give them flat backs and lighten them up. I got them several months ago thinking about earrings but they had so much material on the back that they were too heavy for that. Now that I've taken that material down, they aren't heavy at all and I can see a hint of light coming through the segments on the front - I love that. So I guess that means maybe these will have to be set with an open back.
