Spyderco Forums

Thought I would drop this one in its own thread since I may do a few like this now that I have all my stone working tools setup again.

Still a lot of work to do to get it fine tuned and polished but I have been wanting to do some Jade scales for quite a while now and couldn't wait to throw it up here.

Did some fairly substantial modification to the handle too, removed the guard tab, toned town the "tail" and modified the "belly swell" to more of a crease with a different profile.

I'll be sure to post the final pics too once it is done.

Wow

Jade….that’s some tough material….
Made a jade pendant once and that was hard work.

What are you sanding with ??

Mike, you've got some skill my friend!

Beautiful!

I've never worked with stone. I'm very impressed.

Hah, I was thinking Jade G10. But no, *actual jade*! Very impressive work!

Thanks guys, it is definitely a work of patience. Everything is done with diamond saws and diamond grinding and polishing wheels.

I've got a 16" Lortone slab saw, a couple smaller saws, a 6" genie, as well as a mtitude of different diamond rotary bits, belts, files, and polishing pastes.

I have a resin woodworking project going in the shop right now sp I brought the genie outside to work yesterday so I didn't get rock mist all over my woodwork. Here is a shot of my grinding / polishing wheels.

bobartig wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 19, 2022 2:22 pm

Hah, I was thinking Jade G10. But no, *actual jade*! Very impressive work!

Same here. Impressive!

Wow, that 5 wheels setup is just getting me light headed, mamamia !

Impressive workmanship. I would have trouble putting that down, I quite like Jade. I'm bumping for a finished pic please. When you get to it that is. Thanks for sharing.

This is awesome. Makes me want to polish up some stones/harder materials.

How much gear does one need to be able to reasonably do this?

defenestrate wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 06, 2022 4:15 am

This is awesome. Makes me want to polish up some stones/harder materials.

How much gear does one need to be able to reasonably do this?

You will want a saw capable of cutting stone, and a cabbing machine with some diamond shaping wheels like was posted above. You could get away with more simple sanding/shaping materials but it will be a much more painful process. Entry level will be several hundred dollars, with most options north of $1k.

It's already stunning...can't wait to see the final product. You go, FullScaler!

Are you going to ease the thumb ramp angle for comfort? It looks like you could use it for hours and not hurt your hand

I was at the jade festival in Big Sur today. I got a slab that can do this. Are you making for the unwashed masses? If so, any idea of cost ?

Thanks guys, life has been busy and I am not really happy with the first one so I am now well underway on s second version. (There was some bruising and a few hidden feathers in the stone I'm not totally happy with)

Fireman wrote: Are you going to ease the thumb ramp angle for comfort? It looks like you could use it for hours and not hurt your hand

I'm not sure if I want to ease the thumb ramp. It would make a smoother transition but I want to keep the metal around the Spydie hole even and looking proportional.

Fireman wrote: I was at the jade festival in Big Sur today. I got a slab that can do this. Are you making for the unwashed masses? If so, any idea of cost ?

Ohh man, I have wanted to get down to Big Sur for Jade Fest for many years but just haven't been able to make it work. I would be open to putting one together for you but it takes quite a few hours of cutting, grinding, and polishing so I'm not sure what a reasonable value would be. Feel free to pm me if you want to chat about details.

defenestrate wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 06, 2022 4:15 am

This is awesome. Makes me want to polish up some stones/harder materials.

How much gear does one need to be able to reasonably do this?

It takes a fair amount of tools. I have about 10k into stone carving tools and even with that I may still get some different supplies if I want to do more knife handles. The tighter inside curves are tricky to work well at a reasonable speed. You could get into it for 1 - 2k worth of tools just to get started but the more specialized tools you get helps speed it up and makes it easier.


I have carved stone for years and usually make things a lot more detailed like the pic below but that is a whole 'nuther level of time commitment which I haven't made much time fore recently.

I bought some tools so I think I will try to make my own handles now. I’ll post when I get to that stage

FullScaler wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 20, 2022 7:51 pm

I have carved stone for years and usually make things a lot more detailed like the pic below but that is a whole 'nuther level of time commitment which I haven't made much time fore recently.

20220928_145529.jpg

20220928_145512.jpg

Very nice work

That's very cool, thanks for the info FullScaler! I could be happy working in softer materials (though i would like to do more with gemstones/minerals, carving is more of a "wouldn't it be cool if" than a bucket list item.