I had only cabbed some Wonderstone Rhyolite one time back when first learning to cab. Took me a while to learn that the polishing difficulties I was having were not me, but the lack of silica content in the Wonderstone. As a result did not think would purchase again until I met Linna of Stone Age Industries via their Facebook page.
Linna had posted some pics of some beautiful looking Wonderstone.
We started talking a bit on Facebook. I had commented about one and only polishing experience, and had mentioned how a member of my forum had success with a Holy Cow and vinegar mix for polishine this particular mineral. Linna then asked if I would mind doing a little experiment for her and compare a final polish using tin oxide on one cab, and the Holy Cow/vinegar mix on another so she might be able to share how to potentially aquire a nice polish on what is normaly a difficult material.
Turned out to be a neat experiment and really changed my perception on purchasing more Wonderstone for future cabbing !
Of course shared the outcome within a thread on the forum too. Here are a few comparison pics. The shield cab is a tin oxide polish verses the oval that I used the Holy Cow/vinegar mixture. Which by the way is mixed the same as the oxide. Sort of creamy… I do use a synthetic leather instead of cow or elk hide for my polishing. Same here..
Linna wrote a great little article about our little Wonderstone polishing experiment as well..
As of this blog entry I am pretty sure that Stone Age Industries is still offering a few remaining slabs of this Wonderstone. It is worth noting that I noticed these slabs were quite a bit higher quality than the material I had previously worked. Much more dense than the more porous material I have seen. Even just using the oxide polish, the end result was much better with these particular slabs of theirs.
I was left with enough remaining material from these two slabs that pretty excited about cabbing more for customer jewelry designs as well as my own jewelry !
You can contact Linna at Stone Age Industries for info about available slabs.
Of course if you would like cabbing info from me using this Wonderstone, feel free to contact me as well !
Thanks for stopping in !
georgeingraham
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Nope.. Here is a link to a Photobucket for you to see the cab I was trying to post.
I know exactly what you mean about not being familiar with a Rhyolite Wonderstone that looks anything like what I show. This particular material was different than other Wonderstone I was familiar with.
If I were to guess, your trying to describe something similar to this cab below ? Almost more of a sandstone than a Rhyolite. Wonderstone has become somewhat a generic name here in the States.
Rhyolitic Wonderstone is found in many U.S. locations.. California, New Mexico, Montana, Nevada and Utah.
Now lets see if this image works !
I carve soapstone and alabaster. I have obtained a couple of pieces of “Wonderstone” and have been trying to find out where it comes from. It is NOTHING like what you show or any of the Rhyolite I have seen pictured. No flow bands, just a solid color. What I have is pink. To me there isn’t any relationship between the two. My question then is have you seen any “Wonderstone” similar to what I’ve described? It is rather dense and is ‘freckled’ with dark grains that seem to be of the same consistency as the pink and when I file/sand it, it all comes out as a very pale pink.