Essex Rock & Mineral Society
Notes from Doreen's Lapidary Bench, August 2004
Templates to ..... Cats.
by
Doreen White
In my practical introduction to lapidary, the students and I were each given a template. The templates had ready cut-out shapes that were circles, squares, rectangles, crosses and hearts. We then placed the templates on top of the flat stone and moved the template around until the pattern of the stone showed through to its most attractive angle. Having decided on the best angle, I was given a metal scriber, this reminded me of a knitting needle with a sharpened point. I had to use it the same way on my stone as one would use a pencil on paper, but I had to press a lot harder to make a clear scratched line. My first shape was an oval.
Under the patient guidance of my tutor I learned how to cut and grind to the outline, then to dop (fix the stone onto a short piece of metal or wooden doweling.) then more grinding until the stone became the domed shape called a cabochon. The final step was to polish it.
I eventually bought a set of my own templates from a well known lapidary supply catalogue and was happy using these shapes for many years. Slowly it dawned on me that I was getting bored with these traditional shapes but it was not easy to find anything different.
Not so long ago I was enjoying my day out at a craft fair. I was browsing through the section that was displaying how to make birthday cards, Christmas cards etc, and on the stand nearby there was a very nice selection of stencils for making those beautiful cards, but to my delight something else caught my eye, it was a pack containing sheets of the right kind of plastic and instructions of how to make your own stencils. My mind immediately translated stencils into templates! Of course I purchased a pack. I could hardly wait to get home to put many of my ideas into practice. I have had great fun making my own stencils, my favourite subjects being animals. This is how the carving o my cat brooches that have been displayed on the club page came into creation.
Photograph courtesy of Doreen White. Click
here for the club page Doreen refers to in the text above.