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ed7232004
Joined: 12 Jan 2019
Posts: 33
Location: Texas
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 Posted: Jan 29, 2019 22:39 Post subject: Shaping a crystal quartz point, wand, obelisk |
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Hello all! Recently joined a local gem club where the shop has all kind of tool from cutting, grinding to polishing. Any tip or tricks on shaping a raw quartz or amethyst related material into a beautiful wand and points? Been searching on nets but am not able to find any tips on it. Hoping someone expert here can direct .
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ed7232004
Joined: 12 Jan 2019
Posts: 33
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Jan 29, 2019 22:43 Post subject: Re: Shaping a crystal quartz point, wand, obelisk |
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Here is another working process
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ed7232004
Joined: 12 Jan 2019
Posts: 33
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Jan 29, 2019 22:44 Post subject: Re: Shaping a crystal quartz point, wand, obelisk |
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Close to finish
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ed7232004
Joined: 12 Jan 2019
Posts: 33
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Jan 29, 2019 22:45 Post subject: Re: Shaping a crystal quartz point, wand, obelisk |
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| As you can tell from the last picture, I can not get the "point" being even and pointy. Anyone has tips and tricks? Thank you in advance
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Gail
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
Posts: 5839
Location: Texas, Lone Star State.
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| Posted: Jan 29, 2019 22:55 Post subject: Re: Shaping a crystal quartz point, wand, obelisk |
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I cannot see myself ever doing this to a crystal. Perhaps there are others who will direct you.
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Minerals you say? Why yes, I'll take a dozen or so... |
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Gail
Joined: 21 Feb 2008
Posts: 5839
Location: Texas, Lone Star State.
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| Posted: Jan 29, 2019 22:57 Post subject: Re: Shaping a crystal quartz point, wand, obelisk |
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| Gail wrote: | | I cannot see myself ever doing this to a crystal. Perhaps there are others who will direct you. |
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Since you’re in Texas, as am I, you might join the Arlington gem and mineral club if near DFW. They teach cabochon and faceting classes.
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Minerals you say? Why yes, I'll take a dozen or so... |
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Pete Richards
Site Admin
Joined: 29 Dec 2008
Posts: 841
Location: Northeast Ohio
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| Posted: Jan 30, 2019 09:36 Post subject: Re: Shaping a crystal quartz point, wand, obelisk |
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If it is to really look like a quartz crystal, you have to get all the angles between the facets right. The prism has to have six faces at 60° rotation to each other; you might as well make them the same width. The critical part is the termination. The faces should make an angle of 38° with the long axis of the crysatl, or with the adjacent faces of the prism. Three should be the same size and meet at a point. The other three should be smaller - or you can make all six the same size, but that's not typical for quartz, even an idealized crystal.
Even with this attention to detail, it won't look like a real amethyst crystal, but it will be geometrically accurate.
As it happens, I have been working all this out because I am about to try to get someone to make me a "quartz" crystal out of a hexagonal acrylic rod. Consequently, I can attach the diagram below.
| Mineral: | Plastic quartz |
| Dimensions: | 12 x 500 mm |
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| Plans for a scaled-up needle quartz with a ~40:1 aspect ratio. Come to the Rochester Mineral Symposium to find out why! |
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Collecting and studying crystals with interesting habits, twinning, and epitaxy |
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ed7232004
Joined: 12 Jan 2019
Posts: 33
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Jan 30, 2019 22:57 Post subject: Re: Shaping a crystal quartz point, wand, obelisk |
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| Nice! That's a very detailed diagram ! I suppose I'm gonna need measurement tools in order to get those angles right.
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Matt_Zukowski
Site Admin
Joined: 10 Apr 2009
Posts: 736
Location: Alaska
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Pete Richards
Site Admin
Joined: 29 Dec 2008
Posts: 841
Location: Northeast Ohio
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| Posted: Jan 31, 2019 11:32 Post subject: Re: Shaping a crystal quartz point, wand, obelisk |
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I am familiar with "smorf.nl" but was not aware of the crystal models. Smorf is a java-based crystal drawing program that the author uses to provide all the crystal drawings for Mindat. He and I have had a number of conversations about our respective crystal drawing programs, Smorf and SHAPE.
It's really neat that the author has hooked Smorf up with a 3-D printer to make these crystal models. In principle, anyone could print their own crystals in 3-D.
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Collecting and studying crystals with interesting habits, twinning, and epitaxy |
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moosix
Joined: 28 Sep 2019
Posts: 4
Location: NSW
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| Posted: Sep 28, 2019 18:21 Post subject: Re: Shaping a crystal quartz point, wand, obelisk |
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| As you can tell from the last picture, I can not get the "point" being even and pointy. Anyone has tips and tricks? Thank you in advance
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Matt_Zukowski
Site Admin
Joined: 10 Apr 2009
Posts: 736
Location: Alaska
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| Posted: Sep 28, 2019 23:25 Post subject: Re: Shaping a crystal quartz point, wand, obelisk |
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| Were you ed7232004? Did you move to NSW? The reason why you have not gotten much advice is that this is not really a lapidary site. We like natural, well-formed crystals as they come out of the ground. Do a google search for "lapidary" and "forum" and you might find places where people are discussing lapidary. Good luck.
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