The Rock Inspired: creating with rock and precious metal

Cutting the Rock --> Shaping the Stone --> Wrapping the stone

Once I've cut my preform out, the next step I take is outline shaping. Using my roughest grit wheel, I trim any excess from around the preform, finishing the basic shape of the stone. At this point, I diverge somewhat from common cabbing philosophy. I continue to shape and polish the sides of the cab through the 600 wheel.

Let me back up and describe my preferred cabbing set up. Wheels: You'll find a great deal of debate about the "ultimate" setup for your wheels. I've always used diamond wheels, so I can't comment on SiC (silicon carbide) wheels. I've used two (well, technically 3) cabbing machines so far. My first machine was a Frantom 8" grinder, set up with 5 wheels under the "wet" side of the grinder, an 8" expanding drum, and a leather end plate. I added a second no-name grinder to expand my polish cycle that started with an 8" expanding drum and two 6" expanding drums all loaded with diamond belts. My preferred grit steps have always been 50 hard*, 110 hard*, 220 hard, 280 soft, 600 soft, 1200 soft (started with paste), 3k soft (started with paste), 8k soft (started with paste), 14k paste on leather, 50k paste on leather. I've had great luck with these steps.

* The 50 and 110 are not really my preferred setup, just the setup I used for three years. At the time, the supplier was out of 80 grit diamond hard wheels so I improvised. And as the wheels were still going strong, I couldn't think of a reason to switch.

Recently, I've purchased a new grinder so I wouldn't have to switch between the two grinders. The Cab King is setup with six steps and a polish pad. It's taking a little getting used to a new grinder, but I think it's going to work out great.

Anyway, enough about cabbing equipment and back to the formation of the cab. We last left the cab shaped and polished through the 600 grit diamond wheel. At this stage, it's ready to be dopped (placed on a stick) for easier handling. When you dop, you want to be sure the wax (or whatever dopping medium you're using) is attached to the opposite side of the stone you'll be working. Sounds obvious, right? I'm sort of a traditionalist when it comes to dopping - I use dowel rods and green dop wax. Other dopping mediums include superglue, hot glue, epoxy, gorilla glue, basically, anything that will allow the cab to stick to something long enough to work the stone.

If I'm going to polish the back of the stone (sometimes do, sometimes don't), I do that next. In theory, cabbing is very easy. It's just like sanding something in woodshop. Basically, you walk the cab through all the grit steps, making sure to remove the scratches from the previous wheel. That's the really important part - you have to remove ALL the scratches from the previous wheel. Depending on what step leaves the scratch, you'll either end up with an actual scratch or a dull spot in the polish.

The hard wheels, generally 80 grit and 220 grit, are the wheels where you do the shaping. Shaping the dome is probably the hardest part of learning to cab. Basically, you're cutting a series of angles aroung the face of the cab, making them more shallow as you get nearer the center. Then you just blend those angles together. The outside (that we already polished) is a 95° angle (or a 90° angle if I'm cabbing for 'smithing). From there, starting about 4mm up from the back of the stone, you'd cut a 60° angle around the outside. After that, you'd cut a 45° angle across the top of the 60° angle, and so on.

The soft wheels, generally from 280 grit up, are the sanding and polishing wheels. Because these wheels have a soft back to them, you use these wheels to finish smoothing out the angles from the hard wheels. As the first stage after the hard wheels, the 280 grit generally receives the most abuse. Continue to work your way through the wheels until you have a polished cab.

...Cutting the Rock <-- Shaping the Stone --> Wrapping the stone...