hi im selling these two sets to a friend of mine and was wondering what people thought of my work so far.
keep in mind i have not polished these and the earings are only done up to 600 grit atm.
pictures not very clear
thank you for the reply. atm this is the best i can do with pictures 
The cuts look pretty even on them and they look like they match. So not bad.
All the best on your lapidary experience,
Otter
thank you!
Be aware that rock cabs are mostly polished commercially in the East, where labor is cheap. Unless the material and the workmanship is exceptional, cabs are not worth much. Since these are not yet polished, one can’t say they are exceptional and the rock looks nondescript. So they are in the range of $5 to $10 each at retail, at most. Lapidaries don’t make much money, they do make a little by finding good rough in rocks and cutting it out, selecting patterns and polishing it well. I have a small slab of Kentucky agate I got at a recent rock show…it has a nice pattern in the center of it, so I may get a 15x20 oval cab out of it…this stuff is red and white and black and rather hard to find, so the slab cost $20 and possibly I can get $40 for the stone? It will be a half hour’s work, but then there’s the hour or two it might take to sell and ship it… -royjohn
where are you located? maybe we can trade local stone and or fossiles.
this is just a grain of sand to what i find. all this is from north west florida.
Jacob,
Thanks for your kind offer…I am in Tennessee, but except for a little Tennessee Paint Rock and Kentucky Agate, I have mostly rough from elsewhere. Like all rock hounds, I have more rough than I should, but I do have eventual plans for most of it. I cab for fun and facet for money. If you want to make income from the rock hobby, get a faceting machine, but plan on a few years learning how to operate it and how to source rough you can make money from at the right price -royjohn.
i have a table lap and a 96 indexed thing. iv been cabbing becouse they lady thats my client atm prefers cab atm. i do have some madigascare ruby and blue saph ill be faceting when the new control board arives today for my table lap. iv been debating on facetnig a small opal also instead of free form or cabbing it. ill have to share my work once iv done it.
i know everyone keeps stating this is hard this isnt hard if your dedicated. iv been doing this going on 4 months and havent had a issue with quality yet not saying its not going to happen just saying not yet. now i also take days to finish a gem not 6 hours… 
when i say four months i mean 4 months of 12 hours a day educating myself and also doing 2 to 3 hours of field work of my local area. finding and identifying geological locations that have so far all produced something weather it was a small opal or lightnining glass. or arrow head even have tought myself how to see the fossiles out line in limestone i can literally walk up to a limestone bolder or wall and tell you what chunks to take and what to leave. iv found opalized barnicals the size of my thumb before. iv rock hounded most my life it was four months ago when i relized i have a eye for lapadary that i dedicated every minute of my day to videos papers to read. looking thru fourms. and passing all the test i can before i go further with my classes. withen 2 weeks i have read and passed every exam on this website except pearls and lapadary eqwep an i plan on completing them today. then ima pay for the certificate program thats offered by igs. sorry for all the misspelling…
i plan on being enrolled in gia by January.
I taught myself to facet from books…yes, it isn’t hard to learn. If you take days to facet a stone, you might enjoy competition cutting and the certs from that will get you a ride on the bus if you pay bus fare. What’s hard is: faceting perfect meets and polish; finishing in four hours or less; learning the differential hardness, dichroism, cleavage, etc., of the various species; finding good facet rough at a good price; setting a realistic price on your stones; learning where to sell them. The latter things take most people a while to master, altho’ faceting has its whizz kids, like anything else. If you’re taking the IGS courses, you probably don’t need to duplicate with the expensive GIA courses and if you are interested, you might consider a course in faceting or as a bench jeweler instead. Good luck! -royjohn
