In this video, I will go over “Lapidary 101 – How to use a slab saw to cut your rough jaspers, agates, and more.”
If you are cutting jaspers, agates, dinosaur bone, or any other types of stones to make cabochons then you are going to run into this problem.
How do you cut larger stones into smaller pieces so that they are ready to be cut into cabochons?
Well, you are going to need a slab saw to cut them down to a manageable size.
I didn’t have a slab saw for years.
I would find beautiful stones but had no way to work with them.
So, I always think about them like the ones that got away.
It can be an investment to buy a slab saw. However, I think you can make your money back easily.
By buying larger stones and cutting them up yourself you get a better deal on the stones than if you buy the pre-slabbed pieces.
Anything you don’t want, you sell to someone else.
So let’s look at where to find a reasonably priced slab saw and how to use it.
I put a couple of links in here for the Lortone LS-12 slab saw. One is an affiliate link to Ebay. https://ebay.to/2ZHNvxY
You can check Ebay sometimes and find Lortone or other slab saws that may be very similar to the one I used in the video. I like slab saws that have a driven feed as opposed to a weight-driven feed.
That’s just my personal preference. Your options may be different but just make sure you find a suitable blade for slabbing your favorite stones.
The saw blades will usually have some guidelines depending on what you are cutting.
The LS-12 has a 12” blade size which is pretty good for slabbing medium to large stones.
