ROCK CONCERT

Do you remember the pictures of the rocks in the dishwasher?

Well, those rocks are about to make their debut.

Just before Christmas, we figured that we needed to cut the rocks in slices, so they will fit more evenly on the fireplace hearth wall, and the hearth surface that the wood burning stove sits on.  If we use the rocks as is, they will be too heavy and uneven.. So, we need to slice them to a more uniform thickness and to reduce some of the weight.

We have about 36 quartz rocks down at the cabin and about 75 bigger ones still at home.  Some of them are over 12" thick and maybe 30" long, and they need to be about 2 to 3" thick...So, we had to figure out a way to slice them.

Jim has a bandsaw in his machine shop for cutting metals, but I asked if it could cut rocks and Jim said with a little modification and a diamond cutting blade ($30 Thank you eBay!), it works perfectly.  Jim had to rig up water to cool and lubricate the blade so it wouldn't wear out too quickly.  See the water on the right splashing on the blade.

Today, the first slices were made... and they look beautiful.

I love the rich yellow colour..

Now all we need to decide is do we leave the cut surface natural or seal it for a deep, richer looking colour?








Dry or wet (will look like this if we seal the rock)





The decision was made to seal the rock with a satin finish and go for the deeper, richer colour.  Mmmm . . . . reminds me of bacon, oh but I digress!



Jim found me a heart in a rock!  He's a rock star.

Along with the quartz rock, we gave the grandkids geodes for Christmas.  Jim also got a geode about the size of a football.  I'm excited to see what it looks like inside.


The amazing adventure continues.

Jim and Cheri