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Workshops

All workshops are held in the wood workshop (northern-most building (building number 2 below, north entrance) of the Rochester School for the Deaf, 1545 St. Paul Street, Rochester, New York.  Mapquest Here.  We welcome new members at any workshop and guests are welcome.  The only thing we require is if you would like to use any equipment that you are a paid member in good standing.

Saturday Workshops

The Saturday workshop is held from 10:00am to 3:00 pm on the second Saturday of the month after the general meeting. This workshop a general purpose workshop where we can do a variety of tasks from Cabbing to Faceting to special events.  Use of the grinding equipment on Saturdays is dependent upon how much maintenance needs to be performed on the machines…the maintenance takes precedence over cutting stones.  We try to change the water in the trays once a month as well as other general maintenance on the cutting machines and greasing the bearings.  We also have some people that like to do soapstone carving so we do that on Saturday’s by request.

Wednesday Evening Workshops

On Wednesdays we offer our standard workshop where you can learn anything you want about the lapidary arts, from cutting cabochons, to faceting stones (limited to 5 people because of the faceting machines we have), we also can teach you how to set your stones in a variety of settings, custom settings, wire-wrapping and more.   The workshops cost $2 per evening per person to cover wear and tear on the equipment.  We use all diamond equipment which can get expensive to repair/replace.  There are 4 separate 2 wheel grinding stations with grits from rough to fine.  We also have a polisher with 2 stations as well as 1 Titan and 2 Genie style diamond grinding machines that are available  for use at each workshop.  In order to use the Titan/Genie machines, you will need to read and sign a disclaimer about proper care of these machines.  One of the machines is dedicated to cutting opals or other delicate stones and the other 2 are for general lapidary cutting.  These machines are expensive to maintain so extra care is needed when using them.

Workshops begin at 6:30pm and go until 9:00pm.  We will begin the cleanup process earlier than 9pm.  If you need to leave early, please clean up the machines you were working on, even if someone may use them afterwards…failure to help with the cleanup process will decrease the life of our equipment, so please give us a hand and help with the cleanup.

Faceting Classes

For the faceting classes, we are limited to a maximum of 7 students as we only have 7 faceting machines.  Please sign up ahead of time by contacting Dexter Hill (dexter.hill{at}rochesterlapidary.org).  Please leave your name, address and a good phone number that we can contact you at to reserve the space.  In this class you will learn how to take a rough stone and facet it into a beautiful finished piece that you can then set into some nice jewelry. 

Faceting classes for all seasons are set to being on The Third Wednesday of the month of September.  There is a one time “lab/equipment” fee of $50 to take the class, and then we charge an additional $4 per class to cover wear and tear on the equipment.  Please contact Dexter at the link above to sign up for the class.  You need to be a current paid member of the Lapidary Society in order to take the class.  Faceting classes are for 20 workshops.

The structure of the class is first the class fee of $50 which covers all the instruction material and equipment.  Plus there is a per class fee of $4 to cover all material and machine usage costs.  Instruction books are loaned for the length of the class, but must be returned at the completion of the class.  Each student will be assigned a specific machine and set of cutting laps for which they will be responsible for during the 8 weeks. Instruction will be cutting of a specific simple “Easy Eight” design out of a glass based material which when done should look just as good as any finished gem. 

WORKSHOP RULES

These are not new, just thought I’d post them so that everyone is aware of them. They will also be posted in the workshop. Most of these are from the club bylaws.

1. You MUST be a current paid member of the Lapidary Club to use the workshop/equipment. This is so that you are covered by our insurance policy. If the membership chairman is not present, you may be required to show your membership card.

2. You MUST ALWAYS wear safety glasses.

3. Please only cab one stone at a time. According to our club bylaws:

“This Corporation is not formed for profit, and none of its assets shall be used for the pecuniary gain or profit of any individual who is or may become a member.”

This means that the equipment may not be used for any member’s monetary gain. With an increase in popularity of the workshops, we need to make sure that everyone has a chance to use the equipment. We understand that you may want to sell a few of your stones, but know that you should not be making stones in quantity for sale.

4. If you are done with your first stone and want to start a second stone on the same machine, we ask that you wait at least 5 minutes to be sure that no one else has been waiting for that machine. If no one else moves in to use the equipment you may start a second stone.

5. New members, on their first night, can select up to three slabs as starter practice material, after which they should bring in their own material. Materials can be easily obtained online through eBay or other sites, or even at a Gem Show.

6. Children under the age of 10 are not allowed to use the powered equipment. Ages 10-16 are asked to be supervised by a parent or guardian, or they will be unable to use the machines.

7. We highly suggest starting the process of cabbing using the Brown 2-wheel machines. That way you can learn about how the wheels grind and polish the stones. After you are familiar with the process through that equipment you can be certified to use the Genie and Titan equipment from Diamond Pacific. This is because the wheels and motor on that equipment is much more expensive to replace or repair so we like to have members learn on the other first.

* Failure to follow any of these rules may result in the temporary loss of your workshop privileges.

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