Playing with stone

[McKenzie Penworks]

With M3 finally back on the market, I decided to take a minute and see if all the lessons we've learned over the past couple months could be applied to stone. Having turned a lot of the faux stone in the past, I had pretty much the same complaints about it that I did with original M3. Basically, I dislike polyester as a resin base.

So... we took our new urethane and some marble powder and went to work. I think we found a really nice ratio where the blank is primarily stone, and feels like it. The urethane base polishes great, but it's stronger and won't crack nearly as easily. Plus, it doesn't stink when you turn it. (Big win there if you ask me!)

We're going to play with some other ideas as well but for the very first try, this Phony Stone marble came out great. I'm offering up blanks in this month's subscription box on our website if anyone wants to play with it. I will say that I think I really like how they feel just wet sanded to maybe 1500 grit. You can polish it smooth but having just a little bit of texture really helps sell the marble look and feel.



You can see the imperfections in the coloring, etc from the natural stone powder. Those are NOT bubbles, just the variation in the stone.

 

[Kenny Durrant]

Very Cool. I like the looks of that. There was a guy here a while back that actually drilled and turned different types of rock. I would've liked to try but too many special tools were needed so I just admired his. Thanks for sharing

 

[McKenzie Penworks]

Very Cool. I like the looks of that. There was a guy here a while back that actually drilled and turned different types of rock. I would've liked to try but too many special tools were needed so I just admired his. Thanks for sharing

Yea... My mother is a jeweler and I spend a lot of time around folks that play with fancy rocks but.... our goal is always stuff that we can turn by hand on a lathe lol We're going to play with a few different ideas down this path of phony stone. Biggest thing is keeping it affordable, easy to turn, and with the same quality we bring to all our stuff.

 

[jomal]

Very nice and with almost with a look of the real thing.
Can you explain how to do those blanks? Would be much appreciated. Thank you.

 

[McKenzie Penworks]

Very nice and with almost with a look of the real thing.
Can you explain how to do those blanks? Would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Thanks! I'm afraid we don't share process information though... this is our little family business and we've got a lot invested into this and other products. Heck, even the resin is custom blended to our specifications on this one. Sorry!