*Bold denotes new information.

Weekly 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.

Saturday Carving 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 is our stone carving workshop. We teach soapstone carving to anyone who is interested. We currently have a small supply of rough soapstone that we will sell (at the price that we paid for it) to anyone who does not have any, and we do have a collection of tools that were bought or donated in past years for beginners to learn with.  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.

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 2 Genie style machines that are available on top of the standard 2 wheel grinders.  In order to use the 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 one is for general lapidary cutting. 

Faceting Classes

For the faceting classes, we are limited to a maximum of 5 students as we only have 5 faceting machines.  Please sign up ahead of time by contacting the Webmaster or Membership chairman.  Please leave your name, address, and a good phone number that we can contact you at.   **At this time (August 25th, 2010) we have one confirmed student for the Faceting Class. 

The faceting class will begin Wednesday, September 22nd at 6:45pm (until 8:45pm) and will continue for a minimum of 5 weeks.  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.  There is a one time "lab/equipment" fee of $25 to take the class, and then we charge $4 per evening to cover the equipment wear and tear, etc. 

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.

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

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