A bit of lapidary, making a floater.

[forestman]

What do you do when you buy a group of bottles because you like  some and end up with others you don't want. Sensible people would put them on ebay. Clearly I'm not sensible.

There I was, of an evening, thinking about getting round to listing a few unwanted bottles and enjoying a glass of wine or two (okay, it was three) whilst searching ebay for something to polish a scratch out of an IP bottle I have when I stumbled across a cheap set of stone shaping tools to fit my multi tool. As the tools came from China, the home of the snuff bottle, I took it as a sign and bought them.

What the pictures show are two bottles that started out the same, except in different materials and with different carvings as the green one had a bull carved on it. The weight of the left one, minus stopper is 71g, the other one I got down to 27g before I took it a step to far and a small hole appeared in the front.

You can see from where I have cut it in two how thin it got, around a millimetre in small areas. You can also see that the tool wouldn't reach to the bottom or it would have been a floater as it was getting close before I went too far.

It was an interesting thing to do and leads to a greater appreciation of the making of snuff bottles as I reshaped the outside as well as worked on hollowing it out.

My mother may need a hip replacement soon. Do I ask her surgeon for the bit of hip he removes and try my hand at making a modern bone snuff bottle as a family heirloom that can be passed down through generations ?

Regards all, Adrian. 

[Fiveroosters aka clayandbrush]

Dear Adrian,
quite interesting! Can you post the link of the tool supplier?
Giovanni

[forestman]

Hi Giovanni,

I bought the tools from a UK seller who clearly imports them from China. As a 43 piece set cost £9.99 including free postage I didn't have the highest expectations but they are really quite good. Various different shaped tools for grinding, cutting discs and polishing wheels. I used 2 different shaped tools, one to shape the outside, the other to hollow it out and both are still going well.

I searched for Stone polishing tools and you can get them directly from China even cheaper and the Chinese seller has a Jade polishing/carving set as well. The seller is miyashop if you can search by seller.

Now I've chopped the bottle in two I can cheat and carved the excess out of the bottom half before gluing it back together as some sort of Frankenstein's monster to see if it's a floater or not.

Regards, Adrian.

[cshapiro]

Dear Adrian,

I was really enjoying your post until I got to the bit about your mom's hip replacement. I guess I am squeamish but can't imagine creating a bottle out of human bone!
I have quite mixed feelings about it. On the one hand it is sweet that you are trying to create a tribute to your mom with her blessing (I'm assuming), on the other it seems very morbid.

However, I did save my son's baby teeth. Perhaps I should make a necklace! haha
 







 

[Fiveroosters aka clayandbrush]

Thank you Adrian-
Kind regards
Giovanni

[forestman]

Dear Cathy,

Please excuse my dark sense of humour, I was never going to make a snuff bottle out of my mothers hip bone.

I thought a far better idea would be to shape it into a small urn in which we could keep some of her ashes after she has passed away.

Kind regards, Adrian.



 

[cshapiro]

OMG Adrain you are hilarious! Can't believe I fell for it! 

[forestman]

Frankenstein's monster has risen.

Although I affectionately refer to him as "Frankie the floater" because he now weighs in at an anorexic 21g including an excess of araldite glue which is holding him together and, as the picture shows, he floats. In fact he kept on floating despite taking on water via the ill fitting masking tape around the neck.

So job done and what next.

Cathy, if you send me your sons teeth I could shape them into bottle stoppers for you.

Regards all, Adrian.

[cshapiro]

Congratulations on your floater! I was thinking I could gather all my friends baby teeth too and we could do something like this one.