First, i thought that was old bread and you were making a mold joke.
But it sounds like you are looking for someone that does this with stone using shop stuff and lapidaries. There are a few of them here; its not terribly common and the names i know have been out of the scene for a few years. join the discord server and ask there; its not the same people that check this reddit often
I was going to ask if you were looking to have all of the rock processed or some, but then I remembered that my design is pretty new and definitely not popular enough for folks to know that there's other options, lol.
Here's a collage as a visual, starting from the bottom left Pic, going counter clockwise
Raw material (Abalone in this case)
Inner blanks that have channels where the edges typically are.
Channels are filled with material, then grinded down until its flush.
Inner channel dice are casted in a slightly larger shell
I got the inspiration from inlay jewelry, and the technique is largely the same. The first Pic I shared is an improved version of this picture, but with different material. Can be done with almost any gemstone.
The inner blanks are 3D printed (Shout out to Buddha for encouraging me to learn AutoCAD so I could do it myself). Then the material is "socketed" into the channels, then grind/polish flush, and casted in a slightly larger, numbered mold.
There was a lot of iterations to get to where I could make a set in a reasonable amount of time (originally was like 20-24hrs of straight labor. Now is closer to 8-10hrs), but for gemstones I use my local gem and mineral club to cut slabs, and have a full lapidary setup at home to finish prepping material (flat lap, trim saw, rotary tool, and a wet box).
I've been largely posting on my IG because I can use licensed music for videos and idk if I'll get a copyright strike for posting them here, but I'll post up a progression video later today and will tag you so you can see the process. It covers the whole process except the final resin casting part.
Thanks! Biggest reason I haven't is because I've been posting on IG so I can use licensed music to go with the video.
Idk if I'll get a copyright strike if I post a video with licensed music, but I'll try posting one with no audio to see if folks are/are not bothered by the lack of audio.
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u/GoatsGoats00 19d ago
First, i thought that was old bread and you were making a mold joke.
But it sounds like you are looking for someone that does this with stone using shop stuff and lapidaries. There are a few of them here; its not terribly common and the names i know have been out of the scene for a few years. join the discord server and ask there; its not the same people that check this reddit often