Slabbing Stones

Slabbing is essential to inspect the internal quality of the material and prepare it for jewelry-making, carving or display. 

Slabbing rough rock involves using a lapidary slab saw with a diamond blade and mineral oil coolant to cut or "slab", large, uncut stones (e.g., agate, jasper) into thinner, flat, workable, slices, typically around 1/8 inch thick, for further shaping into cabochons. It requires specialized saws and can take 20–30 minutes per cut and often feature automatic, hands-free feeding. 

Key Aspects of Slabbing Rough Rock 

• The Process: A vise secures the rough rock, which is then fed into a diamond blade. The saw must use coolant (usually oil) to keep the blade from overheating and to lubricate the cut. (If you use water, you should empty your saw after each session to avoid a rusty blade.)
• Safety & Equipment: Larger rocks require larger saws. The process is often slow, requiring patience to properly reveal internal patterns like banding.
• Handling Irregular Rocks: If a rock is too irregular for the vise, a 2x4 piece of wood can be glued to it with water-resistant glue, providing a secure, flat surface for clamping.
• Slab Quality Assessment: Slabs are assessed by quality. The best slabs have 75% or more usable material with minimal fractures, while lower quality slabs may require stabilization or filling due to pitting or fractures.
• Post-Slabbing: Once sliced, slabs are further processed on a trim saw for specific shapes before being polished into cabochons. Often, this shaping can be done using a ring saw. A ring saw is a specialized saw that features a circular, diamond-coated blade that rotates on its outer edge rather than with the use of a center arbor.