My Story - Captain Ron Coldwell
(Continued from home page)

I launched Maine Rock Designs in 1997 in the basement of our home with odds and ends of equipment I had fabricated from woodworking and metalworking tools and adapted for use with diamond lapidary accessories. My earliest creations were natural granite vases that had been sculpted by the sea, but my collecting trips soon revealed the great variety of minerals present in Maine rocks, and I found myself looking for ways to preserve the fascinating colors and designs that were evident when the receding tide left the rocks wet.

My wife and I do our own rock collecting off the coast of Maine. These rocks have been tumbled by Nature where the currents are strongest and the surf pounds hardest. We generally collect offshore using two boats, a larger one we anchor and a smaller one for going ashore. Once ashore we search first for shape and then for color and design. Most trips yield just a few rocks that meet all the requirements for us to rescue them from being pounded into sand.

Once the rocks are in the shop, I work alone. First I check each rock for fractures and then I boil it in a disinfectant to kill any algae or other organisms the rock may be hosting. From this point on each rock is worked by hand. Slices are made on a 24” diamond saw while the rocks are kept lubricated with hydraulic oil. Drilling is done with diamond core bits using a water injection system I installed on a 1903 leather-belt-driven drill press. The cores are then chipped out by hand. On the shallower, thicker cores such as in clocks and weather stations, a series of cores are drilled and broken out in succession. Evidence of this process can be seen when the clock faces are taken out for time or battery changes.

Once the design is complete, I hand-polish each rock in a multi-step process using silicon carbide and diamond abrasive belts that turn on rotating drums with a water-injection system. I finish them off on a felt polishing wheel. Approximately 1 in 7 rocks fractures during the process -- usually, to my dismay, after several steps have been completed. The more varied the minerals in any one rock, the more unstable it is when it is being worked. In a few instances where the rocks are particularly unstable but highly desirable, I stabilize them with a process using heat and epoxy.

All vases are treated inside with a special epoxy so that they will hold water. Other than that, there are no artificial dyes or finishes on these rocks, and they do improve with handling. The more you rub the rock, the higher the polish as the oils from your skin help ward off the ever-present effects of oxidation.

We suggest next: