Custom Cabochon Cutting & Shaping Services

Send in your rough minerals or slabs and get expertly shaped, polished cabochons tailored for your jewelry designs. You can expect results like these.

Before

Rough Quartz of several colors resting on a light table.

After

Four Quarts cabochons of different colors resting on a light table.
Request Cabochon Cutting

Precision Equipment & Gemological Testing

Step inside the studio: Where raw minerals transform into polished gems.

A workshop workbench featuring a six inch cabochon machine, a ten inch slab saw, and a 4 inch trim saw with lapidary accessories on a shelf and pinned on a wall.

Featured equipment

10 inch slab saw

Commercial 10-inch lapidary slab saw equipment used for precision gemstone slabbing and cutting

I cut rough minerals up to 5 inches thick on my 10-inch slab saw. Need larger material slabbing? I utilize 24-inch saws at my local gem and mineral club to handle massive pieces.

6 inch Cab King

Close-up of a workbench with a packaged product labeled 'CABKING' and a small lamp overhead illuminating the workspace, with electrical outlets and cords attached to the wall in the background.

Workhorse of the shop: my 6-inch Cab King Cabbing Machine. I use a complete 6-stage diamond wheel sequence to shape, preform, smooth, and polish rough gems into custom finished cabochons.

4 inch trim saw

well used four inch trim saw on a white table.

Equipped with a razor-thin 0.4mm blade, my 4-inch trim saw handles intricate cuts and delicate rough. She’s dirty because she stays busy cutting every day to maximize yield on precious stones.

Gemological testing

Every piece of rough that enters my shop is carefully evaluated before it hits a saw or grinding wheel. I run testing including specific gravity, Mohs hardness, microscopy, and refractive index (RI) analysis, backed by extensive gemological literature. While my findings are an educated opinion rather than a formal laboratory certification, this testing phase is essential—it tells me exactly how to handle, cut, and polish your material safely to get the best final result.

Ian Perry of the lapidary office using a Refractometer in a lab setting.

Refractive Index Test

Ian Perry of the lapidary office using a microscope in a lab setting.

Microscopy

A digital pocket scale measuring a small round object, with a black background and white text on the display showing 0.64 grams.

Specific Gravity Testing

Let's Cut Some Cabochons!

Set of colorful crystals and minerals arranged in a row on a white background.

Start with raw material

Close-up of five colorful quartz cabochons placed on a wooden surface with holes, with a blurred wooden block in the background.
A display of seven small, colorful quartz cabochons attached to brass dops on a dark wooden surface, including a blue cube, a green sphere, a yellow cone, and two purple spheres.

Cabbing and polishing the top dome—working through progressive diamond grit wheels from shaping to final shine.

Preforming the rough material into initial shapes—done either by hand or with precision using a faceting machine

Close-up of the back side of the quartz cabochons before cutting and polishing.
Four colorful Quartz cabochon stones on a reflective black surface, arranged in a row. The stones are blue, green, yellow, and purple.

Transferring and re-dopping to finish the bottom: grinding and polishing the underside through the full cabbing progression.

Nothing beats the feeling of giving a finished cabochon its final clean—wiping away the polishing compound to reveal its true color, clarity, and shine.

Image of a logo for " The Lapidary Office" .
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