Armadale Pottery

Jewellery Manufacture

I have two lapidary workshops, the biggest is at the other pottery about eight miles from Armadale and is where the noisy and dirty part of the process is performed such as diamond sawing and pre-forming of the gem stone. It is also the site of the rock store housing over three tonnes of gemstone in some 200 varieties, much of which has been collected and quarried by myself.

Unpolished rock slice

The new lapidary workshop at Armadale Pottery is equipped with a state of the art, very quiet machine for grinding, sanding and polishing gemstones. In fact the machine is so quiet we can use it when the shop is open, giving visitors the opportunity to observe gemstones being cut and polished - probably the only shop in Scotland where you can see this.

Most of the gems I cut are unusual and rare and information sheets are available for customers to take home with their jewellery. Examples of the gems available include:

Pre-formed stone on dop stick

Sugilite

Turquoise

Chrysoprase

Strawberry Quartz

To see the creation of jewellery in action click the icon opposite for a short QuickTime video presentation .

Better still why not visit us and see the action first hand.

Gemstone Creation

(low-res)

Gemstone Creation

(hi-res)