John: thats a really beautiful piece of jade, I like the design, did you carve and polish it I assume? I like the chain design as well....coool. Dave
G’day: thanks Dave. Yes, the matau was cut from a 5 pound slab
I bought when I visited Hokitika, down the West Coast of the
South Island of NZ. I sliced, carved and polished the thing,
using a leather lap with tin oxide at about 800rpm - gives a
brilliant poliish. I only use diamond for polishing when I have
to get into narrow places. And I paid through the nose for that
slab: the blighters know exactly how much they can get off the
visitors - it’s a real tourist trap down there these days. The
jade comes from Olderog Creek, a tributary of the Arahura River
and the jade boulders - some weighing several tons - are cut on
the spot with large petrol-driven diamond saws flown in by
helicopter, and the jade goes out the same way, for the jade area
is a three day’s hard tramp over extremely rugged country. The
jade is very hard; to cut a slice from a 3x4 chunk takes about
25-30 minutes with my water-cooled diamond saw. So there it is,
Dave, and thanks again for taking the trouble to write. Cheers,
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/ / John Burgess,
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/ //\ @John_Burgess2
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