A quick tour through Barry’s workshop!

The workshop is a fascinating mix of colour as there are stones in various stages of preparation all over the place. Barry built the workshop by himself and has created storage for raw stone, cut stones, tumbled stones and the like. Tools like saws, polishers and sonic baths line the sides. Water is laid on to cool the stones while cutting.

Here you can see the raw stones stacked in plastic tubes. Pieces have been cut from these stones already, therefore the flat sides are visible.

These are cut slices from the stones in the previous picture. They will be further cut into the required shapes to become round, square, oblong or hexagonal tiles. Next Barry polishes them until they are nice and shiny. A final step depends on whether they will become pendants or not. If so, a hole must be drilled through each stone.

As you can see above, the little tiles can be used to make some very pretty objects, such as the chess board with inlaid Buddstone and Transvaal Jade. And of course there are pendants of all shapes and colours.

Stacks and stacks of polished tiles just waiting to be used in mosaics or inlaid into tables.

The other important inhabitant of the workshop is the tumbling machine. It has many barrels containing stones in various stages of polishing. These stones may be uncut, or be sliced stone offcuts from the tiles. They spend many weeks constantly turning and are transferred from barrel to barrel as they progress. Finally they emerge with a beautiful sheen to join the piles of stones waiting to be used.

Below follows a few examples of things Barry has made with these stones.

bowl

box1

lamp

table

trivet1

trivet2

And finally the most important part of this whole process. Barry Venter, cornered in his workshop.