Welcome to the Scottish Mineral & Lapidary Club Workshop.

Stones, Silversmithing and Socialising…

Click on the links and images below to ‘Tour’ our workshop.

The workshop building is divided up into several discreet areas, each dedicated to one aspect of the work we do here.

On entering the building, which is neatly divided into 2 sections, there is a large social area and kitchen. This space houses our ‘Club Library’ as well as and doubling up as a venue for meetings and talks.

Next to this is our ‘Faceting Workshop’, comprising up to 8 faceting machines where members can cut and polish gemstones to exact patterns, creating wonderful Gems from a wide variety of rough stones.

Our ‘Silver Workshop’ is just next door and houses almost everything you need to start making finished pieces of jewellery. Whether its a setting for a cut stone, Pendant, ring, etc.

It may be something that is cast or enamelled, simple or complex. We have the facilities to do most things in a variety of metals.

This side of the building also houses our ‘Mineral Collection & Display’ area, which currently numbers in excess of 5000 pieces.

The bulk of the collection comprises minerals from Scotland, the UK and the rest of the world, which are regularly displayed in our Mineral Collection Area.

Visit our Faceting Workshop

Visit our Silver Workshop

Getting down to the nitty gritty…

Located in the other side of the building is our main ‘lapidary workshop’.

This is a place where rocks and minerals of all sizes and types are literally cut and ground into shape. Then with the lapidary’s skill they are refined and polished into beautiful gemstones.

We have 3 main sections in this area.

The first step in the process of creating a gem is usually to visit the ‘Saw Room’ to get rough stones cut into more desirable and manageable pieces. We often refer to this process as ‘Slabbing’ and ‘Trimming’.

After the Saw Room, most people then visit the ‘Grinding Room’, where the initial shaping of stones is done.

The last step in the process requires a visit to the ‘Lap Room’, where the serious business of refining and polishing stones is carried out.

There are 22 traditional ‘Laps’ – a rotating plate, much like a potters wheel, where grits and polishing compounds are used, in a precise sequence, to finish a stone to a magnificent ‘optical’ polish.

 Visit our Online Shop

Although we are a Charitable Organisation and not a business per se, we do, at times, have a surplus of equipment, rocks & minerals and a variety of other items that we will list here and make available to the public.