Post #378662 by Paipo on Wed, May 7, 2008 5:38 AM

I've thought about the "Travelling kit" scenario too, and I think I could get away with about 6-8 burrs, a few strips of diamond cloth, my handpiece and a pocketful of pebbles. In fact I probably wouldn't even need the cloth. Jade carving - maybe not so easy. Ben's method is okay if you have nothing else, but roughing out with the handpiece using bullets or discs is hard going and not too kind on the stone (or the handpiece for that matter!). I'd go with Tama's suggestion of doing as much pre-shaping as you can so you can do most of your work with the handpiece. Unless you have some sort of nifty combo unit the thought of trying to set up a saw, wheel and a handpiece somewhere temporary seems like a lot of work and hassle...
As for the vertical transition/negative space thing, I almost always use core drills followed by various styles of flat-ended burrs - discs, inverted cones, tapered cylinders, etc. I'm still using a very similar set of tools to what I posted waaay back on the very first page of my thread. I don't go into these areas with any kind of cloth or paper - just burrs, and if the burrs don't get a good enough finish, sometimes a little work with a rubbing stick. I'm sure little discs of diamond cloth on a mandrel or an old burr would do the job too, especially if you have undercuts.