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Chilton Book Company, Published 1977. Hardcover, xiv, 157 pp. plus 2 leaves of color plates; 27 cm; First Edition (with full number line); Chilton's Creative Crafts Series; 177 illustrations, black-and-white photographs and diagrams with color plates of finished carvings.
In Very Good condition with a Good dust jacket. Green textured paper over boards, gilt lettering on spine. Mild shelf and edge wear, light bumping and mild scuffing to edges. Small black remainder mark on bottom edge of text block. Binding tight. Previous owner's name and "please return to" address in blue ink on front pastedown; pages otherwise clean and unmarked. Pictorial dust jacket (carved gemstone objects in a brass and glass display case) has a few chips and tears of 1/2 inch or less, at head of front panel and spine, creasing along edges, and mild shelf and edge wear. Now in an archival quality (removable) Brodart cover. Step-by-step manual of gemstone carving for the amateur lapidary, with fourteen projects including a chess set, gem intarsia, snuff bottles, spheres, beads, a jade bracelet and rings, figures of a duck, frog, bear and squirrel, ashtrays and bowls, a jade cup and saucer, pendants, and intaglio and relief carving. Includes chapters on materials, tools and machinery (with homemade grinding stones, drills and spray catchers), and an introduction on the history of carving from the Venus of Willendorf and Mesopotamian cylinder seals onward. Walter, born in Munich in 1906, taught lapidary at New York's Craft Students League from 1959 and was a president of the Lapidary and Gem Society of New York; this was his second book, after Gem Cutting Is Easy (1972). Contents: Introduction; Fundamentals of Carving; Tools and Machinery; Making a Gemstone Chess Set; Gem Intarsia Work; Making a Snuff Bottle; Making Gemstone Spheres; Making Gemstone Beads; Making a Bracelet and Rings from Hard Gemstone; Carving a Duck; Carving a Frog; Carving a Bear; Carving a Squirrel; Making Ashtrays and Bowls; Making a Jade Cup and Saucer; Carving Jade Pendants; Intaglio and Relief Carving in Hard Gem Material; Glossary; List of Suppliers; Bibliography; Index.