Highland Park is an American manufacturer of lapidary equipment, best known for producing cabochon-cutting machines — commonly called cabbers — that became a benchmark of reliability in both hobbyist and professional workshops throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. The brand's horizontal grinding and polishing wheels, fed by a continuous water drip to cool abrasive surfaces and carry away swarf, set a practical template that many subsequent manufacturers followed. For several decades, a Highland Park unit sitting on a workshop bench was as unremarkable and dependable a sight as a jeweller's flex-shaft: simply part of the expected furniture.

Design and Function

The defining characteristic of Highland Park cabbing machines is the horizontal wheel configuration. A series of successively finer abrasive wheels — typically silicon carbide grinding wheels followed by diamond-impregnated or aluminium oxide polishing wheels — are mounted on a single horizontal arbour or a series of arbours arranged in a compact unit. The lapidary works the rough or slab material against each wheel in sequence, progressing from coarse shaping through fine grinding to final polish. Water is introduced at the wheel surface to prevent heat build-up, which could fracture thermally sensitive stones or damage adhesive dopping wax securing the stone to its dop stick.

Highland Park also produced trim saws — small diamond-blade saws used to cut slabs down to workable preforms — and combination units that integrated a trim saw with a cabbing head, allowing a lapidary to move from rough slab to finished cabochon without changing machines. This integration was particularly valued in small workshops and by amateur cutters working in limited space.

Historical Context

The company emerged during the post-war expansion of the American rockhound and lapidary hobby, a period in which gem and mineral clubs proliferated across the United States and demand for accessible, durable cutting equipment grew substantially. Highland Park equipment was manufactured in California and distributed through lapidary supply dealers nationally. Its reputation rested not on innovation alone but on consistent build quality: cast iron and steel construction, straightforward mechanics, and components that could be sourced and replaced without specialist intervention. This repairability contributed significantly to the brand's longevity in the field; machines purchased in the 1960s and 1970s remain in active use in many workshops today.

Ownership and production of the Highland Park name changed hands over the decades, a pattern common among mid-century American tool manufacturers as the lapidary hobby market contracted and consolidated from the 1980s onward. Despite these transitions, the name retained strong recognition among experienced lapidaries, functioning almost as a generic term of quality in the way that certain other trade names have become shorthand for their category.

Place in the Lapidary Trade

Within the lapidary community, Highland Park occupies a position analogous to a trusted workhorse instrument: not glamorous, but authoritative. Gemmologists and cutters who trained on Highland Park machines often describe the experience as formative, the machines' consistent wheel speed and stable water feed allowing a student to focus on developing hand pressure and stone orientation rather than compensating for equipment variability. Used units appear regularly at gem show swap meets and through lapidary club networks, frequently commanding prices that reflect their continued utility rather than mere nostalgia.

The machines are suited primarily to cutting cabochons from opaque to translucent materials — agate, jasper, obsidian, turquoise, chrysocolla, labradorite, and similar species — as well as softer transparent stones where faceting is not the intended finish. They are not faceting machines and should not be confused with faceting heads, which operate on an entirely different mechanical principle involving a rotating horizontal lap and a precision angle-setting mast.

Legacy

The Highland Park name endures as a reference point in discussions of lapidary equipment quality and American manufacturing heritage. For anyone entering the craft through second-hand equipment, a Highland Park cabber in sound mechanical condition represents a practical and historically grounded starting point — a machine designed when lapidary equipment was built to last rather than to be replaced.