rocknrob
has rocks in the head
If Costco only sold slabs in bulk...
Member since May 2024
Posts: 611
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Post by rocknrob on Nov 12, 2024 11:50:41 GMT -5
Good morning all! This is the result of last night's and this morning's flat lap polishing session including this month's contest entry. Here's a hint: "Pumpkin Cheesecake". The contest entry isn't quite ready enough for me to enter in official photos yet as I'm still trying to coax a better shine out of the material. This is after quite some time in cerium oxide so I may have to go to the dremel and some diamond paste to finish it off. A better description of what's on here: alimejo agates, a really pretty piece of sodalite, jaspagate, picture jasper (I believe, maybe a variety of polychrome) and the Thanksgiving entry which I believe is another picture jasper. Those guys shined up like there's no tomorrow.   If anyone has a pointer or two about shining up the pumpkin cabochon better, please lay it on me. My plan is taking it to the dremel with 25,000 and possibly 50,000 later today as cerium just isn't cutting it at the moment. - Rob |
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Post by chris1956 on Nov 12, 2024 18:23:38 GMT -5
How easy is it to polish the larger flat surfaces well on the flat lap?
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Post by rockjunquie on Nov 12, 2024 18:45:51 GMT -5
I love those little agates!
How soft is your pumpkin?
eta have you ever used Zam?
eta again I see you finished it in the cab contest thread. The polish looks MUCH better. What did you do?
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rocknrob
has rocks in the head
If Costco only sold slabs in bulk...
Member since May 2024
Posts: 611
|
Post by rocknrob on Nov 12, 2024 19:30:35 GMT -5
I love those little agates!
How soft is your pumpkin?
eta have you ever used Zam?
eta again I see you finished it in the cab contest thread. The polish looks MUCH better. What did you do?
Thanks! Yeah Alimejo agates is a tough addiction to kick, I love em. Those little buggers have about a 1/3 or 1/4 ratio of dud to wow! A little pricey at $15 a pound but you get a bunch of them for that price since they seldom are bigger than 1.5-2 inches. What I ended up doing was getting my dremel out and charging a couple of felt pads, in 14,000 paste and 50,000 paste. It looked horrible until I washed it with good ol Dawn soap. I could probably take it back down to 1200 and then bringing it back up to 50k just to see if it gets any of those micro scratches out but I only had an hour to dink around with it in between work this afternoon. It did make a pretty big difference. This stuff is HARD primarily, the white isn't quite as hard as the tan colored stuff. I just remember the drop saw taking quite a while to cut through a 2 1/2 thick chunk. I think it's a combination of me pressing too hard on the smoothing part of the cab making process that's introducing micro-scratches but I need to test that theory out on another agate or jasper. Something with a mohs around 6.5. - Rob |
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Post by jasoninsd on Nov 12, 2024 21:32:03 GMT -5
Looks like you were doing the Flat-Lap Boogie! Those look cool!! You made a comment about "pressing too hard". I'm wickedly heavy handed making cabs...when I'm working really hard material. I'm not sure if that's causing micro-scratches for you or not. I'm curious to what you come up with after some more testing... |
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rocknrob
has rocks in the head
If Costco only sold slabs in bulk...
Member since May 2024
Posts: 611
|
Post by rocknrob on Nov 12, 2024 22:53:43 GMT -5
How easy is it to polish the larger flat surfaces well on the flat lap? It's deceptively hard. I have a couple thunder eggs that I polished on the flat lap and I was chasing scratches for literal hours. Getting the saw marks off was pretty challenging. The best way to get it done is to sharpie the dickens out of the flat surface so you can make sure you get everything before you jump onto the next grit. These Alimejo agates are nice and small for the most part so once you get past sanding out the saw marks they polish quickly. Most of them really take a nice shine at 8000 aluminum oxide. - Rob |
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rocknrob
has rocks in the head
If Costco only sold slabs in bulk...
Member since May 2024
Posts: 611
|
Post by rocknrob on Nov 12, 2024 22:57:20 GMT -5
Looks like you were doing the Flat-Lap Boogie! Those look cool!! You made a comment about "pressing too hard". I'm wickedly heavy handed making cabs...when I'm working really hard material. I'm not sure if that's causing micro-scratches for you or not. I'm curious to what you come up with after some more testing... I've got another jasper I'm working on that will be a great test for the shine factor, it's about a 6 on the mohs so it won't take too long to polish and it's freeform which speeds it up a touch  . I'll let you know how it goes. |
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. I'll let you know how it goes.
