QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Feb 14, 2019 6:53:14 GMT -5
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Feb 4, 2019 2:35:24 GMT -5
I've only been deliberately creating cabs since late December, where I took advantage of the back-to-back 4-day weekends over the holidays. So far I've made about a dozen... IMO too early for you to be concerned with speed. Develop good technique, and muscle memory function in your hands and wrist first. Then when the speed comes later you'll have it down pat. Larry C. |
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Jan 25, 2019 19:01:28 GMT -5
I have been keeping the Han wheel in my Amazon cart for about 6 months now. the price has been dropping and the 60 grit 6" is now listed at $229 free shipping. I just got a new 80 & 220 Galaxy wheels today but I was thinking of getting one of these. I am going to get back into cabbing and I will were out what I have rather quickly. Is this wheel worth it at all or do I need to go with the Inland? I use 8" HANS 80gt and 220gt sintered wheels and like them (but wish I had gotten 60 and 180 instead). Due to the steel hubs they are very heavy though. But I have mine mounted in the arbor section between the pillow block bearings on an old Highland Park machine so the extra weight of the steel hubs isn't as much of an issue as it might be on an arbor-thru-motor type machine. If buying to use on an arbor-thru-motor machine I think I would have sprung for the Inland's sintered with the aluminum hubs. Larry C. |
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Jan 25, 2019 17:27:02 GMT -5
I agree with Rockoonz. If I were forced to buy a new machine today I would buy a stainless steel model with a belt driven arbor. Not a thru-motor arbor. That way if the motor needs replacing it's no big deal. General Purpose, continuous duty 1/3hp 1725-1750rpm motors are very common and easy to find - plus much less expensive.
And if you're pressed for space build a small stand out of 2x4s screwed together with a 3/4" plywood (or thicker kitchen counter laminate) top and mount 4" or 5" Harbor Freight castors on the bottom so you can roll it out of the way when you need to. Which is what I have done with my cabbing machines.
And if you're REALLY pressed for space get a unit that has an open bottom section underneath the pulley section of the arbor so that you can cut a hole in your work table top for the belt to pass through and mount the motor underneath the cabbing machine with the motor pulley directly under the cabbing machine's arbor pulley.
Larry C.
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Jan 11, 2019 3:55:38 GMT -5
It's not unusual for communications to smaller lapidary enterprises to be slow during the Quartzite and Tuscon gem show season. Most of those guys attend and are swamped with show activity right now.
Larry C.
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Jan 5, 2019 16:42:59 GMT -5
... Now, if we could only get the overall population to appreciate what we craft as rockers, we could have it made.  Cheers, johnw Don't laugh, it's happened twice before. The Art Nouveau and Arts & Crafts movements in the late 19th and very early 20th century. And again during the early to mid 1970s when handmade jewelry and hand tooled leather goods were HOT and easy to sell. We just need a few modern day folks like John Ruskin, Charles Eastlake and William Morris to jump-start it for us.  Larry C. |
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Jan 5, 2019 2:53:16 GMT -5
Back when my wife and I used to be involved with the antique business we used to run across those types of figurines occasionally. They are traded as "mud men" or "mudmen" figurines. Back in the mid 90s a couple of picker fiends of mine brought me in on a living estate they needed help purchasing that had a fairly large collection of those. Some of them were miniatures only around 5/8" to 3/4" tall. The detail was amazing for ceramic figures that small. The makers must have had tiny hands and great eyesight.
Larry C.
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Dec 29, 2018 21:51:54 GMT -5
Looks like either Disaster Peak or Palomino picture Jasper.
Larry C.
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Dec 27, 2018 0:31:27 GMT -5
An Update. I contacted the software author today enquiring about the upgrade options for early adopters. He replied in a couple of hours and the answer is very good news, purchasers get free upgrades. The price will gradually rise with each upgrade but early adopters will get upgrades free. I have been playing with it a lot, I am really blown away by how easy it is. I got a stack of old designs copied out of early magazines from the club to try at trial cutting them, Wow it is amazing how many of them either can't be cut at all or need big changes to make them work. If you were physically cutting them you would probably presume that you had done something wrong, or you would have to make changes to angles and indexes to get something like their drawing, anyway you would be swearing and tearing your hair out. Many of the old designs are not worth cutting anyway as they have very poor performance. To check I did a quick trial cut of one design on an actual stone (Quartz) and thats what I got, a stone with polished flats, not a sparkly gem at all, just dead. Per Free Upgrades- That is good news. Thanks for checking on it and posting the reply here! As for the errors in published faceting designs, yeah I've run into that more often than I would have suspected I would. Some major errors even in published designs by old well known designer names. Back when I was first learning to facet an experienced much older faceter recommended to me to always cut any new design in glass or quartz before cutting it in an expensive material. I hated cutting synthetics and considered cutting glass to be a waste (loss) of time and am not a big fan of cutting quartz either. Considered them too little return on the labor. But it didn't take long to find out he was right. Never try a new design on an expensive material. And yes many of the old designs have very poor light return. Design angles were calculated mathematically based on flawed theory. Just take a look at the differences of the suggested pavillion mains and crown mains for given materials between Vargas, MDR, and Schlagel on this linked chart: www.gemcutter.com/angles.htmLarry C. |
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Dec 24, 2018 15:23:48 GMT -5
LOL! Yeah I know what you mean Tommy. My cabs have been getting larger too. They're starting to resemble something that Flavor Flav would wear around his neck. I was thinking just a couple of weeks ago that even in sterling the chains required to support some of my current cab projects are going to cost a @#$% fortune.
This getting older thing stinks but as I've been told ...it beats the alternative!
Oh, and almost forgot, Merry Christmas everybody!
Larry C.
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Dec 19, 2018 3:05:59 GMT -5
It's nice to know that stuff is still out there! A guy I used to know found a fluted paleo point at Myrtle Beach in the early 1960s.
Larry C.
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Dec 18, 2018 17:15:03 GMT -5
Interesting! Please let us know if it really does get hot enough to work for soldering jewelry? If it does that could be a game changing tool for many.
Larry C.
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Dec 18, 2018 17:06:25 GMT -5
I had read where Gem Cut Studio had been released and had been curious how it compared to GemCad? And is it more user friendly on newer versions of windows? I have the old DOS version of GemCad and found it a PITA to use (have to type in commands on this earlier version). A few years ago I tried downloading the newest version of GemCad onto my windows7 computer and never could get it to download and function properly. I was told that I could download a program called DOSBox and run GemCad in it but never bothered doing so.
If Gem Cad Studio is more user friendly and has equivalent functions I'll probably have to give it a try.
Larry C.
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Nov 28, 2018 0:04:55 GMT -5
You can add Laq to recondition the sticky factor Did you mean shellac instead of laq? Larry C. |
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Nov 27, 2018 17:49:28 GMT -5
Raytech was bought out by Lyman Products over 20 years ago. Lyman is a shooter's supply company and they wanted the rights to Raytech's vibe tumblers to sell to their ammo reloading customers. Lyman's never gave a rat's yack about lapidary and let the non-tumbling lapidary line of products suffer. A few years ago Rick Scott of Scott Manufacturing Inc. began purchasing the rights to produce those other non-tumbling pieces of Raytech equipment. Along with the rights to produce and sell those other pieces of equipment he did acquire some of the old stock of parts. I do not know if there were still any Raytech vibrating lap parts in that inventory or not but it would probably be worth giving him a call to check. 800-303-2466 or (303) 887-6942. Larry C. Thanks for the info! I gave Rick a call. He has a bunch of the 15 inch pans available, but no 10 inch pans :-( Looks like my best bet will be to have someone mill up a insert to put inside the existing pan. Since it's only a 10" diameter pan you may want to consider having a thin copper insert disc made and charge it with diamond grit in the way a copper faceting lap is. While diamond powder is more expensive than SC, man-made diamond grit has come down considerably in price from what it used to be. And once diamond grit is pressed into copper it remains for a while longer unlike the SC grit which breaks down and gets washed off after use. It shouldn't cost more than a few dollars per charging for a 10" diameter surface and will cut much faster and last longer than SC. Might be worth experimenting with. Larry C. |
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Nov 26, 2018 18:45:36 GMT -5
Raytech was bought out by Lyman Products over 20 years ago. Lyman is a shooter's supply company and they wanted the rights to Raytech's vibe tumblers to sell to their ammo reloading customers. Lyman's never gave a rat's yack about lapidary and let the non-tumbling lapidary line of products suffer. A few years ago Rick Scott of Scott Manufacturing Inc. began purchasing the rights to produce those other non-tumbling pieces of Raytech equipment. Along with the rights to produce and sell those other pieces of equipment he did acquire some of the old stock of parts. I do not know if there were still any Raytech vibrating lap parts in that inventory or not but it would probably be worth giving him a call to check. 800-303-2466 or (303) 887-6942.
Larry C.
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Nov 26, 2018 1:57:46 GMT -5
The only thing I would add to what Pat posted would be to drill half-way through on one side and then flip the stone over and drill through from the other direction. This will help prevent chip outs on the back side when drilling all the way through from one direction. You can align the holes to be drilled from both sides with a small pair of outside calipers.
Larry C.
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Nov 26, 2018 1:49:23 GMT -5
While I've never used red Sharpies for marking stones I do use black and from time to time change my mind or mark one off center and need to remove the ink. I've found that Lacquer Thinner works much better than acetone for removing black Sharpie ink. Let the stone soak submerged overnight in lacquer thinner (NOT paint thinner)in a sealed solvent resistant container at room temperature. This has always worked better as the first course of action. The times I've tried a different weaker solvent like acetone first the ink becomes more difficult to remove. But a lengthy soaking in lacquer thinner usually will unless it's just too soft or porous of a material and the ink is set too deeply into the surface.
Larry C.
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Nov 22, 2018 19:43:07 GMT -5
Basically lighter fluid in a spray can. Lighter fluid is more similar to NAPTHA (which is a highly refined mineral spirit) and is a much stronger solvent than WD40 is, but not as strong of a solvent as lacquer thinner or methylene chloride. Larry C. |
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QuailRiver
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since May 2008
Posts: 1,640
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Post by QuailRiver on Nov 22, 2018 19:35:01 GMT -5
I've used WD40 to clean dried up rock gunk off of used equipment purchases for years. Buy the gallon cans and pour it into hand-pumped spritzer bottles so most of it goes on the surface I want it to rather than using the aerosol cans which atomize it too much into mist form that doesn't make it to the surface being cleaned plus is more likely to be inhaled. And I use disposable nitrile gloves when handling.
As for my personal water cooled lapidary equipment, I always give the equipment a good cleaning with water and a sponge after use so dried up rock gunk is never an issue. When I use oil when faceting I always give the machine a thorough cleaning after use too with paper towels and a sponge. My oil cooled saws never sit long enough to dry out so it isn't an issue there either. It only takes a few minutes after use to keep most lapidary equipment clean after each use so doing so prevents solvent hazards from ever being an issue and helps the equipment stay in better condition and last longer.
Larry C.
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