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My daughter picked the center group for the fourth run.

100 grit grind --

These stones were a royal pain for one reason or another. Hopefully going forward they will be better behaved.

I knew the black stone was of the same soft material as before but the red one surprised me in that it felt hard enough to grind. However, the red stone developed a deep fissure that couldn't be ground away.

Those black stones are interesting in that the first two had small squares that sparkled, the third had some clear quartz in the bezel and dome, and this one has very small flecks of sparkly stuff in it.



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220 grit grind --



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220 grit sanding --



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360 grit sanding --

Hmm, now that I'm putting pics up I'm noticing that the step by step pictures don't show that much difference. Especially between the sanding steps.

Tempted to leave it out, but, I think my photo skills are ramping up and the more I do the better off I'll be when I get to selling. Not sure.

Having said that, I think this and the last are my favorite pics. Not so much the subject... just how it looks.



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600 grit sanding --



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Tripoli polish --

Third group

My daughter picked the top middle group for the third run.

100 grit grind --

Large quartzy stone was a pain in the rear. Several cavities in the dome. As it is, there are a number of cracks that reach the surface. Not sure how it will come out.

Pics where taken in my photo box from about six feet away and zoomed in. That seems the only way to get all the stones to have decent focus.



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220 grit grind --



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220 grit sanding --

Had to get a little creative to get a decent pic. Went with a shot of three and one of two.



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360 grit sanding --

Moving slow... feeling under the weather.



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600 grit sanding --

I like the color better on the pics without flash. But I can't seem to get a good sharp focus.

Another annoying thing. The pic editing software introduces artifacts. Like the round below has green splotches. I plan on getting another lamp with a 3000K light bulb. So that might be cleared up at that time.

The stone to the left of the large quartz has those flecks that the tripoli eats into. So I'll have an example of that. Speaking of that stone, it is interesting in that it is a mix of white and clear quartz with greenish black flecks. The round is also interesting in that it has green and blue material inside and a field (the brownish specks in the pic) that sparkles in the light.



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Tripoli polishing --

You'll see in the closeup of the quartz with greenish, black flecks how the flecks have been chewed up. If I had persisted, it would only have gotten worse.

I wasn't able to get the sparkle of the round without some blurring. The light and dark areas of the round are reflections of the inside of my photo box.

Thoughts on photography

The picture of the finished stone in the last group is still bothering me.

I googled around for photography tips and found this link talking about inexpensive ways of capturing jewelry.

Seems the use of a flash and direct, glaring lights are the problem.

So, I need to get a deep, frosted white bin. I also like her suggestion of using inexpensive lamps with specialized bulbs.

Not sure how soon I'll get all that stuff. With Thanksgiving tomorrow and Black Friday after, I don't want to go near a store.

Update:

Oh, looky here. Another photo box.

Another update:
I made the box at the second link. Been trying it out with one lamp and a piece of printer paper folded first lengthwise so that it can stand on its own and then widthwise so that it can reflect the light in a couple directions.

Most of what I've read indicates that you shouldn't use a flash. That works for me sometimes. Other times it comes out blurred. That might be corrected with a tripod.

Also noticed that the camera doesn't deal well with multiple stones in the pic.

So, here is my favorite of group two in my photo box --



I think I can reduce flash glare by standing way back while zoomed in.

Second group

Came across a pic editor by the name of picasa. Pretty useful for someone that doesn't know much about photography, like me.

My daughter picked the bottom middle group for the second run.

100 grit grind --



The stone on the lower right is another one of those soft stones that I'll give to my girl as is. The stone on the lower left had a cavities show up on the dome and the bezel. I was able to grind through the dome cavity without much loss, but the bezel cavities forced me to make it a small freehand. Both of the top stones had original portions of the dome much lower than other sides. I didn't think this much of a problem when marking them up as the low sides were above the bezel. However, it created a great deal of work to make the dome even. Because the stones were small it was still workable. But in the cases of other stones (i.e. group in the upper left hand corner) there is too much material to remove. I will have to resize those stones.

Next up, the 220 grit grind...

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220 grit grind --

Had issues with the very white stone. The depth of its color made it difficult to find the bezel line as well as any major ridges. I've read of people inking their stones before grinding. But there was never a reason given. Well, after dealing with that white stone I understand.

The large stone gave me a couple issues. One is that the bottom is curved and won't lie flat on the table. Making a flat bottom is hard on a wheel and much harder when the stone is large (40mm length). The other issue was that there was a cavity at the peak of the dome. It ground away nicely but the stone is so large that making the dome symmetrical after the fact is real hard.



Next up, the 220 grit sanding...

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220 grit sanding --

Well, after experimenting around I've come to the conclusion that my wife's Olympus SP-350 is pretty nifty. I should hunt down the manual.

You'll see in the wet pic below how the extender fluid interferes with how the water flows over the stone. I think I'll start doing just the dry pics of the sanding steps.



Next up, the 360 grit sanding...

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360 grit sanding --

For some reason I had issues getting a good pic of 360 grit sanding. I ended up having to bring in an additional light. What makes that strange to me is that extra light was causing me problems in other photos.

Ehh.



Next up, the 600 grit sanding...

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600 grit sanding --

Big stone developed a small cavity during the 220 grit sanding. I've got it down to a speck and am too worried about opening a bigger cavity if I push it. Not sure if the tripoli will be able to smooth the last bit of the speck. Yet another reason to switch to all diamond sanding and polishing.



Lastly, tripoli polishing...

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Tripoli polishing --

Wish I knew how to capture the finish properly in a pic. I set up a light so that the reflection can been seen, but only the large stone picked it up.

Hmmm.

Looking at the blowup of this pic the large stone appears to have fissures all over it's surface but that is not the case. It has a mirror polish with the only blemish being the small cavity SW of the camera's flash. The stone is what I call aggregated quartz (lots of small quartz crystals melded together). I have no idea what its proper name is. I think the camera is picking up where the small crystals meet within the stone. That and there are odd sparks all over in that pic. Looking at the stone now, I do notice that the light catches the crystals if turned just so. I'm guessing the camera is picking up on that as well.

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First group

My daughter picked the group in the lower left hand corner for the first run.

I was right about the blackish stones, they are too soft. They are of the same material of one of the first stones I ground. They have some material that sparkles and flashes like pyrite. The thing is that material comes in square flakes that pull out on polishing. So what I was left with was a stone with a dull polish and all of its interesting sparkle gone. As you can see below, these stones still have their sparkle. On the smaller one the flakes are on edge and form a spiral to the center. The flakes are flat on the larger one and it gives flashes that I couldn't capture with the camera. The wet pic shows what they might look like if I had all the grits to polish soft stones.

I will do nothing further with the two soft stones as my daughter likes them as is. I asked her about the other four stones that I think are the same material and she'd like them ground to rough form. As she has me wrapped around her little finger, she'll get them as she wishes.

Main tasks on the 100 grit grinding step are -

• Grind near bezel to the top marks
• Grind from top marks to center dot
• Then with the use of the template, work the sides in so that it can tightly pass through the template

I was a bit lazy on the reddish stone in the middle. As I was sizing to template I found I was more than a bit off. This means I'll have more work to do on the 220 grit step to clean up the bezel.

The large quartz stone on the right has some major flaws that might cause problems with polishing. There are two major cleavage-like cracks that run across the width and length of the stone. There are also a number of flaws that reach the surface of the stone. This means that cavities can open up at each point where the surface is breached. In the wet picture you can tell that the flaws run deep and that there is no real chance to grind through them. Still, it is an interesting rock and I want to see how it turns out.

Next up, the 220 grit grind...

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220 grit grind --

Main tasks on the 220 grit grinding step are -

• Grind to bezel
• Get rid of any ridges/bumps near the bezel and any major ridges/bumps elsewhere on the stone
• Ensure that that the stone has been made as symmetrical as possible as it would be very hard to correct this in the sanding steps ahead
  
• Put a shallow 45 degree cut into the bottom edge to prevent chipping (just enough to remove the sharp edge)
• If the stone is very translucent or transparent, go over the bottom as well
  

My wife suggested that I go to a black background on the pics. I have to agree, the color does come out better.



Next I'll dop the stones and sand with 220 grit diamond....

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220 grit sanding --

The only task on the 220 grit sanding step is -

• Remove all ridges, bumps, and flat areas

The only ridges, bumps, or flat areas that you should leave for the 360 grit sanding step are those that the 220 grit will make worse.



Next I'll sand with 360 grit diamond....

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360 grit sanding --

Main tasks on the 360 grit sanding step are -

• Remove all ridges, bumps, and flat areas left from the 220 grit sanding
• Sand the whole stone to prepare for polishing
  

I was moving too quick to notice I got too close with the camera and blurred the pictures.

Irritating.

Next I'll sand with 600 grit diamond....

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600 grit sanding --

Main tasks on the 600 grit sanding step are -

• Remove all ridges, bumps, and flat areas left from the 360 grit sanding
• Sand the whole stone to prepare for polishing
  

Only the dry pic below as the extender fluid stops the water from shining the stone up.



On to the tripoli step....

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Polishing with tripoli --

Work towards the center as the pad dries. Continue to work as it starts to drag a bit. Be careful of letting it run too fast and hot or you'll get a weird flow effect.



Hmm, putting all this up tells me I need to work on my camera work considering I want to sell on ebay at some point.

Ground near template, marked, and grouped

Had two stones that I had to grind smaller as one had a hidden cavity and another broke along a cleavage line and around five more that due to its shape I had to make a short bezel line. I'll have to work the dome down more on those.

I think the blackish ones with a bit of sparkle as well as the small red stone might be too soft to take a polish with the tripoli and cerium oxide. Not too concerned with these. Nor am I interested in getting the grit to deal with soft stones at this time.

I found the marble looking stones as well as the flat quartz(?) stones to be interesting. First, they were much harder than what I was expecting. The quartz might be explained because of how large they are. They are the largest stones I've worked so far and are about as large as I can work on a 6" x 1" wheel. The marble-like ones are a mystery to me. Before cutting they looked white with pink zones and darker lines running throughout. But on cutting they showed varying shades of red. I'm curious as to what they'll look like polished.

At the time it seemed like a good idea to grind all of the stones to near template in one go and work smaller batches to completion. Now, with my back and chest (crouched at the grinder) complaining, I'm not so sure.

Trimmed to rough form

Dry and wet pictures of trimmed rough --



Next up is the 100 grit wheel. I'll be grinding down near to template and marking out the bezel line as well as the dome.

The last of my found rocks

Thought I'd start adding pics of what I'm doing.

Below you'll find wet and dry pictures of the last of my found rocks (click to see larger view). My daughter has far more but I'm itching to get working on stones that might sell.




All but the four in the top right have come from my back yard. They are from the falls of the Ohio state park.

The stone in the lower right hand corner and the one above it are marked for cutting in half.

Next up, trimmed to rough form.

More throughts on tripoli

Looking at earlier stones I worked I think I can see why the tripoli worked out fine.

My first stones were translucent and had silk/intrusions that didn't reach the surface of the stone. They also tended to be agate or feldspar.

The next large group had several stones with silk/intrusions that reached the surface, aggregated quartz stones (not a proper name, but the stones appear to be composed of small quartz crystal stuck together), and stones that were a mix of quartz and other material (most often thin black squares that I think are mica).

The end of my found rocks are a mix of translucent and opaque (a few look a little like marble).

I think the tripoli has issues with stones with silk/intrusions that reach the surface. In sanding, the diamond tends to reveal silk/intrusions that run deep and, with additional work, lessens them. The tripoli tends to widen the gaps. With additional work the tripoli does lessen them but it would take a great deal of work to remove them.

In the case of stones that have softer material mixed in, the tripoli attacks the softer while barely touching the harder. Additional work with the tripoli makes things worse.

At this point I think the tripoli creates more work with mixed material stones and stones that have silk/intrusions that reach the surface.

I think I'll use a heavier mix of tripoli for polishing to see if that will work better and to use it up faster so that I can move to diamond for my 1200 grit step.

Thoughts on tripoli and canvas disks

So far both the dura-tex and the canvas disks are holding up fine. They both cut well.

I did notice the canvas disks generate more heat. This caused me to pay more attention to how hot I get my stones and dop wax when dopping (a cool stone will form a weak bond and will come off if heated). Paying closer attention allows me to continue without real change. If it grows to be a problem I'd probably switch to a darker/stronger dopping wax.

I've noticed something with the tripoli and my found rocks. It works just fine with the feldspar and quartz but has problems with some of the other stones I picked up. Specifically the agate (?) pebbles with strong colored silk and quartz aggregate. I get no undercutting during grinding or sanding, but after a once-over with the tripoli, all sorts of undercutting. I found this very irritating on my last batch as I had a rock made up of white and clear quartz with black (mica?) silk throughout. It made for nice windows all over. Then the tripoli tore through what looks like mica leaving the quartz alone.

Now, nothing is lost because this is all found stone and I'm working on my hand skills. But, dang if it isn't irritating. That and I need to keep this in mind as I get closer to finishing off my found rock and start moving towards stones that I'll sell.

My experiences with found feldspar tells me the tripoli would be fine. But what of the emerald and corundum lapidary rough that I move towards? I've read that corundum has soft sides that cause pitting and its hardness indicates the need for diamond. But what of emerald?

What I find interesting is that lapidary rough is pretty cheap and if you look around there appears to be good rock out there.

Ehh, I'm getting ahead of myself. I've around 35 more found rocks to practice on and near that number of public mine stones along with the low grade moonstone I bought.

Then I can move to the 500cts of nice moonstone I have. Those are what I'll try selling on ebay.

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Oh another thing I've determined with the diamond grit: It lasts much longer than I had ever hoped.

I would appear that the diamond grit available in the 80s when Riggle wrote his book was pretty weak. He suggested 1.5-2g for a 6" disk. Well, I filled the disk up with around 1.5g and on use found I had much runoff that I ended up smearing on new stones worked and then on the disk itself after I was done. I had read that I should expect runoff the first few times as the diamond found its way into pockets.

So, no big deal.

But on reuse I thought I had to recharge. Not so! I've not recharged the disks for around 20 stones now. I plan on following something I read on a faceting site: recharge when cutting slows.

So, in the end, diamond is very cheap to use.

I think I'll order a couple more uncharged canvas pads and some 1200 & 14K grit for stones that the tripoli can't deal with.

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EUR/JPY - No change on short 166.91, stop 167.71.

My desktop puked last week and I was forced to rebuild. As a consequence I lost my liteforex demo setup and I didn't save the password on that account.

I created a new demo account to continue to test there.

I'm also trying to get the hang of EFX's software. Their "pro" software locks up something awful and their base software is pretty barebones. I had been thinking of just going with MB Trading if I had to go with the barebones trading software. But EFX looks to be going towards charting software in the near future.

-------

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EUR/JPY - Entered short on 166.91, stop 167.71.

Success

The 220 grit sanding/smoothing step was exactly what I was looking for and the new method of grinding to marks on the top make for symmetrical stones with a good bezel line.

I'm well pleased.

I determined beyond any shadow of a doubt that the silicon carbide sanding pads are garbage. After sanding with 220 and 360 grit my stones did not have any ridges and were very nice looking. Then came the 600 grit sanding step. I had three 600 grit silicon carbide pads left. They put facets and ridges all over my stones. My irritation bordered on pure rage at my best efforts so far being defaced. Well, luckily I had ordered 600 diamond grit with the 360 grit and charged up a pad. The 600 diamond grit cleaned it up quick enough.

Then came the polishing. The tripoli shined up the stones on par with my normal two step polish of tripoli and cerium oxide. The cerium oxide wasn't able to shine it better than tripoli alone.

This makes sense based on something I read. One of my cab books makes the point that old timers were able to get a fine polish with just tripoli. That they had no need for finer grits.

Seems to me that if I can do a good enough job sanding, the tripoli is good enough for the found rocks I'm using now (feldspar, agate pebbles (not really sure what these pebbles are), and "quartzy" type stones). I'm planning on only using the cerium oxide for stones with poorly sanded spots.

Something else I found is that fine diamond grit can cut/grind as well as polish. I found this out on some stones where I was lazy on the fine grind step. I just kept to the edge of the pad and used moderate to heavy pressure.

So far the shapes I've been cutting are ovals, rounds, and thin ellipses. The ovals and rounds stay on the dop well enough but the thin ellipses do not. I suspect that this is caused by the high domes I've been cutting. Going forward I'll cut low to medium domes on that shape.

High domes can look nice but very high ones are a pain to smooth. I think I'll stop cutting that type.

Dura-tex pads and 220grit arrived

Will be trying them out this evening.

However, something irritating came up before the order came in.

In looking through Arrowhead Lapidary & Supply's catalog after ordering the dura-tex I came across both the micro-tex and crystalpad line.

The crystalpad line by Crystalite looked to be a direct competitor of Lapcraft. I went with the Lapcraft dura-tex due to it being pushed as durable. After the whole thing with the silicon carbide sanding pads, I wanted something that would last.

But, Lapcraft's micro-tex was sold with this as part of its description: "not as dense or durable as dura-tex, but it is more versatile. It is also a more universal pad that accepts a charge using finer grit sizes 260-1800". Both the catalog and website indicate that the dura-tex pad takes a charge from 180-1800.

It was clear that the dura-tex was more durable and took a coarser charge. But I had no way to quantify the micro-tex being more versatile or universal. So, I wrote Lapcraft by way of their website to ask what they meant by those terms on Tuesday. I've yet to hear back from them.

hmmm

After my order arrived I examined the dura-tex pad and noticed two things: #1 the label on the package said the pad was for grits 260-1800 and #2 how very like the uncharged disks (ordered from Arrowhead) they were.

Regarding #1 -- you'll note that is the same grit range as the micro-tex. That makes me leery of buying any more of their products.

Regarding #2 -- I decided to get my loupe out and compare them.

The Arrowhead uncharged disk is (from what I can tell) a resin coated canvas weave with 1mm x 0.1mm (approx.) pockets all over its surface. The dura-tex is a plastic disk with 1mm round divots all over its surface. The uncharged disk is firmer then the dura-tex.

I suspect that the larger divots on the dura-tex will hold more grit and will make the pad cut more aggressively. At this point I've seen no real wear on the uncharged disks.

My thinking so far is this:

• if the dura-tex does not cut more aggressively than the canvas disks, I see little point in paying the $5 for it over the ~$1 canvas disks
  
• unless the dura-tex pads last more than five times longer than the canvas disks I see no reason to pay more
  
• based on Lapcraft's lack of response, I'm more inclined to look at Crystalite's products
• Crystalite's pads are being pushed as "engineered to eliminate orange peel and undercutting". If those problems come up I'll look into them.
  

Along the lines of both Crystalite's and Lapcraft's pads, I've been wondering what would be used for grits finer than 50K. The best I can figure is resin coated canvas. This is what lead me to believe that canvas pads are not aggressive cutters. I'm not sure at this point, but if they aren't I plan on looking at Crystalite's pads over Lapcraft's.