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.
