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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