I was expecting them this past Thursday but no. Not the fault of the ebay seller, just USPS was running slow.
I'll have to move faster than I had hoped but... ehhh.
I've also gotten around to ordering 1200 and 14K diamond grits which should show up next week. What lit a fire under my rear on this is if any of my Christmas rocks have soft areas that the tripoli might chew up.
Let's have a look-see. These photos are done outside of my box so that I can get a more vertical view. Granted, as I wet them I could not get a 90 degree shot on them without major glare. I probably should have used the photo box.
Wonderstone Rhyolite --
I like the patterns on this but there are many cracks that meet the surface. As the cracks follow the outsides of the major patterns I should be able to work around them.
Here it is marked. My wife found the "feather" in the top round and the "sunrise" to the left of that. I found the "gas flame" on the right.
This stone might be trouble. The cracks appear to be cleavage and I've had a small piece pop off in moving it around.
This stone had some chipping and sloughing but nothing to effect the cabs.
Leopardskin Jasper --
I like this one. Should make two nice stones.
Not so great pics of the mark-up. One with too much flash and the other without enough light. Because of the patterns I'm going to have to cut the top of each of the two cabs from different sides of the slab.
This stone was a pain to trim and I had some sloughing that forced me to resize one of the cabs (on the left). I will probably use the flip side so that I can save some of the material and have a bit of a pattern.
Mexican Crazy Lace Agate --
I very much like this one. There are some cracks that meet the surface and a couple of cavities. But it looks very workable.
Oh this is a lovely stone!
Dragon's head.
Sorry about the focus on this one.
My beautiful stone had a major issue. I began to trim in between the two larger cabs and the stone came apart. A small chunk was taken out of one of the larger cabs and a large piece fell away from the other large cab (forcing a resize). And the material under the chin of the dragon's head fell away as well. But all might not be lost on that. How it fell away I may be able to save the head but it won't be symmetrical.
Gold Sheen Obsidian --
I like this one as well. There is a nice sheen when it is held at a slight angle. If the material was thicker I'd try to orient it to flash when viewed directly, but still I nice stone all around.
Very well behaved stone on trimming. It did have some chipping but nothing major.
Rodeo Lace Agate --
Not as keen on this one. Too busy looking. But the womenfolk in my house like it.
Sorry about the focus on these.
Another well behaved stone. Did have a good deal of material slough off around the thin stone. But that was expected as it was near some fissures.
Zebra Jasper --
Not too hot on this one either. I only like black and white things when they have very interesting patterns. I'll try for that when I mark out the templates. Seems there was some leftover oil on the stone from when it was slabbed. But I think it's OK in that the wet view can be seen.
When marking this one up I noticed that the white areas have white reflective chips throughout (about 1mm x 3mm).
This stone smelled of the swamp when taken to the trim saw. Very odd.
Opalized Petrified Wood from Wyoming --
I tend to prefer play of color in my opalized items but the womenfolk insisted.
A good bit of material sloughed away from the smaller cab and I had to resize.
Opalized Petrified Wood from Arizona (free gift from seller (thanks natures-gifts2000!)) --
I may be able to get two stones out of this one.
I did have enough material to cut another cab.
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Think I'll do things a bit different this time around.
From here I'll open a post for each type of material to cover the steps to polishing. As time is an issue, I may not take pics of every step.
