I am now positive that I need a polishing step in between the 600 and 1200 grits. I'm also near positive that I'll not be working with moonstone again. The amount of labor involved in orienting and polishing is not made up in the return. Terapeak indicates that my rhodochrosite will give the same return and there is no need to orient it for cabs (unless there is some interesting pattern).
Something else I found interesting was that the 1200 grit did leave scratches that I could barely see without aid. The 14K grit left creases more than scratches. I worked these two stones until I saw no scratches/creases with my 10x loupe under a strong lamp. Yet, creases still show up in the photos.
13x10mm --
15x9mm --
This stone was very disappointing. With the loupe I noticed several fissures that touched the surface. I expected these to affect the price somewhat but continued on regardless. Then a chunk from the bezel broke away during polishing.
Ah well.
I'm going to try a few pics of the 13x10 from farther away to see if the creases show up. Both stones have a mirror polish and no scratches can be seen with the unaided eye on the 13x10. So I think it fair to try to get a pic that shows off the blue without showing the creases.
On the next couple of stones I will polish on the 14k until nothing shows up in the loupe and then polish some more in an effort to get rid of the creases.
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These two were taken from about four inches away.
The bright direct light shows the effects of the creases. I suspect that I missed them in the loupe during polishing.
I really need to do something about my sinuses. My detail work (here and at my paying job) is suffering.
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Seems my ego is at play.
Things generally come easy for me. When they don't I begin to think that I shouldn't bother because I may not be able to do it at all.
I spoke with my wife about this last night and she said maybe the moonstone is unforgiving. On one hand I wanted to agree with her (of course! it couldn't be my skills or abilities that were in question) on the other hand I know my pride gets the better of me quite often.
So I pondered it a bit more.
Last year I read many articles by lapidaries and it was clear that they had their preferences in materials. I chalked that up to them being able to turn out better work in certain materials than others. But what if their preferences were based off of what they had a miserable time working with? I think that is possible.
Also, this moonstone is very near transparent. That means that any flaw is displayed clearly. It is possible that I should just stay away from any material that is near transparent until I've become much more skilled.
I've been approaching this as if all materials are interchangeable. With the only difference being how much the end product sells for. Clearly that is false.
Perhaps I can, as I have, narrow down the materials that I intend to cut and try to sell. But I should also assess the amount of labor involved in the cutting.
Moonstone is near transparent, tends to have fissures that can not be ground away, and can have chunks fall away. Terapeak indicates that the better stones sell in the $8-30 with a 54% sell through.
Keeping in mind that I picked up the moonstone before I found Terapeak (and from that I've decided better starting materials would be rhodochrosite, jasper, pietersite, and boulder opal) I'd have to say moonstone is a bad option unless you are setting your own stones (or you have 3rd world labor and vast quantities of cheap rough moonstone at your disposal).
