More questions than answers

There has been an insane cold bug floating around the area and it was my turn to catch it.

Yuk.

A curious thing showed itself regarding my diet. On increasing my calories quickly I found that I started to gain weight. So I stopped adding calories at 2600 and after a week I started losing weight again.

Then this cold hit and I changed my calorie intake to mainly soups. After a few days I dropped down to 294.

In the past I've had problems with carbs. Mainly from bloating. Maybe I need to find a way to bring in more meat somehow.

I'm hesitant on messing with something that controls my hunger so well. But when it causes 4-8 pounds of bloating over the week? That and I'm starting to develop heartburn. Back in the early 90s I ate way too many carbs and I developed acid reflux. When I cut out the carbs it went away. So I might not have a choice in the matter.

GAH!

It would appear that I managed to buy my GDX right before a pullback:



Still, the longer term chart (4 box rev) is indicting that it'll be on its way up to 91.

More interesting to me is that GLD has started its pullback and should be headed to somewhere around 85:



I'm looking to buy at that point.

=====

3 box rev is now showing 79 as a possible bottom. 4 box rev won't update the price objective until it drops to around 87.

I tend to trust the 4 box rev more but the 3 day can give a better idea of short term movement.

I'm irritated that I jumped into GDX at the start of a pull back, but, ehh... all signs point to it going up over time.

More thoughts on polish

I got around to working with the rhodochrosite again.

It seems that the non-diamond grits smooth more than scratch away.

Anyway, I tried different things with the four stones.

#1 stone - I took it through a 1200 grit polish. The scratches showed up again. So on rhodochrosite it isn't a matter of a grit inbetween 600 and 1200. It is that the 1200 cuts pretty deep into rhodochrosite.

#2 stone - From the tripoli polish I took it through a 14K grit polish. I started on the outside of the pad and that put in scratches. After moving near the center I was able to get rid of most of the scratches I put in and get near the tripoli polish.

#3 stone - From the tripoli polish I took it through a cerium oxide polish. This improved the tripoli polish a great deal. But the finish was just a wee bit hazy.

#4 stone I set aside to mull my options.

I'm starting to think that taking the stone down to a 14K grit polish and then over to the cerium oxide might be best. I say this because even if the diamond does put scratches in the stone, it prepares the surface to take a better polish.

What I'm wondering now is should I do a tripoli polish inbetween the 14K grit and the cerium oxide. That would definitely get rid of all scratches, but it might rough up the 14K grit's work. Perhaps I'll test that if the 14K grit to cerium oxide doesn't work.

========

AH HA!!

Scroll near the end of that and click through next in thread.

OK, so soft stone is issue #1 with regards to high gloss finish. The other is speed.

The two stones I ran through the cerium oxide were done on the outside of the wheel.

So... what now?

I've taken these stones to 14K twice and then up to a tripoli polish. One of the threads in the link above indicates that a 600 grit sanding is sufficient before a slow cerium oxide polish.

I think I'll next work all the stones through cerium oxide on the inside of the pad. The next three stones are larger rhodochrosite that I'll try taking down to 600 grit before moving to the polish.

I also poked around google images looking for some finished rhodochrosite being sold. I think I was expecting a better finish than the stone can give.

If these stones work out I think I'll have to hunt around to find out how to get rid of the final scratches in my moonstone. I suspect that a good run through with the cerium oxide might do the trick.

Crazy morning

Well I'm sure glad I waited until the morning to put in my trades.

I confirmed that IDU and IXP still looked bad. Then I looked at PCU again and decided to wait for a pullback before buying --


After mucking with the settings a bit (larger box size), I came up with this --


Not sure if that is a pullback or the makings of a reversal.

Went instead with GDX --



I have held some aside to watch for pullbacks in GLD and PCU.


=============

Well isn't that nifty. Seems the StockChart charts that I linked in update. I was looking at what I thought was an old chart in my 3/16 post and wondering why I thought I'd enter PCU. Then I noticed that the data updated.

Interesting... can't really show old chart data, but can link to one ongoing chart. Perhaps on the link list to the right.

=============

Nifty. Seems I'll have to keep an eye on EFA and VAW as well.

Rethinking tripoli

I can not find any diamond grit in a size between 600 and 1200.

However I have read that tripoli is comparable to 800-1200 diamond grit.

Some if not most of my problems are that the 1200 grit deals very slowly with the scratches from the 600 grit step.

I decided to take my rhodochrosite trough a tripoli polish. It appeared to remove the 600 grit scratches that I had been dealing with. It did dig deeper along mineral changes in the stone (white wavy bits) but not very bad. I'm interested in what the 1200 diamond grit will do with the stone now.

Something that I find maddening is that I'm now sure that if I was willing to drop the $1K - 2K for a proper cabbing setup I wouldn't be having this issue. I say this because I think that the expanding wheels on a full cabbing machine would take these scratches out in short order. Or to put it a different way - I'm not sure that I'm doing anything wrong, it is just that my equipment works the stone slowly.

It is a funny situation. Drop a couple grand and *know* I have equipment that can make better stones than I'm able but have no idea if I can make stones people will buy. Or, drop a couple hundred dollars that I'm willing to lose in order to test a possible income stream and constantly question if I can make a go of stones or if I'm just dealing with the limitations of my starting equipment.

Looks like I'll be dropping IXP and maybe IDU.





Will probably move into PCU.



I keep hearing good things about GLD and GDX. GDX looks ok but not as good as PCU. GLD looks like it will have a large pullback soon. I may hop on at that point.

Diet update

As of this morning I'm down to 299.

So down 29 pounds in around 3.5 weeks. This includes two birthday steak dinners (yes, my daughter takes after me).

One of my bosses went on a diet early 2000 which consisted of very low calorie intake for most of the day and eating like a hog for one meal. The catch was that the large meal had to be consumed within an hour. I didn't eat like a hog during those birthday meals but they were large and finished within an hour. Interesting data:

Day after first meal I gained a half pound and the day after that I dropped 3.5

Day after second meal I gained 1.5 pounds and two days later I dropped 2.5

I should not have dropped my calories down to 1600. For the past week and a half I've been falling asleep soon after coming home. At the end of last week I noticed a slowdown in reaction times during driving. Nothing dangerous, but still noticeable. Also been dealing with light to moderate cold symptoms. I'm astounded at the hunger control of the fiber, fat, and chewing gum.

As of 3/6 my daily calorie intake has been at 2000. This morning I chose to up my calories by 200 and will now add 200 every Monday & Thursday until my current calorie target of 2800 is hit (or lower if I drop below 290 before 3/20.

I noticed the calorie increase today around 1pm when my cold symptoms disappeared.

I'm thinking that I should have started at 2000 calories as opposed to 1600.

It's funny. Seems I tossed myself out of the frying pan and into the fire with the start of my diet. But I find I'm sleeping better and that I'm not so easily out of breath.

All in all I'm pleased.

=======

Forgot to mention what I'm eating now.

Breakfast:

12 ounces yogurt: 210 calories

4 ounces muesli: 200 calories

dried fruit (around 11 pieces of apple, pear, and pineapple): 200 calories

Divided up for 14 small meals every half hour from 10am-5pm:

32 ounces V-8: 200 calories

3 ounces crackers: 360 calories

string cheese: 60 calories

apple: 50 calories

jerky: 100 calories

extra cheese/stuff: 100 calories

Dinner:

700 calories of meat and fiber carbs

Not sure if I should add Thursday's 200 calories to lunch or split it up between breakfast and dinner. The more I eat during the day, the less slow I feel. The less I eat in the morning the longer it takes for me to feel human. Small dinners are putting me to sleep within a half hour of finishing.

As of this moment I'm leaning towards upping my breakfast and dinner.

======

3/16 update --

I thought about what I said about dinner a bit more and now think the opposite is true. It is too many additional calories in comparison to what I took in during the day that puts me asleep.

So I'm planning to put the additional calories into breakfast and the snacks throughout the day

Assessment

Things have been coming to a head in the health department.

I've mentioned a few times in the past how the weather was hurting me. Well, it had gotten to the point where any front moving through the area would leave me useless. It didn't need to rain where I was at for this to happen, just if the pressure dropped in the area.

To this was added the problem of me having gained around forty pounds in four months.

Full disclosure: I had to stop my calisthenics early last year. I was running out of air before I could work up a sweat. My allergist said I had "exercise induced asthma" and that I should do what I could and wait for the allergy shots to start working. Well, "doing what I could" amounted to keeping myself from becoming a complete invalid. Around October I was able to start my calisthenics again and I was to the point where I could work up a sweat before my lungs gave out. Around Dec. I found my lungs were giving out too soon again. I determined that this was due to my weight gain.

But the lack of activity was not the cause of my rapid weight gain from 11/07 to 2/08. No, that was caused by my own stupidity. See, I had taken to bringing some trail mix of the dried fruit variety to work to snack on and in Nov. I switched brands to one that had more sunflower seeds. I had no clue how many calories sunflower seeds packed. At the start of this month, on a whim I checked the label. 140 calories per serving with nine servings per bag. So I was taking in around 1200 extra calories a day.

The rapid weight gain was causing me problems with my sleep and things were shaping up to be a repeat of the health problems of 2006.

I've started two things to turn this around.

One is to change my style of nasal wash. Some background on that - at the start of my health issues in 2006 my wife suggested I start using a neti pot nasal wash as it had been recommended on websites she frequents. I tried it a few times, found it to be very unpleasant an stopped. After a few days my head was pounding. So I started again and had some small relief but stopped again thinking the relief was a coincidence. Again, after a few days my head was pounding. So it did help, just very little.

Fast forward to Dec of last year -- Instapundit posted the second item about nasal washing in about six months. Out of curiosity I checked out the NeilMed products. After about three days I determined that the NeilMed system was far superior to the neti pot style.

I found a few technique changes that helped a great deal. One I found in the NeilMed literature to the effect of snorting the remaining wash back up the nose after finishing one side. That was a horrendous experience. However within a day the worst of my ear complaints went away. The other technique was tilting my head over the sink so that my chin was almost touching my chest and that the top of my head was nearly pointing down. This causes the wash to run through the frontal sinuses.

Lastly, while hunting around for nasal wash recipes I found two items of note. One, don't use oil based ingredients in the wash. I came across an ENT site that indicated that oil in the nose can get into the lungs and that oil in the lungs can cause pneumonia. And two, I found a hydrogen peroxide recipe that cleared my head right up. In experimenting around I've found the following:

Baking Soda -- 1/4 - 1/2tsp per 8oz of water:
This is used to make the wash more comfortable by changing the acidity of the salt you'll be using.

Salt -- 1/2 - 1.5tsp per 8oz of water:
This is used to dry out the sinuses. I.E. too much and your sinuses will be uncomfortably dry and too little won't do much at all.

Hydrogen Peroxide (3%)-- 1/8 - 1/4tsp per 8oz of water:
I made the mistake of thinking that I should feel the hydrogen peroxide doing something (bubbling) in my head and upped the dose to 1/2tsp. I still felt nothing during the wash but by late afternoon my sinuses were very dry. With that in mind, I suggest adding this only when the salt and baking soda alone don't work. Even then, bear in mind that you won't know how effective it is for several hours after. So please keep the initial dose low.

Within a week of using the NeilMed and the new recipe I found that weather fronts just gave me a minor headache. I don't know how to explain this properly. I've not felt this good since 2004.

But now onto the problem with the rapid weight gain and its effects on my sleep. I decided I would not become the near invalid I was in 2006 and have started a diet.

In the past I found the following to be a good rule of thumb:
10 x bodyweight in calories - very slow and safe weight loss
12-13 x bodyweight in calories - maintains current bodyweight
15 x bodyweight in calories - very slow and safe weight gain with minimal fat gain

I decided my health was showing signs that something drastic was needed up front. So I started the following 1600 calorie diet:

Breakfast: 1/2cup musli in 3/2cup sugar free yogurt. Approximately 500 calories.
Dinner: Approximately 500 calories of lean meat, veggies, and whole grains.
From 10am - 5pm every half hour: 2-3 Kashi crackers or chips and 2oz of V8 low sodium juice. (low sodium V8 is very bland and I suggest adding some hot sauce of some sort)

The all day crackers and V8 is based off of experiments I've done in the past. I found that fiber can help one feel physically full but that the feeling passes quickly. In one experiment involving very large salads every night I found that I could be physically full and yet still be very hungry. That is where the Kashi crackers come in. Besides having a good deal of fiber, they have a goodly amount of fat. Fat intake is what tells the brain to be quiet about hunger.

I'm wholly surprised at how well the V8 and Kashi crackers throughout the day help with hunger pangs. At most they've been at the annoying but still easily controllable level. I've started to chew gum as well as I've read the act of chewing can curb hunger. I've found that it drops the hunger level down to a very manageable level.

Now this 1600 calorie diet is not maintainable. My intent in doing this is to drop as much as I can before my body fights to enter starvation mode (i.e. metabolism drops, mental focus degrades, etc). I'm trying to balance two sides as a very low calorie diet will force me to add calories sooner and will avoid entering the muscle cannibalization stage of starvation mode.

I started this diet on Feb 14 and lost 21 pounds the first week. I'm assuming that most of that is water. Based on how tired I am currently I will begin upping my calories this Thursday (2/28). I'm aiming at (bodyweight - 20) x 10 which will allow me to drop approximately 1-3 pounds a week. However, I may not just add the difference in calories to the 1600 I'm taking in now. No, I'll add 200 calories a week until I hit my target. I'm guessing that on Thursday my target will by 2800 calories and that it'll be six weeks before I can hit that. In those six weeks I'll most likely have lost more and I'll have to readjust.

My problems with focus are keeping me from my stones but I try to change that shortly.

Rhodochrosite

The moonstone is getting me down. I've decided that I'll try to sell the 16x8mm, 13x10mm, 16x9mm, and 14x12mm as is. Assuming there aren't major problems with the polish. I'll repolish the last four moonstones next week. I should be getting my scale in next week and I'll start putting them up on ebay.

In the meantime I'm going to change materials in an effort to get out of my funk.

Here is one of my parcels of rhodochrosite shown wet -



I'm going to flatten the bottoms and mark out the template. As rhodochrosite is soft (3.5 - 4 Moh's scale) I'll not get close to the line with the 100grit wheel. I'm not sure if I'll form the dome on the 220grit wheel or try to do a rough in on the 100grit.

==================

The 100grit wheel was very fast on this stone. I didn't attempt the dome on that wheel. Nothing bad happened but I'm not going to use the 100grit wheel on my other rhodocrosite parcel.

The 220grit wheel was very fast as well. I was on the edge of my seat while putting in the shallow 45 degree bottom edge.

The stone in the upper left had some gouges into the dome that I couldn't work around. I ended up cutting that stone very thin. You can see the bottom of a gouge in the picture. My daughter will enjoy that stone.

Moonstone: 13x10mm and 15x9mm

I find it amazing what a strong light and close-ups of less than an inch will reveal .

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.

========

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.




======================================

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).

ETF fun

Current state of my individual and IRA funds.

Individual --

ADM ARCHER DANIELS MIDLAND CO (just added)
IDU UTILITIES INDX (ISHARES DJ-US) 16.15% gain
IXP ISHARES S&P GLBL TELECOMM SE 26.59% gain
IYE ENERGY INDX (ISHARES DJ-US) 36.92% gain
VAW VANGUARD MATERIALS ETF 25.25% gain

Sold IXG and ICF on 11/26 as they were huge losers and bought ADM.

12/31/07 -- 26.18% gain... would have been better without IXG and ICF.

IRA --

AGG LEHMAN AGG BOND FUND ISHARES -0.91% loss
EFA EURO-ASIA INDX (MSCI-ISHARES) 24.38% gain
IWD RUSSELL 1000 VALUE (ISHARES) 10% gain
IWF RUSSELL 1000 GROWTH (ISHARES) 14.92% gain
TIP LEH US TREAS INF FD (ISHARES) 2.06% gain

12/31/07 -- 12.86% gain... but will be hurt this year and probably next.

I've sold all but EFA which I'll bring up to 20% of holding in the IRA.

I'll buy IDU, IXP, IYE, and VAW in equal amounts.

=========================

Some additional info:

EFA (avg of the past 5 yrs: 19.93%)--
3/8/02 - 2/5/08 79.77%
1/5/07 - 12/28/07 7.88%
1/6/06 - 12/29/06 23.2%
1/7/05 - 12/30/05 11.26%
1/2/04 - 12/31/04 20.89%
1/3/03 - 12/26/03 36.45%

ADM (avg of the past 5 yrs: 29.57%)--
4/15/83 - 2/5/08 1245.43%
1/5/07 - 12/31/07 45.28%
1/6/06 - 12/29/06 22.69%
1/7/05 - 12/16/05 12.33%
1/9/04 - 12/31/04 47.55%
1/10/03 - 12/19/03 20%

IDU (avg of the past 5yrs: 16.51%)--
6/30/00 - 2/5/08 39.27%
1/5/07 - 12/31/07 13.95%
1/6/06 - 12/29/06 17.54%
1/7/05 - 12/30/05 11.3%
1/2/04 - 12/31/04 20.08%
1/3/03 - 12/26/03 19.71%

IXP (avg of the past 5 yrs: 17.2%)--
3/8/02 - 2/5/08 53.18%
1/5/07 - 12/31/07 22.3%
1/6/06 - 12/29/06 30.11%
1/7/05 - 12/30/05 -9.03%
1/2/04 - 12/31/04 20.23%
1/3/03 - 12/26/03 22.39%

IYE (avg of the past 5 yrs: 28.4%)--
6/23/00 - 2/5/08 129.11%
1/5/07 - 12/31/07 34.48%
1/6/06 - 12/29/06 18.76%
1/7/05 - 12/30/05 33.37%
1/2/04 - 12/31/04 31.28%
1/3/03 - 12/26/03 24.09%

VAW (avg of the past 4 yrs: 16.2%)--
2/6/04 - 2/5/08 66.62%
1/5/07 - 12/28/07 25.73%
1/6/06 - 12/29/06 17.63%
1/7/05 - 12/30/05 1.78%
2/4/04 - 12/31/04 19.65%

The ongoing saga of the moonstones

A few updates.

I got the velvet and here's an example with my 40watt lamp in close-



I attempted a few pics with two lamps on the stone but multiple lights killed the blue flash. It was strange. I could see the blue but the camera didn't pick it up.

So I picked up a lamp and some 75watt bulbs.

Here's an example with the lamp in close --



And one in the photobox (sorry about the blurring) -



The photobox pic needs a much stronger lamp.

At this point I checked out terapeak and confirmed the main three price groups.

For the past 30days:

• $0.01-1.99 -- generally no flash and near solid color
• $2-5.00 -- a great deal of silk and some flash
• $5-203.99 -- strong blue with the top prices going for clarity and size
  

That shows I'm in the top bracket for most of the parcel. In looking at the pics of the top stones it was clear that a strong lamp at a distance was used. So I tried a few pics with the lamp farther away from the stone. Here's one -



All of the above pics are of the same stone.

My current issue is that I need to repolish all of them.

As I said, when my head gets bad, detail work suffers. I noticed scratches on all of the stones in my pics. They really show up in bright light and magnification.

But such polishing is something I know I can do. So things aren't so bad... just moving much slower than I'd like.

=========

Ok, my head is feeling a bit better.

Going to do a few before pics and then repolish.

16x8mm can be seen above.

13x10mm --


15x9mm --


16x9mm --


14x12mm --


===============

First attempted to repolish on the 14K grit. Based on how slow it went I decided to try going back to the 600 grit.

The 600 grit gives a matte polish and the 1200 grit gives the beginning of the mirror polish. That matte polish hides scratches that the loupe doesn't show (or that I couldn't see). I'm thinking I should have only gone back to the 1200 grit. In working the stones tonight I'm starting to think I need a 800-900 grit step because the 600 to 1200 grit just moves too slow.

Might stop watching the forex markets

I've been trying to figure out a way to trade forex over a week to month time frame. Some trades come out spectacular... and the losses are just as huge.

I'm coming to the conclusion that forex is geared for day trading. At least for the small investor. The only way that I see long term trades working is with carry trades. And that does not look like it is for the small player.

I'm not sure if it is my ongoing headaches that are making it hard for me to see how to work forex, but at this point I'm going to stop following it and go back to watching/trading ETFs.

Considering that there are monetary, gold, and silver ETFs now I think I should be good.

Started on the good moonstone

As I mentioned in the update to the last forex post the weather has been hurting me. I've been trying to muddle through.

I won two auctions for some rhodochrosite that I'll be cutting soon.

In the meantime I cut the good moonstone I bought a while ago.

Because my head has been fogged for several weeks now I managed to forget to take pictures of each step.

Needless to say, moonstone is a bit of a pain. On first viewing it looked like I had a number of large stones in the parcel. However, to orient to the very nice blue flash, many stones had to be cut smaller. Around half were of a size that I went forward with. The rest would end up being very small. If the larger stones do well I'll cut and sell the small ones in a parcel.

I'll put up some pics of the finished moonstone in a bit.

===========================================

Well this is annoying. My lighting is much too weak. I couldn't get pics of the standout stones as the flash washed them out.

I managed a pic of them all here -



I'm feeling pretty lucky that I picked up as much blue flash as I did as I oriented for head on viewing.

Here is an example of the flash washout. It was much worse with the single stones.



I need a few strong lamps.

===========================================

Downloaded the manuals for my wife's camera and tried a few more things.

Still think I need to get the strong lamps. But the moonstone is tough on black (which shows the blue flash best). Any strong light makes the stones glow white and washes out the blue.

=\




I very much like how the polish came out. You can clearly see the inside of my photo box reflected in the stones. I polished down to 14K diamond grit.

===========================================

At my wife's suggestion I hunted around ebay for user groups and guides on photography focused on jewelry. I found a list of guides by a "camerajim" and tried a few of the things he pointed out.



I'm well pleased.

This was done outside of my photobox with only one lamp. I need to tinker a bit more but I think I may have a few ebay ready photos real soon.

Might also try the pic under water as that reduces glare as well.

===========================================

Yet another update -

Head is hurting near 2006 levels. Makes me leery of trying anything requiring attention.

Very concerning. Not at the point where I feel the need to go round to all the docs, but pretty close.

Think the temps recently going from 17 degrees to 80 in a few days time is what is causing the problem. It isn't much fun to have a built in barometer in one's head. No, not fun at all. Would rather be able to predict the weather with my knee.

Anyhow, in comparing my moonstone with what is out on terapeak it looks like they might go for far more than the $10-20 that I first thought. Considering my low feedback (30) it probably won't but it is still a possibility.

With that in mind, my wife suggested that the black foam I'm using could turn away the high ticket item buyers. She is going to pick up some matte black velvet and a tripod for me.

She is far kinder to me than I deserve.

That leaves my rhodochrosite. I may mark it out this week but my head's condition makes me a bit scared to cut it as it is such a soft rock.

Thing is I have no idea when the weather (pressure/temps) will settle out and come February, the juniper pollen will be in the air. So, right now, I may be better off than I will be in a month.

Just don't know.

=\

More thoughts on starting materials

Thought about what I'd start with some more.

Ruby rough is kinda spendy and good jade rough is hard to find.

I thought again on the price range I should start with. I wanted to keep it low at first because my ebay feedback is low but good. When such is the case and I have no brick-and-mortar to back me I can not risk high price items on ebay. The item will sell much lower than it should because potential buyers will move on past because they don't trust me.


But I think I aimed too low. I picked $10-20 and I think I can safely look in the $10-40 range.

That opens the door for new materials.

So, using both ebay searches and terapeak research on what sells as a cab and what has decently priced rough, I've decided to look at pietersite, jasper (ocean and any with good "pictures"), rhodochrosite (shows up in ebay as rhodocrosite quite often), and boulder opal.

I've mentioned in the past that I was spooked by the amount of jasper and agate sold as fancy cabs. Well I'm not positive, but, I think I may have been wrong. The fancy cabs do well but so do the plain ovals and rounds if they have good pictures/patterns.

I'm also doing research into making silver chains as they go well in that price range.

I'm seeing this more and more. Where the signals on the weekly chart are very good... after the fact.

As the price moves, signals are given that often reverse by mid-week. That is common with all signals but on a weekly chart there is much time lost. I'm also seeing where very good gains are being eaten up in the next entry.

What I've seen in this last batch is where the price reversed well under my limit. So if I reset my limits lower in the future I won't make the high returns that I'm after.

Hmmm.


EUR/USD - Moved stop on short 1.4612, stop 1.4600, limit 1.4105 and it limited out shortly thereafter. Profit diff 12.
GBP/USD - Watching.
AUD/USD - Watching.
USD/CAD - Stopped out on long 1.0021. Loss diff 255.
EUR/JPY - No change on long 164.42, stop 159.50.
GBP/JPY - No change on long 228.52, stop 222.80, limit 236.71.

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Update:

Temps that go from 15 degrees to 70 hurt my head. Been near worthless.

EUR/JPY - Stopped out long 164.42 on 12/31. Profit diff 42
GBP/JPY - Stopped out long 228.52 on 12/31. Loss diff -572

Learned a few things

Rounded bezel -
Trying to round it on the 220grit sanding step was not good enough. I'll try doing it on the 220grit grinding step in the same manner as rounding the peak of the dome in the 100grit grinding step.

Scratches -
In the cab books I saw mention of scratches and getting rid of the previous step's scratches before moving on. I had thought that I had not seen that until this batch. But that isn't the case. On a few of my found rocks I saw scratches show up at polishing that I thought came from me being sloppy and hitting the arbor nut.

After the scratches came up on the obsidian I decided that I'd use my loupe on the stone before moving on. I was surprised at how often they showed up. In most of the materials I was able to go back and work it out. But on a few (petrified wood mainly), further work made more scratches. In those cases I'd try to minimize the scratch and then work it out on the next grit.

1200 diamond grit -
It arrived just in time.

I found that it cut much slower than the tripoli but I had no undercutting. It also runs hotter. I needed to swap out the stones that I was working in order to keep them cool enough to stay on the dop.

On some rocks I was beginning to think that it didn't give as good of a polish as the tripoli, but I'm not sure. It shined the clear areas on the crazy lace agates to a high gloss. So in this case, I'm thinking it was the material that didn't give a high gloss with 1200grit. Based on that assumption I was tempted to break out the cerium oxide. However, I was worried that it would chew the material up like the tripoli.

I had bought 14K diamond grit along with the 1200, but forgot to buy the second uncharged disk.

=\

Regardless, I'm left thinking that not only should I get 50K grit in case I run across more stones with very soft parts but maybe a grit somewhere around 800-1000 because the 1200 is pretty slow.

Update:
I had another thought regarding the 1200 diamond grit.

I've been buying the cheapest paste (5gr for ~$5 (cheaper diamond paste has less diamond)) and it has worked well because I try to do all the primary work on the wheels. By that I mean I don't want it to cut fast. But I wonder if I higher density diamond paste would take care of the slowness I'm seeing.

Opalized Petrified Wood from Arizona

Some chipping on the larger stone. I didn't resize and will just free-form it.



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Like the WY stone, 100grit wheel tore through it.



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220grit grind went smoothly



And the large one backlit... just because



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600grit sanding -

220 and 360grit sandings went smoothly.



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1200grit Polish --

Opalized Petrified Wood from Wyoming

Some chipping but nothing large.



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100grit wheel was fast on this stone. Also left a number of scratches.

Cabbing very large stones is a pain. The large one here is 52x38mm.



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220grit grind went smoothly



And the large one backlit... just because



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600grit sanding -

220 and 360grit sandings had several scratches develop. I got rid of most of them but a few more showed up when I tried to get rid of all of them.



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1200grit Polish --

Rodeo Lace Agate

Had some additional chipping on some of the stones. The one with two bezel lines was a hard choice - use the bottom as top and have a less interesting pattern or keep the same top and take the stone inside of the template.

I chose the better pattern.



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I worked this stone right after the Crazy Lace. In comparison it felt as soft as compressed clay. The 100grit wheel was very fast on this material.

The round came apart in an unclean break. Can't use the glue to fix it.



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220grit grind -



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600grit sanding -

220 and 360grit sandings went smoothly.




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1200grit Polish --