Polishing cabs, value time? Re-inventing the wheel kinda.
Nov 14, 2023 16:57:22 GMT -5
rime, liveoak, and 1 more like this
Post by glennz01 on Nov 14, 2023 16:57:22 GMT -5
Boo, I know y'all haven't seen me around in years it seems like. Self employment running my own heavy euipment business startup and of course lapidary business kept me busy, now that its winter, as long as i can survive snowmagedden, ill get time to play with and cut all the rocks ive been finding!
Thought id make a post as i had everyone in mind in the back of my head, but finally had a slightly down day!
So since i'm self employed and value time since i never know what my schedule will be, ive always been dissatisfied with the time it took to make a flawless (void of scratches) cabs, especially with agate.
So prior to my revolutionary finding and continuing, ive been using the premium resin wheels made by Baltic abrasives. other manufactures recently started making similar wheels but usually cost more. the premium resin wheels ive had on for years and ran through hundreds of cabs, still are almost like they are just broke in! the 280 soft wheel from DP always wore ot quick and transitioning to 220 to 280 was always time consuming, less time consuming with the premium wheels.
However it still took too long for my taste.
So this is where my experimentation came in and currently proven strategy that i wont ever change most likely for hard stuff.
I took off the 220 hard wheel and started playing with other hard wheels. what i have found is that 1st grit kept at 80 (i may go to larger grit sizes for agate in future though) and the 2nd hard wheel is 1,500 grit. everything else thus far normal.
Now, if i have a preform of agate, I can make a cab in about 10-15 min this encludes the time between each stage after stage 2 to dry it off ad sharpie any remaining scratches from the prior wheel that needs corrected before moving on (about 1 min per wheel). Since ive done thisa fw other local lapidary friends also replaced their 220 wheels.
Ive made a few hundred cabs on the 1,500 electroplated wheel already and its still going strong which was surprising.
Thought id make a post as i had everyone in mind in the back of my head, but finally had a slightly down day!
So since i'm self employed and value time since i never know what my schedule will be, ive always been dissatisfied with the time it took to make a flawless (void of scratches) cabs, especially with agate.
So prior to my revolutionary finding and continuing, ive been using the premium resin wheels made by Baltic abrasives. other manufactures recently started making similar wheels but usually cost more. the premium resin wheels ive had on for years and ran through hundreds of cabs, still are almost like they are just broke in! the 280 soft wheel from DP always wore ot quick and transitioning to 220 to 280 was always time consuming, less time consuming with the premium wheels.
However it still took too long for my taste.
So this is where my experimentation came in and currently proven strategy that i wont ever change most likely for hard stuff.
I took off the 220 hard wheel and started playing with other hard wheels. what i have found is that 1st grit kept at 80 (i may go to larger grit sizes for agate in future though) and the 2nd hard wheel is 1,500 grit. everything else thus far normal.
Now, if i have a preform of agate, I can make a cab in about 10-15 min this encludes the time between each stage after stage 2 to dry it off ad sharpie any remaining scratches from the prior wheel that needs corrected before moving on (about 1 min per wheel). Since ive done thisa fw other local lapidary friends also replaced their 220 wheels.
Ive made a few hundred cabs on the 1,500 electroplated wheel already and its still going strong which was surprising.
im making another batch of cabs, im going to see if i can skip the 280 grit soft wheel altogether for hard materials, i can with soft material. If i can replace it, i'll probably add a 10k grit soft wheel at the end of the set instead of 3k for final.
you can see some of my cabs and other things in my lapidary fb group (link in signature). I'll probably have at least 100 cabs (mostly alaskan) to post soon.
facebook messenger is generally the easiest way to reach me these days.
facebook messenger is generally the easiest way to reach me these days.
