Can I skip a few belts while cabbing?

Sometimes I skip wheels on my Genie, probably the same thing. EDIT: Forgot to mention, I especially skip wheels with the softer stones.

Remember, each belts job is to remove the scratches from the last one.

As you've seen- a 400 grit SC belt becomes effectively 600-800-1200 pretty fast as the SC breaks down, where a diamond belt that is wearing thin still cuts with the same sized particles, just slower because there are less of those particles left.

It also depends a lot on what brand of diamond belts you are using, the Rayspan true circle belts go 240-320-600-1200-8000, and that works pretty well, but skipping just one of these means you will be facing one of two scenarios- either scratches that cannot be removed, or else hours of effort to clean them up.

And as Randy mentions, softer stones will be more forgiving since finer abrasive will be more aggressive than on harder material.

If I was to make a suggestion, I would say get a 600 grit diamond belt and skip the 400.

And for anything softer than agate you might get away with skipping the 120, since its pretty close to 80 in size, 220 should be pretty effective in cleaning up after shaping with the 80.

But mixing SC and diamond over the long haul is going to complicate things and cause a lot of frustration I think

I don't know if you can have too many steps with wheels or belts. The coarser the grit the faster the cutting or polishing. If you skip, you spend more time on the finer grit. Like Andy said, you can skip wheels on softer material. If you don't want to keep changing belts, batch your work. Do 10 or 15 cabs on a belt before changing it. I usually do 4 to 7 cabs at a time, but all my wheels are fixed. I do need to change my water tray when I go from the 80-220 to the 600-1200 to the 8,000-14000.

I find that each material is different. For agates; I think they are the toughest any skipping seems to me much more time on the next wheel. For really soft stones I usually start with a 280 soft wheel and then skip the 600 and go right to 1200; stuff that is a 2 to 4 in hardness. Some materials are really chippy and they get killed on the 60 or 80 hard wheels; so I start them on the 200 hard wheel.

I agree with Adrian (and others). The little effort to swap belts is nothing compared to the extra work trying to sand with too fine a belt. The 120 would not be necessary but would take out 80 scratches much faster than the 220. I also generally do three or four cabs at a time to speed up the process. If your 1200 belt is causing scratches break it in with a diamond dresser or blade dresser or hold an agate flat against it.

Break down Tweetie and buy one more diamond belt, a 600. Then you'll be set. I try to cut around 10-15 cabs at a time so I only change belts once per session.

Tweetie:I traded in my Genie because I just found it easier to pre-form,grind out any tool marks and go to a vibe tumbler.You can do more cutting etc. while tumbling.I think a Lot-0 would be great.This is like tumbling slabs so you want about half filler to keep them separated-I think small un-charged ceramic cylinders work perfectly.Also,Rapid Polish#61 seems best for cabs and slabs.Oh yeah,a one day run in 800A.O. before pre-polish seems to help.Mike.