Flat Lap Pro's, you're my only hope.

I hear you...my buddies rock shop doesn't have the best lighting and when I come home I find scratches I didn't see while working on them. I am new at this too, so think sometimes I just try to rush things a bit. Would be easier if I had my own equipment and didn't feel like I needed to maximize my time (3-4 hrs) in his shop.

I have a Ameritool 8" going on 3 years now and love that machine. Best part is being able to cab indoors. Use to do it in our dining room until recently. Now the spare bedroom is my lapidary shop and have Diane off my back!

I run my machine full speed on everything. Also found out that the PSA backed discs were a waste of money. Better to buy the non sticky discs and just center it on the backing plate by eye ball. And you'll only need 1 backing plate instead of 1 for every disc you buy. Just wash it between use. Spin them around my hand until centered. Only takes a few seconds. Otherwise you'll never get the disc centered perfectly while trying to glue it on. Then they vibrate like crazy because the machine is out of balance.

The original discs that came with the machine wore out a long time ago and replaced all of them with metal ones, which last a long time. Also start out using 80. The 180 took forever to shape things. Tried 100 but still took too long. 80 works great and you can make 10 cabs in the time it takes to shape 1. 99% of the rock I work with is extremely hard jasper & agate. If I'm working on softer rock, I'll start out with the 180. Also have a 3000 disc that I really like. Much better "pre polish" than the 1200. When grinding/shaping with the 80, I'm rough on the cab, pressing hard and agressively. All the rest I'm very gentle. Remember to rock, roll, spin, twirl with your fingers & wrist. Then finish off by like you're drawing small circles while writing with a pen, like a curly que. Just make the circle larger and larger, rotating with your wrist.

I also set the water dripping as fast as it will drip without becoming a steady stream. Added a hose to the drain tube and drain into a 2 gallon bucket.

First thing I did was throw away the instructions. Making "J" patterns is foolish. I just keep the cab moving, rocking and rolling using wrist action. I also use 3x reading glasses. I never have flat spots.

Aimee, I use the same abrasive pads (different machine) for some cabs. They're excellent. I think you're failing to get all the grinding scratches out before you proceed to sanding. I keep a dry towel near my machine and I thoroughly dry cabs off and inspect them with 10-power magnification in strong light between each step. It's amazing how many scratches show up that I thought were gone.

Usually those "morning after" scratches are leftovers from the 180-grind that subsequent steps failed to remove. Sometimes stones develop a "false polish" during sanding that hides the scratches unless the stone is thoroughly dry. I understand the excitement (and sometimes boredom) that can make one want to hurry on to the next step. But if coarse grinding scratches are present they'll never be removed by fine sanding. You have to go back as many steps as necessary to make sure they're gone.

You need a 10-power loupe. I strongly recommend the Belomo 10X triplet. The quality can't be beat at anything near the price, around $40 delivered. Do a web search. You should probably have an Optivisor as well.

How long should it take to make a cab? As much time as necessary to do a quality job.

How fast to run? Hard to say since I haven't worked with that specific machine. I run my old slant-cabber pretty fast for everything but polishing with oxides. For that I recommend around 150-200 rpm, or as slow as possible without bogging the motor down.

Water? The object is to keep the stone cool and flush away cutting residues. Common sense will tell you when those things are happening.

Polish quality? The final polish depends on the quality of the pre-polish -- and quite a few other things. I've never been satisfied with a 14K polish on most stones. But that opens an entirely new topic. Work on those scratches first!

Spectacular information everyone, thanks so much!!

I will totally agree that it's my 180 to 325 that's giving me the most issues because the scratches I do find are pretty deep and randomly located. I did do a little experiment the other day and covered a clearer agate cab that's been giving me fits (although it's getting better) with dark blue sharpie ink. That way I could watch what the grinder hit through the stone... shocking at how small of a 'footprint' is actually touching at any instant.

Just got really frustrated and needed some advice from the good people of this forum.

To the SHOP!!!

Another tip -- try pencil instead of sharpie. The pencil will show you scratches you didn't see before, as well as showing you what parts of the rock you have yet to hit. And as said above, the sharpie will soak into some stones, which is hard to believe but REALLY annoying when it happens. Happened to me with crazy lace. Now I just use regular pencil. Krystee-the-Amazing covers each cab with pencil and makes sure it is all ground off twice before moving on to the next grit. I don't usually have that much patience.

And for me, yeah, it takes quite a while.