Lapidary in The "Good" Old Days

The good old days were when great material was available and affordable. My experience with lapidary goes back to the late 90's.
The modern era to me is all diamond wheels and pads. My first equipment was purchased from someone who had been doing it a long time.
He had a bunch of old star diamond machines with 80 and 220 diamond grit wheels and I bought one. The machine he was using had those and one Nova wheel. He sold me the star diamond and a lapidary belt sander that used worn 400 grit sand paper and was cooled with a spray bottle. Polishing was on a leather pad with tin oxide. It was okay for some material but undercut on others. I wasn't happy with the results, bought a Genie and went all diamond. Diamond Pacific according to their web page began business in 1972. I couldn't find out when the Genie was introduced. I imagine my star diamond machine originally had silicon carbide wheels. It had a drum which was not covered and I don't know if it was most likely used with sand paper.

Au contraire . . . flathead screws in countersunk holes are one of life’s simple pleasures.