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Post by jasoninsd on Dec 7, 2020 0:59:21 GMT -5
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Post by stephan on Dec 7, 2020 1:29:53 GMT -5
Wow. Those are nicely done, Jason. Loving the Cold Mt., especially. As for the Cherry Creek, satin finish is what I can usually get on these. A member recently talked about getting a better shine on Noreena, which is also softer than most jasper, by letting it get a bit hot. Maybe that works here. It works with jade and obsidian, but I haven’t tried it with jasper. I’d have a little bit of concern about shattering the stone, if I get carried away, especially if it’s brecciated. The bottom edge of the Cold Mt looks a bit chipped. When I get that, On future stones, I usually do more of my cutting at 220 then 80 (maybe an additional 1mm of shaping)if I can. Slower, but less chipping. Nooks, sodalite, Owyhee Jasper and some other hard but brittle stones go that route. If I already have chips, I also give the bottom edge a very quick run along the 220 and 280 before the final shaping ( very quick — not enough to round it, just smooth it).
Very nice work.
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rocket
spending too much on rocks
Quality slabs for quality cabs in 2022
Member since September 2020
Posts: 292
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Post by rocket on Dec 7, 2020 8:04:42 GMT -5
Nice cabs...I especially like the cold mountain thunder egg...maybe I gotta try to listen more to my rocks
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Post by fernwood on Dec 7, 2020 8:12:26 GMT -5
Jason. You are getting very good at that flat lap. The girdles are looking better and better.
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Post by joshuamcduffie on Dec 7, 2020 8:57:36 GMT -5
Looking good, keep it up!
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Post by hummingbirdstones on Dec 7, 2020 9:01:40 GMT -5
Nice job on those, Jason!
Gary Green usually shines up pretty good and I'm wondering why yours doesn't have a really good shine on it.
Tell me your sequence on these, please. I'd like to try to figure it out. 
ETA: Typo
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Post by jasoninsd on Dec 7, 2020 10:39:27 GMT -5
Wow. Those are nicely done, Jason. Loving the Cold Mt., especially. As for the Cherry Creek, satin finish is what I can usually get on these. A member recently talked about getting a better shine on Noreena, which is also softer than most jasper, by letting it get a bit hot. Maybe that works here. It works with jade and obsidian, but I haven’t tried it with jasper. I’d have a little bit of concern about shattering the stone, if I get carried away, especially if it’s brecciated. The bottom edge of the Cold Mt looks a bit chipped. When I get that, On future stones, I usually do more of my cutting at 220 then 80 (maybe an additional 1mm of shaping)if I can. Slower, but less chipping. Nooks, sodalite, Owyhee Jasper and some other hard but brittle stones go that route. If I already have chips, I also give the bottom edge a very quick run along the 220 and 280 before the final shaping ( very quick — not enough to round it, just smooth it). Very nice work. Thanks Stephan!  I agree. That Cold Mountain turned out as well as I was hoping/expecting. I tried using the dremel to put a polish on the Cherry Creek after I was unsuccessful with the polish wheel on the slant cabber. I thought I was getting a great shine on it, until I wiped it off. The silicon on the buffing wheel was making it shine! LOL That chipping on the Cold Mountain frustrated me. I don't think it was from the cutting. This stone is soooo hard to keep together and I think (I might be wrong) it was tiny pieces of the brecciated part that were part of the edge that "came loose" during sanding. I had cut the Cold Mountain too thick, so I "flat lapped" both top and bottom to make it a little thinner before starting to work the cab, so I'm positive those chips happened during the sanding process. I'll post pictures of the "train wreck" that happened last night with another piece of Cold Mountain falling apart during the 500 stage! ARGHHH! Nice cabs...I especially like the cold mountain thunder egg...maybe I gotta try to listen more to my rocks Thanks Rocket! I had to use my dad's hearing aids just to pick up the faintest whisper out of this guy!  Jason. You are getting very good at that flat lap. The girdles are looking better and better. Thank you so much! It really helped me to stop "eyeballing" the girdle and drawing the reference line. I use a FINE tipped Sharpie, but would like to get an even thinner line somehow. I think I might try and scribe the line with metal. I've used roofing nails and they leave a nice silver colored line. So I might try that on a couple to see how it works. Looking good, keep it up! Thank you so much Joshua! Trial and error...error and trial...some are better than others, but it's fun (also read that as "frustrating") learning along the way. Nice job on those, Jason!
Gary Green ususally shines up pretty good and I'm wondering why yours doesn't have a really good shine on it.
Tell me your sequence on these, please. I'd like to try to figure it out. Thanks Robin! I was surprised it didn't shine up more than it did. The Cherry Creek was done before this both of the other two, so when I did the Gary Green I thought, "Maybe here's another one". I've used the same process on the Gary Green as I did the Cold Mountain - which shined up amazingly well. Shaping is done with the 180 grit grinding wheel. Sanding is done with 325/500/1200/3000 sanding/polishing disks (water dripping) Buffing is done with the buffing pad with 14,000 diamond paste (no water) I had been running the slant cabber at top speed for everything prior to these cabs. Now, I keep the grinding wheel on top speed, but I've dropped the sanding wheel speed down to about 2/3 speed - maybe a little less. I have no idea what the RPM would be on that, but it has less "chatter" of the cab against the wheel. The buffing I bring back up to full speed. I've tried light touches against the wheel, I've tried adding pressure to the cab against the wheel. I'm not sure which works better, or what difference that makes. Like I said, I used the same process on the Gary Green as I did on the Cold Mountain...so I'm thrown for a loop on this one... |
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Post by miket on Dec 7, 2020 11:07:03 GMT -5
Nice work, Jason!
I'd say you have the hang of the slant lap for sure!
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Post by jasoninsd on Dec 7, 2020 11:59:55 GMT -5
Nice work, Jason! I'd say you have the hang of the slant lap for sure! Thanks for the words of encouragement Mike! Later today, I'll post some pics of the "train wreck(s)" that happened last night! LOL |
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Post by stephan on Dec 7, 2020 12:32:25 GMT -5
Nice work, Jason! I'd say you have the hang of the slant lap for sure! Thanks for the words of encouragement Mike! Later today, I'll post some pics of the "train wreck(s)" that happened last night! LOL Train wrecks, or rocks that were mumbling when they spoke? |
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Post by jasoninsd on Dec 7, 2020 12:40:33 GMT -5
Thanks for the words of encouragement Mike! Later today, I'll post some pics of the "train wreck(s)" that happened last night! LOL Train wrecks, or rocks that were mumbling when they spoke? A bit if both... |
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Post by stephan on Dec 7, 2020 13:20:58 GMT -5
jasoninsd weird... my first attempt at posting this apparently didn't take. One correction to my above tost "Nooks" should be mookaite. Friggin' autocorecct...! I've used my tip to avoid chipping by shaping with finer grit (technically not "mine, I learned it at the shop), and had also work with with brecciated materials. I use it with Stone Canyon where the healing is less than perfect, as well asstones that have mixed properties, such as crazy lace. In terms of Gary Green shine, I've had variable results. The ultra hard (Mohs approaching 8), porcelain-like material usually shines up fine at 12k. Some material needs to be taken up to 50k or 100k on sueded leather pads (I've used both diamond and cerium on jasper. Both work great -- just make sure you dedicated pads for each, if you try more than one). Experiment with +/- water. Generally I've seen the no water work on jade or obsidian. Results are more mixed and less predictable with jasper and agate, though, in my hands, they generally seem to prefer water, especially the hard ones. I have less experience getting a good shine on soft jaspers. EDIT: Oh, sure, autocorrect changes "mookaite" to "Nooks," but lets me type "autocorecct." 
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Post by hummingbirdstones on Dec 7, 2020 18:01:59 GMT -5
Thanks Robin! I was surprised it didn't shine up more than it did. The Cherry Creek was done before this both of the other two, so when I did the Gary Green I thought, "Maybe here's another one". I've used the same process on the Gary Green as I did the Cold Mountain - which shined up amazingly well. Shaping is done with the 180 grit grinding wheel. Sanding is done with 325/500/1200/3000 sanding/polishing disks (water dripping) Buffing is done with the buffing pad with 14,000 diamond paste (no water) I had been running the slant cabber at top speed for everything prior to these cabs. Now, I keep the grinding wheel on top speed, but I've dropped the sanding wheel speed down to about 2/3 speed - maybe a little less. I have no idea what the RPM would be on that, but it has less "chatter" of the cab against the wheel. The buffing I bring back up to full speed. I've tried light touches against the wheel, I've tried adding pressure to the cab against the wheel. I'm not sure which works better, or what difference that makes. Like I said, I used the same process on the Gary Green as I did on the Cold Mountain...so I'm thrown for a loop on this one... I don't have the slant cabber, so I'm not sure how fast that puppy goes, but I never run my at full speed to cut a stone. I rarely speed mine up past more than half-way. The only time I use full speed is to spin dry my laps.
Especially on that 180, running faster is going to cause chatter and chipping. Start slow and speed it up a bit if you need to.
You're using the correct sequence, so you should be getting a polish on the Gary Green. The only thing I can think of is that your not fully-sanding the stone at each grit and getting out the scratches from the prior grits. You should already have a nice shine on the stone after the 3,000, so I'm kind of stumped. You could try taking it back down to maybe the 600 and take it back up through the rest of the grits and the polish and see if that's the problem.
The only other thing I can think of is that you're flooding the lap with water and the stones are "hydroplaning" on the lap. Slow those laps down and slow the drip down if you have it streaming like a faucet on the laps. A drip every few seconds is really all you need on there.
If that doesn't work, send me the stone and I'll see if I can get it to polish. It could be a dud, but I've never had a piece of Gary Green not polish.  |
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Post by jasoninsd on Dec 7, 2020 18:34:02 GMT -5
jasoninsd weird... my first attempt at posting this apparently didn't take. One correction to my above tost "Nooks" should be mookaite. Friggin' autocorecct...! I've used my tip to avoid chipping by shaping with finer grit (technically not "mine, I learned it at the shop), and had also work with with brecciated materials. I use it with Stone Canyon where the healing is less than perfect, as well asstones that have mixed properties, such as crazy lace. In terms of Gary Green shine, I've had variable results. The ultra hard (Mohs approaching 8), porcelain-like material usually shines up fine at 12k. Some material needs to be taken up to 50k or 100k on sueded leather pads (I've used both diamond and cerium on jasper. Both work great -- just make sure you dedicated pads for each, if you try more than one). Experiment with +/- water. Generally I've seen the no water work on jade or obsidian. Results are more mixed and less predictable with jasper and agate, though, in my hands, they generally seem to prefer water, especially the hard ones. I have less experience getting a good shine on soft jaspers. Thanks for posting this Stephan. Talk about tons of variables to try and weed through. I think I could try to use the dremel for trying the cerium and/or sueded leather pads as that would be far less expensive than trying to do that on the slant cabber... I'm going to try and back up on the sanding steps like Robin is suggesting below, and if that doesn't work, I've got more options that you've provided. Seriously, thanks for helping me out with this! Thanks Robin! I was surprised it didn't shine up more than it did. The Cherry Creek was done before this both of the other two, so when I did the Gary Green I thought, "Maybe here's another one". I've used the same process on the Gary Green as I did the Cold Mountain - which shined up amazingly well. Shaping is done with the 180 grit grinding wheel. Sanding is done with 325/500/1200/3000 sanding/polishing disks (water dripping) Buffing is done with the buffing pad with 14,000 diamond paste (no water) I had been running the slant cabber at top speed for everything prior to these cabs. Now, I keep the grinding wheel on top speed, but I've dropped the sanding wheel speed down to about 2/3 speed - maybe a little less. I have no idea what the RPM would be on that, but it has less "chatter" of the cab against the wheel. The buffing I bring back up to full speed. I've tried light touches against the wheel, I've tried adding pressure to the cab against the wheel. I'm not sure which works better, or what difference that makes. Like I said, I used the same process on the Gary Green as I did on the Cold Mountain...so I'm thrown for a loop on this one... I don't have the slant cabber, so I'm not sure how fast that puppy goes, but I never run my at full speed to cut a stone. I rarely speed mine up past more than half-way. The only time I use full speed is to spin dry my laps.
Especially on that 180, running faster is going to cause chatter and chipping. Start slow and speed it up a bit if you need to.
You're using the correct sequence, so you should be getting a polish on the Gary Green. The only thing I can think of is that your not fully-sanding the stone at each grit and getting out the scratches from the prior grits. You should already have a nice shine on the stone after the 3,000, so I'm kind of stumped. You could try taking it back down to maybe the 600 and take it back up through the rest of the grits and the polish and see if that's the problem.
The only other thing I can think of is that you're flooding the lap with water and the stones are "hydroplaning" on the lap. Slow those laps down and slow the drip down if you have it streaming like a faucet on the laps. A drip every few seconds is really all you need on there.
If that doesn't work, send me the stone and I'll see if I can get it to polish. It could be a dud, but I've never had a piece of Gary Green not polish.  I should have looked it up this morning, but the slant cabber runs at 800-3400 RPMs. So, I'm apparently running the grinding wheel WAY to fast! As far as not sanding enough...maybe...but I swear I don't see any scratches in that surface...however, maybe I'm not seeing things right. Seeing as how I'm not listening to the rocks very well yet, maybe I'm not seeing them correctly either! Now with regards to the Noah's Ark comment...you might be right on the money with flooding the wheel!!! I'll definitely slow down the wheel and the drip - as it seems both are going WAY too fast! I appreciate the offer to send it to you...if I can't get it to polish, I'm getting out the hammer! (Just kidding!) Now it's one of those things I'm determined to get to the bottom of the problem... Thanks for taking the time to convey all of this to me! I truly appreciate it! |
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Post by hummingbirdstones on Dec 7, 2020 21:55:43 GMT -5
Seeing scratches tip:
Hold your stone under the edge of your lamp. Look across the stone (not at the pretty pattern in it) to see any scratches. Tilt the stone as needed. This takes a little practice to look for the scratches and not at the stone. Once you get it though, it becomes second nature. I do this constantly as I'm working on a cab.
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Post by jasoninsd on Dec 7, 2020 22:06:24 GMT -5
Seeing scratches tip:
Hold your stone under the edge of your lamp. Look across the stone (not at the pretty pattern in it) to see any scratches. Tilt the stone as needed. This takes a little practice to look for the scratches and not at the stone. Once you get it though, it becomes second nature. I do this constantly as I'm working on a cab.
Great tip Robin! I actually ran across this the other night. There's a certain spot I can hold the cab under the magnifying lens light and if I hold it at a certain angle where it catches the glare of the light just right and I can see "across" the stone and it shows the scratches. Up until this, I was trying to look "direct on" with reading glasses. The angled look allows for the scratches to create a "shadow" within themselves and makes them far easier to see. |
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Post by hummingbirdstones on Dec 7, 2020 22:09:38 GMT -5
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention to make sure your stone is dry when you do it. If it's wet, the water will fill the scratches and you'll never see them!
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