A few more photos

Beauties! Love tumbling the Bahia agates, some come out so perfect... Great cabs..

Bahia agates are among my favorite rocks to tumble as well, right up there with Botswana agates, Montana moss agates, and crazy lace.   The Bahias have great patterns, fine concentric banding, parallel banding, solid quartz that polished well, eyes, opalized layers... a lot to draw your interest, and without breaking the bank.  They also seem just a little easier to polish to a wet shine than most agates.  

Nicely done. Which one(s) do the cats prefer?

Beautiful stones!  I don't think the Bruneau is boring at all and it takes such a kick-a$$ shine. 

Another great batch Jonathan! Your finish on these happens to be stellar!

I agree with what a few others have said...nothing boring about the Bruneau! Of course, I'm a fortification fanatic...but that last cab is the most stunning to me. Great capture of the pattern...it just works so wonderfully well!

I know you are philosophically opposed to tumbling your own cabs -- an opinion that I respect.  But the reason I get a high shine on most cabs is: (1) I fully polishing them on diamond wheels through 14,000; (2) I polish them on a flat lap with aluminum oxide polish; and finally (3) I run them at least 12-24 hours in the Lot-O tumbler, 3 or 4 cabs + ceramics + AO polish.  Sometimes I forget about them and they run for a few days (or more) in the Lot-O.  The only penalty for extra days in the Lot-O is more shine.  

I'm sure that some who are far more skilled and experienced than me get as good of a shine with wheels alone, but I can't, at least not with the wheels I own.  Any my philosophy is, why buy more wheels + an extra Genie arbor when the Lot-O straight up lays down a wet shine with little effort?  My Lot-O skills are nothing unique -- many on RTH get consistently stellar results with it.   But it took me over a year of practice to get consistently great results from the Lot-O, so it does require some skill.  The way I look at it, I am applying learned skills + tools throughout the process:  selecting rough, slabbing, cutting / grinding preforms, grinding, sanding, and polishing on the Genie,  polishing on a flat lap, and giving them a little extra shine in the Lot-O.  Every step requires tools, but I am running those tools, so the cabs are still my creation.  

Now here's the real kicker:  4 of the 6 cabs I posted this time were completely finished in the Lot-O.  In other words, I used the 80 and 220 hard wheels and the 280 resin wheel, and then moved them directly to the Lot-O.  After 7 days (3 days in SiC 220, 2 days in AO 1000, and 2 days in AO polish), they came out very shiny and with a better shaped dome than they had when I put them in.  I admit that this feels sort of like cheating, but it saves a ton of time.  I think most of the skill required to make good cabs is complete by the time I'm done with the 280 resin wheel.  After that it's just spinning them around on a bunch of wheel until they are shiny.  I'm happy to let the Lot-O relieve me of that part of the process.    

Two of the cabs (the leopardskin and the banded Bahia) have not yet gone into the Lot-O.  And those are the two with the worst shine of the batch.