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Post by holajonathan on Sept 29, 2021 9:43:27 GMT -5
rockjunquie With Jonathan’s permission of course, I’d like to see that post in the cabbing thread. Very informative.
I can do that, although I have no business giving anyone advice on how to make cabs. Still learning myself. All of the information and helpful people on this forum have flattened the learning curve significantly, however. |
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Post by holajonathan on Sept 29, 2021 9:51:16 GMT -5
Another beautiful shiny set! My fave is the peanut obsidian. It's one of my favorites materials. Have you ever seen or worked with peanut obsidian that has the large, chalcedony, not chatoyant orbs like the cab I posted here? I bought a ton of it because .... those orbs. I may regret that decision. It is nowhere near as solid as the more common peanut obsidian with the smaller chatoyant (feldspar) orbs. I've still got some big chunks to slab and I'm hoping they are more solid in the middle than the medium size pieces I have slabbed to far. PM me your address if you'd like a slab or two. |
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Post by rockjunquie on Sept 29, 2021 9:52:14 GMT -5
I can do that, although I have no business giving anyone advice on how to make cabs. Still learning myself. All of the information and helpful people on this forum have flattened the learning curve significantly, however. Don't sell yourself short. Everyone has their own way of doing things and clearly your way works.  |
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Post by rockjunquie on Sept 29, 2021 9:55:07 GMT -5
Another beautiful shiny set! My fave is the peanut obsidian. It's one of my favorites materials. Have you ever seen or worked with peanut obsidian that has the large, chalcedony, not chatoyant orbs like the cab I posted here? I bought a ton of it because .... those orbs. I may regret that decision. It is nowhere near as solid as the more common peanut obsidian with the smaller chatoyant (feldspar) orbs. I've still got some big chunks to slab and I'm hoping they are more solid in the middle than the medium size pieces I have slabbed to far. PM me your address if you'd like a slab or two. I have only worked the ones with smaller feldspar orbs. I like the ones with a black matrix. More dramatic. I'll PM you. |
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Post by holajonathan on Sept 29, 2021 11:22:57 GMT -5
I can do that, although I have no business giving anyone advice on how to make cabs. Still learning myself. All of the information and helpful people on this forum have flattened the learning curve significantly, however. Don't sell yourself short. Everyone has their own way of doing things and clearly your way works. My goal is to be able to turn a preform of hard agate into a well-shaped, well-polished cab in about a half hour. I'm not quite there, but getting close. I know cabbing is not a race, but who wouldn't rather make more cabs in less time? For sheer pleasure, nothing beats a few hours on my couch with a stack of slabs, templates, and a marker. There is nothing enjoyable, on the other hand, about spinning a preform around for a half hour waiting for an 80 grit 6" galaxy wheel to grind a dome. My DP galaxy wheels became annoyingly slow after about 6 months of use. 8" sintered wheels are so much faster if dressed frequently. A fast cutting 220 wheel is especially important. The other big time saver is using a coarser grit soft wheel for initial scratch removal. When I was using the stock Genie setup, the 280 nova was never up to the task of removing scratches from the hard wheels. A 220 resin wheel is a huge improvement, but for hard agates, a 140 resin after the 220 hard is even better in my opinion. By using a 140 resin wheel after the hard wheels, I rarely miss deep scratches. With the stock Genie setup, I often had to jump from the 3000 nova back to the 280 nova, because the 280 nova rarely did it's job on the first try. Not having to go back repeatedly to remove scratches make cabbing much more fun. |
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Post by stephan on Sept 29, 2021 13:20:12 GMT -5
Great stuff, and nicely done.. Can't wait to get my Genie working again to work on some that peanut obsidian. I may have to use the spray bottle this weekend.
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Post by holajonathan on Sept 29, 2021 15:32:17 GMT -5
Great stuff, and nicely done.. Can't wait to get my Genie working again to work on some that peanut obsidian. I may have to use the spray bottle this weekend. What's wrong with your Genie? Is it the air pump? If so, an aquarium air pump attached to the hose for the spitter works good enough. I bought a $7 aquarium pump for this purpose when trying to turn a regular bench grinder into a lapidary grinder. The grinder project didn't work out, but the air pump connected to a spitter did work fine. If I were to do it again I would buy a little more powerful aquarium air pump, however, to move the same volume of water moved by the Genie pump. |
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Post by jasoninsd on Sept 29, 2021 19:34:13 GMT -5
Great stuff, and nicely done.. Can't wait to get my Genie working again to work on some that peanut obsidian. I may have to use the spray bottle this weekend. What's wrong with your Genie? Is it the air pump? If so, an aquarium air pump attached to the hose for the spitter works good enough. I bought a $7 aquarium pump for this purpose when trying to turn a regular bench grinder into a lapidary grinder. The grinder project didn't work out, but the air pump connected to a spitter did work fine. If I were to do it again I would buy a little more powerful aquarium air pump, however, to move the same volume of water moved by the Genie pump. Why didn't the conversion on the bench grinder work out? I was considering doing this just so I could get a 60 grit wheel just to knock out the initial grind... |
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Post by holajonathan on Sept 29, 2021 20:13:52 GMT -5
What's wrong with your Genie? Is it the air pump? If so, an aquarium air pump attached to the hose for the spitter works good enough. I bought a $7 aquarium pump for this purpose when trying to turn a regular bench grinder into a lapidary grinder. The grinder project didn't work out, but the air pump connected to a spitter did work fine. If I were to do it again I would buy a little more powerful aquarium air pump, however, to move the same volume of water moved by the Genie pump. Why didn't the conversion on the bench grinder work out? I was considering doing this just so I could get a 60 grit wheel just to knock out the initial grind... I abandoned the project because with my tiny $50 bench grinder I couldn't keep water from splattering all over parts of the grinder that shouldn't get wet. The grinder is so small there was no good way to create a shield between the wheel and the grinder body. With a larger bench grinder, or at least one with longer shafts, it should work fine. I would look for either a variable speed grinder or a fixed speed one with a lapidary friendly speed. Most lapidary machines with wheels rotate around 1800 rpm. Most bench grinders are about 3,450 rpm. Low-speed bench grinders do exist which are usually around 1750 to 1800 rpm. |
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Post by jasoninsd on Sept 29, 2021 20:21:42 GMT -5
Why didn't the conversion on the bench grinder work out? I was considering doing this just so I could get a 60 grit wheel just to knock out the initial grind... I abandoned the project because with my tiny $50 bench grinder I couldn't keep water from splattering all over parts of the grinder that shouldn't get wet. The grinder is so small there was no good way to create a shield between the wheel and the grinder body. With a larger bench grinder, or at least one with longer shafts, it should work fine. I would look for either a variable speed grinder or a fixed speed one with a lapidary friendly speed. Most lapidary machines with wheels rotate around 1800 rpm. Most bench grinders are about 3,450 rpm. Low-speed bench grinders do exist which are usually around 1750 to 1800 rpm. The "shield" is what was holding me up...but I didn't even think about the speed...which should have been my first thought! Thanks for letting me know. |
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