2022-8-14: Neighbor's rocks

8/14/2022: Neighbor's Rocks

Today my neighbor brought over some rocks. She just got new landscaping rocks and has been practicing agate hunting. Let's just say it paid off, and one thing led to another, and well I spent the rest of the day happily playing with her rocks. Unfortunately I broke one of the rookie rules of polishing rocks as you can see below. We call that a party foul in the rock polishing hobby. (Yes, we're a pretty fun crowd)

Here's the business side of the agate she brought over. Not huge, but WOW!

Within minutes I had run to my saw and had that little guy opened up. Even better! I'm really happy there aren't a ton of fractures that I can see.

Here's the game plan. Not sure if that stuff on the right will hold together but as they say, "no guts, no glory!"

This is a really nice piece IMO so I decided to give the back some love and bring it to a matte finish. Shown above is technique for polishing the backs of cabs that rarely works for me. If you're an expert at this and reading this, please email me!!

Dangit. Those lines are saw marks. Getting saw marks out of a flat side is one of my least favorite parts. But ok, let's do this.

This is my flat lap. No, it's not a medical condition. This is what is used to flatten a rock or polish a flat among other things. Fun fact, this was my first piece of equipment.

And here we go. Soooo booorrriinngggg

The saw marks are gone!

I'll save you the time of reading my droning on and cut to the chase. Here's the polished cab.

Or is it... wait a minute, what the... EFFFF!

Do you see it? I certainly didn't until I took the picture. Let's get a close up.

And this, ladies and gentleman (you too Rob), is a lapidary rookie mistake. One of the easiest parts to miss is correctly doming the rock. This leads to scratches, right on the top. You can't see them wet so it's really important to dry the rock between stages and look at what you're doing. Shame on me. SHAME!

My punishment was fitting. To fix it, I had to go back through 280, 600, 1200, 3k grits and then polish. In the end... looks pretty sharp!! Hope she likes it!!

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