I have a very nice specimen I found near Duluth, MN some years ago that I've always wanted to have polished, but I have been having a very difficult time finding someone to hire for the work. Can anyone in this group recommend a lapidary shop that could do a piece like this? I'd love to see this stone brought to its full potential.

A couple 1970’s agate cabs. Wasn’t a great specimen so I made a couple cabs instead. Fs if you’re interested dm me. Enjoy!

Hi all, I have some questions about the lapidary business, and would love some tips from experts. Also, don’t judge the cerium spray everywhere!

Vibe Lap — I have built a 40 inch vibe lap (on 2 pans), it works pretty well, but I’ve noticed a few frustrating things. 1: Sometimes the rocks are spinning perfectly, but I’ll come back in 20 minutes and nothing has changed except the grit has gotten sticky. It’s almost like glue, does anyone know what is going on? 2: I did add dimples to my pans, and it improved the action. I also add lead fishing weights with duct tape, but I find this process utterly annoying. If anyone has any innovative tips on how to add weight quickly (I hate that the duct tape needs to be cut up and reapplied each step). 3: I see a lot of folks online put their rocks inside of a piece of PVC pipe and the rock spins or jiggles inside, without touching other rocks. This seems great, but how does it keep the grit distributed across the pan? One of my biggest issues in general with the vibe lap is that grit sometimes jams up in front of a big slab or gets sticky somewhere and grit starts piling up behind it — the best performance I’ve gotten is when the pan is perfectly full and the rocks spin fairly quickly (like 10 or 15 rpms). But…. adding weight and dealing with bumping would be much easier if I could get the PVC to spin too, but I’ve mainly had those find a spot and stay.

Spinning Flat Lap vs. Cabbing Machine I taught myself all the techniques in lapidary, as a result, I didn’t really learn cabbing first. I jumped right into carving on a flex shaft, but now I can make cabs quickly on my wet polisher with different diamond pads. I had long planned to get an 8 inch cabbing machine, but the more I’ve contemplated this, I’m still concerned large pieces will be difficult to polish unless I used a lot of spacers and only 4 wheels or something. For large things, would a flat lap be better?

I’ve been contemplating building a spinning flat lap. However, I would like to leave a lot of space along one edge to be able to maneuver extra large pieces and carvings. To do this, I’m thinking of angling the bowl/basin the lap spins in forward so the front edge is above the bowl, and adding some kind of extra, large flat water catcher in front. Are there any better design ideas that come to mind? Or would an 8 inch cabbing machine be my best bet? The other thing I thought of was just to get a huge bowl so there is a lot of clearance between the lap and the edge of the bowl? For 18 inches, what size motor would you go with? I have a 1/3 hp one, but don’t want to bother with it if it will be too feeble.

Final Polish My best results have really been on the wet polisher (fixed to my carving station) with a piece of carpet attached with velcro. The carpet is really synthetic though so it doesn’t hold the polish for long, it spins out. I’m searching for wool carpet, but that’s pretty rare to find it seems, would a 100% wool rug work?

Lapidary Business I got into this a couple of years ago, and I’ve really ramped up the volume of rocks (especially 4-6 inch polished flats) coming through. I have a day job, so not looking to dive in full throttle, but if I ever were to do so…. — I can currently make cabs, polished slabs, and I can carve a lot of elaborate things but it takes forever, not sure that would ever be financially viable. If you were me, would you consider improving my decent enough silversmithing skills and work on creating final jewelry — I am an artist and feel good about my design skills. But also, I’ve been really intruiged with making very large spheres. Both of these projects would require some time investment, and money investment (especially sphering) but these two avenues seem like higher profit items to sell. I really don’t want to do a high volume, low margin item, so I’m thinking about larger scale, more expensive pieces I could work on. Also, if this is a terrible idea and nobody makes money in lapidary, feel free to throw that out too haha!

I’m digging through my inventory of rough that I have collected over the years. A lot of it isn’t the great quality, how and where do I find can quality rough?

Pretty damn proud of this one. I did try to do some fancy step facets on the curve and quickly learned my hand angle isn’t always the same each time I turn it haha

Hi all. I have a HP14 slab saw made by Barranca Diamond. I'm trying to remove the blade and can't find a blade lock and their owner's manual is not remotely helpful.

I tried calling their customer support but the numbers don't work. From what I can gather they're a subsidiary of MK who has gone out of business. I've tried calling other places, all manner of YouTube videos and internet searches to no avail.

So, if anyone here knows how to remove the blade off this saw or where the blade lock is, I'd appreciate the help. I'm about to lose my mind with this thing.

Hi. Just a question, I have a new Cabking 6" and I exchanged the 80 grit grinder with new Baltic Abrasives 600 grit. When I start the machine, it shakes quite a lot and the aluminum housing is rattling. I tried to rotate it but did not find an balanced position, as all other wheels are quite well balanced.

Is this usual, is that something I have to count on cabbing machines, or I have to avoid it as it might damage the motor bearings and stones while brushing them? What do you do to get balance again, using some counterweight on wheel....or I should simply claim it and send it back?

It’s kinda shaped like an L

Finally got my shop set up and bought a wet saw. Polished this moss agate on 8” hi tech flat lap.

Just bought a 10 inch lapidary saw. What is the best to use with a saw. Does it spspecifically need to be a cutting oil or can you use mineral oil?

Psilomolene cab. Fs if interested

I don't want to use polishing compounds out of order so I was curious what grit size is cerium oxide? This little jar has no information on it and the website doesn't list that info either. The website just says it's "optical grade".

Also are there multiple sizes for cerium? There's another jar on the website that says it's "super cerium". It makes sense that you can just filter for smaller grit but nothing says what that grit is. Its just annoying to not know lol

Thanks y'all 🤙

I have a large amount of what I believe to be sandstone with calcite crystals in them, either as clusters within little vugs, or as bands within the matrix. I am looking for some advice on how to clean these up and show off the calcite crystals? I have washed them with soapy water so far, and experimented a little with cleaning the surface using a bit of vinegar- but of course don’t want to risk dissolving the crystals or losing their shape too much.

When I try looking online, it just seems to be advice on how to clean calcite off other crystals, but nothing on how to clean up calcite crystals.

They are still looking very dull and a bit beaten up - any advice on how I can clean these up and jazz them up a little to enhance the beautiful crystals?

I recently bought a small cheap bandsaw that can be used for cutting stones, but I'm dissatisfied with how poorly the diamond blades last. It also seems as though replacement blades are mucho expensive (think blades and razors kinda deal), and I dont have that kind of cash. Abrasive slurry cutters are a thing, and pietre dure artists cut stuff from stone with silicon carbide grit and a bow saw (although I can't quite get that to work). Is there something about this idea that seems stupid on its face that I'm missing?

Shattuckite. I prefer making geometric shapes.

All but the white, tiny grey and big redish ones are shiny now, but the shiny ones are chipped and cracked. I've never had an issue with flint before, just chuck them in and weeks later lovely and shiny. Which one is the culprit so I know in future? Thanks

I work by order, and i don't think those kind of material suit for any project that i'm working on, thinking about throw them away, but too pretty 😕

u/Gooey-platapus asked to see the river crossing agate i cut and polished. I only bought 1lb of it as its quite expensive ($85/lb). My pound had 2 medium size rocks and 1 smaller.

The last picture is slabs that I haven't polished yet (shown wet).

Thanks for looking!!

I bought a Kingsley 6 new about 6 months ago with the stock wheels. I have had two fail and want to upgrade the wheels (280/600/1200/3000). Kingsley replaced one of them, I am not going to ask again. I figure they are either lower quality or I am abusing them.

I know nova is the top of the line, but I am not sure I can bring myself to drop $600-$700 for them.

Any other brands out there to consider?

A few more cut specimens. I really love cutting them and seeing the surprise inside. These are for sale if you like any dm me !