Wow, great finds.  Here in southern AZ the only summer rock hounding we do is in an air conditioned building. :-)  Looking forward to cooler weather for my own adventures.

Awesome.  Excellent idea on how to show off the plume.

Love Montanas, these are great, nicely done.

Well I have spent about an hour now using the disc with various junk stones to break it in, but nothing has really changed.  And I want to clarify it's not gouging as if it's contaminated, it's just cutting very coarsely.  Any feedback would be welcome.

Danny, thanks for the info.  I'm glad to hear I'm not crazy.  You're right, I didn't see or feel any unevenness.  Is it only 1200 grit, or does that happen to finer (or maybe all?) diamond on metal?

I wanted to try to make the surface of a an agate cab flat, I mean glass-flat, and found that the softer discs I use on my Ameritool flat lap always gave a slight curve to the surface no matter how careful I was.  So I purchased a 1200 (twelve hundred) grit metal diamond topper, thinking that would stiff and just aggressive enough to flatten any curves on a partially-worked stone, but not so coarse as to set me back to the grinding phase.  But it's not working at all, and I am hoping someone might have some insights.

Whenever I get a new abrasive I first use a small polished glass floor tile (from sheets @ Home Depot) to test out the surface.  It gives me an idea of the actual abrasion level and also checks for defects before I get to my real stones.  Imagine my surprise when my new 1200 grit lap scratched similar to a 180 (one-eight-zero) grit belt!  I examined the flat lap surface carefully under magnification, cleaned everything and checked for contamination.  Everything looked fine so I tried again but got the same results.  Thinking there might be a break-in period I ran several different junk stones then started with a new tile, but again, same result. 

That can't be right, can it?  I've searched this forum and saw a thread from a few years ago (http://gemstone.smfforfree4.com/index.php/topic,13906.0.html) where Carol M had some scratching problems and the difference between paper-SiC vs. diamond-metal was mentioned, but I couldn't see any definite conclusions.  (But I now agree with Carol's "*&^%$ SCRATCHES" assessment. :-) )  Nor did anyone suggest that 1200 d-m would compare all the way down to 180 SiC.  Any thoughts on what's happening here?  What am I missing?

Do you mean the WS resin worked?  I've wanted to try it for a while.

There's a permanent rock place in Quartzsite that always has many pounds of different colors and types, usually just a few dollars a pound.  I can never remember the name of the place, maybe T-Rex Rocks?  It's right across the street from the Burger King just at the main (?) Quartzsite exit off I-10.

Nice. I love OJ, I hate the idea of cutting mine up. :-)

Stunning detail.  Beautiful work, nicely done.

That is beautiful. I've lived my whole life in AZ and have never seen anything like that here.  Without giving away your secret spot, whereabouts did you find that material?

Tim

Oh my, that cab looks almost ruby-ish. Beautiful.

That's obsidian? Wow, very nice.  Where is Glass Butte?

What would happen if you backed it with something with a complimentary pattern, like a simple agate ? Would the agate augment the rutilated pattern, or would it just look too busy?

I searched unsuccessfully for a long time for a manual for my HP E12.  Unfortunately classic HP  manuals are extremely hard to come by.  As HP was successivly bought by various other companies, the master documents were discarded or lost.  A few manuals have survived as photocopies. If no one here has one, you could try contacting the new HP, they often know dealers who can get the old parts.

Tim