Jesse, I have been watching your videos for a while on our TV, so I thought it best to finally subscribe, as I wanted to comment on this video from July 2021 on polishing Chalcedony & Boulder Opal. Your presentations are always fun spirited. Now being a gem facetor, I realize that I'm going to "rub" things the wrong way with some of your viewers. But I'm going to take issue with the process you showed to flatten and then to "polish" your stones.

Oh, where do I start? First of all I know cabbers use Silicone Carbide a lot because it cuts fast and it's cheap. And for initial cutting and shaping, that will work fine. But when you want a killer polished face, you need to graduate to Aluminum Oxide (Alox), and Cerium Oxide (Ceox) for most rocks. When you get into Sapphires, then only Alox and Diamond will do. Silicone Carbide also works but is generally too aggressive due to the structure of the grains. Gemstones do not like to be bullied! They like, the fairer fillies amongst us, like to be carefully finessed.  TIN oxide is an excellent an amendment to any final polishing slurry. Tin is very expensive, but it's pretty soft at about 5 mohs. It's good to add a bit to your final polish. It chemically reduces surface tension allowing the main polish to do a better job.

Okay, that said, everything involved in polishing will lose ions during the process; your substrate (glass panel), the silicone carbide, and of course, the stone. So over the course of abrading the stone, the glass will also be cut, as it's only 6.5 mohs, while the Silicone Carbide is about 9 mohs. This means you won't be getting a true flat facet, when using the same space on the glass plate. In other words, it's wearing equally as fast as the stone. The grit however is reducing in size as you scuff it.

Now that brings me to the reason for commenting. As you surface grind, all of the Swarf is getting mixed into the developing slurry. And it's not being washed away! When a facetor is polishing a stone, damaging swarf is rinsed away with the constant water drip and spinning lap. Hence, the very reason why your work isn't blindingly brilliant! Please refer to my following YT channel links. I'm not trying sell you anything, just educate. Thanks  (LL-Cabber in use)
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYTBAfWFzEE>  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qf9rMtrqRQ>
Seriously, Ceox and Alox should be your best friends when polishing your rocks. I could go on and on about the subject of polishing, as that has been my business for more years than I care to say.

Everyone has their own pet ways of doing things, which is fine. So I hope I've awakened a desire to use a better way of making your gems make you go nearly blind with brilliance! My mantra is "Polishing IS Everything!"

Once upon a time the world didnt have electricity..polished rocks and jewellery existed. Its good for people to know how these things were done.

The last stone was a treat, so pretty.

The last one was superb. If only lightning came in rainbow colours

I've been polishing a rock I found in a river, literally with my hands, for over 30 years. It's getting there.

I have to say... I am a newbie. I fell in love with rocks very young. But with the very rough childhood, if you'd even call it that, I lost it over the years. I finally came back to my love recently after seeing a finished boulder opal. All my good memories I had suppressed as a child came rushing back. So here I am. But anyways, my back story doesn't matter lol. I have to say I just watched a few of your videos of rock hunting and your reactions, and how you thank nature for finding great pieces is just  amazing 👏. You seem so peaceful while you search and it's so calming. So I wanted to say thank you! 😊

I've always been taught to sand in straight lines when wet sanding/polishing and to rotate your item 90 degrees between grits.  That way you can see any scratches still in the surface more easily because they'll be perpendicular to your current sanding direction.  With swirls, its much more difficult to see the scratches until you're closer to your finished polish.  I've done this for painted and unpainted steel, stones, and plastic (headlight covers) and haven't had issues with scratches.  This is the same way that automotive paint gets sanded. Also, scratches in a straight line will be less noticeable in the end as the viewing angle has to be in a specific orientation to see the light reflecting off of it.  With a swirl scratch, you get infinitely more angles that the light will reflect off the scratch and back to the viewer.

That boulder opal is very sweet. Pure eye candy. Loving it loving it.

Beautiful bolder Opal ,my brith stone .

Wow..I'm just so glad that this popped in my feed.
You're a very kind man, and I love how sweet you were to your dog 🎉.
I am definitely going to give this a try. Thanks for sharing your wonderful talents and creativity from Charlotte NC USA 🇺🇸.

Thank you for demonstrating this technique! I'm definitely going to try it. I mostly work with small rocks anyway so this is perfect! Wow, what a boulder opal! Electric!

The Boulder opal was on fire 🔥! That is a beautiful stone! Thank you for the video!!

Rookie Rockhounding; soft-spoken & intelligent as always, thank you so much for this video, you demonstrated objectively telling us the time it took for each stage and so very informative giving the watcher what to expect if they try it themselves, subjective videos only leave the person worried that the process would take days if not months, so they do not attempt the process themselves.

Love the opal lightening!

So awesome to see alternative ways to polish stones rather than buying another machine. Those Boulder opals were beautiful! Blessings

That boulder opal is fantastic! This is how I did all my polishing in the beginning! All my stuff is hard enough that I cut it to shape, polish to 600 on my wheels then do a finish polish in the tumbler. For some reason anything over 600 grit on my machine just leaves a weird satin star pattern in the polish.

That last stone was absolutely beautiful ! I would love to have 1in my collection.

I used to do that. It's fun especially when doing it with amber it gives it a good polish.

Wow! Talk about a flashback! When I was a kid I hung out at a rock shop 4 blocks from home. That's where I learned about using glass & grit. For the final finish we used heavy denim instead of leather. I'll have to try that.
Another great video, Thanks for sharing...
And as always...
Good Luck, Have Fun, and Keep on Houndin'...
Steve.

I have to say a masssssssive THANK YOU to Pauly @paultherockhound for giving me these pieces of Boulder Opal. Friends like him are few and far between.
If you have any questions on how this method went or how to do it, please let me know. Until next video, mega much love guys n gals!