Some finds from Lowmead

We are coming ...hubby said he is determined to find something big and decent he has already got the car packed and the fridge stocked with food

Same here,my son is super keen to find a big one and see some other kids there too.

Well there will be 6 kids there with us so he will have plenty to keep him amused

And yet again when all you guys meet up i am still stuck at work Hope you do well, i will be back out around the 19th

I'm sure we will get a chance to meet one day Kezz assuming you get week ends off occasionally.

Some good size ones there

How clear is the taller smoky in the second picture down Wazza? Facetable? Good size bits anyhow.

Your hands look like they copped a beating while digging them?

No the hands copped a beating doing the suspension on the troopy hope this is a better photo of the one you were talking about lefty

The dark portion looks like it might possibly be relatively clean - if it is it would facet a rather good-sized stone.

No digging this weekend Not the typical clear blue sky winter we normally have in QLD is it?

Yep hubby is looking into the prices of cabbing and faceting machines any advise would be great.... do you know of any decent places to buy it from

wazza/mechia said:

Yep hubby is looking into the prices of cabbing and faceting machines any advise would be great.... do you know of any decent places to buy it from

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I bought my cabbing machine - a Cabking 6V3 - through Aussie Sapphire. It's a good machine though they are not cheap. With six permanently mounted wheels going from very heavy abrasive #80 diamond on the left side and moving to resin-bonded #3000 pre-polish on the right, you don't need to stop and change anything. You can get much less expensive machines with a single abrasive belt that you have to stop and change each time as you move through the steps. You're probably aware that you can't just grind a stone to shape on a coarse diamond wheel and then polish it, you'll be there until 2020, you can't avoid going through a series of progressively finer wheels or belts to properly do the job.

I have a VJ faceting machine. These are manufactured in Childers and are proof that first-class design and engineering can be done outside a huge city - these machines would be a contender for best designed and built faceting machine around. They are also in the top of the range for price and you would need to be serious about it before parting with that much dough. There are plenty of other machines with much smaller price tags that are no doubt also very good but I have only experience with the VJ, some other forum members might be able to offer advice.

Cheers

btw, was that you that come over to the hole for a chat last Sunday?

Yes that was us

Yeah looking at the lortone lu6x combo as a started for $1287 but cant find anyone that has used one to find out what they are like

I haven't used one of those myself. I see it's the expanding drum type which is probably a good hobby machine. It probably only takes a couple of minutes to change belts so if you you're not trying to churn out as many cabs as fast as possible it's probably no big deal.

The good bit is that it has a 6 inch trim saw attached to it - that is ideal for slicing up the vast majority of slabs into cabbing size pieces, though larger rocks would need to have been slabbed by a full sized rock saw first (you can buy pre-cut slabs of all kinds of material at gem shows). But the 6 inch blade will still handle small nodules of material, golf-ball size would probably be the max. It would handle anything from Lowmead.

So do you know anything about how the water is connected to these machines as on the website it only shows 2 taps going to the grinding wheels nothing about the trim saw?

wazza/mechia said:

So do you know anything about how the water is connected to these machines as on the website it only shows 2 taps going to the grinding wheels nothing about the trim saw?

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If it's like mine, it comes with a little submersible pump - a pond/water feature pump - that you just keep in a 2-gallon bucket under the bench, a tube from it attaches into the machine. It doesn't need to be attached to household plumbing.

The trim saw will be oil-cooled. No need to buy expensive special purpose coolant oils for it - I've had good results with Home Brand baby oil

Ah hang on..

The water kit is suitable for connection to mains water and comes with taps, filter/pressure reducer and fittings. If you intend to take water from a reservoir instead, you will need to provide this.

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Looks like she plugs straight into a tap somehow.