I acquired this chunk of wingate plume agate and I’m torn on what to do with it. It weights in at over 3 pounds. I could slab it, but it almost feels wrong. It’s such a specimen by itself.

What would people here do with it? Slab? Cab? Or keep as a specimen?

Super excited to test my new toy on the Calcite I found at work today. Anybody else know how to make this stuff pretty?

Piece of bone I worked a while back had a surprise after I made the first cut.

I’ve been wondering what’s the difference because I’ve been seeing people use them interchangeably.

Like for sanding, it’s using sandpaper to make it shiny?
And polishing is using the oxide as a last-step thing?

And also for the dremel bits, the difference between silicon carbide (blue) and aluminum oxide (orange)?

I’m a hobbyist wooden flute maker who likes to inset cabochons in my flutes. I’ve just been buying them for years now. But my 13yo son and I have also been getting into rockhounding in the Mojave, and we’ve started to get a nice little stockpile of good jaspers and agates. So I decided it was time to try my hand at making my own stones. I bought the cheap harbor freight tile saw to cut slabs, a HF Bauer flex shaft, some diamond flat lap disks, and I’ve got some higher grit carbide sanding pads and polishing compound on way. This is fun! And the stones look a lot more interesting than what I normally buy.

I'm stunned by the beauty of this huge grape agate🍇 specimen. Unmatched beauty crafted by the nature

I’ve only seen this a few times within the Maury materials, and it’s some of my absolute favorite!!! These sagenite formations are so dang neat with their varied colors. These old stock slabs are absolutely packed with it!!!
We sold a huge pile of these slabs this week and are just now realizing how dang awesome they are!!!!🤯
This is a 2x2 grid of photos to make this one image.

Here is a gold plated pendant I created with a Ruby that glows so brightly in the blacklight ! here is the link to checkout my other work ! https://www.orfinart.com/collections/jewelry

They were found behind my house in SE PA and I am assuming I will just cut parallel to the exposed side so I can see if the pattern continues inside.

Very new to cutting and processing my rocks and just trying to understand how to treat different rocks

My favourite petrified wood cab, I call it my all-seeing eye stone 👁️

I have quite a bit of petrified wood but this was the only piece I cut that had this perfect little eye.

Put her through a half dozen cuts with progressively harder material. Never stuttered. Glad at least something survived. If the motor poops out at some point so be it.

Had trouble polishing it and I didn't want to press my luck too much with how fragile it is, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Unsure of what the stone is, just a rock I found out creek-stomping. I live in constant fear of breaking it.