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[Bluetangclan]

I have been doing this a while so I am not an absolute newb so I have the impression here something is wrong. 6 wheel cab king arbor. Do the main cutting and shaping work on the 80 wheel, some fine tuning on the 220, and then start working out the scratches on the 280 soft wheel. Makes sense, its what was taught in the class I took, but I am coming across an issue. The 280 doesn't seem to work all the time or else the 220 is just gauging the hell out of my rocks. Doesn't happen to every stone and softness doesn't seem to play a role. I have had sodalite, rhodondite and jade go through these three no problem with no heavy scratches. But working jasper and pudding stone for example, I am finding I am spending 30-40 minutes on the 280 trying to get scratches out from the 220 and even then they might not be gone.

I remember in class on the genie I rarely spent more than a few minutes on any stone type and do not remember these massive gauges from the hard wheels. What am I doing wrong? Its not supposed to be that hard and take that long on one step.

[Orrum]

Handle the stone like making love to a woman.....  Sometimes nice, soft and easy. Sometimes firmly with authority and sometimes work her like a borrowed mule!!!    LOL.  Which way depends on the woman or syone.....

[mirkaba]

I find that 80 to 220 hard diamond wheels are good for shaping but drop back to a 100 belt or soft wheel after the 220 hard. Then proceed down the line. Get a piece of soft stone and watch whats happening from one grit to the next. I have been using 60 grit wheel and belt for face shaping/sanding specimens and without 80 and 100 grit belts it would drive me nuts to get the scratches out. Good luck...........Bob

[Bluetangclan]

Yeah I don't have belts. I never needed them before. In the past the two steel wheels followed by the soft 280 worked just fine. Maybe the hard 220 is just too hard? I dunno.

I have even tried very lightly running a 280'd stone over the 220 hard to see if I could just lightly remove the surface scratches, and you can guess how that went. I almost think the 220 is rougher than the 80.

[mirkaba]

Is it possible to fit an expando on your Cab King? Seems like most of my scratches come from the 60 and the 80. Get a Sharpie and paint hell out of the dome after the 80. Watch the whiskers. Do the same with 220 and 280. There used to be a woman on here that used a lead pencil to do the same thing..........Kristine I think......She is a great cabber. If nothing else you will find out where the scratches are coming from. You might not be getting enough dome on the cab. A flat spot will hold the scratches.

[lithicbeads]

It sounds like your 220 soft wheel is wearing.Very good advice to use a 100 after the 220 hard as it keeps the wear down on the 220 soft and speeds the process. A quick fix is to get a spin on disc  or discs with  a 220 pad and a 600 pad. These can be used to touch up stones quickly especially if you just use them for that purpose ( they will stay sharp longer).

[Bluetangclan]

Finally with a ton of more work I got the pudding stone clean and finished along with about 10 minutes for a charoite earing teardrop from start to finish with no issues at all. I am wondering if maybe I have just been going too flat. Pudding was very thin to start and the scratches were in the exact center. Its as soft or softer as the charoite. I might try redoming the jasper pendant I was having issues with in case that was the issue there as well.

Wheel shouldn't be worn down, its only two weeks old.  I am going to have to send an 8k back to Kingsley. It scratches the hell out of any stone I put on it even after trying to work it in with a piece of jade. I have had to drop back to 280 on any stone I have put on it to get the gauges out.

[vitzitziltecpatl]

Sounds like you're on the right track about being too flat if the issue is only in the center.

What grit are you using prior to the 8K wheel? I usually just drop back two steps if working out scratches. Going all the way back to 280 is a lot.

You might try taking a piece of agate (a little harder than jade) with a straight edge and hold it just barely touching your 8K wheel to see if there are any small hard spots higher than the rest of the wheel. Just listen for the little ticking sounds at each revolution.

[Jhon P]

A contaminated wheel? It only takes one piece of grit to scratch a cab. 
I always rinse my hands and the cab between each grit.
 I may be wrong but you can test it by taking a cab with a good polish (obsidian is perfect ,  scratches will show up) that you don't mind reworking. And see if you get any scratches. If not it is something else.

[Bluetangclan]

Its a brand new wheel. It literally scratches rocks so bad that the 280 is the highest wheel that will fix the scratches. It scratches them almost as bad as the 200 hard wheel. Prior to the 8k is the 3k which has no problems up to that point. That's actually where I have been stopping once I realized something was wrong with the 8k and have had good results. I have also skipped the 8k and gone to the 14k and had no issues there as well. I have cleaned the wheel with a brush and fresh water, didn't change anything.

[mirkaba]

Thinner cabs seem take a little more strategy to get a good dome on. After a while it gets to be second nature.There was a time I avoided thin cabs altogether. I have a pile of about 60 3mm preforms on my bench waiting to be drilled for earrings.........I guess I still drag my feet a little :). Generally the bad scratches come from the hard wheels. I forgot to mention I also use a 100 grit 6 inch hard wheel. The 60 grit will really gouge things up. I only use it on the big pieces that I face and shape for display. I always keep the sharpie handy as it helps give a zero point when working into the center of the dome. Good luck and keep after it.............Bob

[Jhon P]

Have you tried a dressing stone? I use belts but I alway use a dressing stone on the new diamond belt before working a cab. They can be purchased at a lapidary supply.
Call Kingsley and ask them. That is where I got my dressing stone 
They had recommended it

[Amethyst Rose]

Thinner stone take time.  I do a lot of earring pairs and they are typically 1.5 to 3 mm thick.  there is not a lot of room to get a smooth dome and there can be a problem with grinding scratches in the center of the stone.  For my earrings, I shape, typically, on 220 sintered wheel and the complete the dome on a 60 grit Nova followed by 280, 600, and 1200.  Lots of time on the 280 to make sure all the scratched are out of the center of the stone.  Keep cabbing and it will all come together sooner or later.  In my case it was later

Bob Johannes
The Amethyst Rose

[ToTheSummit]

I have a 220 hard wheel right now that I cannot use because it has a flaw.  I go straight from my 80 hard to the 280 soft.  It took me a long time to realize that the 220 hard wheel was causing the scratches.  It causes gouges deep enough that you have to go back to 80 to grind them out.  As a result my 280 soft wheel is getting heavy use and by the time I get around to replacing the bad 220 hard wheel I will most likely have to replace the 280 soft one also.

[Bluetangclan]

Found something else that drove me nuts for the first 20 minutes or so until I tried something else. Was working with an unknown green stone, which at first I thought was malachite, but polished up looking more like green tiger iron(if there is such a thing, I got it partially made from an estate sale so I started on 280). Super soft, even the 280 soft wheel turns the water green. The 280 polished it pretty good and went I went up per wheel it appeared to glitter with what I am guessing is micro-scratches. Even all the way to 3k. Made me mad but I cleaned my wheels with a brush and fresh water, started over at 280, got the micro-scratches out, went back up again and even 600 was causing them. So I put it down, started some other stones, tigers eye, some unknown Jasper someone from AZ sent me, and some jade pendent and earring pieces(finding I prefer working smaller pieces despite having big hands) and brought them all through 3k with no issues except the tigers eye had sort of a fog on it. Tonight I will toss on the other spindle(I had already been at it for 4 hours by that point, and Kingsley sent me a new 8k wheel :)) and bring them through 50k.

So I am just guessing but the green piece whatever it is, is just so soft that polishing it past 600k will be difficult? Is this normal?

Update and new questions since I got in before anyone responded.
-New wheel works much better. I pretty much broke in in on some agate that I kept for that reason. Kept going back to the 280 to get the fresh scratches out. For the most part it worked. I am still getting a few very light scratches here and there but light enough I am not going to cry about them. I am sure its a matter of putting some more wear on them.

-Fog- I thought it would buff out but I have a nice piece of tiger eye that I polished all the way up to 50k and hit it with zam. It still has some fog that wont go away. Its not horrible but I dont like it on a piece I think is almost perfect for me. At first I thought maybe the water was cool it off and the humidity was condensing, thats about the best description I can give. Any ideas?