A grit stage skip turned my polished stones cloudy

I was polishing some agates and skipped a grit stage. Now they're all scratched and I have to redo everything. Is there a way to salvage cloudy stones after a tumble?

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3 Comments

hugo_coleman286mo ago

Honestly that cloudiness is probably from deep scratches you put in by jumping ahead. Tbh you'll have to go all the way back to a coarser grit, maybe even the stage before the one you skipped, to grind those scratches out. It's a pain but trying to just redo the missed stage won't work if the flaws are too deep. Make sure your barrel is super clean too, leftover grit from the wrong stage can cause this.

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the_emery6mo ago

Try aluminum oxide polish, hugo's right about deep scratches.

4

mia4423mo ago

Hold on, wait - you're telling me that leftover grit from a wrong stage can actually cause that kind of cloudiness? @hugo_coleman28 I never even thought about that, I always figured it was just user error from skipping steps or bad technique. But now I'm looking at my own project and wondering if I had a speck of 800 grit hiding in my barrel when I moved up to 1500, and that's what messed up my polish. That's honestly blowing my mind, I'm going to have to scrub my barrels way more carefully from now on!

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