Wow! You did an amazing job on that agate Sam! It looks awesome! The agate itself is a beauty but you brought all its beauty out and that killer shine too! Great Job! Thanks for sharing!
Beautiful. I went out today and did my Rock Hounding. What good finds I got. ☺️ And no I'm not doing no beaches yet. Just outside of my work in a rock bed, no kidding. I found a Quartz Agate and she's a beat. I couldn't believe it man! I work at a Casino. So I wonder where they got all of them stones.. all kinds that you can think of.
Nice job, Sam! I was worried about that quartz pocket-- particularly because right now I've been polishing an agate with a large quartz pocket that keeps chipping out on me. I wonder if there's a specific trick so that doesn't happen. Another great video, Rob. I'm glad Sam has a friend and mentor to help him explore his interests and help him improve his skills.
Wonderful work, Sam. Impressive that you did not move on until every scratch was out. Thank you for sharing how long it takes to smooth an agate, I had no idea.
We didn't know either. We are both used to polishing much softer rocks. I have made some cabochons that were harder rock, but that's a much smaller surface to polish.
I live in MI, and have collected many rocks on my adventures. I always wanted to see what they would look like polished up but don't have any of the equipment like you guys. Very good job!
Fantastic job, Sam. Part way through, it looked like it was going to fracture into a dozen pieces. With all that work, I'm surprised that your fingers didn't cramp up. Beautiful work !!
Hi! Just wanted to say I love the sweatshirt and T shirt that my girlfriend gave me for Christmas. Thank you for helping her out! You are a great man. We are planning a trip out there in the spring just so I can do some rock hounding. Hopefully we can meet up with you. I’d be honored to take you and the wife out to dinner. Thanks again for the shirts and the great video content. Doug
Sam, Rob is wright you did a really nice job on it. Thanks Rob for the video and giving Sam the opportunity to do this. Once a teacher is always a teacher.
This actually brought me to tears! I mentioned about the camera angles Black Opal Direct do and you pulled it off!! Absolutely love this video and if I could like a million times I would!!! Well done!!!!!!!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
I'm glad you noticed! Thanks for that suggestion, I'll be using it again. It will be harder to do when I'm working by myself though, until I rig up some sort of jig to hold my camera. I handheld this over Sam's shoulder while he worked. It wouldn't work with just a tripod.
@@MichiganRocks He did so well it looks stunning! You got the shots brilliantly, maybe a lighting rig frame so you can clip a camera on but move along as you move.
Could you send me an email or a message on Instagram? I want to show you something that I made today. abramr@mac.com instagram.com/michiganrocksyoutube/ Your username is just a bunch of random looking letters, so you might need to remind me why you're sending me a message. Tell me that you want to see my creation in the basement. That should do the trick.
Nice job Sam! I've ground down too many agates trying to get every crack out and I've learned that we have to sometimes look at that as part of the "character" of that agate. Perhaps it is due to the makeup of a floater, but I seemed to get a fair number of cracks that popped up while working on floaters that come to the surface. They seem to happen less when the floater is totally within the agate and closer to the center.
Could you share the name of any specific books that that show how to identify rocks in their natural state, and also what they would look like when polished? Most of the rock and gem books we have found from the library show only polished stones which isn't very helpful in the rock collecting stage. Any recommendations would be appreciated!
Check out my Amazon storefront. It's in the descriptions of all of my videos. I have a few books that I own and like listed there. There are several that help identify Michigan rocks in their natural states.
What height is your table that the Kingsley north sits on? Hoping to build out a lapidary room In my basement. Trying to decide if I should have 2 different bench heights. Ty
Sam did an excellent job of polishing that rock. Sometimes when you have a highly desirable rock they are not without their imperfections and you just have to decide on a good stopping point when you are polishing it, so that you don’t ruin it or just remove to much good rock. What was the name of that agate? I couldn’t make that out. Over the past several months I’ve been going through the rocks that we’ve collected this past year and I’ve found a few agates that I wasn’t aware of when we gathered them. In last weeks video someone asked the question as to whether a “chunk” of concrete could be polished. I think if a person tried that, using a cab machine would be the only way to do it that would yield good results. But I’m not sure that trying it would be worth the effort.
It's a Lake Superior agate. There's agate floating inside the quartz in the middle, so it's referred to as a "floater". The person who gave it to Sam calls the ones with really pure chalcedony "jelly agates". I'm not sure if that's a local term or if that's universal. If I were to try to polish concrete, I'd probably use my Makita wet grinder on the top of a whole block. If I was just doing a small piece, the cab machine would be the way to go. I highly doubt it would tumble well. I'd be shocked.
Love the color of that agate, and great job Sam, what a shine. If you don't mind me asking Rob, what did you replace the felt pads on your wheels with? It looks much more durable than the originals. I am in need of new pads on mine.
Your persistence certainly paid off. Looks great. I guess the pad was too close to the finishing wheel. The aluminum or what ever the metal is on the edge of the felt pad leaves a mark if you hit the edge? Probably better if you ever had problems.
So will either of you polish more whole agates by hand, or is your curiosity now satisfied? I think it turned out great, and hope you do more in the future.
@@vickicook3094 Yes, you could definitely do that. If I was going to use the tumbler on the rock Sam did, I would do it the opposite though. I'd grind it on just the first wheel to take down just the bad spots, but leave the rest of the rock as large as possible. Then I'd do all the other stages in a vibratory tumbler. That would put a really good shine on it.
That turned out great. I have to ask why you would put that much wear and tear on the cabbing wheels. Seems like after doing the initial grind on the first wheel and maybe a bit of grinding on the second wheel it could have went into the lot-o with the next batch of rocks to achieve the same shine? Removing scratches left from the second wheel on an agate like that is really hard on the first soft wheel. Ideally just rough grind as needed on the first wheel, Toss it into a full batch of rocks for one week in rotary stage one then move to the lot-o for the rest. Very little manual labor and way cheaper then next 5 wheels on the cab machine.
I agree. I had no idea it would take that long when he started. The guy who gave Sam and I a lot of very nice agates also gave us a lot of suggestions on how to polish them. He said that the floater in this one could be very shallow and should be handled carefully, so we went with his suggestion. I think that thing must have cost $100 to polish. I'll think very hard before doing that again.
Are you using nova wheels, or resin? Maybe the video sounds make it sound different, but he was really laying into that second wheel for resin. If it's not resin then nvm, nova and up I guess you want to lay in like that.
@@MichiganRocks I was actually considering getting a 140 soft wheel when working with agates just to make that faster. Then I’d go 280 down through 3000
@@joshuahoman5014 That might help out. I haven't tried it though. When I first got into tumbling, I always wanted just one more tumbler. Now I want just one or two more wheels. I'd like to get something higher than my 3000 wheel, although I don't know how much difference it would make.
No, he doesn't, but I have suggested that he start one. He has other hobbies that would be interesting too. Wood carving could be a big part of his channel.
I’ve considered it but I’ve been too busy and camera shy on top of the fact that I don’t think I could bring myself to edit anything. The sound of my own voice on a recording is just so weird to me
@@samcook1413 I get that. We are our own worst critics. The mirror lies, trust me. Last summer I was on one of my favorites RUclips magic the Gathering shows as a guest. When I saw myself in the episode I just slapped myself in the forehead saying I look like a grinning idiot to myself 🤣🤣. You have a great mentor there, I am sure he can help you along if you change your. You could even digitally altered your voice so as to not have to hear yourself. Or just not talk during the video and do voiceover work later. But regardless of that, you did a great job on that agate. I thought about doing my own videos to put on RUclips of when I go rockhounding, but being a big guy, I sometimes get short of breath, which is quite audible when holding a phone camera. If I could find a way of not sounding so out of breath, there's a good chance I will be able to put up a video or two and not worry.
Sam did a great job polishing that agate! Really beautiful!
Great job Sam! The agate turned out beautiful. What an amazing shine!
Thanks
Wow! You did an amazing job on that agate Sam! It looks awesome! The agate itself is a beauty but you brought all its beauty out and that killer shine too! Great Job! Thanks for sharing!
Of course, thanks for watching
Awesome work Sam! It came out so shiny and beautiful. 😍🥰😇👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
WOW! Nice job, looks great! Thanks for sharing 👍
I must admire Sam for his patience and perseverance ! It turned out real shiny and beautiful 🥰 👍
Beautiful. I went out today and did my Rock Hounding. What good finds I got. ☺️ And no I'm not doing no beaches yet. Just outside of my work in a rock bed, no kidding. I found a Quartz Agate and she's a beat. I couldn't believe it man! I work at a Casino. So I wonder where they got all of them stones.. all kinds that you can think of.
I've heard of people finding nice rocks in landscaping stone. Glad you found a good one.
Awesome job, by both Sam & his Coach. Amazing result. Certainly worth the time. Thanks for sharing...
Wow! That looks amazing! I'm hoping to get one of those machines one of these days! Great job Sam!
Well done Sam, tough to know how far to go to get all those spots out, beautiful polish, lovely stone
Thanks
WTG Sam! That baby is stunning! WTG Rob...you are a born teacher!~ Thank you for your service!
It came out beautiful. I like the crystal formation on the one side. It almost looks like an eye on that side. It even has the circle for the pupil.
I thought it looked like an eye too.
Nice job, Sam! I was worried about that quartz pocket-- particularly because right now I've been polishing an agate with a large quartz pocket that keeps chipping out on me. I wonder if there's a specific trick so that doesn't happen. Another great video, Rob. I'm glad Sam has a friend and mentor to help him explore his interests and help him improve his skills.
If there's a trick for that, I don't know it, other than using a finer grit wheel.
Awesome results! I’ve been wanting to get a polisher like this someday! Thanks for sharing
WOW! That was a cool, well done 👍
Wonderful work, Sam. Impressive that you did not move on until every scratch was out. Thank you for sharing how long it takes to smooth an agate, I had no idea.
We didn't know either. We are both used to polishing much softer rocks. I have made some cabochons that were harder rock, but that's a much smaller surface to polish.
Way to go Sam !!! Beautiful shine !!! I love all the of the fine banding on the top of the agate
I can't even see that banding with my cheaters on. It's pretty subtle. I was very happy to be able to get a decent photo of it.
Nice job on the wheels! Cool rock.
Awesome!!!
Sam you done very well my young rock hound, I think the biggest thing about this hobby is patience. Keep up the good work.
Blim blam thank ya Sam !
Awesome job Sam! Keep ‘em coming!!
Looks like fun!
I live in MI, and have collected many rocks on my adventures. I always wanted to see what they would look like polished up but don't have any of the equipment like you guys. Very good job!
A fairly cheap way to get started is with a rock tumbler. I have lots of videos showing how to use one. It's a fun hobby.
Excellent work! Way to go Sam
Thanks
Great job, Sam! Amazed at the transformation.
Fantastic job, Sam. Part way through, it looked like it was going to fracture into a dozen pieces. With all that work, I'm surprised that your fingers didn't cramp up. Beautiful work !!
He actually did this over three days.
Yeah, it’s honestly not too bad though. The cab machine has a nice folded over lip on the edge that doesn’t dig in to your forearms
@MichiganRocks WOW! That's alot of work
Hi! Just wanted to say I love the sweatshirt and T shirt that my girlfriend gave me for Christmas. Thank you for helping her out! You are a great man. We are planning a trip out there in the spring just so I can do some rock hounding. Hopefully we can meet up with you. I’d be honored to take you and the wife out to dinner. Thanks again for the shirts and the great video content. Doug
I'm glad you're happy with everything, Doug. Please tell your girlfriend thank you for doing her Christmas shopping in my online shirt shop!
@@MichiganRocks I absolutely will!
Well done, Sam,. Came out amazing, good work.
Thanks
I couldn't help but notice how much Sam's talking cadence is so much like Rob's! You guys hang out a lot!
We don't hang out that much! Maybe it's just that we're from the same place.
Sam, you have a lot of patience! It looks beautiful!
Great video 👍
Beautiful agate. GREAT JOB Sam. 👍
Wow, Great job Sam, love that agate
Sam, Rob is wright you did a really nice job on it. Thanks Rob for the video and giving Sam the opportunity to do this. Once a teacher is always a teacher.
I can't get him out of my basement lately!
This actually brought me to tears! I mentioned about the camera angles Black Opal Direct do and you pulled it off!! Absolutely love this video and if I could like a million times I would!!! Well done!!!!!!!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
I'm glad you noticed! Thanks for that suggestion, I'll be using it again. It will be harder to do when I'm working by myself though, until I rig up some sort of jig to hold my camera. I handheld this over Sam's shoulder while he worked. It wouldn't work with just a tripod.
@@MichiganRocks He did so well it looks stunning! You got the shots brilliantly, maybe a lighting rig frame so you can clip a camera on but move along as you move.
@@Sophia-uc9qh Yeah, I'll figure something out.
@@MichiganRocks yeah I'm just over here spending your money for you! Hahah sorry!
Could you send me an email or a message on Instagram? I want to show you something that I made today.
abramr@mac.com
instagram.com/michiganrocksyoutube/
Your username is just a bunch of random looking letters, so you might need to remind me why you're sending me a message. Tell me that you want to see my creation in the basement. That should do the trick.
Great job Sam!
Thanks
Really good job on the polish Sam.
Nice job.
🙋♀️❤Great job, Sam!
Wow. That’s a stunner! Great job guys
I get no credit for this one. Sam did all the work on the rock. I did the camera work.
Looking good.
Great job Sam! Nice v, thanks for sharing😊👍
Wow, nice job! Imagine polishing with sand paper alone.
I don't want to imagine that. Makes my hands hurt just thinking about it.
The Student becomes The Teacher ….
Excellent Young Padawan excellent !!!
May The Force Be With You Both !
✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨
Sam is learning fast.
Nice job Sam! I've ground down too many agates trying to get every crack out and I've learned that we have to sometimes look at that as part of the "character" of that agate. Perhaps it is due to the makeup of a floater, but I seemed to get a fair number of cracks that popped up while working on floaters that come to the surface. They seem to happen less when the floater is totally within the agate and closer to the center.
There was no way that he was going to get every flaw out. I think he made good decisions about what to grind and what to live with.
@@MichiganRocks It turned out beautiful
WOW!
Damn, that looks great! Nice work!
Looks great!! Nice job Sam.
That turned out great! Good job 👍
Great job
Love this work and I'm also trying!
Nice work 👍
Great job with that agate! Cheers from Wis.
Super nice!!
It was pretty to start with. Beautiful after.
Nice shine!!
Nice work!!!!
great job
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Great job Sam
Looks a bit like an eye, beautiful
I thought that too.
Nice shine on that one, Sam!
Beautiful gem work 👍👋💯
Could you share the name of any specific books that that show how to identify rocks in their natural state, and also what they would look like when polished? Most of the rock and gem books we have found from the library show only polished stones which isn't very helpful in the rock collecting stage. Any recommendations would be appreciated!
Check out my Amazon storefront. It's in the descriptions of all of my videos. I have a few books that I own and like listed there. There are several that help identify Michigan rocks in their natural states.
Great job Sam...😊
Beautiful! What grits are your wheels?
80, 220, 280, 600, 1200, 3000. The first two are hard wheels, the rest are soft.
Sam has learned so much from you!
What height is your table that the Kingsley north sits on? Hoping to build out a lapidary room In my basement. Trying to decide if I should have 2 different bench heights. Ty
35.5 inches. I'm 6'2". Your height might be a factor in how hight you make your counter.
Cool agate! :)
Sam did an excellent job of polishing that rock. Sometimes when you have a highly desirable rock they are not without their imperfections and you just have to decide on a good stopping point when you are polishing it, so that you don’t ruin it or just remove to much good rock. What was the name of that agate? I couldn’t make that out. Over the past several months I’ve been going through the rocks that we’ve collected this past year and I’ve found a few agates that I wasn’t aware of when we gathered them.
In last weeks video someone asked the question as to whether a “chunk” of concrete could be polished. I think if a person tried that, using a cab machine would be the only way to do it that would yield good results. But I’m not sure that trying it would be worth the effort.
It's a Lake Superior agate. There's agate floating inside the quartz in the middle, so it's referred to as a "floater". The person who gave it to Sam calls the ones with really pure chalcedony "jelly agates". I'm not sure if that's a local term or if that's universal.
If I were to try to polish concrete, I'd probably use my Makita wet grinder on the top of a whole block. If I was just doing a small piece, the cab machine would be the way to go. I highly doubt it would tumble well. I'd be shocked.
@@MichiganRocks Ok, thanks. My hearings not the best and I didn’t pick up on the floater.
Love the color of that agate, and great job Sam, what a shine.
If you don't mind me asking Rob, what did you replace the felt pads on your wheels with? It looks much more durable than the originals.
I am in need of new pads on mine.
Those are replacement pads that I got from Kingsley North. They're wearing, but not as fast as the originals.
That came out great. Pretty stone. So, the new wheel is about 16% smaller than the original design. How much more are they charging for it?
I'm guessing it's about the same price. Funny thought though.
Well done. By the way, this is the most I have ever heard Sam speak.
He does talk occasionally. I need to shut up and let him!
Your persistence certainly paid off. Looks great. I guess the pad was too close to the finishing wheel. The aluminum or what ever the metal is on the edge of the felt pad leaves a mark if you hit the edge? Probably better if you ever had problems.
I'm sure it's better or they wouldn't have gone to the trouble of changing it. The disk backer is plastic, so it wouldn't leave a mark on a rock.
@@MichiganRocks plastic won’t leave a mark is right. Great machine.
odd question but does this glow under a uv light ?
Nope, I just checked to make sure. No glow at all.
@@MichiganRocks thanks, great work as always.
😍😍😍
So will either of you polish more whole agates by hand, or is your curiosity now satisfied? I think it turned out great, and hope you do more in the future.
Yes, we probably will. I think I'll stick to just a face polish though. This was a lot of wear on those wheels.
@@MichiganRocks could you tumble for a while and then finish up on wheels? How would that work out?
@@vickicook3094 Yes, you could definitely do that. If I was going to use the tumbler on the rock Sam did, I would do it the opposite though. I'd grind it on just the first wheel to take down just the bad spots, but leave the rest of the rock as large as possible. Then I'd do all the other stages in a vibratory tumbler. That would put a really good shine on it.
That turned out great. I have to ask why you would put that much wear and tear on the cabbing wheels. Seems like after doing the initial grind on the first wheel and maybe a bit of grinding on the second wheel it could have went into the lot-o with the next batch of rocks to achieve the same shine? Removing scratches left from the second wheel on an agate like that is really hard on the first soft wheel. Ideally just rough grind as needed on the first wheel, Toss it into a full batch of rocks for one week in rotary stage one then move to the lot-o for the rest. Very little manual labor and way cheaper then next 5 wheels on the cab machine.
I agree. I had no idea it would take that long when he started. The guy who gave Sam and I a lot of very nice agates also gave us a lot of suggestions on how to polish them. He said that the floater in this one could be very shallow and should be handled carefully, so we went with his suggestion. I think that thing must have cost $100 to polish. I'll think very hard before doing that again.
raydago sam!!
I have a rock that needs the Sam treatment.
Are you using nova wheels, or resin? Maybe the video sounds make it sound different, but he was really laying into that second wheel for resin. If it's not resin then nvm, nova and up I guess you want to lay in like that.
The first two wheels are hard Galaxy wheels, and the last four are soft Nova wheels.
👏👏⛏️⛏️
The transition from 220 hard to 280 soft is always a pain in the butt for me too
We're both used to doing softer rocks, so this one was a bit of a surprise, especially for Sam. I think it was his first hard rock.
@@MichiganRocks I was actually considering getting a 140 soft wheel when working with agates just to make that faster. Then I’d go 280 down through 3000
@@joshuahoman5014 That might help out. I haven't tried it though. When I first got into tumbling, I always wanted just one more tumbler. Now I want just one or two more wheels. I'd like to get something higher than my 3000 wheel, although I don't know how much difference it would make.
One of my cabs took 2 weeks lol
Holy cow! I hope it turned out awesome after all that time.
@@MichiganRocks yeah it did I spent most time on getting scratches out but only a hr a night for 2 weeks lol
@@MichiganRocks yeah it did I spent most time on getting scratches out but only a hr a night for 2 weeks lol
Sam, do you have your own RUclips channel?
No, he doesn't, but I have suggested that he start one. He has other hobbies that would be interesting too. Wood carving could be a big part of his channel.
I’ve considered it but I’ve been too busy and camera shy on top of the fact that I don’t think I could bring myself to edit anything. The sound of my own voice on a recording is just so weird to me
@@samcook1413 I get that. We are our own worst critics. The mirror lies, trust me. Last summer I was on one of my favorites RUclips magic the Gathering shows as a guest. When I saw myself in the episode I just slapped myself in the forehead saying I look like a grinning idiot to myself 🤣🤣.
You have a great mentor there, I am sure he can help you along if you change your. You could even digitally altered your voice so as to not have to hear yourself. Or just not talk during the video and do voiceover work later.
But regardless of that, you did a great job on that agate.
I thought about doing my own videos to put on RUclips of when I go rockhounding, but being a big guy, I sometimes get short of breath, which is quite audible when holding a phone camera. If I could find a way of not sounding so out of breath, there's a good chance I will be able to put up a video or two and not worry.
He’ll soon be as meticulous as you, Sir
I think he's already there.
@@MichiganRocks he for sure strives for your excellence. He’s blessed to have you as a teacher
👍👍👍