Fantastic work! It took me at least 6 months before I could get a finish like that!

Oh damn that's pretty! Nicely done to the both of you!

The stone I cut this from was half a £2 tumblestone I picked up from a gem show, so it's a great way of using up uninspiring quartz group stuff

Ice clear polish, and perfect meetpoints too! Fantastic!

I've used the AlOx lightning lap because powders hate me

Woah how many facets is that on the pavilion?

I can imagine getting a good polish on that was also an arse, I always struggle with long facets

Quartz is definitely a bastard. The only thing that helped me was getting hold of a couple of lightning laps - https://lightninglap.com/ - the 3k resin bonded lap polishes like an 8k, and then a CeOx resin polishing lap from them.

I've never figured out how to get a satisfying polish with anything I have to apply to a lap, it just becomes scratch city.

Stone looks lovely though!

"Fat girdle habit" is a great name for a band

Oh I love the richness of the colour there

Stunning work, and a lovely story

Hahahaa yissss

I've been so impressed with the LL pads that, outside of bonded cutting disks, I don't use anything else. Your milage may vary, though!

Woah damn, I need to step up my game

In the UK, we've got https://www.gemsofeastafrica.com/ who provide trustworthy rough without having to pay huge amounts of intercontinental postage

Amazing! I've got a moissanite I've been keeping for a special occasion- how do you find it vs something like sapphire?

This is what we call The Good Stuff. Amazing job

I can thoroughly recommend his book on commercial facet designs!

It really is!

It's pretty well matched to a Smith Bar if you wanted to do it all as one big stone. Everyone loves pixels!

I've just started using a CeO lightning lap, and I'm finally getting a good polish on quartzes. Every time I try to buy gearloose products suddenly the guy announces he's retiring and all his stuff sells out.