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Author Topic: Hello from Denver Colorado USA  (Read 2882 times)

jcricket

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Hello from Denver Colorado USA
« on: December 23, 2022, 08:24:24 AM »
Hello folks,
My I live in  the Denver Colorado area. I guess this is where I say hello and tell you a little bit  about myself.

First, what is very most important to me is my family. I have been married for almost 32 years and have twin 25 year old boys. My boys are developmentally disabled, one  of which  is autistic. They are incredible people in my world.

I have spent  most of my working career as a technician. I have worked on mostly manufacturing equipment in industrial environments. This was done at Coors beer brewing plant and  at Keebler cookies. I have worked other places to. This has given me a great exposure to fine mechanical, machinist, electrician and other such trades. I like to consider myself reasonably knowledgeable in these areas.

As to rocks, I have always had an interest in them. As a young boy, back in the early 1970's, I had a collection passed to me from my father. My father is very old now and  passed  on his Facetron cutting machine to me. This is  an  endeavor I have always wanted to pursue. Now I can! beers

Although I  do have  a technical  back ground, I know very little about faceting. I understand the basic ideas behind, but the skill I do not posses, yet. I have joined this form to share my OOPS's and my successes. I hope to learn a lot from you  people. so  thanks in advance for this.

Anyway, hello for Denver!
Mark
« Last Edit: December 23, 2022, 08:26:54 AM by jcricket »

RoughCreations

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Re: Hello from Denver Colorado USA
« Reply #1 on: December 23, 2022, 02:23:39 PM »
Hi Mark,
Glad to have you aboard. Your technical background will put you in good stead for faceting.
I have a 20 year old son with Cystic Fibrosis, it has been a bumpy ride over the years, however he is doing pretty well with the breakthrough medications available these days.
I also run a 5 year old Facetron, with a few other active ALF members also cutting with Facetrons, so feel free to ask for any help getting started.
RC
(Laurie)
Rough Creations - Beauty from rough beginnings

Rusted

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Re: Hello from Denver Colorado USA
« Reply #2 on: December 23, 2022, 04:37:59 PM »
Hi and Welcome.

The best instruction books around are, "Amateur gemstone faceting" by Tom Herbst. Vol 1 is all you need at first, Vol 2 is more advanced stuff.

They are large information packed books but the information is presented in a light easily read style. They are quite cheap (Amazon) for such amazing books.

Designs can be found in a lot of places online    https://www.gemologyproject.com/wiki/index.php?title=Faceting_Designs  This is a good starting point for good modern designs

Good luck and keep us posted.

Bucket

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Re: Hello from Denver Colorado USA
« Reply #3 on: December 23, 2022, 08:43:05 PM »
Welcome and Merry Christmas. RC and Rusted have given you great info, I would imagine where you are located there would be maybe a lapidary club you could join, they may be able to help you out with gem hunting and faceting. Your location is great for smoky quartz, aquamarine and topaz, along with many others. Hope your not snowed in, I know you'll be cold!
Common sense isn't exactly common

jcricket

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Re: Hello from Denver Colorado USA
« Reply #4 on: December 24, 2022, 01:27:34 AM »
Hey Folks,
Thanks for  the warm welcome. It is greatly appreciated.

Bucket, I have found MANY lapidary clubs here  in  the  Denver area. After looking at a few of them, I realized I could easily be going to several different meetings, a couple of field trips, and a few shows every month with the number of active clubs.

Rusted, I'll look those books up, I have started my first cut, the easy 8 as it is called in my paperwork. So far, okay but not great. I am still learning skills, about the machine, and about trouble shooting problems with the machine and myself. But, it has been a lot of fun for myself.

RC, I have been doing a lot of reading across the internet. I have read many of your posts on several forums. They are excellent posts with lots of relevant information to my machine. One in particular is where you talk about issue with repeatability. In your post you too the side plate off the machine and exposed the rack and round half gear. You wound up replacing the spring that sits against the small lever. I have been troubleshooting this now for a few weeks. I have not found a definitive solution. I did get a set of new lightning laps standard polishing laps yesterday. They seem to run at less then .0005 runout over the surface. I haven't tried them. I was using the D'lite topper polishing laps(a "new" set), one of those laps had .030" runout - completely useless. The  best I found in that set was about.003" runout. I am not sure if that is a useable lap,
Thoughts on that please?
Also, I am not quite sure which forum is best for these type of creations. A suggestion to the correct forum would be great.
mark

steveo

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Re: Hello from Denver Colorado USA
« Reply #5 on: December 24, 2022, 09:09:36 AM »
Hi Mark,   Steve from Oklahoma, Tulsa Rock and Mineral Society, dont just find one forum, I started with this forum many years ago but have found a few more that I like. You learn so much from the different ones and it all helps. Faceting Finds and Faceting Technical on facebook.  Lots of help on many forums.

Steve

MakkyBrown

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Re: Hello from Denver Colorado USA
« Reply #6 on: December 24, 2022, 05:38:54 PM »
Welcome Mark  beers

jcricket

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Re: Hello from Denver Colorado USA
« Reply #7 on: December 25, 2022, 03:02:30 AM »
thank to all of you and merry Christmas .  brrr beers

RoughCreations

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Re: Hello from Denver Colorado USA
« Reply #8 on: December 25, 2022, 08:46:46 AM »

RC, I have been doing a lot of reading across the internet. I have read many of your posts on several forums. They are excellent posts with lots of relevant information to my machine. One in particular is where you talk about issue with repeatability. In your post you too the side plate off the machine and exposed the rack and round half gear. You wound up replacing the spring that sits against the small lever. I have been troubleshooting this now for a few weeks. I have not found a definitive solution. I did get a set of new lightning laps standard polishing laps yesterday. They seem to run at less then .0005 runout over the surface. I haven't tried them. I was using the D'lite topper polishing laps(a "new" set), one of those laps had .030" runout - completely useless. The  best I found in that set was about.003" runout. I am not sure if that is a useable lap,
Thoughts on that please?

Truth be told, I was never completely satisfied with the mechanical interface driving the dial gauge on my Facetron, even after various attempts to remediate it. It is possible that my machine, bought new, is a lone faulty unit, but then I have heard from others online that have seemingly the same issue, which means there are at least a percentage of machines out there with this "wandering dial gauge issue" - as I call it. (https://aussielapidaryforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=6824.0) I suspect the problem is fairly widespread.
My solution - fit a digital encoder (thanks MakkyB). I'll expand on this more after Christmas!

RC
Rough Creations - Beauty from rough beginnings

jcricket

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Re: Hello from Denver Colorado USA
« Reply #9 on: January 08, 2023, 03:26:26 AM »
Hey RC,
I saw that pic of your digital encoder. I asked about it it in  the other thread I started. Could you please expand on this??
THanks

RoughCreations

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Re: Hello from Denver Colorado USA
« Reply #10 on: January 09, 2023, 05:37:34 PM »
Hey RC,
I saw that pic of your digital encoder. I asked about it it in  the other thread I started. Could you please expand on this??
THanks
Sure, start with this thread:
https://aussielapidaryforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=6855.0
Perhaps add to the end of the thread above any follow up questions.
Ahhh... Facetrons and encoders - my two favourite topics!

RC
Rough Creations - Beauty from rough beginnings

 

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