Joined: Thu Jan 24, 2008 4:01 pm Posts: 1902 Location: Pine City, NY and Dothan, AL
Depends on the material, as well as other factors, as Jeff points out. Your experience may differ in details.
Jeff was an accomplished faceter and designer. However, he had strong opinions that not everybody agreed with, and his writings were some years ago. Tools and methods change.
An old and very experienced faceter of my acquaintance felt that oxides were good for polishing stones softer than sapphire because they broke down finer and finer under the pressure of the lap. Horses for courses, I suppose, whatever suits your method of working.
I've had a lot of success using oxides on just about everything with a Mohs hardness less than 8... With CeOx being my "go to" polish.
With a hardness of 7, all of the quartz variations take to CeOx like a duck to water. Lately, I've been using a 8K Lightning Lap as a quartz pre-polish before a few passes with CeOx.
Below is a piece of rutilated quartz. If a thread of rutile invades the surface, you may have to polish that particular facet with diamond, as the rutile is often harder than the quartz.
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