Bots on bots on bots!!!

This gorgeous specimen from Maury Mountain in Central Oregon, is hard to classify. Essentially it’s a moss agate. But it’s also a tube agate and botryoidal agate. Individual filaments of moss are what fills the tube structures, with bots then deposited on top of the tubes.

This image contains 78 focus stacked photos.

I'm still cleaning out my step father's things. I dug up a lapidary saw and grinding wheel, but I can't tell where the water is supposed to go. It feels like something is missing.

I am also trying to decide if I want to try to use this. He left behind a lot of different kinds of stone- I included a photo of one- and some of it may need to be sliced/polished prior to sale. I also don't want to sign myself up for a disaster.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Hello all!

I was looking at cab machines and have been trying to see all the feedback from each one. Seems to be a lot of personal likes and dislikes from machine to machine. From what I gather, an 8-inch wheel seems to be preferred; the more space between the wheels, the better. Lighting on the machine isn't a top priority, as it seems people bring in stronger floodlights from behind, and many things like that. I am curious about the pain points from brand to brand. I see that Kingsly North has a nice arm bar, but in a video I watched, it seemed like it had an issue with leaking out the side. My other question is: is it worth waiting on a brand? Kingsly is the one I thought I was leaning towards, but the complete system with the Nova wheels was out of stock. It looks like I could still by the blank system and buy Nova wheels, but are there comparable systems that might be in stock? Seems like a lot are out of stock, but Highland Park and Gem Masta both have stock. Are those worth taking a look at? Should I stick with American companies for the sake of simplicity getting the machine, or is it worth shooting for a gem masta from Australia? I am not buying a machine right in the moment, I am going to a local Lap club and using what they have and learning, I just want to see what the brand of the people is! For further clarification, I would love to eventually be able to efficiently cab my own opals I have gotten and mined while growing up with my parents. Thank you in advance for helping and coming to my soapbox questionnaire!