Cutting Agate for Dummies

lapidary grinder

Let's get this out of the way right up font: we generally don't know whether our DotD candidates are dirt-stupid or they're just too greedy to do a good job of researching the subject they've chosen to write about. We suspect that, in the case of the Demand Media Studio sites (DMS¹ was renamed Leaf Group in 2016), it's been mostly greed... we do, however, suspect at least some stupidity accompanies their cupidity. Take, for instance, crunchy-granola eHowian Brian Connolly (sometimes known as Brian Sneeden) and "How to Cut Agates," which Leaf has moved to Sciencing.com.

Connolly begins, as Demand Media demanded, with an introduction; into which he introduces small errors:

"Agate is a variety of quartz characterized by its fine grain and bright color, and it is traditionally associated with volcanic rocks."

First, agate can be any color at all, including dull gray. Second, minerals don't have "traditions," southerners do. Agate is commonly found in vesicles in lava flows, but can also be found in almost any cavity where silica-rich water percolates. But enough pedantry, let's get to Brian's instructions.

He begins by ordering his reader to tumble their agate for a couple of weeks using a "rock tumbling mechanism"; well and good if it isn't already tumbled (which most raw stock is). What happens next is the yoga man's travesty:

"...bring your tumbled agate to the band saw. Turn the saw on and carefully insert the stone by gently feeding the stone with two hands... carefully direct the stone through the saw... Repeat for all desired cuts."

Yes: this dope thinks you use a band saw to cut agate and, even worse, you feed the raw stock by hand. What a moron! While lapidarists do, indeed, use a bandsaw with a diamond-tip blade (not, as Connolly tries to say, a "diamond-tipped bandsaw") for finish cuts, you use a wet saw specially designed for rocks with a diamond-tipped circular blade and an automatic feed to cut a anything larger than a few millimeters!

Connolly's final indignity is the last step, in which he instructs his readers to

"Polish each cut piece by placing each individual slice into the tumbler for several days, using water and polishing powder."

Yes, he said to cut the agate flat with a saw, then stick it back in the tumbler! No, Brian, you polish the cuts with a lapidary grinder, a flat wheel, and successively finer grit. Idiot.

Yup, there you have it, instructions (albeit wrong instructions) for cutting a flat surface on a chunk of agate and then destroying it. Is it any wonder that given Connolly's level of incompetence, we're handing Brian his very own Dumbass of the Day award? Now, if we had just mounted the award on a nice chunk of agate...

¹ Sadly, the name change to Leaf Group means we can no longer say, "You can't spell 'dumbass' without 'DMS'!" Oh, wait... we just did.

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