Lapidary for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCXIII

We usually hesitate to use words like "amusing" to describe the output of the more clueless freelancers we feature, but sometimes we simply have to admit it: the "work" some of  these people have performed leaves a lot to be desired. Take today's nominee, first-timer Jonita Davis (back when she was "Bylines by Jo). Wandering far outside the comfort zone of her English BA, Davis took on the somewhat ambiguous topic posed by the nice people at eHow.com, "How to Cut & Polish Stones" (it's now at Hunker.com). The result, unfortunately, was every bit as ambiguous as the topic...

Our staffers assumed from the plural "stones" that the OQ was interested in cutting a few cabochons, most likely of agate or other semi-semiprecious rough stock. Davis, on the other hand, tried to impress upon her readers that,

"Cutting and polishing stones of all kinds takes a similar process [sic] to that of gemstones; the only difference is the size of the stone and the equipment needed to accommodate it..." ...after we unpacked the grammatical spaghetti of that sentence, we wondered whether Jonita was thinking of larger material, say, flagstones or river rock. Maybe. Who knows. In a rather strange attempt to be all things to all stone cutters, she told her readers to, "Cut the stone using a rock saw. Also called a slab, trim or Faceter's [sic] saw, it is made of circular blades ingrained [sic] with diamond grit."

Sorry, Jonita, there's a damned-sight more to a lapidary saw than the blade. For one thing, they're wet saws that operate in a water or oil bath; for another, you don't hold the stock by hand; it's clamped in place. Davis then skipped over to a step in which she said to,

"Grind the rock to the desired rough shape using a grinder. A hand grinder is better-suited for larger pieces, while an all-in-one grinder/sander/polisher can eliminate some steps by utilizing the same machine."

Yeah, that's a lot of help, Jonita. It's even more help when you tell your readers to, 

"Sand the stones using sandpaper, fine diamond grit paper or a belt sander."

Wait, what? A belt sander? Do you even know what a belt sander is? It was at this point that we first realized that Davis had conflated lapidary work with stone-masonry... More ignorance ensued, as Jonita exhorted her readers to,

"Polish the stone next by using a very fine diamond-ingrained [sic] grit. Polishing provides a mirror finish and performs the ultra-fine shaping needing for jewelry and display pieces."

If only it were that easy... not to mention that polishing is a time-consuming process that requires the use of successively finer silicon carbide grit and a lapidary wheel, not "diamond-ingrained [sic] grit" (whatever that's supposed to be). And finally, Jonita would have us,

"Make a flat bottom on a piece to be used for jewelry by using a lap. It is a sander that sits flat."

Well, no, Jonita, that's not what a lap is. A lap is a spinning disk to which you add grit and water. Sheesh...

Unfortunately, anyone who tried to cut and shape stone using the instructions pounded out by our Dumbass of the Day would end up... well, we have no idea how they'd end up, other than disappointed.

SE - LAPIDARY