lone stars and small animals

I've been pretty busy since last Friday doing some remedial work on the 7 1/2” diameter circles with the lone star carved on them for the San Jacinto Monument Museum. They ordered 30 this last time and on all but four of them, the tape that was supposed to protect the polished edges from getting blasted while the face of the circle was being carved did not do its job. The force of the blasting medium blew the tape away so I had 26 of the 30 circles with varying amounts of over-blast on the edges and I would not be able to deliver them to my client like that.

I had three choices. I could remake 26 circles with all the time and expense that involved (and kiss any money from this job goodbye), I could take them to my glass guy and get his shop man to polish them out for me which would be less expense but still would probably eat up most my profit, or I could try and do it myself since I do have the equipment. So I tested out one or two of the least affected circles with the little bit of cerium oxide (polishing compound) that I had and determined that I could successfully bring the edges back up to a high polish.

So, since I used up all the cerium oxide I had (which amounted to less than a tablespoon's worth) testing out the two circles, I looked online for a supplier and they had like 40 different kinds. One phone call and a recommendation later I ordered the cerium oxide which came last week.

I have a small, 12” diameter, flat lap with diamond discs. The way that glass is beveled and/or polished is to grind the area with a coarse disc, then medium, then fine, then very fine, then what they call composite which replaces the old cork stage, and then finally the polishing compound on the felt disc. I didn't need to do any grinding since the over-blast was very fine, though very visible, but it was enough that just using the felt disc was not going to do the trick. So first I had to go over the affected areas with the composite disc and then the polishing disc. I finally got them all finished yesterday afternoon so now I'm getting them cleaned up to deliver.

Other work news, the glass for the master bath window is now in the shop so I will be getting that stencil cut this week and I submitted my last (hopefully) proposal for the three large panels for the small animal hospital. The job is going forward, though we haven't got our deposit yet, and what at first looked to be a fun job has turned into a chore. Instead of any of the really delightful sketches I did initially of groupings of different animals, they want some very specific imagery and very specific representations. Would have been nice if they had given me that info before I wasted nearly a week on the other sketches. Oh well. It won't be a fun job but it will be a good job.