[meteorite-list] Park Forest - Too much for us to handle right now

From: John Sinclair <JSinclairJr_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:10:06 2004
Message-ID: <004901c2ff9e$516b5720$0ed65818_at_triad.rr.com>

Hi Adam and list,
Here is a link to diamond saw blades that are .004 and .006 to .012 in
thickness. They range in price from $24.50 to $43.50 per blade.
http://www.gravescompany.com/proslice.htm
These diamond blades should fit Alan's lapidary saws. You can use alcohol as
a coolant if needed (always at your own risk) and they will last for more
than 10 cuts. These blades are used for cutting high grade gem rough
including sapphire and ruby (hardness 9) with minimum waste. I have used
them in my shop and they work perfectly for stone meteorites.
With you spending $3800.00 on blades, hopefully this will be of some help in
the future.
John Sinclair

Adam wrote:

>We have worn out 10 blades on our automated Isomet wafering saw at a cost
of $380.00 a blade.

>The other saw we are using that is set up for alcohol wastes too much
material because of the minimal blade thickness of .018 and needs constant
babysitting to make sure the reservoir does not run dry possibly resulting
in an explosion.


----- Original Message -----
From: Adam Hupe <adamhupe_at_attbi.com>
To: <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 1:09 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Park Forest - Too much for us to handle right now


Dear List Members,

We were looking forward to a good distraction but Park Forest has proven to
be too much. We are falling way behind on other projects such as specimen
preparation, writing articles, cataloging several collections, submitting
samples for lab studies, trades, major new meteorite web site development
and expedition planning. We will honor the deals we have with the
collectors who expressed an interest in purchasing specimens of Park Forest
from us up to this point in time. All samples we are going to sell should
be prepared by Thursday.

In the interest of getting caught up we will have Michael Blood Meteorites
represent Park Forest specimens for us. As everybody knows Michael is an
honest dealer who takes good care of his customers. Do not get us wrong,
Park Forest is neat, the problem is we just do not enough time to pursue
sales of this fantastic new meteorite. We have personally answered over 300
emails regarding this material, talked hours on the phone, spent days in the
field and have had two saws running day and night preparing this material.

We have worn out 10 blades on our automated Isomet wafering saw at a cost of
$380.00 a blade. We ran out of blade stock for this saw because we can only
get about 20 cuts per blade, then the process becomes too slow because the
blades loose their sharpness. We normally reserve this saw for thin-section
and planetary cuts but the need to cut with alcohol has forced us to bring
this saw online. The other saw we are using that is set up for alcohol
wastes too much material because of the minimal blade thickness of .018 and
needs constant babysitting to make sure the reservoir does not run dry
possibly resulting in an explosion. At least you will know that the
material you purchase from Michael Blood was properly prepared. One dealer
questioned us about our equipment's capability to perform cuts using
alcohol. We will be happy to email anybody who has doubts a picture of the
saws we used to prepare these specimens. It is too bad we have been put
into a position where we need to defend our preparation practices which were
never questioned until this fall. We were taught by one of the best, AL
Lang who prepares specimens for museums all over the planet in his world
class facilities.

Thank you for your patience regarding Park Forest. We are looking forward
to getting caught up on other meteoritic projects if this is a possibility.

Wishing everybody success in their endeavors.

Adam Hupe
Received on Thu 10 Apr 2003 04:18:12 PM PDT