Thought you might like a peek behind the scenes.
When rocks come off the saw, they are covered in the cutting oil that runs in the slab saw. They get a soak in dishsoap water over night to degrease, but there is often still residue.
It takes a few days of “baking” in the sun and repeated hose washdowns ( and sometimes either a final soapy water scrub or a vinegar rinse) to get all the oil off. Earlier in the summer, when this adventure started, I would use the pond- as it was drained for repairs. But now that we are refilling the pond, I had been testing other spaces. I filled a garden with old bricks and was using that surface to let them lay and cook, but it involved a LOT of bending and being down very low. Some days the bending is fine, but other days this body gets cranky and that was not the best situation. David ( as usual) was brilliant and thought outside of the box and adapted some old fan guards into “basket” shelves and then welded them like a giant pastry dish.. and I can do most of my rock processing without being on the ground! I am so excited and this is an easy hack someone could do, so I wanted to share. You can see in the preview that there are lovely agates, and there is a special surprise appearance by David in this video as well.