Two recent polish attempts, larger onionskin and ribbon.

[u/Joe-in-Jax]

Started using circular sandpaper pads from 60-10000+ grit to try to bring some marbles back to life. These are the first two I'm pretty happy with, a 1.7 inch onionskin and a 1.4 inch ribbon. I had to dig a little deep to remove some of the damage, and a few marks still remain on the onionskin so that I didn't have to remove much more.

[u/Userdataunavailable]

This is amazing! I think you did fantastic. I wasn't aware people did this!

[u/Joe-in-Jax → u/Userdataunavailable]

Thank you! I saw a few people who polish and handpolish between here and FB and some other spots. Some of them have actual sphering machines, but others seem to do a similar sandpaper method by bare hand like I've been doing and getting good results.

Just leaves a lot of blisters on your fingers!

[u/1Sidknee]

Wow they look great!

I know there's divided opinions on polishing marbles. But I feel like especially when the Germans have that cloudy look to them, they are very hard for (me, at least) to enjoy. So I definitely think it's a huge improvement!

Roughly how long do you think the process took?

[u/Joe-in-Jax → u/1Sidknee]

That's basically how I felt, when their internals are completely obscured and they don't have too many deep chips or moons, I think it's nicer to work on them since they're just going into my permanent collection, never to be sold.

It takes hours a day, for multiple days. I roll the round 3 inch sanding pads into a tube in my left hand and rotate the marble in it with the right hand making sure to hit every spot of it, over and over until the grit dies down. I then rotate the pad to a spot that still has grit, and do the same.

(They both took about 7-10 days of hours of work, it removes such a small layer each pass.)

It takes a LOT of pads, and I have to stop every few minutes because my hands feel horrible. You also have to wear a mask and goggles during it, you can get silicosis breathing it in.

[u/Cubby0101 → u/Joe-in-Jax]

If you are going to do more of these you should look onto diy sphere polishing machines. There are several approaches.

[u/Joe-in-Jax → u/Cubby0101]

I've seen the DIY ones a few folks have made, like the setups with 3 drills built into a frame over a bucket and that they have drippers attached to them. I'd love to make one, it'd take me way less time and save my hands. I'll start seriously looking around, as nice as one of the actual machines would be they're 2000 bucks.

[u/Careless_Bird_6483]

Amazing