Polish Finish Gemstones
The process to polish-finish a bead:
After a gemstone is sawed and ground to the desired shape, it is usually polished to a mirror-like finish to aid light reflection from the surface of the stone. Very fine grades of diamond (50,000 to 100,000 mesh) can be used to polish a wide variety of materials, but other polishing agents work well in many instances. Usually, these polishing agents are metal oxides. Different stones are often very inconsistent in their ease of polishing, particularly in the case of faceted stones, so gem cutters are often very inventive in trying new combinations of polishing agents and polishing surfaces.