My father use to go demonstrate his Genie a lot at shows & found dopping wax a royal pain. Then someone how to use cushioned carpet tape or cloth carpet tape, it must be the cushioned tape though. He would take some copper plate & solder it to a copper tubing or put a nail in a wooden dowel rod. Then cut the plate a little smaller than the stone, so there is a little clearance between the stone & plate when the tape is put on (you don’t want your grinding wheel to hit the plate but you also want as much tape stuck to the stone as possible). Put the tape
on the plate, wrapping the tape around the sides. There you have a dopstick that can be uses again and again. Eventually the tape will get dirty & lose it’s stickiness, but all you need to do is pull out your pocketknife & scrape off the tape & put on new tape.

To put the stone on all you do is stick it on, yea sure, occasionally the stone would fall off while cutting, but all you need to do is dry off the stone & stick it back on (if the tape gets too wet it is a good idea to have a few extra sticks). When you are done all you need to do is pull the stone off. Dad preferred the cushion of the tape over the solid hold of the wax, and after he made a few sticks he never melted wax again. If you leave a poris stone on the tape for a long period the tape can stain the stone.

My dad preferred working large stones so I don’t know how well this works on smaller stones & I have never tried dopping wax so I’m not a good source of which is better, but I hope this might help someone. I know most of you knew my dad & already know about his sticks, but sense I took the time to post this on one of my mailing list, why not share it with the club.

While at the Gem Fair one company what demoing grinders & saws. He was using a hard plastic rods & super glue. If the stick needed flatting he would file it flat & put a drop of glue on it and stick the stone on it, when done just bend it & it & the stone pops right off. A little glue might stick to the stone, but if that worries you a little acetone or nail polish remover will take care of this. This might not work on softer stones, but works on most.