User blog comment:Mckrongs/Monster Hunter 4 for the Nintendo 3DS/@comment-6050823-20130905120539

For anyone wondering about the Excavation Equipment, here is afew things I found about it.

As we all should know by now, you get them from only the Unknown Sea of Trees, when you mine. After mining and the quest is over,  you won't be able to identify it until you see it on the Charms and Weapons section for awards(Note when you get it, you mostly likely can't wear it).

From this you need to bring it to the Armor Polishing Workshop in Naguri Village, where it could be polished and where you can actually wear it. Earth Crystals seem to be needed to polish the armor (Large numbers of them)and it seems sometimes other materials maybe needed for the armor.

In order to polish your stuff, you need to exchange some ornaments and Brigade Points(The points that replace Resource Points)to polish the E. Equipment.

With most of the equipment, the design is different from the normal one and they can be quite different with skills, defense, and other things like resistance but, they have the same amount of slots.

Here is the last thing I found, the E. Equipment resistance against elements can be quite different for each piece of the armor.