salticidae
off to a rocking start
Member since March 2023
Posts: 14
|
Post by salticidae on Jun 1, 2023 14:18:02 GMT -5
Hi!!!!!
It's been two and a half months since my first and last post on here, and I must say that I've learned a lot about rock tumbling thanks to y'all. I finally finished my first batch and the rocks feel so smooth and look niiiiice...when wet. I burnished my stones using ivory and all my stones as soon as they dry look powdery and very fine cracks are white. All my stones look the same. I doubt that all my stones are unsuitable for rock tumbling because I have a huge variety. I'm not sure what I did wrong or what I can do to fix this. I was going to upload some pictures but I can't figure out how to do that here even with the help provided. Does anyone know a How to fix The White powder issue? Thanks!
|
|
|
Post by Starguy on Jun 1, 2023 14:28:45 GMT -5
Is there an actual powder on the stones or could it be in chips that appear white? Sometimes a frosty surface can be caused by rocks impacting too much in the tumbler. A tumbler 2/3 -3/4 full might help. All the rocks should be close to the same hardness too.
|
|
salticidae
off to a rocking start
Member since March 2023
Posts: 14
|
Post by salticidae on Jun 1, 2023 14:34:17 GMT -5
Is there an actual powder on the stones or could it be in chips that appear white? Sometimes a frosty surface can be caused by rocks impacting too much in the tumbler. A tumbler 2/3 -3/4 full might help. All the rocks should be close to the same hardness too. I always tumbled my rocks 3/4 full and the white lines appeared when I added my aluminum oxide polisher. Even after burnishing them, they all have white residue. I have pictures to show you but don't know how to put them up here.
|
|
|
Post by tims on Jun 1, 2023 15:55:55 GMT -5
Cloudinary tutorial is posted here.
I've also had issues with what appears to be white residue left in cracks / fractures after ivory burnish and then a short roll in clean water. Seems like the polish works its way into tiny cracks that water can't enter to rinse. I'm curious to see what you mean by "powdery" if you put up pics.
|
|
hoolligan1938
spending too much on rocks
Member since January 2022
Posts: 253
|
Post by hoolligan1938 on Jun 1, 2023 17:17:44 GMT -5
Someone on this forum once suggested that tumbled rocks should be put in water as soon as they are removed from the drum/barrel. This is supposed to keep any residue soft and wet until they can be brushed. I doubt that this will help though, if your in the polishing stage unless the white in the cracks was deposited there on previous stages. As a side note,I used to use Ivory bar soap shaved into the drum/barrel but wasn't happy with the results. I got a bottle of liquid Ivory dish soap and it seems to work much better for the burnish. When rinsed and wiped dry the stones shine beautifly. Hope this helps.
Jim
|
|
|
Post by Son Of Beach on Jun 1, 2023 20:28:29 GMT -5
It sounds like you are talking about grit in the cracks. Some stones, depending on the makeup actually do worse in the later stages and have kind of a dirty window look on them.
Hopefully you can figure out clodinary,it's a one click solution when it goes correctly.
|
|
ashley
Cave Dweller
Member since February 2023
Posts: 915
|
Post by ashley on Jun 1, 2023 21:37:40 GMT -5
I’m with Brent ( Starguy) it sounds like bruising. Make sure you have enough ceremics in your batch.
|
|
|
Post by hummingbirdstones on Jun 1, 2023 21:50:10 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Starguy on Jun 2, 2023 1:56:17 GMT -5
salticidaeYou could play around with the mix of sizes in the barrel. It seems like a couple larger rocks with the rest of the batch medium and small works best. It’s particularly important in the later stages. I feel like a little impact tumbling in coarse is good. It’s easy to ignore the small rocks during coarse cleanouts. I often look in the stage 2 barrel and there aren’t enough smalls. Then I’m in a rush to find more. It takes a lot of extra time to sort those smalls out but it’s worth it in the long run. Matching hardness of the rocks in the barrel may help. I’ve had the white rimmed cracks. It hasn’t been an issue for a while. I usually send them for a free ride in coarse again. Good luck. I hope you can figure out the photo thing. I got it working and I’m not too tech savvy
|
|
Wooferhound
Cave Dweller
Lortone QT66 and 3A
Member since December 2016
Posts: 1,423
|
Post by Wooferhound on Jun 2, 2023 6:02:38 GMT -5
Never let the rocks Dry out before they are finished.
|
|
ashley
Cave Dweller
Member since February 2023
Posts: 915
|
Post by ashley on Jun 2, 2023 13:05:23 GMT -5
Here is an example of some smoky quartz that I had too much in the barrel, and it got bruised up, those marks you see is bruising. There’s a little bit of grit in there, but it’s mostly bruising which is fractures. I needed less material and more ceramics.
|
|
cthomas
off to a rocking start
Member since April 2023
Posts: 19
|
Post by cthomas on Jun 18, 2023 9:04:49 GMT -5
What brand of polish? Not all polishes are created equal. If you are using the polish that came with your tumbler try getting something from one of the vendors mentioned on this forum like the Rock Shed or others.
Otherwise I’ll go with bruising as others have mentioned. Increase your tumbling media to rock ratio in the barrel.
|
|
stefan
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2005
Posts: 14,095
|
Post by stefan on Jun 28, 2023 6:42:57 GMT -5
OK to try to cover all the bases here goes. The white lines you see in the cracks is indeed polish. There will be lots of advice on how to try to remove it (everything from never let the rocks dry out, to different burnishing steps to try) but let's get to the root of the problem. CRACKS. If you put rocks with cracks in them into polish, the cracks will fill with polish and you get those lovely white streaks. The absolute BEST way to avoid this is to NOT put in rocks with cracks. How long did your rocks run in the course grit? I'm betting not long enough. You need to remember that however the rocks look out of course, is how they are going to look polished. What I mean by this is that you can not polish away cracks. If you have cracks out of course, you will have cracks out of polish. I give away a lot of rock at my work, and I get asked How long does this take? People are shocked to learn that even my fastest tumbles are 16 weeks, (and that is running 500 thru polish in the vibe) and that most of my tumbles are 20 to 24 weeks! I make sure to wash the rock between stages (not just a rinse, but a full on blast with my sprayer head in the sink and a toothbrush scrub). I have a sump pump that my sink drains into so I don't worry about the small amount of slurry that may get in there). If you can't get a scrub done this way you will want to run a wash cycle between stages. Keep running them in course until they are as perfect as you can get them. Now that we have the early stages covered lets look at the final stages (pre-polish and polish). I cushion my loads (plastic pellets in the rotary, ceramic media in the vibe). For the rotary I add my polish (1 tbs per 3 lb barrel- yes this is WAY under the recommendations, but it works for me). Water to cover the rocks (a little more is better than a little less) and then add plastic to fill the barrel. This runs for weeks for pre-polish and 3 weeks for polish. I then clean everything off real well again and switch to burnish (I like borax). I run that for 24 hours with pellets. A couple notes, I use 1/2 tsp in the vibe and ceramics. I use separate pellets for each stage in the rotary. I have polish ceramics for the Vibe. I make sure to wash the rocks real well between stages and I have let them dry out with zero issues. I hope this makes sense and helps you figure out what went wrong.
|
|
RockyBeach
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since July 2023
Posts: 240
|
Post by RockyBeach on Jul 8, 2023 18:18:43 GMT -5
My newbie fwiw ... I found that using Borax works better than Ivory (or the sometimes recommended Dawn) for the washing and burnishing stages. I had hazy "finished" stones until I switched to Borax and now the ones that will shine are bright and shiny. I tumble mixed river rocks and local "gravel" and realize that some simply will not polish to a shine.
|
|