Post by Emerald on Oct 15, 2004 5:20:58 GMT -5
More grit finally arrived....I'm back to tumbling with the vib tumbler again. *cheers*
I think I figured out what may have been slowing down the shaping of the stones. Not enough rock!
After reading Cookie's post about being anal about weighing the rock between stages, I thought I'd be anal too and weigh what I was putting into the barrel. It came to 4lbs! No WONDER they weren't doing much in the barrel! The UV-10 is a 10lb capacity barrel and I was under loading it big-time! (Using the line on the barrel isn't a good gauge for filling the thing!) The only bad thing about big tumblers is you have to have alot of rock to fill them!
I didn't want to add my "good" rock into the barrel before shaping them, so I went on a search for stone. When I was out, I bought a 50lb bag of river rock from Lowes. ($2.95) ;D I hosed it off and it had some modestly nice stuff in it that was well shaped. Now I feel I won't be wasting the tumbling time.
Since the vib tumbler has been running, I've taken to throwing in a handful of the river rock into the barrel to be sure it's topped off. The addition of the rounded stone also seems to have improved the action! *cheers*
What's in the vib right now is an accumulation of everything I took to polish previously. I am just going to take the load to polish again and not worry about this batches shape. Next batch, I plan on being a WHOLE lot pickier!
Oh, I also threw in some of the small slabs that I wouldn't use for cabuchons. So far, they're looking pretty cool!
Enough rambling...back to work I go!
I think I figured out what may have been slowing down the shaping of the stones. Not enough rock!
After reading Cookie's post about being anal about weighing the rock between stages, I thought I'd be anal too and weigh what I was putting into the barrel. It came to 4lbs! No WONDER they weren't doing much in the barrel! The UV-10 is a 10lb capacity barrel and I was under loading it big-time! (Using the line on the barrel isn't a good gauge for filling the thing!) The only bad thing about big tumblers is you have to have alot of rock to fill them!
I didn't want to add my "good" rock into the barrel before shaping them, so I went on a search for stone. When I was out, I bought a 50lb bag of river rock from Lowes. ($2.95) ;D I hosed it off and it had some modestly nice stuff in it that was well shaped. Now I feel I won't be wasting the tumbling time.
Since the vib tumbler has been running, I've taken to throwing in a handful of the river rock into the barrel to be sure it's topped off. The addition of the rounded stone also seems to have improved the action! *cheers*
What's in the vib right now is an accumulation of everything I took to polish previously. I am just going to take the load to polish again and not worry about this batches shape. Next batch, I plan on being a WHOLE lot pickier!
Oh, I also threw in some of the small slabs that I wouldn't use for cabuchons. So far, they're looking pretty cool!
Enough rambling...back to work I go!