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Post by phil on Apr 23, 2014 22:31:44 GMT -5
ran into a vendor who was happy to show me the ropes of stabilizing material. Rocks, chalk, wood, whatever. Why was he happy? His procedure uses his resin, at $90 per gallon. Since I have about a full 5 gallon bucket with 50 pounds of turquoise chalk that cost me too much (was hidden in the bottom of some good turquoise nuggets), I looked at the costs and figured out the only way yo get my $$ out of the stone was to stabilize it, as I couldn't find anyone in the business who would do that small amount. So, my math said do it. Today, I loaded up the vacuum chamber with some nice dried material (about 20 pounds) to the chamber to see what happens, added the mix to cover, and fired it up. A little over an hour later, the bubbles finally stopped coming out of the material, so I opened the valves and turned off the pump. I had ordered 4 gallons, figuring 5 gallons of chalk would just suck the mix up like crazy... Boy did I make a mistake. Yes, the level had dropped nicely, meaning the chalk had soaked up a lot of it, but when I decanted off the extra liquid, that 20 pounds had only absorbed about 1/3 gallon. Oh oh. What had faint color going in was now nicely colored blue green, I didn't add any color either. More blue than green, but you could see the green influence. I've only got the last 30 pounds, and at this rate, it means I bought about 3 gallons too much. Dang. anyone want to buy some resin for stabilizing? Maybe I can get the vendor to take 2 gallons back, this stuff is also good for stabilizing punky wood for pen blanks and etc too. BUT, the chalk really looks nice! Tomorrow I cure it and then I slice it to see how it polishes!
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ivan
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2014
Posts: 165
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Post by ivan on Apr 24, 2014 14:03:20 GMT -5
ran into a vendor who was happy to show me the ropes of stabilizing material. Rocks, chalk, wood, whatever. Why was he happy? His procedure uses his resin, at $90 per gallon. Since I have about a full 5 gallon bucket with 50 pounds of turquoise chalk that cost me too much (was hidden in the bottom of some good turquoise nuggets), I looked at the costs and figured out the only way yo get my $$ out of the stone was to stabilize it, as I couldn't find anyone in the business who would do that small amount. So, my math said do it. Today, I loaded up the vacuum chamber with some nice dried material (about 20 pounds) to the chamber to see what happens, added the mix to cover, and fired it up. A little over an hour later, the bubbles finally stopped coming out of the material, so I opened the valves and turned off the pump. I had ordered 4 gallons, figuring 5 gallons of chalk would just suck the mix up like crazy... Boy did I make a mistake. Yes, the level had dropped nicely, meaning the chalk had soaked up a lot of it, but when I decanted off the extra liquid, that 20 pounds had only absorbed about 1/3 gallon. Oh oh. What had faint color going in was now nicely colored blue green, I didn't add any color either. More blue than green, but you could see the green influence. I've only got the last 30 pounds, and at this rate, it means I bought about 3 gallons too much. Dang. anyone want to buy some resin for stabilizing? Maybe I can get the vendor to take 2 gallons back, this stuff is also good for stabilizing punky wood for pen blanks and etc too. BUT, the chalk really looks nice! Tomorrow I cure it and then I slice it to see how it polishes! Hi Phil - Thanks for posting. Many moon ago I had an interest in doing some turquoise stabilizing. That was in the early 70,s when turquoise took off. It will be interesting to see how thorough the absorption of resin & color is for you. As you mentioned, and probably still is true is that both stabilizing & the dyeing of turquoise is implemented. I would prefer to work with the clear? resin first to stabilize the material You an anybody can correct me, if I'm mistaken as I have very limited knowledge on what the entire method required. Keep us posted and it will be interesting as you begin to work out the incidentals. Hopefully you will be able to provide some before and after pictures. Ivan
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Post by phil on Apr 24, 2014 19:41:13 GMT -5
I've only done natural colors, no coloring added so far. But everything came out great (second batch)! will post another update soon. No pics on these first couple batches, they're already done.
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Post by phil on Apr 24, 2014 19:46:08 GMT -5
Stabilizing - final update.
Finished the "good" 2nd batch, and slabbed up the smallest pieces, they took the treat very well, all the way thru, and when we windowed a few they took a good polish and shine. Medium hardness, but that might be because I only cured them for 1.5 hours. Next batch I'll try increased drying time pre-soak, and increased cooking time post soak. The vacuum and soak times were perfect. Even the thickest chunk of chalk (3 inches diameter by 5 inches long) was treated all the way thru the center. no soft spots in any of the pieces, and hard enough to resist my fingernails. Again, medium hardness, but took a good polish with a nice shine. Color of the chalk was not the best, but the owner of the mine wanted to see what the natural color of his white chalk would be. It ended up a light blue and looks like larimar! I think if he wants to do anything with his chalk mine, he'll have to colorize. Even the azurite "blueberries" in the stones in places and spotty dendrites didn't help much. All in all, the treatment worked well. What was the equivalent of white sidewalk chalk when dry, lightly colored when wet, is now cabable. With good grade, good natural color, and permeable chalk, it will be just the ticket. There were lessons to be learned, but it was a short class. I made some mistakes, my equipment ruined a small amount of chalk in my first go round (that toaster oven is now scrap!), but I adjusted and the second batch came out great!
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Post by stoner on Apr 25, 2014 0:13:34 GMT -5
Nice that you were able to save the chalk. Are you going to be selling any? Send me a PM and we can work out the details.
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Post by phil on Apr 25, 2014 10:44:32 GMT -5
I'm probably going to slab all this chalk and probably sell it as slabs or polish up some nice large cabs to sell. I only have about 40 pounds total, 30 of which has some really nice baby blue color. Looks like old stock Sleeping beauty chalk it's that clear blue. I used the lower grade chalk that was given to me to learn on, didn't want to risk my good stuff. Glad I dd it that way too. That first batch that got toasted from a malfunctioning oven is junk, but some valuable lessons were learned, and a new used oven is now in place and working well. But if you have some chalk of your own you want done, we could talk about it...
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