moogie
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since December 2013
Posts: 77
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Post by moogie on Jun 1, 2014 18:47:39 GMT -5
My first batch is well into the 500 grit prepolish, and I'm hoping to clean that out and start polish by mid week. The trouble is that I really don't have enough rock volume to fill the bowl, so I've been using ceramic media. I've been keeping each bunch of ceramic seperated by grit. I don't have enough media on hand for the polish phase, so I ordered more (large) from the Rock Shed. But will the new ceramic pieces be too sharp to successfully be used in the polish phase? Should I run them through the polish phase for a day or so just to "soften" them down? I have a seperate vibe bowl for the polish phase.
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Post by deb193redux on Jun 1, 2014 19:36:37 GMT -5
yes. good to break them in.
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tkvancil
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since September 2011
Posts: 1,546
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Post by tkvancil on Jun 2, 2014 10:15:13 GMT -5
In the vibe you can run the ceramic through all stages. Wash them up with the rocks between grits and you should be good. Has worked for me in both rotary and vibe.
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Post by 150FromFundy on Jun 2, 2014 20:31:34 GMT -5
tkvancil nailed it! Ceramic media is expensive to buy and expensive to ship. Plastic pellets are porous and trap grit. You can't clean them, so you have to have a dedicated supply for each stage. Ceramic pellets are not porous, do not trap grit and can be cleaned when you burnish (borax and water) between each stage. Use the same ceramic pellets for all stages ensuring that they are well cleaned between each stage.
deb193redux also nailed it! For the polish stage, you should not introduce new ceramic due to the possibility of scratches. Clean your existing media from previous stages and use that in your pre-polish and polish stages.
Over time, even ceramic media will slowly wear down and get smaller. Keep the smalls and add more large to keep the volume of ceramic media up. Over time, you will create yourself a wide range of ceramic media sizes (through wear) which is ideal to maintain a "balanced" load.
Darryl.
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