notjustone
spending too much on rocks
Member since January 2017
Posts: 426 
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Post by notjustone on Apr 2, 2017 8:57:23 GMT -5
 unscreened sic Is this the bulk SiC your company receives notjustone ? Do you think it is 30 grit in size ? The chunks should be no problem and actually a bonus, and yes should break down. Trial by fire ? Try grinding with it ? The pavers must be antislip, only thing that makes sense. james the other stuff I got was screened and consistently sized somewhere around 30 grit. unknown screened grit on left 60/90 on right. i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/notjustone/IMG_3801.jpgthis stuff looks unscreened straight out of the crusher. boss in that area of plant says basically we order x amount of pounds. they send us y amount of pallets to fill order. some of the pallets are screened some not. since grain size is unimportant in our application. I would imagine at the sic plant they crush down the rough then screen the crushings to different grit sizes. grain size in 30 grit is the same size as say 500 grit they are just screening out the different sized chunks. hence it cuts great on day 1 when the chunk size is larger. but as it sheds particles and gets smaller makes finer cuts. don't really think the big chunks will help as they will probably break down faster than something bonded. I only grabbed a couple scoops of this stuff (10 lbs maybe). I don't know really how this would work essentially you would be dumping in super coarse, coarse, medium, and fine. all at the same time. don't imagine the cutting action would be desirable. ill probably just toss this bag and wait till they have a screened pallet to restock lol. |
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jamesp
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Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,583
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Post by jamesp on Apr 2, 2017 9:11:34 GMT -5
Is this the bulk SiC your company receives notjustone ? Do you think it is 30 grit in size ? The chunks should be no problem and actually a bonus, and yes should break down. Trial by fire ? Try grinding with it ? The pavers must be antislip, only thing that makes sense. james the other stuff I got was screened and consistently sized somewhere around 30 grit. unknown screened grit on left 60/90 on right. i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/notjustone/IMG_3801.jpgthis stuff looks unscreened straight out of the crusher. boss in that area of plant says basically we order x amount of pounds. they send us y amount of pallets to fill order. some of the pallets are screened some not. since grain size is unimportant in our application. I would imagine at the sic plant they crush down the rough then screen the crushings to different grit sizes. grain size in 30 grit is the same size as say 500 grit they are just screening out the different sized chunks. hence it cuts great on day 1 when the chunk size is larger. but as it sheds particles and gets smaller makes finer cuts. don't really think the big chunks will help as they will probably break down faster than something bonded. I only grabbed a couple scoops of this stuff (10 lbs maybe). I don't know really how this would work essentially you would be dumping in super coarse, coarse, medium, and fine. all at the same time. don't imagine the cutting action would be desirable. ill probably just toss this bag and wait till they have a screened pallet to restock lol. If you can get 30-40-50-60 sized particles you are in business for coarse grinding. Even #4 #6 #8 #16, etc. If you can only get 100-200-300-400-500 sized particles you are out of luck, such small particles will not shape quartz gems much at all. A screen that sifts out particles less than 90 grit may be a big help. Screen it on your work break perhaps. classifier screen for separating grit, I would use a no. 60-micrometer 250, .0097 inches, 60 mesh. About the same size screen head shops sell for marijuana pipes. That would pass the small stuff and hold 30-40-50 grit. Cheap classifier screens:  |
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notjustone
spending too much on rocks
Member since January 2017
Posts: 426
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Post by notjustone on Apr 2, 2017 9:25:34 GMT -5
james the other stuff I got was screened and consistently sized somewhere around 30 grit. unknown screened grit on left 60/90 on right. i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/notjustone/IMG_3801.jpgthis stuff looks unscreened straight out of the crusher. boss in that area of plant says basically we order x amount of pounds. they send us y amount of pallets to fill order. some of the pallets are screened some not. since grain size is unimportant in our application. I would imagine at the sic plant they crush down the rough then screen the crushings to different grit sizes. grain size in 30 grit is the same size as say 500 grit they are just screening out the different sized chunks. hence it cuts great on day 1 when the chunk size is larger. but as it sheds particles and gets smaller makes finer cuts. don't really think the big chunks will help as they will probably break down faster than something bonded. I only grabbed a couple scoops of this stuff (10 lbs maybe). I don't know really how this would work essentially you would be dumping in super coarse, coarse, medium, and fine. all at the same time. don't imagine the cutting action would be desirable. ill probably just toss this bag and wait till they have a screened pallet to restock lol. If you can get 30-40-50-60 sized particles you are in business for coarse grinding. Even #4 #6 #8 #16, etc. If you can only get 100-200-300-400-500 sized particles you are out of luck, such small particles will not shape quartz gems much at all. A screen that sifts out particles less than 90 grit may be a big help. Screen it on your work break perhaps. classifier screen for separating grit, I would use a no. 60-micrometer 250, .0097 inches, 60 mesh. About the same size screen head shops sell for marijuana pipes. That would pass the small stuff and hold 30-40-50 grit. Cheap classifier screens: obviously your mom never had the spitting and sputtering faucet problem. headshops hahahaha. hell this stuff is so coarse I could use window screen to get the biggest chunks. |
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,583
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Post by jamesp on Apr 2, 2017 10:47:35 GMT -5
I would chunk it in the rotary in a second. Rotary will break down #8 in a few hours. Big grains break much faster than 220 or 500 SiC notjustone. LOL, stole many a faucet screen, Great minds |
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Post by HankRocks on Apr 2, 2017 14:08:00 GMT -5
Talked to my brother on Saturday about grinding wheels as he worked at a company that made them for over 20 years, same company I worked at for 4 years. He still remembers a lot more than me. I explained the tumbling scenario and the idea to make SiC slow release nodules. He thought that the lack of proper pressure would be the big obstacle. That leads to it being too soft and full of gaps and holes in the nodule which would speed the release of the SiC. Temp and resin should be relatively easy to do.
Two other things he mentioned, they used a Filler material to help cut down on gaps between the individual grit particles, thus achieving better adhesion. They used Cryolite but I suspect some other substance could be used, maybe a good clay. They also used FurFuryl Alcohol to help give the Resin lower viscosity and get better coverage of the resin.
If you can find a plant somewhere that uses the wheels and then dicards would be a good bet, I suspect they would not give them away unless they were broken to fix any liability issues.
H
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,583
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Post by jamesp on Apr 3, 2017 4:55:09 GMT -5
Talked to my brother on Saturday about grinding wheels as he worked at a company that made them for over 20 years, same company I worked at for 4 years. He still remembers a lot more than me. I explained the tumbling scenario and the idea to make SiC slow release nodules. He thought that the lack of proper pressure would be the big obstacle. That leads to it being too soft and full of gaps and holes in the nodule which would speed the release of the SiC. Temp and resin should be relatively easy to do. Two other things he mentioned, they used a Filler material to help cut down on gaps between the individual grit particles, thus achieving better adhesion. They used Cryolite but I suspect some other substance could be used, maybe a good clay. They also used FurFuryl Alcohol to help give the Resin lower viscosity and get better coverage of the resin. If you can find a plant somewhere that uses the wheels and then dicards would be a good bet, I suspect they would not give them away unless they were broken to fix any liability issues. H The time release is a spoiler and worth pursuit. Since adding a 3 week dose of coarse grit tumbling rocks is way more passive. Instead of breaking the wheels into 8 to 10 pieces the larger 1/4 chunks are doing the 3 week thing. It is the size of the chunk that determines the time with these particular wheels. 1/10 chunks last 1 week 1/6 chunks last 2 weeks 1/4 chunks lasts 3 weeks. 3 weeks is about as long as can be run unless you simply pour some slurry off and add fresh water to thin slurry. A matching solvent to thin glue makes perfect sense. A finer filler makes perfect sense. Heating to 200F makes sense. Note that PVC cement, silicon caulk, PVC, polyethylene all resist tumbling abrasives well. Epoxy is probably in the same boat. If the glue is resilient to tumbling then it should bind the SiC well enough to last a good while. Researching Cryolite and Furfural alcohol. Thanks for the info Henry. |
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Post by MrMike on Apr 3, 2017 5:37:41 GMT -5
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,583
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Post by jamesp on Apr 3, 2017 5:47:24 GMT -5
Dang good idea Mike. Those things are like rubber cookware except made out of high temp silicone rubber. Nothing sticks to it. Pour em full and screed off the top. Like those silicone rubber cooking matts that can be put on a grill. Spend a few hours casting chunks and save a lot of time doing clean outs and tending tumblers.  |
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,583
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Post by jamesp on Apr 5, 2017 4:13:24 GMT -5
OK, 3 barrels running. 2 barrels with average size rocks. One barrel with a single 1 pound rock. All at 30 RPM.
The barrel with the 1 pound rock is making the grinding wheel chunks reduce twice as fast.
Darn rocks are also grinding about twice as fast.
Size matters.
Also,
The grinding wheel chunks reduce much faster at 55 RPM also. Would not run 1 pound rock at 55 RPM, probably too violent.
But darn sure would run 1-2 inch rocks with grinding wheel chunks at 55 RPM.
Am at day 6 at 30 RPM 3rd and last recharge, 12 more to go, already done 2 recharges totaling 26 days. Betting on well shaped hard agates from nasty hammer broken shapes after about 38 days.
Only opened and recharged 3 times. Guessing this method equal to 60-70 days, probably longer.
No hassle tumbling.
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SirRoxalot
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since October 2003
Posts: 790
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Post by SirRoxalot on Apr 8, 2017 10:58:33 GMT -5
Very cool. Now to find a source of old grinding wheels. Hrmmm.
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,583
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Post by jamesp on Apr 9, 2017 6:21:45 GMT -5
Very cool. Now to find a source of old grinding wheels. Hrmmm. Make sure they are SiC wheels sirroxalot if tumbling Mohs 7. Most wheels are AO and will not grind Mohs 7. |
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