Wooferhound
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Lortone QT66 and 3A
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Post by Wooferhound on Jan 30, 2018 12:27:15 GMT -5
Hmmm, those colors would make pretty cabs. I’m thinking earrings. Is it safe to say if something can be tumbled, it can be cabbed? Glass is soft, like jamesp suggests that you don't even really need to use grit to tumble it.
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Wooferhound
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Lortone QT66 and 3A
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Post by Wooferhound on Jan 30, 2018 12:32:35 GMT -5
Ha woofer, tumbling glass in the rotary is el cheapo tumble. Use your clean out pan to catch and re-use the SiC. The glass hardly breaks the SiC. I do crush the bulk down to about 30 to 80 grit size. Throw your little trash pieces of glass in with the rest too, makes cool polished frit pieces. Oh yeah, almost didn't put any grit in there, but I recover all grit in my cleanout sink so nothing gets away until powdered. And yes again that every single crumb of glass went into that barrel.
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Wooferhound
Cave Dweller
Lortone QT66 and 3A
Member since December 2016
Posts: 1,423
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Post by Wooferhound on Feb 4, 2018 16:14:58 GMT -5
The colored glass has been rolling in a 6 pound barrel for 6 days and the clear Fresnel lens has been rolling in a 3 pound barrel for 4 days. I'm thinking that I had too much water in with the colored glass since it only has slightly rounded edges, so the water was reduced a bit and it was placed back on the tumbler without cleanout for another week. Of course that glass may be harder than the more common glass that I've been tumbling in the past. The clear glass in the smaller tumbler seems to have rounded nicely for being in there just a few days. That barrel did not have a lot of water in it so that may be why it rounded so aggressively. It was also placed back on to roll for another week without a cleanout. Not encountering any gas buildup at all with this glass.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 4, 2018 16:30:07 GMT -5
You must use abrasive woofer. Glass is no pushover to shape, I use silicon carbide 30. a small barrel should be best at 75% fill. Water just below glass. They look on-schedule to me sir.
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Wooferhound
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Lortone QT66 and 3A
Member since December 2016
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Post by Wooferhound on Feb 4, 2018 17:04:27 GMT -5
Oh Yeah ... plenty of grit in there, but it's not building a slurry like I'm used to when spinning rocks. I added some thickener to the 6 pound barrel a week ago but it was still a watery mix when I took a peek in there today.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 5, 2018 8:33:48 GMT -5
Depending on the type of glass. Soda glass makes the smell of wet portland cement and becomes alkaline, a bit caustic as it is hard on skin. For some reason tumbling high alkaline rocks/glass/concrete seems to break slurry down more, and that might be due to it foaming. I am surprised at how alkaline glass makes a slurry. All kinds of glass, apparently not just soda glass.
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Post by grumpybill on Feb 5, 2018 10:01:25 GMT -5
...seems to break slurry down more, and that might be due to it foaming... Interesting... My (admittedly limited) experience has been that grit breakdown (and, therefore, grinding) takes a lot longer in barrels that develop foam.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 5, 2018 11:49:10 GMT -5
...seems to break slurry down more, and that might be due to it foaming... Interesting... My (admittedly limited) experience has been that grit breakdown (and, therefore, grinding) takes a lot longer in barrels that develop foam. I agree, did I insinuate anything else Bill ? If so I apologize. Don't like foam at all. Creamy slurry, please no foam. Creamy slurry sucks rocks together for better grind. When tumbling a barrel full of all glass the slurry gets watery and foamy, ph rising off the chart getting totally alkaline. Forces me to double clay dose. Did not test ph but from the smell and it eating skin I know it is alkaline, not as much as portland cement mix but close.
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Post by grumpybill on Feb 5, 2018 13:05:33 GMT -5
I guess I misunderstood what you meant by "seems to break slurry down".
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 5, 2018 13:28:11 GMT -5
I guess I misunderstood what you meant by "seems to break slurry down". Creamy slurries seem to work best Bill. Broken down = foamy or in some cases watery. But they often foam or don't develop for unexplained reasons. Too much water at the start is the most common reason. Especially if the rock level is low like 60% which causes a lot of splashing. Freezing also messes up a good creamy slurry. Tumbling concrete is disastrous, really makes foam as do metals. Using such big abrasives I depend on slurry a lot.
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Wooferhound
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Lortone QT66 and 3A
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Post by Wooferhound on Feb 13, 2018 15:59:55 GMT -5
Another week goes by and a cleanout happened on Sunday. Plenty of grit to recover in there. Glass is rounding down fairly well, seems a bit harder than the TV picture tubes and drinking glasses that I've tumbled before. It's reducing a lot, I have combined the 6 and 3 pound barrels together into the 6 pounder and added some more freshly broken glass to fill it up properly. Added extra slurry thickener this time to help the grit stick to everything. Some of the smaller pieces were getting too small to run for another week so I pulled out some of the more interesting bits to save for polish. Pictured here . . .
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Wooferhound
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Lortone QT66 and 3A
Member since December 2016
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Post by Wooferhound on Feb 19, 2018 14:47:10 GMT -5
Eight more days have gone by and another cleanout this morning. This glass seems a bit harder than other glass that I've tumbled before, but it is starting to have a good appealing look to it. Most of the bumps and lines that were molded into the glass have disappeared leaving a fairly smooth surface. I'm starting to get some interesting ideas about how to use the finished pieces in some lighting projects. Here are some pieces freshly washed off, still running in Course grit.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 21, 2018 4:55:28 GMT -5
Pyrex is a hard glass woofer. The softest glass I ever tumbled was 3/8 and 1/2 inch table top glass. Sort of an aqua tint to it. I suppose it is tempered and in some way that must soften it. An it bruises by looking at it. Some bottle glass is darn slow to shape. Glass can be stubborn. I believe the Mohs value can vary from 4.5 to 6.5. Your lens glass looks like it broke in long daggers, how cool is that. You can take a piece of clear plate glass and set it on some props, then introduce bottom light and top light to get some cool photos.
I am trying different techniques to get a polish in the rotary instead of using the vibe all the time. Or at least a pre-polish with out bruises or frost. Can not have a single frost area or bruise. Thinking about a long 4 inch PVC barrel that holds 6 to 8 pounds rotating slowly for a super gentle roll. Don't you have a small 3 pound barrel ?
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agatemaggot
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Post by agatemaggot on Feb 21, 2018 6:09:13 GMT -5
Would be able to make some really cool lawn ornaments with these by cutting daisy shaped sheet metal flowers with these lenses fastened in a center cutout like a Sunflower to catch the Suns rays ! My neighbor and I made some of these with old traffic light lenses.
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Wooferhound
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Lortone QT66 and 3A
Member since December 2016
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Post by Wooferhound on Feb 21, 2018 9:25:12 GMT -5
Pyrex is a hard glass woofer. The softest glass I ever tumbled was 3/8 and 1/2 inch table top glass. Sort of an aqua tint to it. I suppose it is tempered and in some way that must soften it. An it bruises by looking at it. Some bottle glass is darn slow to shape. Glass can be stubborn. I believe the Mohs value can vary from 4.5 to 6.5. Your lens glass looks like it broke in long daggers, how cool is that. You can take a piece of clear plate glass and set it on some props, then introduce bottom light and top light to get some cool photos. I am trying different techniques to get a polish in the rotary instead of using the vibe all the time. Or at least a pre-polish with out bruises or frost. Can not have a single frost area or bruise. Thinking about a long 4 inch PVC barrel that holds 6 to 8 pounds rotating slowly for a super gentle roll. Don't you have a small 3 pound barrel ? When I was breaking the glass up with a chisel it was tending to break in long thin pieces. I was trying to prevent that, but those are some of the most appealing pieces. Planning on pushing the colored glass through to polish on Sunday after a full month tumbling in course. Was also thinking that I should add some rocks in there to help speed up the course tumbling. Yes I have a 3 pound Lortone 3A but it runs at 60 RPM.
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Wooferhound
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Lortone QT66 and 3A
Member since December 2016
Posts: 1,423
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Post by Wooferhound on Feb 21, 2018 9:30:56 GMT -5
Would be able to make some really cool lawn ornaments with these by cutting daisy shaped sheet metal flowers with these lenses fastened in a center cutout like a Sunflower to catch the Suns rays ! My neighbor and I made some of these with old traffic light lenses. That is a cool Idea. One of those lenses with an aluminum piepan behind it to reflect the light back out, along with some ornamentation.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 21, 2018 10:37:03 GMT -5
Some glass breaks like that, not sure why. It can hold a lot of compressive and tensional forces. Very unpredictable. NOT necessarily homogenous material as it can be dead clear but still have stresses in unknown directions. Most stresses accumulate in the cooling(or lack thereof process).
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Post by grumpybill on Feb 21, 2018 11:00:06 GMT -5
Your lens glass looks like it broke in long daggers, how cool is that. I tapped the center of a glass pane from a picture frame and it broke mostly into dagger-like/icicle-like shapes. Made some cool "sea glass" pendants and earrings.
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agatemaggot
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Post by agatemaggot on Feb 21, 2018 13:20:55 GMT -5
You get a great light up effect by facing the lens East to West, the Sun hits direct, kinda, and the glass lights up like a flashlight !
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 21, 2018 15:19:41 GMT -5
Your lens glass looks like it broke in long daggers, how cool is that. I tapped the center of a glass pane from a picture frame and it broke mostly into dagger-like/icicle-like shapes. Made some cool "sea glass" pendants and earrings. Obsidian needles Bill.
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