WoWzza Those are beautiful! You and that Kiln has it going on my friend!
Thanks Bob. The kiln was a lot of fun during 2018.
Melting glass to tumble is a freak practice in the glass community.
Was lucky setting up a vibe that repetitively tumble polishes glass in mass so quick and easy this year.
Goal this year is to try tumble polishing some soft stones using similar vibe modification.
Feeling certain it is all about the properly designed vibe and not the operator or abrasives.
Not to mention how unclean and aggressive the tumbling procedures were too arrive at what one would think are delicate glass polishes.
Kinda rewrote my book on what really counts in needed tumbling methods when tumbling sensitive materials.
A quick list in order of importance IMO:
1) a properly tuned gentle finishing vibe(easily #1)
2) appropriate type and properly thickened slurry in both rotary and vibe
3) filling the rotary barrels to optimum level (and rolling them fast to speed up the monotony)
4) making sure that a fine grade of SiC is completely broken down in the last re-charge in rotary before transferring to vibe
5) using aluminum oxide's in vibe
6) proper ratio and type of media in vibe
7) knowing when each grit has broken down in both rotary and vibe
Least important:
Thorough clean outs except stage 1 coarse SiC
Media in the rotary
Rigid abrasive recipe as long as you use stepped grits, SiC in rotary and AO in vibe
Large SiC for shaping in the rotary
Skipping SiC 220 and moving straight to SiC 500 in the rotary. SiC 500 is plenty aggressive for soft material