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Post by Rockindad on Feb 20, 2019 21:25:31 GMT -5
Most people who have the UV-10 (which we just became this week) seem to love it. Likewise, most people that have the Lot-o seem to love those as well. My question is for those of you who have both. How do these compare to one another? Obviously there is the capacity difference. Is one more aggressive than the other? Do you tend to use each machine for certain things? If you had to do it again would you still have both or go all in with one or the other?
Thanks, Al
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Post by gmitch067 on Feb 21, 2019 12:20:38 GMT -5
Most people who have the UV-10 (which we just became this week) seem to love it. Likewise, most people that have the Lot-o seem to love those as well. My question is for those of you who have both. How do these compare to one another? Obviously there is the capacity difference. Is one more aggressive than the other? Do you tend to use each machine for certain things? If you had to do it again would you still have both or go all in with one or the other? Thanks, Al Rockindad I am still getting used to using my Lot-O... haven’t got the slurry and use of ceramics (or aquarium gravel) down yet. I either have the load bogged down in too thick slurry, or no action as the load sits in a puddle of water… very aggravating at this point in my learning curve... BUT when I DO make it all the way through to the final polish, I have not been disappointed (except with jade). The shine on jaspers and agates using the Lot-O seem softer... more of a liquid shine... than that I can get using the UV-10 or UV-18. I have not had much luck in getting a shine on softer stones using the Lot-O or UV-10. I just viewed a video from Jugglerguy which gave me some hope in understanding how to address some of my slurry issues (slurry thickness vs. how fast the Lot-O vibe action/speed should actually occur)… when to be comfortable and when to panic. Lol! forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/thread/86480/video-using-polish-shaped-rocks(Note: The exchange between aDave and Jugglerguy was also very valuable to me on this topic) I only started this hobby a couple years ago and am not a pro by a long shot. My early experiences using the UV-10 were a bit of a challenge... ranging from getting bound-up with slurry due to lack of water... or the woes of adding too much water; And my slurry management was (is?) not well developed. My results were not the best, and I could only expect a 50% shine on any load... not good. I even blew out a bowl by using rough that had not gone through the first (80-grit) stages in the rotary tumbler. .. plastic (composite) bowls do not like sharp rocks! Case in point (reflecting on my earliest use of the UV-10 and slurry management)… my thread back in mid 2017: forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/thread/78738/recovery-adding-water-uv-10It took me months of using the UV-10 before my results began to turn towards success in getting that elusive shine. My choice in rocks to use in the UV-10 drifted towards jaspers and agates (Mohs-6+), and the more softer (Mohs-4 to Mohs-6) stuff I kept on going in the rotary tumblers. I began to use more filler media like mixed ceramics and aquarium gravel - which did wonders to cushion the loads of more brittle stones (both UV-10 and the UV-18 are very aggressive vibes). Most of the time now I load my UV-10 and UV-18 with 50% rocks and 50% filler and get fantastic results… Happiness IS! Would I go back and do anything differently? Equipment wise.. NO - I feel I have made the right choices (however if I were to make this a business venture, I would probably have bought the Thumler Model-B 15 lb. rotary to prep the rough rocks for finishing in the UV-18). Buying rough rocks from Amazon... YES - I made a lot of bad and expensive purchases of rough rocks from Amazon... pounds of the same rocks with different names... quality of rough rocks sometimes very good (but expensive), and sometimes very poor (and more expensive!). I didn't begin to feel good about my rough rock purchases until I began buying it form reputable dealers (like The Rock Shed in South Dakota)
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Post by Rockindad on Feb 21, 2019 22:33:19 GMT -5
Thanks for the great reply Glenn! Have only had the UV-10 for a week but seem to be getting the hang of it. Definitely very aggressive. One of the things I wondered about was if the Lot-o was any gentler and therefore more suitable to softer stones. That does not seem to be your experience. We have Sodalite in the UV-10 now as it finished in the rotary the same time we finished messing around with some random mini-slabs in the UV just to get a feel for the machine. Hoping for the best as we spent the time to shape them nice.
I recently read a post (I think by jamesp, cannot find it now) that said the commercial vibes are designed for harder jaspers, agates, etc. vs. softer materials. I can definitely see that being the case with the UV-10.
Al
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Post by gmitch067 on Feb 21, 2019 22:46:20 GMT -5
RockindadI had no luck putting a shine on sodalite in ANY of my tumblers - rotary or vibe. I was thinking about taking some of the tumbled sodalite stones and attacking them on the flat-lap... last resort for me.
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Post by Rockindad on Feb 22, 2019 11:12:00 GMT -5
I've read a lot about the difficulties with it, just want to try it because we like it so much, fingers crossed.
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
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Post by jamesp on Feb 22, 2019 14:50:44 GMT -5
Thanks for the great reply Glenn! Have only had the UV-10 for a week but seem to be getting the hang of it. Definitely very aggressive. One of the things I wondered about was if the Lot-o was any gentler and therefore more suitable to softer stones. That does not seem to be your experience. We have Sodalite in the UV-10 now as it finished in the rotary the same time we finished messing around with some random mini-slabs in the UV just to get a feel for the machine. Hoping for the best as we spent the time to shape them nice. I recently read a post (I think by jamesp, cannot find it now) that said the commercial vibes are designed for harder jaspers, agates, etc. vs. softer materials. I can definitely see that being the case with the UV-10. Al Apparently many factory vibes excluding the Lot-O are aggressive Rockindad. No idea why. Looking at Youtube the UV does seem to have a fast action, not sure if that is a problem though. I did modify a factory Vibrasonic simply by duplicating the shape of the factory hopper but making it out of heavier material and lowering it closer to the vibration shaft for shorter vibrations. No magic at all. It turned out really user friendly now allowing different recipes and softer/harder materials with great polishes and no bruises or frosting. Makes it a great machine for a beginner. No idea why so many vibes are so temperamental with soft materials.
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Post by Rockindad on Feb 22, 2019 17:53:11 GMT -5
Thanks for the great reply Glenn! Have only had the UV-10 for a week but seem to be getting the hang of it. Definitely very aggressive. One of the things I wondered about was if the Lot-o was any gentler and therefore more suitable to softer stones. That does not seem to be your experience. We have Sodalite in the UV-10 now as it finished in the rotary the same time we finished messing around with some random mini-slabs in the UV just to get a feel for the machine. Hoping for the best as we spent the time to shape them nice. I recently read a post (I think by jamesp, cannot find it now) that said the commercial vibes are designed for harder jaspers, agates, etc. vs. softer materials. I can definitely see that being the case with the UV-10. Al Apparently many factory vibes excluding the Lot-O are aggressive Rockindad . No idea why. Looking at Youtube the UV does seem to have a fast action, not sure if that is a problem though. I did modify a factory Vibrasonic simply by duplicating the shape of the factory hopper but making it out of heavier material and lowering it closer to the vibration shaft for shorter vibrations. No magic at all. It turned out really user friendly now allowing different recipes and softer/harder materials with great polishes and no bruises or frosting. Makes it a great machine for a beginner. No idea why so many vibes are so temperamental with soft materials. I have seen your videos with the customized hopper and found them very interesting. I think the plan now is to use it as is and study it with various materials for a few months and then see what changes could be made to suit our needs better. As a fabricator/experimenter/tinkerer I think we will eventually end up with a completely homemade setup anyway. Just the way it goes around here, that's part of the fun for me. Al
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
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Post by jamesp on Feb 23, 2019 6:03:54 GMT -5
Rockindad The vibe is a mysterious creature. My mission was to simply shorten the vibration travel however it could be accomplished. The Mini Sonics and Vibrasonics have a simple 2 dimensional rolling motion using a perfect cylinder shaped hopper. Bowl vibes have a more complex 3 dimensional spiral shaped motion. The Lot-O is sort of a hybrid. If experimenting I suggest using the cylinder shaped hoppers with 2 dim vibration because they are simpler and can be vibrated using an easy to build parallel off-balance shaft. And a cylindrical hopper can be fairly easily fabricated with pipe. The Vibrasonic is really easy to experiment with because different hoppers can be bolted on to the top deck and it has an adjustable off-balance shaft. If building a vibe from scratch I would copy the Vibrasonic design. Any way, short powerful vibration travel is the way to go for all reasons when tumbling all rocks and glass. Rock vibes have shorter travel(amplitude), metal vibes have long travel(amplitude) that can surface damage rocks.
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