amanda4
off to a rocking start
Member since May 2022
Posts: 2
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Post by amanda4 on May 29, 2022 20:21:25 GMT -5
Hello everyone, My name is Amanda and I am new to this hobby, but I have been bit bad by it! I started out with 1 old lortone tumbler that I bought a zillion years ago and never used and it sat rusting out in my garage, but my dad got it all fixed up for me and I started buying rocks and now I cannot stop!!
My main problem is I just don’t know what to do after the first run. I now have 7 piles of rocks that have been run through the first stage and one pile that has been through number 2 stage but after reading up on everything, I just don’t know what to do. I have been reading to just keep tumbling the rocks until they are nice and smooth but it seems there will be nothing left of some of them if I try to get out all the holes etc. some even wore down to almost nothing the very first time. I realize now that I should have run similar hardness together but what do you do with all the softer rocks in the first place? If I run all the softer rocks together won’t they still just grind away to tiny pellets? Do I skip the first grit and just go to 2nd grit with softer stones?
Then the steps 3 and 4 really have me bamboozled. Every you tube video I watch or article I read recommends different polishes. Tin oxide, Cereium oxide, aluminum oxide etc.... how do I know which one to use? I don’t want to mess up my rocks.
One last question, I was a complete dummy and spent a fortune on some Peruvian blue opals (should have waited till I knew what I was doing) but they looked soooo pretty I couldn’t resist. I have run maybe a half pound of them through the first grit (60/90) and they seem to be ok and didn’t grind away too badly, but since I spent a lot on them I don’t want to go any further till I can find out exactly what is the best procedure for them. Have any of you ever polished this kind of rock? I can’t find any info on it as to what it’s moh is or polishing info.
I have bought 4 more tumblers (lortone) and borrowed my dads wet tile saw to slice up some cool agates I got online and now I want to do nothing but cut up rocks and get them polished but I am too afraid to go past stage 2.
I appreciate any help or advice. Sorry this is so long. Btw, did lortone go out of business? I wanted to get a bigger one but it says sold out and no one answers their phones or responds to any messages sent via the internet on their website.
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rocket
spending too much on rocks
Quality slabs for quality cabs in 2022
Member since September 2020
Posts: 292
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Post by rocket on May 29, 2022 21:05:34 GMT -5
Welcome from Maryland
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Post by manofglass on May 29, 2022 21:29:57 GMT -5
Welcome from Michigan
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stonemon
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2017
Posts: 1,024
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Post by stonemon on May 29, 2022 22:45:13 GMT -5
Welcome to the addiction!
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Post by vegasjames on May 29, 2022 23:44:40 GMT -5
Welcome from Southern Nevada.
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nursetumbler
Cave Dweller
Member since February 2022
Posts: 955
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Post by nursetumbler on May 30, 2022 2:54:55 GMT -5
Welcome from where the wind blows me, currently Michigan. Don't think our welcomes as ignoring your questions. In my case I know more experienced members will be along soon to answer your questions. Just know, I don't think Lortone went out of business everyone is just out of stock. The rock shed, kingsley north are the 2 that most members recommend for your tumbling needs. I start Mohs 6 and below in 120/220 and check often. Im doing apatite and amazonite right now and even in 120/220 i lost lots of mass. How smooth you make your rocks is your preference. I personally dont tumble to absolute smooth. I have said it before, I am not perfect I cant expect a rock to be. More later, have to get ready for work. Again welcome
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Post by hummingbirdstones on May 30, 2022 9:50:58 GMT -5
Welcome from Northern Arizona! I don't tumble, so I can't answer your questions, but I do cut opals. Opals are usually 6 - 6.5 on the mohs scale. I'm going to tag vegasjames for you. I believe he may be able to help you out.
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Post by vegasjames on May 30, 2022 10:13:00 GMT -5
Welcome from Northern Arizona! I don't tumble, so I can't answer your questions, but I do cut opals. Opals are usually 6 - 6.5 on the mohs scale. I'm going to tag vegasjames for you. I believe he may be able to help you out. I have only tumbled opals to clean them. I run them in a rotary (12 pound barrels with only water for a few days, then i put them in the vibe tumbler (UV-18) for another day or two with only water. Opal is much softer than quartz stones, so a coarse grit wold not be a good idea. Likely to leave deep scratches.
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Post by hummingbirdstones on May 30, 2022 10:36:36 GMT -5
Welcome from Northern Arizona! I don't tumble, so I can't answer your questions, but I do cut opals. Opals are usually 6 - 6.5 on the mohs scale. I'm going to tag vegasjames for you. I believe he may be able to help you out. I have only tumbled opals to clean them. I run them in a rotary (12 pound barrels with only water for a few days, then i put them in the vibe tumbler (UV-18) for another day or two with only water. Opal is much softer than quartz stones, so a coarse grit wold not be a good idea. Likely to leave deep scratches. Thanks, James. I was thinking a vibe would be the way to go with opals. I personally would never even think about tumbling an opal because I would be too scared to kill it. amanda4 can you post some pictures of the opals as they are now? Here's the link to the set up a Cloudinary account to upload pictures to the forum.
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jimmie
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since August 2021
Posts: 233
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Post by jimmie on May 30, 2022 11:19:17 GMT -5
Wow, all in! It’s a little confusing at first, but once you get into it, it’s a breeze. You tumble rocks to what YOU want them to look at. If you are slicing and polishing, that makes it easy. I slice the vast majority and polish . I use a lot-o for final 3 stages of polish. Stage 2 is 120/220 , stage 3 is pre-polish 500. Final stage is txp .it’s confusing, save the boxes with grit listing on them, makes it easier. I don’t post pics on here, my Instagram is gumbo_agate_tumbler. Tons of rock picks tumblers and vibrating tumblers. It might help. Remember it’s tough to mess up rocks, unless soft ones , like opal. Give me agates!
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amanda4
off to a rocking start
Member since May 2022
Posts: 2
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Post by amanda4 on May 30, 2022 12:42:39 GMT -5
Ok wow thanks everyone for the warm welcome! I will try to go and see if I can figure out how to get the picture thing going so I can post some pics of these “Peruvian blue opals” I am thinking that based on what you all are saying that they may not be opals after all, since I have run one or 2 of the rocks through 2 times at the 1st stage 80/90 grit and they did not wear away that much. I had some rocks that almost disappeared. I had a really large chunk of chrysocolla (sp?) and it came out almost down to nothing. As far as how I want my rocks to turn out, well I want them to be perfect! Lol I’ve been looking at some of the pics on here and I want mine to be all beautiful and shiny like that!
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stefan
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2005
Posts: 14,095
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Post by stefan on May 30, 2022 12:59:50 GMT -5
OK take a deep breath. It's going to be ok.I am going to try to answer your questions. First and foremost WELCOME. I have been here a long time and you are not the first (or the last) to be bitten by the bug. It sound like you are getting something's figured out on your own, but DO NOT be afraid of the later stages of tumbling. It is where all the magic truly happens. So I will give you my recipe, but please bear in mind that this is NOT an exact science and you can modify as you see fit (that's half the fun of it) I start out with course (60/90 for me but others like courser stuff).I check it every 2 weeks. Pull out the stuff that is ready to move on and put in fresh rock and fresh grit and fresh water. Basically I always have at least one barrel running in course. Next I go to medium grit (I use 120/220). THis and water (upto the bottom of the top layer of rocks-more or less) runs for 3 weeks (some donuts 2 weeks, I like 3). After medium I use a fine grit (500). 2 weeks in this run with water and I like to add a filler so the rocks don't smack into each other too hard.I use plastic poly beads as they float and make clean up easy ( I dump the whole lot into a bucket and then use a tea strainer and skim off the pellets). I reuse the pellets (each stage has it's pellets). Next I use a prepolish. I like Tripoli,but others use 1000 grit Aluminium Oxide. Again water and pellets ( I fill the water for the final stages to the top of the rocks). 2 weeks in this stage. Finally (almost) I run Polish. I use Aluminium Oxide mostly as it's cheap and works well. I have used Tin Oxide and like it better, but at 4 times the cost, it is hard to justify. Water and Pellets and 2 weeks. Last I run a burnish stage. FOr me it's just borax (20 Mule Team) and pellets and water. Yes I have separate pellets for the borax stage. This runs 24 to 48 hours. One final rinse in fresh water and my rocks are done! Phew I know it seems like a lot, but take your time and develop your own method. As far as mixed hardness goes, I try to avoid it. I will toss in softer stuff in the course grind, but pull it out and save it to tumble with like hardnesses for the rest of the stages. As for your opals I would be sure to keep them together in their own group and not mix them in with other rocks. Once you get past the medium stage,there really isn't a lot of material removed at all and the rocks won't shrink much. Just a couple other notes. I only use a rotary tumbler (like your Lortones) A Vibe tumbler will speed things up, but is a whole different animal. Grit amounts are about a tablespoon per pound of rock (I use a little less as I reuse my old slurry as a kind of starter). For polish and prepolish I cut the amount in half. I have a separate barrel for each stage (except burnish which I do in the polish barrel) to avoid possible cross contamination. I hope this offers you at least a jumping off point. DOn't be afraid of "ruining" the rocks. They are pretty forgiving and can be re-tumbled if something goes wrong.
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Post by vegasjames on May 31, 2022 1:30:21 GMT -5
I have only tumbled opals to clean them. I run them in a rotary (12 pound barrels with only water for a few days, then i put them in the vibe tumbler (UV-18) for another day or two with only water. Opal is much softer than quartz stones, so a coarse grit wold not be a good idea. Likely to leave deep scratches. Thanks, James. I was thinking a vibe would be the way to go with opals. I personally would never even think about tumbling an opal because I would be too scared to kill it. amanda4 can you post some pictures of the opals as they are now? Here's the link to the set up a Cloudinary account to upload pictures to the forum. Here is some of the opal I ran through the tumbler with just water to clean it:
Opal hardness can vary according to water and aluminum oxide content. Therefore, some opal will take the tumbling a lot better than others.
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quartzilla
Cave Dweller
Member since April 2020
Posts: 1,223
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Post by quartzilla on May 31, 2022 19:04:56 GMT -5
I’m running a load of Kramer Hills opalite in course right now. I’m running them just like everything else starting in 60/90. Here is a pic of one of them that snuck into a agate / jasper run from the same location. Keep in mind this was running with the big boys hardness 7 but also the opal at this location tends to grade into agate. This just finished in 600. I will run it in 1200 then final polish in Rockshed 14000.
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Post by jasoninsd on May 31, 2022 19:33:14 GMT -5
Hey Amanda, just wanted to say "hi" and welcome to the forum. I don't tumble enough to give any legitimate answers to your questions. Sorry...
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Post by Rockoonz on May 31, 2022 19:44:24 GMT -5
I didn't see an answer to your Lortone question, and I don't have a definite answer, but a relatively likely one. Due to the stuff that started in 2020 WA state really didn't help their small businesses, and Lortone has most likely barely had time to keep up with their wholesale buyers, so they are probably only communicating with them right now. Kingsley could answer that for sure. I don't think they have totally closed.
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Wooferhound
Cave Dweller
Lortone QT66 and 3A
Member since December 2016
Posts: 1,426
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Post by Wooferhound on Jun 1, 2022 7:10:24 GMT -5
My main problem is I just don’t know what to do after the first run. I now have 7 piles of rocks that have been run through the first stage and one pile that has been through number 2 stage but after reading up on everything, I just don’t know what to do. I have been reading to just keep tumbling the rocks until they are nice and smooth but it seems there will be nothing left of some of them if I try to get out all the holes etc. some even wore down to almost nothing the very first time. I realize now that I should have run similar hardness together but what do you do with all the softer rocks in the first place? If I run all the softer rocks together won’t they still just grind away to tiny pellets? Do I skip the first grit and just go to 2nd grit with softer stones? Almost all of the shaping & grinding happens in Stage 1 then all the rest of the stages are just removing the scratches from stage 1 and polishing. Yes, there is a Lot of size reduction in stage 1 and a little bit in stage 2, but don't worry about the stones getting smaller after that, experiment all you want to.
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rockbrain
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2022
Posts: 2,582
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Post by rockbrain on Jun 2, 2022 9:20:00 GMT -5
Welcome from Central California! It looks like most of your questions got answered. You asked about mixing stones of different hardness. It's better to keep them close to the same. If you mix, the harder rocks will wear down the softer ones and the softer ones will be ready way before the hard ones. Even with that it's not uncommon at all for some of your stones to be ready to move to the next batch when others aren't. Don't be afraid to break up your batch, pull stones that aren't ready and run them more while the rest move on.
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rockbrain
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2022
Posts: 2,582
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Post by rockbrain on Jun 2, 2022 9:25:54 GMT -5
I’m running a load of Kramer Hills opalite in course right now. I’m running them just like everything else starting in 60/90. Here is a pic of one of them that snuck into a agate / jasper run from the same location. Keep in mind this was running with the big boys hardness 7 but also the opal at this location tends to grade into agate. This just finished in 600. I will run it in 1200 then final polish in Rockshed 14000. Hope I'm not hijacking. I've seen these polishes listed before. Rockshed 14000, what exactly are you using? I just ordered from them recently. I got the AO polish. They list that as "2 micron and finer is likely about 8000" It says it's what they use for just about everything. I couldn't find anything that looked finer.
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quartzilla
Cave Dweller
Member since April 2020
Posts: 1,223
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Post by quartzilla on Jun 2, 2022 22:45:03 GMT -5
I’m running a load of Kramer Hills opalite in course right now. I’m running them just like everything else starting in 60/90. Here is a pic of one of them that snuck into a agate / jasper run from the same location. Keep in mind this was running with the big boys hardness 7 but also the opal at this location tends to grade into agate. This just finished in 600. I will run it in 1200 then final polish in Rockshed 14000. Hope I'm not hijacking. I've seen these polishes listed before. Rockshed 14000, what exactly are you using? I just ordered from them recently. I got the AO polish. They list that as "2 micron and finer is likely about 8000" It says it's what they use for just about everything. I couldn't find anything that looked finer. Is yours bright white? It’s probably the same. On the old website they had it listed as 14,000 AO. I know they changed their online site and have seen other items were now listed differently. That’s probably the same case here.
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