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Post by thisislandearth on Sept 3, 2022 16:03:06 GMT -5
After the great work Bob did on evaluating different polishes on a wide variety of rocks, I bought a small amount if tin oxide ( it's $$ ! ) to see how it would compare with some of the rock I recently tumbled using aluminum oxide. I realize Bob did see some variability with different rock but I wanted to highlight an observation I had and to perhaps re-enforce a similar observation Bob had. Not too long ago, I tumbled a batch of "green" jasper ( also called African Bloodstone ). I was a bit disappointed with the end result using Al ox as it came out with only a slight shine and more or less a matte finish. I did another batch with tin ox to see if I could improve on the end result. Using tin ox it didn't come out better - in fact the rocks were even duller than with Al ox, but more significant to me is that I also experienced the same observation Bob noticed. Namely, IF there are any even small defects with the rock when it went into polish ( i.e. scratches or tiny nicks ) - the tin ox highlighted or enhanced these defects WAY more than Al ox did. And I mean significantly. Anyways, I just wanted to mention that 1 ) I concur with Bob - if your rocks going into polish have defects - even minor, chances are you're going to see them in the final result using tin ox and 2 ) tix ox is not a "magic bullet" and YMMV. Just my 2 cents .... Rock on guys!
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Post by jasoninsd on Sept 3, 2022 16:18:34 GMT -5
Thank you very much for sharing your experiment/experience with using the two different polishes!
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stefan
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2005
Posts: 14,113
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Post by stefan on Sept 4, 2022 7:04:23 GMT -5
I have always loved tin oxide. I too noticed it tends to highlight flaws, but I also noticed that a water pick and some time can remove those highlights a lot better than any other polish (I guess it cleans out better?). After reading Bobs experiment I tried one of my own. I did 2 similar batches (just assorted stuff) in both Tin and AO. Asked my family which seemed to have a better finish. 5 to 0 in favor of AO! After looking closely and with as much neutrality as I could muster, I had to agree that AO gives a slightly better finish for me.
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Post by thisislandearth on Sept 4, 2022 11:08:43 GMT -5
I have always loved tin oxide. I too noticed it tends to highlight flaws, but I also noticed that a water pick and some time can remove those highlights a lot better than any other polish (I guess it cleans out better?). After reading Bobs experiment I tried one of my own. I did 2 similar batches (just assorted stuff) in both Tin and AO. Asked my family which seemed to have a better finish. 5 to 0 in favor of AO! After looking closely and with as much neutrality as I could muster, I had to agree that AO gives a slightly better finish for me. Thanks for sharing that. Very interesting.
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Post by hummingbirdstones2 on Sept 5, 2022 13:39:52 GMT -5
Tin is a good general-purpose lapidary polish.
I don't know beans about tumbling, but I go to AO first for lapidary work, too. Except for very soft stones. The AO is around Mohs 9, so that's why you'll still see it called sapphire powder in some places. AO and diamond are the only things that really work on corundum.
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