hplcman
spending too much on rocks
Member since August 2022
Posts: 460
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Post by hplcman on Oct 20, 2022 10:16:46 GMT -5
A friend of mine got a bag of raw emeralds as a birthday present and asked if I could tumble them. They are all pretty small, with lots of dirt and crust built up around them. I was thinking of tumbling them with water and borax at first, just to clean them up a bit. After that I get nervous. These are not gem quality or anything like that, and from what I have seen the MOHS of emerald is about 7.5 - 8, so they are harder than most rocks I tumble. I think they could take being tumbled with grit, but I'm reluctant to start them with stage 1 (60/90 SO). Maybe I should start with 220 SO? Have any of you tried these before? Since they are quite small I was thinking about adding a couple, already rounded, larger rocks in there as well, just to get some action going...
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vance71975
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since September 2022
Posts: 760
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Post by vance71975 on Oct 21, 2022 14:10:59 GMT -5
I would do a clean up with water, borax and some soap,I use Dawn Dish soap personally. Let them run overnight in that and see where you are. As far as tumbling them, from everything I can find on google, they are fairly hard and tough, so the only real concern I would personally have with 60/90 is the Size, if they are super small you could lose more material than you want to. Starting with 220 is not a bad Idea, but do be aware, it will likely make for a Longer than normal tumble becuase it cuts far less aggressively. You could do a Short tumble with 60/90 for say 1 to 3 days, check daily and see where they are. Depending on what your friend wants the end result to be, does your friend want perfectly smooth perfectly rounded stones or do they want more of a natural rough look with a shine? As far as filler stones, I would use something that you can easily seperate out just on look. Like I have tons of milky white quartz that I use when doing a stones that I want to be able to find easily when the tumbling is done. Works well as long as you are not tumbling other white stones.
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hplcman
spending too much on rocks
Member since August 2022
Posts: 460
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Post by hplcman on Oct 21, 2022 14:22:37 GMT -5
I would do a clean up with water, borax and some soap,I use Dawn Dish soap personally. Let them run overnight in that and see where you are. As far as tumbling them, from everything I can find on google, they are fairly hard and tough, so the only real concern I would personally have with 60/90 is the Size, if they are super small you could lose more material than you want to. Starting with 220 is not a bad Idea, but do be aware, it will likely make for a Longer than normal tumble becuase it cuts far less aggressively. You could do a Short tumble with 60/90 for say 1 to 3 days, check daily and see where they are. Depending on what your friend wants the end result to be, does your friend want perfectly smooth perfectly rounded stones or do they want more of a natural rough look with a shine? As far as filler stones, I would use something that you can easily seperate out just on look. Like I have tons of milky white quartz that I use when doing a stones that I want to be able to find easily when the tumbling is done. Works well as long as you are not tumbling other white stones. Thanks so much for your input!!! I totally agree on the grit, I'd rather go slow and have control then overshoot anything. And maybe the 220 would be best just to get the dirt and crust off the emeralds and I can polish them in their rough shape that way. I'll post photos to this thread as I go along!
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vance71975
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since September 2022
Posts: 760
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Post by vance71975 on Oct 21, 2022 14:26:17 GMT -5
I would do a clean up with water, borax and some soap,I use Dawn Dish soap personally. Let them run overnight in that and see where you are. As far as tumbling them, from everything I can find on google, they are fairly hard and tough, so the only real concern I would personally have with 60/90 is the Size, if they are super small you could lose more material than you want to. Starting with 220 is not a bad Idea, but do be aware, it will likely make for a Longer than normal tumble becuase it cuts far less aggressively. You could do a Short tumble with 60/90 for say 1 to 3 days, check daily and see where they are. Depending on what your friend wants the end result to be, does your friend want perfectly smooth perfectly rounded stones or do they want more of a natural rough look with a shine? As far as filler stones, I would use something that you can easily seperate out just on look. Like I have tons of milky white quartz that I use when doing a stones that I want to be able to find easily when the tumbling is done. Works well as long as you are not tumbling other white stones. Thanks so much for your input!!! I totally agree on the grit, I'd rather go slow and have control then overshoot anything. And maybe the 220 would be best just to get the dirt and crust off the emeralds and I can polish them in their rough shape that way. I'll post photos to this thread as I go along! 220 is how I would go if you are not aiming for perfectly round and perfectly smooth. It will cut, but its more gentle and slower. Might only need a day or 2 just to get the crust fully off, might need longer depending on how hard the crust material is. For sure run a cleaning run with Borax and soap first tho, just so you can be 100% where your starting at.
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