A few lessons learnt
Jan 24, 2023 16:52:01 GMT -5
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hummingbirdstones, quartzilla, and 3 more like this
Post by firef1y on Jan 24, 2023 16:52:01 GMT -5
Well my son's first batch came out of polish this week, and we've learnt a few lessons.
First that the mix of stones we got with the National Geographic tumbler are not a good mix to put together. Some were far too soft to go with the harder stones and we pulled some of the harder stones far too soon.
Some of the stones actually polished really nicely, probably the best were some of his own that he collected on holiday and added to the barrel. They came out really pretty with a lovely shine.
Most of the quartz had a lovely shine on it, but some of it had a lot of cracks and even chips. There was a few of a stone I really liked. It has metallic flashes in it but it also developed lots of cracks. I'm guessing it's similar to the moonstone I'm in the process of putting through stage one.
There was a script stone, that looks gorgeous but hasn't got any kind of shine. Not that my boy cares, he thinks it's a really cool stone and has gone in to his pot of treasures that lives on his windowsill (along with the piece of rose quartz that is crack/chip free).
Most of the agate and jasper, polished up nicely. All except what I'm assuming is black agate, that is beautifully smooth with a satin sheen. Again my boy loves this piece, it's also a perfect shape/size for him to hold in his hand and rub. So not perfect and lots to learn from that first batch but we're moving on...
We now have 2x3lb barrels running. One we've been using for some softer stones (moonstone/sunstone), checking them every couple of days, removing those we're really happy with and adding more as needed. We put the stones with flashes in back in this barrel for a couple of days and they've smoothed back out ready for when we have a stage 2 barrel free.
The second 3lb barrel is for harder rocks, we've been running various agates, jasper and tigers eye in it for around 3 weeks now. Only managed to pull a couple out in that time, although a lot of mass has been lost and there are several that are almost perfect. We really are spending time checking that the stones are completely free of cracks, pits etc.
We then have another tumbler with 2x1.5lb barrels (plus another polish barrel), we're using these for 2nd stage onwards, adding ceramic media as needed.
We currently have one barrel with sunstones in Medium, that we're checking every couple days. And another with the rest of our rough mix stones in fine (400g). We're running each of these stages for at least a week, then I have some ultrafine (I think 800g) and pre-polish (1200g) stages to go through, before we go back to polish.
Hopefully our patience is going to pay off..
First that the mix of stones we got with the National Geographic tumbler are not a good mix to put together. Some were far too soft to go with the harder stones and we pulled some of the harder stones far too soon.
Some of the stones actually polished really nicely, probably the best were some of his own that he collected on holiday and added to the barrel. They came out really pretty with a lovely shine.
Most of the quartz had a lovely shine on it, but some of it had a lot of cracks and even chips. There was a few of a stone I really liked. It has metallic flashes in it but it also developed lots of cracks. I'm guessing it's similar to the moonstone I'm in the process of putting through stage one.
There was a script stone, that looks gorgeous but hasn't got any kind of shine. Not that my boy cares, he thinks it's a really cool stone and has gone in to his pot of treasures that lives on his windowsill (along with the piece of rose quartz that is crack/chip free).
Most of the agate and jasper, polished up nicely. All except what I'm assuming is black agate, that is beautifully smooth with a satin sheen. Again my boy loves this piece, it's also a perfect shape/size for him to hold in his hand and rub. So not perfect and lots to learn from that first batch but we're moving on...
We now have 2x3lb barrels running. One we've been using for some softer stones (moonstone/sunstone), checking them every couple of days, removing those we're really happy with and adding more as needed. We put the stones with flashes in back in this barrel for a couple of days and they've smoothed back out ready for when we have a stage 2 barrel free.
The second 3lb barrel is for harder rocks, we've been running various agates, jasper and tigers eye in it for around 3 weeks now. Only managed to pull a couple out in that time, although a lot of mass has been lost and there are several that are almost perfect. We really are spending time checking that the stones are completely free of cracks, pits etc.
We then have another tumbler with 2x1.5lb barrels (plus another polish barrel), we're using these for 2nd stage onwards, adding ceramic media as needed.
We currently have one barrel with sunstones in Medium, that we're checking every couple days. And another with the rest of our rough mix stones in fine (400g). We're running each of these stages for at least a week, then I have some ultrafine (I think 800g) and pre-polish (1200g) stages to go through, before we go back to polish.
Hopefully our patience is going to pay off..