proflev
off to a rocking start
Member since May 2024
Posts: 8
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Post by proflev on May 14, 2024 15:51:16 GMT -5
I am a tumbling newbie.
I started tumbling 2 3lb barrels that included quartz along with agate and jasper. After I started that tumble, I found a mix of opinions about whether or not quartz should be tumbled with agate and jasper.
What's the truth, or do I just want to see the "reveal" after the first week and judge for myself whether or not I made a mistake?
Thanks.
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Post by pebblesky on May 14, 2024 16:51:00 GMT -5
Welcome!
Quartz could do okay, until prepolish and polish. It is suggested to tumble them with a lot of cushion, and avoid having huge rocks banging into them in the same run. Step 1 should usually be fine. Maybe remove the rocks that are too large and add more smaller fillers for prepolish and polish. Also, what result you will get depends on what condition the original rough is. My hounded beach quartz are quite fractured. They look the best when shown wet after stage 1, but I know there is no magic to heal the fractures in tumbling....
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Post by southernlakehuronguy on May 14, 2024 18:12:52 GMT -5
"My hounded beach quartz are quite fractured. They look the best when shown wet after stage 1, but I know there is no magic to heal the fractures in tumbling...."
I just finished a batch of quartz rocks I hounded from Lake Huron. 1st stage in rotary tumbler, the rest in vibratory with Tin Oxide as final polish. Beautiful shine, but the fractures really show up. I was hoping there was some magic. Maybe a little work, but tell me your opinion on this idea. Though I don't own one,(yet) but I have read and have seen the use of an ultrasonic cleaner that may help. Then to take it a little further, do a stabilizing bath to seal the fractures. I would imagine that the dried coat would need polishing then too. But how coarse of a grit would you start with and mostly, would it polish ? A lot of work.
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Post by pebblesky on May 14, 2024 18:40:08 GMT -5
"My hounded beach quartz are quite fractured. They look the best when shown wet after stage 1, but I know there is no magic to heal the fractures in tumbling...." I just finished a batch of quartz rocks I hounded from Lake Huron. 1st stage in rotary tumbler, the rest in vibratory with Tin Oxide as final polish. Beautiful shine, but the fractures really show up. I was hoping there was some magic. Maybe a little work, but tell me your opinion on this idea. Though I don't own one,(yet) but I have read and have seen the use of an ultrasonic cleaner that may help. Then to take it a little further, do a stabilizing bath to seal the fractures. I would imagine that the dried coat would need polishing then too. But how coarse of a grit would you start with and mostly, would it polish ? A lot of work. I have an ultrasound cleaner. While it can clean up the rock, I don't feel it cleans considerably better than burnishing in the vibe tumbler. When your rock is completely completely dry, the fracture is going to show up anyway. By stabilizing, do you mean soaking it into the epoxy resin? What is the point of polishing a rock at all, if you are to soak it in the resin afterwards? Why not just soak the clean rough (maybe also tumbled to round the shape) into the epoxy, wait for it to dry, and call it a day? It will shine up for sure. I would choose not to keep playing with a cured epoxy with my bare hands though. Some sellers soak the rock in the mineral oil for days even months to hide the fractures, and some even use colorful markers to paint on the fractures of some rocks to hide the fractures. I have a strong disapproval for such behaviors. |
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Post by southernlakehuronguy on May 14, 2024 18:47:57 GMT -5
Yes a diluted epoxy solution with acetone. Found it is used to stabilize softer rocks for lapidary cutting. Yeah, this would be a lot of work. I'm not gooping my rocks up with oil either. Thanks.
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Post by pebblesky on May 14, 2024 18:58:20 GMT -5
I know people soak the slabs into epoxy resin before cutting because otherwise the slabs could break apart. But when polishing the cabs, it is still mostly polishing on the rock, not on a thin coat of epoxy, but I might be completely misunderstanding LOL.
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Post by southernlakehuronguy on May 14, 2024 19:39:17 GMT -5
My train of thought was that the diluted epoxy would seep into the fracture.
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Post by chris1956 on May 14, 2024 19:47:19 GMT -5
"My hounded beach quartz are quite fractured. They look the best when shown wet after stage 1, but I know there is no magic to heal the fractures in tumbling...." I just finished a batch of quartz rocks I hounded from Lake Huron. 1st stage in rotary tumbler, the rest in vibratory with Tin Oxide as final polish. Beautiful shine, but the fractures really show up. I was hoping there was some magic. Maybe a little work, but tell me your opinion on this idea. Though I don't own one,(yet) but I have read and have seen the use of an ultrasonic cleaner that may help. Then to take it a little further, do a stabilizing bath to seal the fractures. I would imagine that the dried coat would need polishing then too. But how coarse of a grit would you start with and mostly, would it polish ? A lot of work. I have an ultrasound cleaner. While it can clean up the rock, I don't feel it cleans considerably better than burnishing in the vibe tumbler. When your rock is completely completely dry, the fracture is going to show up anyway. By stabilizing, do you mean soaking it into the epoxy resin? What is the point of polishing a rock at all, if you are to soak it in the resin afterwards? Why not just soak the clean rough (maybe also tumbled to round the shape) into the epoxy, wait for it to dry, and call it a day? It will shine up for sure. I would choose not to keep playing with a cured epoxy with my bare hands though. Some sellers soak the rock in the mineral oil for days even months to hide the fractures, and some even use colorful markers to paint on the fractures of some rocks to hide the fractures. I have a strong disapproval for such behaviors. I know you don't like oil treatment and I don't think it would work on a harder rock like quartz. At least not long term. I have baked softer stones like Petoskey stones in mineral oil and haven't seen any deteriation in 3 years. It does take some time to get the oil off the rocks once cooled and then you need to buff. I sometimes do a light polish on the finer grit wheels after the oil is totally off the surface. But again, probably not a good idea on harder stones with fractures.  |
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Post by pebblesky on May 14, 2024 22:13:12 GMT -5
I have an ultrasound cleaner. While it can clean up the rock, I don't feel it cleans considerably better than burnishing in the vibe tumbler. When your rock is completely completely dry, the fracture is going to show up anyway. By stabilizing, do you mean soaking it into the epoxy resin? What is the point of polishing a rock at all, if you are to soak it in the resin afterwards? Why not just soak the clean rough (maybe also tumbled to round the shape) into the epoxy, wait for it to dry, and call it a day? It will shine up for sure. I would choose not to keep playing with a cured epoxy with my bare hands though. Some sellers soak the rock in the mineral oil for days even months to hide the fractures, and some even use colorful markers to paint on the fractures of some rocks to hide the fractures. I have a strong disapproval for such behaviors. I know you don't like oil treatment and I don't think it would work on a harder rock like quartz. At least not long term. I have baked softer stones like Petoskey stones in mineral oil and haven't seen any deteriation in 3 years. It does take some time to get the oil off the rocks once cooled and then you need to buff. I sometimes do a light polish on the finer grit wheels after the oil is totally off the surface. But again, probably not a good idea on harder stones with fractures. Yeah the oil applied by the sellers might not be intended for hiding the fractures. The fractures are not super visible on the rough anyway. They only stand out and become super annoying after polishing. For some of the Gobi Eye Agates I purchased, the sellers spray oil on them to: 1. bring out the vivid color, and 2. hide the white coating on the agates. When I thoroughly wash these agates and pat them dry, I could be surprised how vastly different they look. If I play with them with my Vaseline-treated hands, the white coating will go away again. I think it is totally fine to apply oil for personal use, but as a buyer I would still like to see how they look when dry. |
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jamesp
Cave Dweller 
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,607
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Post by jamesp on May 23, 2024 7:10:26 GMT -5
Finished these in a vibe with very thick sugar slurry. A 3 pound rotary should be gentle enough to polish quartz w out bruising it. Quartz supplied by quartz.  |
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Post by vegasjames on May 23, 2024 7:33:53 GMT -5
Welcome from Southern Nevada.
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Post by miket on May 23, 2024 8:12:13 GMT -5
Finished these in a vibe with very thick sugar slurry. A 3 pound rotary should be gentle enough to polish quartz w out bruising it. Quartz supplied by quartz . Beautiful. |
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wargrafix
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Member since June 2023
Posts: 1,089
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Post by wargrafix on May 30, 2024 9:22:06 GMT -5
Finished these in a vibe with very thick sugar slurry. A 3 pound rotary should be gentle enough to polish quartz w out bruising it. Quartz supplied by quartz. Damn perfect! Optical level clear. Dammnnnnn |
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Post by HankRocks on May 30, 2024 9:58:36 GMT -5
jamesp Am I remembering correctly that these were polished in your homemade metal hopper that has no rubber liner? It seems a good bit of your tumble polished glass was done the same way. Henry
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,607
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Post by jamesp on May 30, 2024 16:13:02 GMT -5
jamesp Am I remembering correctly that these were polished in your homemade metal hopper that has no rubber liner? It seems a good bit of your tumble polished glass was done the same way. Henry , glass and quartz have similar challenges in tumbling to polish without bruising/frosting. If you want to make it way easier keep the rocks under 30 grams each with nothing bigger. Small rocks don't crash so hard. One big rock will crash/bruise the rest of the rocks in many cases, depends on other factors. Sorry I hadn't been in touch Henry, still getting over my issue. Anyway, yep, that quartz and all glass is done in a hard mild steel tumbler hopper. Funny, the hopper walls have a 220 finish after AO 220, it has a mirror finish after AO 14,000. It has done that after 100 ? batches but doesn't seem to be getting any thinner(or lighter !). Now that Vibrasonic will vibrate the rocks/glass with the really thick pancake syrup sugar slurry, so it may protect the rocks/glass from the hard hopper walls, not sure. Ok Henry, you motivated me to do a batch. The o-ring belts had cracks in them, the hopper is full of rust and dead wasps. Having a hard time remembering the formula. I have a big load of step 1 glass done in rotary. Next step after step 1 is all done in the vibe with sugar and 40% tumbled quartz pea gravel: SIC 600 - 2 days(which always shaves the scratches from step 1 regardless of grit coarseness) AO 220 - 3 days(heavy AO breakdown to near polish) AO 14,000 - 1 day(if needed, usually polished after 8-9 hours) But I can't remember how much sugar, I think it is 4 tablespoons for each 5 pound section, only enough water to make pancake syrup. grrr The 4th one from the left has the deepest pits from whatever step one SIC, the rest look frosty finished in SIC 60. But most importantly there are no light sparkles from bruises(picture taken in bright noon Georgia sunlight). The 2 days in the SIC 600 will prepare them for the AO 220:  Bout 6 pounds glass, 1/2 pound agatoids, 4 pounds pea gravel:  And all in the steel bucket ready for abrasive and sugar and water:  May go well, may not Henry, it has been a while. wish me well ! PS If adding sugar to drip dry rocks use 3-4 tablespoons of sugar per 6 pound section, BUT, if adding more water then one must add more sugar to get the correct viscosity. I added water((forgot), so it took 9 tablespoons of sugar per section to get the desired syrup. |
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jamesp
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Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,607
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Post by jamesp on May 30, 2024 16:41:51 GMT -5
Finished these in a vibe with very thick sugar slurry. A 3 pound rotary should be gentle enough to polish quartz w out bruising it. Quartz supplied by quartz. Damn perfect! Optical level clear. Dammnnnnn I believe the source of this quartz was mined for vintage radio(or electronic components ?). Wish we all had 100 pound of it. If memory serves it came from south British Columbia. Let's go get it ! |
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Post by HankRocks on May 30, 2024 18:15:31 GMT -5
jamesp Happy to provide you some motivation, good luck.
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