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Post by chris1956 on Aug 26, 2024 20:37:09 GMT -5
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Post by pebblesky on Aug 26, 2024 22:30:07 GMT -5
Wow, it seems you did more justice to the Nguni Jasper. Even the left piece from the polished group picture which looks more grainy than the other two, has a decent polish. I also don't see any frosted edge on any of them. Did you finish them in a rotary or a vibe?
While I have heard the glass is a tough material to tumble, you seem to have them polished effortlessly.
That eye agate with golden eyes is wonderful.
I don't know what happened to these red Gobi jaspers either. They shall be pretty hard. They didn't look like anything from the last picture.
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Post by chris1956 on Aug 27, 2024 12:25:08 GMT -5
Wow, it seems you did more justice to the Nguni Jasper. Even the left piece from the polished group picture which looks more grainy than the other two, has a decent polish. I also don't see any frosted edge on any of them. Did you finish them in a rotary or a vibe? While I have heard the glass is a tough material to tumble, you seem to have them polished effortlessly. That eye agate with golden eyes is wonderful. I don't know what happened to these red Gobi jaspers either. They shall be pretty hard. They didn't look like anything from the last picture. Thanks. I was worried about the edges after I saw one of your posts. I finished them (220 through polish) in a mini-sonic vibratory tumbler. I was surprised the glass did so well also. May try some of the others. Red Gobi jaspers might have gotten mixed with the seam agate or confused with some quartz I had in there at one time. |
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Post by pebblesky on Aug 27, 2024 12:40:23 GMT -5
The Raytech TV5 has a specific movement pattern in vibrating so maybe it is less ideal than the mini-sonic movement for this specific material. But maybe I am trying to find excuses for my poor tumbling technique  Next time, I will try to babysit the batches. Maybe add water more frequently when needed. I am also curious how many % of fillers do you run for your batches? About the art glasses, I once heard that they might actually be a crystal product that "is made by melting down small, natural materials and then reshaping them into a new crystal form." so it could also be possible that they are slightly harder than glass depending on the material that was melted down? I am yet too intimidated to tumble the glass pieces. I am afraid the gas buildup could be a disaster. Maybe I will try with one piece in the whole barrel in the future. |
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Post by chris1956 on Aug 27, 2024 13:32:42 GMT -5
The Raytech TV5 has a specific movement pattern in vibrating so maybe it is less ideal than the mini-sonic movement for this specific material. But maybe I am trying to find excuses for my poor tumbling technique  Next time, I will try to babysit the batches. Maybe add water more frequently when needed. I am also curious how many % of fillers do you run for your batches? About the art glasses, I once heard that they might actually be a crystal product that "is made by melting down small, natural materials and then reshaping them into a new crystal form." so it could also be possible that they are slightly harder than glass depending on the material that was melted down? I am yet too intimidated to tumble the glass pieces. I am afraid the gas buildup could be a disaster. Maybe I will try with one piece in the whole barrel in the future. I meant to mention that I probably should have checked and gathered all the soft stuff and run that by itself. But I didn't. This percentage is going to be approximate because on the mini the barrel is not uniform and gets a little smaller area towards the top. I follow what is in the manual. The depth (to the middle) is 5.5 inches. I fill with rock to half full (2.75 inches). Then fill with ceramics up to 2 inches below the top of the barrel. So that isn't a lot of filler (I used ceramics on this but sometimes used leftover bits from sawing). Roughly .75 inches (height) of ceramics or about 14% of the bowl. If you calculate the percentage based on total material (rocks and ceramics) the ceramics is about 21% of the total material. I am never too exact with the mini. I might put a little less rock sometimes and more ceramics. It doesn't seem too sensitive as long as you don't put too much rock in or too large of a rock or rocks which can cause a jam. I will have to get out a math tables book to calculate the Lot-O percentages assuming it is close to a sphere which I think it probably is. Will post that later. I didn't have any issues with the gas but I just had the two in a 6 pound barrel to start and later a 3 pound barrel. Maybe it is something I do. I have been tumbling small obsidian in the same 6 and 3 pound barrels and haven't had issues with gas yet. Maybe just lucky?  |
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Post by chris1956 on Aug 27, 2024 13:33:35 GMT -5
All the comments above about amound of ceramics are based on volume.
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Post by rockjunquie on Aug 27, 2024 13:40:23 GMT -5
Love seeing all the different stuff. 
This one I think is awesome:
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Post by chris1956 on Aug 27, 2024 14:23:36 GMT -5
Love seeing all the different stuff.
This one I think is awesome:
I agree. The rest of the vein agates where not that perfect.  |
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Post by pebblesky on Aug 27, 2024 15:28:28 GMT -5
Thanks for the info Chris. It doesn't seem you use excessive volumes of fillers and you also don't do dedicated batch of softer rocks. For me, the frosted edges from stage 3+ on some of the Nguni Jaspers are so bad, even on those normally most shiny brown areas. The Chinese fossil corals that I tumbled were quite frosted as expected. The acid-treated roughs look more interesting than those tumbled mess. I will these roughs as is for now. res.cloudinary.com/rth-new-member/image/upload/v1724722325/new-members/iorkzvmrgblw6h1qrafe.jpg This one is Indian Fruit "Jasper", or "Sabalgarh Marble from Madhya Pradesh state, India". I got the same tumbling result as yours. |
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Post by pebblesky on Aug 27, 2024 15:37:28 GMT -5
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Post by chris1956 on Aug 27, 2024 16:10:38 GMT -5
Never ask an engineer to calculate something, especially when it is too hot to go outside. Here are the caluclations for the Lot-O on percentage of ceramics. Yea, I know, I could have plugged this into online calculators but what fun would that have been? I followed Rob's ( Jugglerguy) guidelines in the Michigan Rocks Videos for fill levels of rocks and ceramics. The big unknown is how many ceramics you can shake into the rock voids (which depends on the size and shape of the rocks) and still stay at the 1 inch below the top limit. A warning for all of you who might get nightmares of math classes past, you might want to skip the calculations. Interesting enough, the percentage (without shaking into the rocks) at 22% is almost the same as I came up with for the Mini-Sonic rough calculation. I would guess that the reall number after shaking is closer to 25% if not a little higher. Next time I do this I may try to do an actual calculation of the rock and ceramic volumes used to see how close they come to the calculations. I usually don't shake the ceramics in the mini. It seems like there is a lot of space given what they recommend for fill levels and if it looks like it needs more ceramics, I add some.   Chris |
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Post by pebblesky on Aug 27, 2024 18:05:21 GMT -5
Wow that is quite some calculation.
I have yet to measure how much fillers I put into a bowl for a typical batch. There are always many smalls, from rice size to half inch size, that are tumbled together with the bigger pieces. I always THINK there are more than enough fillers. Maybe I will be surprised if I do an accurate measurement next time.
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jone
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since February 2023
Posts: 112
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Post by jone on Aug 28, 2024 19:25:53 GMT -5
They are all great tumbles. I especially like that you included the "before" pictures!
Many non lapidary people who are impressed with the finished product are usually blown away when the see what the rocks looked like when you started.
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Post by chris1956 on Aug 28, 2024 21:03:32 GMT -5
They are all great tumbles. I especially like that you included the "before" pictures! Many non lapidary people who are impressed with the finished product are usually blown away when the see what the rocks looked like when you started. Thanks. |
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Post by rockjunquie on Aug 28, 2024 22:15:50 GMT -5
Never ask an engineer to calculate something, especially when it is too hot to go outside. Here are the caluclations for the Lot-O on percentage of ceramics. Yea, I know, I could have plugged this into online calculators but what fun would that have been? I followed Rob's ( Jugglerguy ) guidelines in the Michigan Rocks Videos for fill levels of rocks and ceramics. The big unknown is how many ceramics you can shake into the rock voids (which depends on the size and shape of the rocks) and still stay at the 1 inch below the top limit. A warning for all of you who might get nightmares of math classes past, you might want to skip the calculations. Interesting enough, the percentage (without shaking into the rocks) at 22% is almost the same as I came up with for the Mini-Sonic rough calculation. I would guess that the reall number after shaking is closer to 25% if not a little higher. Next time I do this I may try to do an actual calculation of the rock and ceramic volumes used to see how close they come to the calculations. I usually don't shake the ceramics in the mini. It seems like there is a lot of space given what they recommend for fill levels and if it looks like it needs more ceramics, I add some. Chris As one who is terrified by math, color me impressed. |
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Post by jasoninsd on Aug 29, 2024 16:30:08 GMT -5
Never ask an engineer to calculate something, especially when it is too hot to go outside. Here are the caluclations for the Lot-O on percentage of ceramics. Yea, I know, I could have plugged this into online calculators but what fun would that have been? I followed Rob's ( Jugglerguy ) guidelines in the Michigan Rocks Videos for fill levels of rocks and ceramics. The big unknown is how many ceramics you can shake into the rock voids (which depends on the size and shape of the rocks) and still stay at the 1 inch below the top limit. A warning for all of you who might get nightmares of math classes past, you might want to skip the calculations. Interesting enough, the percentage (without shaking into the rocks) at 22% is almost the same as I came up with for the Mini-Sonic rough calculation. I would guess that the reall number after shaking is closer to 25% if not a little higher. Next time I do this I may try to do an actual calculation of the rock and ceramic volumes used to see how close they come to the calculations. I usually don't shake the ceramics in the mini. It seems like there is a lot of space given what they recommend for fill levels and if it looks like it needs more ceramics, I add some. Chris As one who is terrified by math, color me impressed. You're not alone my friend! LOL chris1956 - You really knocked these tumbles out of the park my friend! All of 'em home-runs in my opinion!! |
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Next time, I will try to babysit the batches. Maybe add water more frequently when needed. I am also curious how many % of fillers do you run for your batches?
Next time, I will try to babysit the batches. Maybe add water more frequently when needed. I am also curious how many % of fillers do you run for your batches?
