Post by Pebbles on Jan 1, 2006 12:42:44 GMT -5
If you have ever asked yourself any of the following questions, read on …..
• Are my rocks ready to move on to the polish stage?
• If they are, which polish will work best?
• My polished batch isn’t as shiny as I’d like it to be. Will another polish make them better or worse?
• Not all tumbling “recipes” work the same for everyone. So, what can I do to reduce the trial & error timeframe?
I got the following info from my instruction book that came with our new Lortone tumbler & thought I’d pass it on for those who may not know.
When you think your rocks are ready for the polish stage try this: Remove 2 or 3 stones from your batch. Take a piece of old rug (clean rug, of course!), coarse toweling, leather, or felt & barely dampen it. Sprinkle a small amount of polishing compound on the damp surface & vigorously rub a stone on it. After a few moments, you should see a definite shine. ( You may need to rinse & dry the stone to see better. ) If they shine, you are ready to polish. I tried this with a scrap piece of leather ( I bought a small bag of leather scraps from a craft store ) & it worked great!!!
I then took the book’s instructions a step further. I tried this test with different polishes each on its own piece of leather. Just rub a different section of the stone on each of your polish test pieces. That way I could tell which polish would work best for the rocks I was currently tumbling. This is also good for when you have a batch of mixed kinds of rocks so you know if one polish will work for all the stones in the batch.
This also works if you have a finished batch of polished stones but are wondering if a different polish would make them better, but you don’t want to ruin the whole batch in a re-do or make them look worse. Do the above test with one or two of your finished stones & see if a different polish makes them look better, worse, or doesn’t seem to make a difference at all. Why wreck or waste time with the whole batch in a do-over if you don’t have to?
The above pre-polish test can save you time, polish, frustration, etc…. If the polish(es) you have doesn’t do the trick, you may need to purchase a different polish or continue with the pre-polish stage & then do the test again. This also really helps if you have an “unidentified” polish that didn’t come with a name.
Sorry this post is so lengthy, but I thought it was all worth mentioning….
Pebbles
• Are my rocks ready to move on to the polish stage?
• If they are, which polish will work best?
• My polished batch isn’t as shiny as I’d like it to be. Will another polish make them better or worse?
• Not all tumbling “recipes” work the same for everyone. So, what can I do to reduce the trial & error timeframe?
I got the following info from my instruction book that came with our new Lortone tumbler & thought I’d pass it on for those who may not know.
When you think your rocks are ready for the polish stage try this: Remove 2 or 3 stones from your batch. Take a piece of old rug (clean rug, of course!), coarse toweling, leather, or felt & barely dampen it. Sprinkle a small amount of polishing compound on the damp surface & vigorously rub a stone on it. After a few moments, you should see a definite shine. ( You may need to rinse & dry the stone to see better. ) If they shine, you are ready to polish. I tried this with a scrap piece of leather ( I bought a small bag of leather scraps from a craft store ) & it worked great!!!
I then took the book’s instructions a step further. I tried this test with different polishes each on its own piece of leather. Just rub a different section of the stone on each of your polish test pieces. That way I could tell which polish would work best for the rocks I was currently tumbling. This is also good for when you have a batch of mixed kinds of rocks so you know if one polish will work for all the stones in the batch.
This also works if you have a finished batch of polished stones but are wondering if a different polish would make them better, but you don’t want to ruin the whole batch in a re-do or make them look worse. Do the above test with one or two of your finished stones & see if a different polish makes them look better, worse, or doesn’t seem to make a difference at all. Why wreck or waste time with the whole batch in a do-over if you don’t have to?
The above pre-polish test can save you time, polish, frustration, etc…. If the polish(es) you have doesn’t do the trick, you may need to purchase a different polish or continue with the pre-polish stage & then do the test again. This also really helps if you have an “unidentified” polish that didn’t come with a name.
Sorry this post is so lengthy, but I thought it was all worth mentioning….
Pebbles
