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Post by Tweetiepy on Feb 13, 2005 18:42:46 GMT -5
I heard of burnishing the stones, what does it do, why do you do it (do you need to?) and how do you do this?
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Post by docone31 on Feb 13, 2005 19:57:02 GMT -5
I am a little lost here. I have heard of using burnishing medium for light polish and grit breaking, but I have never heard of burnishing the stones them selves as a final product, or part of the process. An example of burinshing process, stainless steel rods are put into a tumbler and they hammer metal. When setting a cabachon, a burnisher is used to form the bezel around the stone, and there are a few occasions when stones are run in burnishing medium to knock off schist, or graphite. Burnishing is traditionally for metal finishing. Gold is awful porous and a burnishier makes the pinholes invisible to the naked eye, burnishing a bezel is like spinning metal. It makes the metal form around an object. A wire brush used at high speed, does not clean metal, it burnishes the oxides. The oxides still exist but they have had the parent metal brought to the surface. Maybe it is time for me to learn something new also.
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Post by sandsman1 on Feb 13, 2005 20:19:51 GMT -5
doc i think tweets is takin about a borax run at the end sometimes it helps by taking the film from the polish run off the stones and makes them shine alittle better --they even sell burnishing soap you can use but i usta just use the borax it allways seamed to do the job it make them squeeky clean
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Post by Tweetiepy on Feb 13, 2005 21:02:11 GMT -5
Yeah they mentioned using Ivory soap flakes after the final polish, but I didn't know why? After you polish them should they not be clean after you rinse them?
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Post by docone31 on Feb 13, 2005 21:06:13 GMT -5
Gotcha. That makes it more of a schtik rather than a process. Borax converts the dissolved scale in the water from a colloidic to an emulsion. The dissolved scale interferes with a polish and its action. A polish, contrary to recent popular opinion, is a mechanical action. A wax is a chemical action producing a shine. Borax turns into a wetting agent, just as when heated and making borax "glass", it is a wetting agent, or flux. Borax, through being a wetting agent, allows the valence of the electrons comprising the molecule, to return to its natural state, ejecting scale. Scale is a lower ph., borax allows the stone to return to an higher ph. This process ejects contaminants in the outer electron plane. Borax is thought to be a soap. A soap is a foaming agent. Shampoo is an example. Carsofoam is the prime ingredient. That is why the cheapest shampoos are the best for hair. Borax is a wetting agent. Soaps need a wetting agent to utilize the foaming to release contaminants. Soap breaks capillary cohesion, Borax does not. Soap foams, Borax does not. Borax converts colloids, soap makes colloids. Burnishing with borax is a misnomer. It is a scale reducer. sodium bisulfate breaks down Cu. and carbon deposits. I lost track of this thread, my tinfoil hat has a crumpled corner and it is recieving AM stations. Now, however, I understand what Tweety was asking. The electricals convert scale to ionization. This process attracts the broken down scale to the parent material with a negative valence. Effectively joining by diffusion bonding an extra electron to an atom of the parent material. Bad electricals! However, borax through disoulutin, and fighting electricals replaces the scale ionization by acting as a capitance medium. Like salt in a water softener, or by wrapping up in saran wrap. It becomes a passive storage device, ejecting the electron bond without passing current. Hence scale breakdown without extraneous mechanical effort. Wow, I am beat from the shop. Tomorrow is Valentines day, and it seems everybody got really drunk friday night, and tore the rope chain necklace off their loved one's neck. All I did for repairs saturday, and today was rope chains, the same kind of break, and replace stones. All the stones I had to replace had been lost by being in a fight. Every couple who came to me, someone had a cut or black eye. Valentines weekend is a good weekend to show joy! Bad electricals!
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billyd
starting to spend too much on rocks
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Post by billyd on Feb 14, 2005 8:35:10 GMT -5
hi Tweetiepy hope you dont mind me asking but what is borax,after i have done the polish i just rince them. am i missing out somthing. billy.d
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Post by Tweetiepy on Feb 14, 2005 9:13:59 GMT -5
That's exactly what I was wondering - I never got a good shine on whatever I was polishing anyways. I think it's if you get some kind of film on the rocks after they come out of polish, I know you can use borax in the laundry, but as to what it does??? ![???](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/huh.png) I'm not quite sure - washes them off?
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Post by Cher on Feb 14, 2005 12:40:40 GMT -5
It's called 20 Mule Team Borax. It comes in a box and you'll find it in the laundry section of most stores.
Cher
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Eric
starting to shine!
if you build it and they dont come, your screwed
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Post by Eric on Feb 14, 2005 12:43:37 GMT -5
borax is a laundry soap...its a dry flake soap. often used in tanning hides and taxadermy. i got a book and they mentioned burnishing. from what i read and can remember burnishing basically makes the rock more shiney by filling in all the microscopic cracks just under the surface of the rock. these cracks make the rock look like it has a slight haze or is cloudy. it also mentioned that burnishing is good for when the rocks have been short changed in one of the previous cycles. how true this is i have no clue...but thats just what i have read so far. the book i got this from is "how to tumble polish rocks into gems"....available at the rock shed.
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stubby
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Post by stubby on Feb 14, 2005 12:48:30 GMT -5
And you will have a tough time finding "old" ivory soap chips, but a shave ivory bar is the same thing.
stub
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Post by Tweetiepy on Feb 14, 2005 13:02:01 GMT -5
I shaved the ivory bar, it went well (I don't like the smell of that soap, yuck). I used a grater - works good. I guess I could give it a try after polish if I can stand to wait another few days... ![::)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/eyesroll.png)
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stubby
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Post by stubby on Feb 14, 2005 13:29:21 GMT -5
Tweetie,
I usually figure a day is long enough, but I couldn't find any reference right now. It's been a while since I finished a batch.
Stub
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chassroc
Cave Dweller
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Post by chassroc on Feb 14, 2005 13:29:47 GMT -5
After the final Polish stage, Bunishing is recommended. You put the stones in a clean barrel with Ivory snow flakes and let them tumble for an hour or two...ok that was the how.... 8-)now for the why ![???](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/huh.png) ...I'm not totally sure...I think it might make the stones more stain resistant, but that it a total fabrication of my imagination ![:P](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/tongue.png)
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Blue Tigereye
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Post by Blue Tigereye on Feb 14, 2005 14:05:10 GMT -5
Funny all I could get at my Albertson's store was the Ivory Snow, couldn't find any Borax.
I used to live in Lancaster CA, somewhere near it is where they make the 20 Mule Team Borax I remember going past the plant.
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SirRoxalot
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Post by SirRoxalot on Feb 14, 2005 15:36:00 GMT -5
I've tried burnishing, it made no difference. Admittedly I didn't perform any extensive testing, I think I did agates and/or amethyst that had about a 98% perfect shine; burnishing didn't provide the final 2% and I dunno what will. I suspect that running a load after polishing with a bit of Ivory is good to get rid of the last bits of polish in the crevices, and making the stones smell perfumey, but not much else.
Until I see a good explanation of what this supposed "burnishing" actually does, and a concrete example of what it is good for, I'm not going to worry about it. I think the term has been misapplied and clearly seems more applicable to metal than minerals.
Tumbling seems to be a neglected art, many theories put forth, but little rational scientific thought applied.
SirRoxalot
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RedwoodRocks
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Post by RedwoodRocks on Feb 14, 2005 18:57:07 GMT -5
Not sure of the exact term for burnishing. I use Ivory or Borax to clean the grit/mud/polish from the rocks at each stage.
If burnishing means polishing, I don't think soap polishes the rocks, the soap just cleans the rocks.
My two cents, Cal
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