Aluminum Oxide Polish as Pre-Polish?

I use aluminum oxide as a polish, I've had much better luck with it than cerium. I'd use the cerium as a pre-polish instead. From what everyone has said, the Lortone polish sucks at shining but should be ok as a pre-polish.

You need to think grit or microns not just name. If what you use for pre-polish is super-fine like polish, it won't help much. It would not be much different from running multiple recharges of polish. You could be asking something that is about 50,000 grit to take out 500g scratches.

If you ran 500g you want 1000g or 1200g as a pre-polish.

For example AO can be 1000g or 50,000 grit. The RockShed sells some AO that is 1000g, and they offer it as a pre-polish. They also have a polish-grade super fine AO that lots of folks here like.

So, if your Cerium and AO are both much finer than 1000g, I would not use either as a pre-polish for the other.

ACK!!! To much technical jargon. I've never ever thought of microns when purchasing grit for the tumbler. I use the Rock Shed's 1000 grit AO for pre-polish followed by their Aluminum Oxide polish. It's now the only polish I use because it's given me the best results. Maybe if you're getting into cabbing, you might need to get into microns but if it's so important, why don't the list it in their description of the polish?

Ah! So the AO is fine then. Awesome!

Thanks!
Eileen

Now Cher if you don't like microns, don't think about them.

I mentioned "microns" but I posted only in terms of grit sizes. My point was to think of SIZE - I never said microns was more important, or that micron had to be used over grit. I pretty clearly said "grit or microns". Some web pages that give the grit equivalent for Linde A (i.e., AO) also give the size in microns. So if you don't know that 1/2 micron is about 50,000g you have no sense of how fine good AO polish is, or what kind of jump you are making.

www.mamasminerals.com/lmrhftumblinggrit.html
www.faceters.com/askjeff/answer67.shtml

Pointing out that polish is a pretty poor pre-polish, or that going straight from 500g to 50,000 grit is not equivalent to a pre-polish step - well that just can't be too technical. Its no different from thinking about different grades of sandpaper when refinishing wood, and getting a sensibility about jumps. After all, polish is just a really fine grit - not something magical or qualitatively different from the grits that come earlier.

Of course, size is not the only thing, how the material breaks down can be important too. Mostly if you are having problems, or want to understand someone recommending one polish over another. If you have stuff that works you can just keep using it w/o thinking too deeply about it. I find RockShed AO to be very good as a polish. Likely sucks as a pre-polish, which is why they sell the 1000g AO for that.

For hard agate, which really does not need a pre-polush, running the 500g until is 100g or 1200g and then jumping to polish seems to work fine. For softer stuff, where pre-polish is needed, reflecting on SIZE, is how you come to understand that polish will not work very well as a pre-polish. Not too technical at all.

Now this is technical: www.lapidaryjournal.com/feature/nov05.cfm

Roan, to answer your original question, yes you can use it as a prepolish. I use standard cerium. If it doesn't give the polish I want I try another. Your aluminum may work fine. If not think of it as a prepolish. The better aluminums are .5 micron or finer. Micron is nothing magical just a way of grading small things. Most of the world uses metric and microns.

Oh, Cher, I'm not trying to win anything. Or be argumentative ... etc. I think I was just more literally focused on the original question than you were.

John's reference to original question to the contrary, if the question is can polish be used as a pre-polish, the answer is generally NO - because the grit is too fine. That's the sole reason I began to discuss size.

If someone came here and said they had a lot of 1200g and didn't want it to go to waste, so could they use it for their 2nd stage, everyone would tell them "No, its too fine". If someone wants to use polish as pre-polish the same logic applies.

So when can you use polish as a pre-polish? When what you have is low-grade or courser (e.g., 1000g, or really a pre-polish), or when you don't really need a pre-polish at all (e.g., Brazilian agate). You could also use oatmeal or cat litter - both would be equally ineffective and as much a waste of time.

Can you benefit from multiple courses of different polishes? I would think so. If one does not work well, run with a charge of something else. How evenly your polish is graded and how it breaks down all comes into play and interacts with how your barrel is loaded and watered and cushioned and the RPM .... most times all that stuff is not that critical and you get more or less the same shine in more or less the same time. If you don't get a good shine varying the type of polish - or any of the other factors - might do the trick. Or, if you tweak the wrong factor, it could get worse.

But this would actually be re-polish not pre-polish.

So, if the "original question" was really "Can I use Cerium polish after an AO polish?", John has given a good answer. If the original question was "What is a good polish?", Cher has given a good answer. The particular SIZE of the AO will be an issue.

I read the original question to be "Can I use AO polish as a pre-polish?" And ... if you actually need a pre-polish, something in the 800g to 1200g range, then NO - because it is generally too fine.

If I took the original question too literally, if John was more perceptive in seeing what was really being asked, OK, then nevermind. If Cher has a better sense than I do that words like "micron" or detailed discussion of "scratches" and "jumps" might really be too scary for those new to tumbling, then OK, she has more experience with tutorials.

... I'm going to just drift away from this thread

HEY !!! Busy learning here! I am probably as new to tumbling as anyone on this forum, and I appreciate all this micron, prepolish, polish, repolish stuff. (and understand it)

This isn't scary, it's schoolin'

I value the opinions and posts of ANYONE that has made it further than the 60/90 grit tumble cycle and hope that no one will "just drift away" from a tumbling thread as long as there is still someone out here wanting to learn.

I haven't seen any ONE opinion here that I value as "Tumbling Gospel" here. So the opinions, experiences and posts of each person add to my rock tumbling education.

PLEASE keep 'em coming!

Edited to add:

For Catmandewe


;D

Just read captbob's response and I have to agree. Please don't drift away! If it's too technical, I will ask for clarification. I want to learn this stuff

Eileen