Soapstone?

ABSOLUTELY DO NOT TRY TO TUMBLE POLISH SOAPSTONE!

If you preform anything from soapstone, no matter how carefully you try to tumble it, you will most likely wind up with a smaller, nearly formless dull blob and endless frustration & disappointment in the end. Even tumbling malachite at mohs 3'ish is very tricky and taxing due to it's softness as any shapes more complex than an oval will tend to wear excessively or unevenly before polishing (IF it polishes). If you're trying to save time on the final stages without compromising the quality of your hand carving, tumbling is not the way to do it.

The agate carving video is also somewhat deceiving in that it shows a production line sort of set-up where carvings are cheaply pumped out on-mass.

I still have my doubts about whether that's even actually agate because of the way those little trim blades are eating it up like butter. Agate is a very hard material which makes it harder to cut but easier to polish. The vibe tumbling in the carving video was to remove saw marks and smooth out the shapes a bit, then prepare the surface for a chemical polishing bath.

Have you considered using a foredom (Dremel) type tool with the apropriate sanding and polishing accessories to help speed up the process? At least that way you are still directly able to influence the outcome all the way to the final polish and probably save yourself some pain & suffering.

But, but . . . awwww, man!

I hear yah, but I DO want to try it -- just to see what happens to the different types of stones I have.

What I was thinking was throwing some pieces I have laying around into the tumbler just to see exactly what results. I have lots of small stuff -- about 1 x 2 or so -- left from some carvings I did.

Hrm, some of the Utah and Kenora cat and the Black Pearl. Those are the harder ones.

So, if I were gonna try it -- and I *have* to!!! I do!! Just to see! -- would I just tumble it one day with AO or something? 500 grit? Suggestions? Just for fun, mind you! I don't care if it works or not. I love to try new things like this.

I know absolutely nothing about agates et al, but even I wondered the same thing. The stuff looked like some type of jade to me. Dunno.


Nod, and vib is easier on rocks, no?

I didn't like the Foredom I looked at and bought a Turbo Carver instead. Was hoping not to have to get that out 'cause I'm lean on room and it's rather noisy. My studio, for the nonce, used to be our family room and now it's full of fish tanks and artwork.

I'll break out the Turbo and see what I can come up with.

Eileen

The Turbo Carver is pretty much a smaller version of the Foredom, but has a lower torque. Since I won't be carving harder stones (for a while at least), the Turbo should work fine. I mainly used it for gourd carving, but the model I bought has water cooling and works great on softer stones. After using one of these, I just can't go back to a Dremel. Too darn heavy and cumbersome.

Eileen

Thanks! I was thinking of picking up a vibratory as a second tumbler. I'll check this out.

Eileen

Roan, if you are dealing with true soapstone, at a Mohs hardness of less than 2, then it probably won't polish in a tumbler. But I understand your desire to give it a try, and if you are just testing it on some spare pieces, then you've got nothing to lose.

If I understand you correctly, you ultimately want to try this with some pieces you've carved. In that case, I suggest just going with a final polish stage, adding an equal or even greater amount of plastic pellets to rocks to give lots of cushioning, and then let things roll for two weeks or so to see how they do. That's assuming you are using a rotary tumbler, I've never used a vibe so cannot comment there except to say that they are much faster.

If you were trying to shape and polish some rougher material, I would start with 500 grit, let that tumble for a week or so, then wash two or more times to get rid of any residual grit. Then go to the polish stage.

If the material you have is really up to Mohs 5 or 6, then it isn't soapstone at all, so just tumble it with a standard rock tumbling recipe, perhaps adding some extra plastic pellets to cushion things a bit better.
-Don

Okay, I stand corrected

I called the people who sell Black Pearl and asked them about it. Apparently a couple of years ago when I bought my skid of stone, the deposit they were working had a *lot* of what they call "nail heads" dispersed throughout the rock. The nail heads are pyrites and they don't play nice with bandsaws. So, the rock seemed to be hard, but it was the nail heads, and scattered bits and pieces of pyrite, that I kept hitting when I was working it.

He said that the deposit they are working now is like "buttah" and is 1 on MOHs.

You're right, I'm wrong and I am a dork for arguing ;D

Eileen

I can try that --

Is that rubbing compound -- like what they use on cars?

Anyone in the States know?

Eileen

If you want to check it every day, yes that would be by far the best option. I'm just lazy ;D. If you add lots of pellets, that will really slow down the action in the barrel so even soft material might not wear too quickly. That was my experience with some Mohs 3 travertine (which I started in 120/220), but maybe Mohs 1 is in an entirely different league.

At any rate, it's fairly easy to check on things in the 500 grit stage, but I find the polish stage really mucky to open up and check things, so I do that as little as possible.

If you try it without any plastic pellets at all, I would check the 500 grit stage after even a few hours to see what's happening, as going a full day might well lead to a barrel of slurry and nothing else.
-Don

Just to clarify -- when I said that the rock they were using in that "Cutting Agates" video looked like jade, I meant the stuff they have been calling "New Jade", which is supposed to be light green serpentine.

Dat's what I meant.

Eileen