Roan
has rocks in the head
Member since January 2008
Posts: 600
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Post by Roan on Feb 19, 2008 17:51:11 GMT -5
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. Don, What I have decided to do is -- after we finish my daughter's batch of quartz -- tumble some junk stuff I have laying around in AO with pellets. My goal at this point is just to see if it will work and see if I can put a polish on these without killing them. I have some half-carved small stuff that I doubt I will finish and I'm going to through some of those in to see how the carvings fare. Barrel of slurry is almost what I got when I tried to tumble the serpentine I have. Man! I *wish* I had a decent saw so I could cut this serpentine into slabs. I could use the slabs for my tree sculptures --- they would look SO awesome and spring-like. Eileen |
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Roan
has rocks in the head
Member since January 2008
Posts: 600
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Post by Roan on Feb 19, 2008 17:52:41 GMT -5
Hello Eileen, Polishing soap is a compound used by silversmiths when buffing silver on a cotton mop. This is the sort of material that I have used it on... Hope this helps, Derek Thanks for clarifying, Derek. I'll look around here and see what I can find. Eileen |
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Roan
has rocks in the head
Member since January 2008
Posts: 600
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Post by Roan on Feb 20, 2008 14:19:39 GMT -5
Okay, I've hijacked the tumbler from my daughter to run a quick test. I looked around for some stuff to put in and I've filled the tumbler with steatite, catlinite. *did* put some of that really buttery MN pipestone in it. Here are the pieces I added:  In particular are the roughed-heart and the loon, close up:  I put them in at around 7:30 am with six tablespoons of AO, six tablespoons of pellets and a handful of carnelian chips I needed to clean up. Yah, the chips are hard but I needed smaller bits and I figured if I put really small pieces of soapstone in they would just disintegrate. I opened the barrel at 9:30 to check on things. Slurry was just a tad foamy and tinted a pretty pink color. No change to anything. I thought for a moment and threw in 2 tablespoons of 500 grit (hey, I'm just experimenting!) and put the tumbler back. Opened tumbler at 2pm. Slurry is foamy and grey. I fished out the heart and the loon. They look VERY good! The heart, which is MN pipestone, was just blocked out and hadn't had any work on the edges, was rounding nicely. Only saw cuts I saw were in the notch at the top. The loon is Black Pearl and was awesome and had a few cuts around the neck. I'm going to let this run another few hours then pull and take pictures. Eileen |
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Roan
has rocks in the head
Member since January 2008
Posts: 600
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Post by Roan on Feb 20, 2008 15:25:15 GMT -5
I took the stones out at 3pm, rinsed and put them all back in with borax and Ivory. Am going to tumble in this wash for 1 hour, then start a polish tumble of AO.
Before I start the final polish I'll take pics and post.
Eileen
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Roan
has rocks in the head
Member since January 2008
Posts: 600
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Post by Roan on Feb 20, 2008 17:12:45 GMT -5
At 5pm I set the batch tumbling in four tablespoons of AO and almost a cup of pellets  Here's how they look after the 500 grit and borax wash. I tried to put them in the same places they were in in the first picture:  And here are the loon and heart:  Eileen |
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Roan
has rocks in the head
Member since January 2008
Posts: 600
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Post by Roan on Feb 21, 2008 9:28:17 GMT -5
At around 10pm, I pulled them out of the AO and washed them for two hours in borax. Although it's definitely easier/faster than hand sanding, I'm not overly happy with how the loon turned out. It pitted a bit in the AO:  The loon and the heart, as well as another heart in the batch:  Here are the hearts and the loon, after beeswax application and polishing. You can see the pitting in these closeups:    The loon, before and after:  Eileen |
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rallyrocks
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since November 2005
Posts: 1,507
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Post by rallyrocks on Feb 21, 2008 12:55:06 GMT -5
because of inconsistant hardness of the various componants of soapstone, my best results have always come from hand wet-sanding with 320, 400, 600 and 1200 SiC wet-or-dry paper from the local hardware store.
After that, a little wax and the stuff looks beautiful.
Tumbling is just too random and harsh for such soft materials, but sometimes we need to learn these things through trial and error
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Roan
has rocks in the head
Member since January 2008
Posts: 600
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Post by Roan on Feb 21, 2008 14:29:28 GMT -5
because of inconsistant hardness of the various componants of soapstone, my best results have always come from hand wet-sanding with 320, 400, 600 and 1200 SiC wet-or-dry paper from the local hardware store. After that, a little wax and the stuff looks beautiful. Tumbling is just too random and harsh for such soft materials, but sometimes we need to learn these things through trial and error Wet sand is what I usually do, however by tumbling like this I can get them to the 500 grit stand and then just sand at 1200 or 1600. Skips quite a few stages. Eileen |
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rallyrocks
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since November 2005
Posts: 1,507
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Post by rallyrocks on Feb 21, 2008 15:30:43 GMT -5
Well if you are OK with the undercutting/pitting I guess that's your call, I just find it easy enough to get results I'm happy with that way, to each their own as they say....
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Roan
has rocks in the head
Member since January 2008
Posts: 600
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Post by Roan on Feb 21, 2008 17:57:58 GMT -5
Well if you are OK with the undercutting/pitting I guess that's your call, I just find it easy enough to get results I'm happy with that way, to each their own as they say.... The pitting was easy to remove, moreso with the catlinite than the steatite. It really wasn't all that bad. I sanded all of them with 1200 grit and the loon took just a little more work than the hearts did. I'll post another pic in the morn. Only reason I was hot tumbling them is time and size. The stuff is small and I find sanding small rocks really hard on the hands. Cramps et al and that's even with a plastic holder thingy (sorta like a pin vise). Eileen |
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