SirRoxalot
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since October 2003
Posts: 790
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Post by SirRoxalot on Mar 19, 2008 11:35:58 GMT -5
Having completed construction of the MOAT (Mother of all Tumblers - takes 5 twelve pound barrels) I happily set some lovely rough spinning on the two step EZ tumbling process. The theory is that a month or two of rolling in coarse lets the grit break down super fine and poof you're ready to polish.
After about six weeks in coarse and two in polish, the blue lace agate and tiger eye are super smooth, but have not attained a polish worth a damn. Very interesting. I grabbed a piece of tiger eye and tried to polish it on the cabbing machine... nope, the coarse grind did not do the job. So I did something wrong, I guess, and have to send them all back to 600 grit for a week or ten.
My question is, if anybody out there is actually having success with the two step method, and getting a good polish at the end, could you please explain exactly how you're doing it?
Thanks!
Sir(exceedingly frustimacated)Roxalot
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geogoddess
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2007
Posts: 287
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Post by geogoddess on Mar 19, 2008 12:11:53 GMT -5
My thought is that the 60/90 or even 45/70 would break down too fast to do its job in the intermediate stages. From what I've seen with my tumblers, at the end of 10 days the 60/90 is already too fine to feel gritty. Where as after a week with 120/220 there is still some gritty-ness to it after 7 days.
Just my observations.
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Post by johnjsgems on Mar 19, 2008 19:33:45 GMT -5
What polish are you using? You should get a polish on a buffing wheel with a good polish. Not enough steps would leave scratches that would show after polishing but you should still see a shine. Any good cerium, tin or aluminum oxide should shine your agates (including the tigereye). You coul also "window" a piece on your cab machine to see if the rocks will polish.
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Post by johnjsgems on Mar 21, 2008 1:02:35 GMT -5
Another thought. You probably needed to check every 3-5 days during the first step and add grit as needed. After two-three weeks you probably could have let it run 2-3 weeks to break down to prepolish stage checking periodically to adjust water/slurry. Still wondering what polish you used. Was it a tumbling kit "all purpose polish" or what?
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Post by connrock on Mar 21, 2008 6:16:48 GMT -5
John hit the nail onthe head when he told you to add grit every so often.
I've used this system and it doesn't work very well of rough grit isn't added every 5-7 days until the rocks look good enough to proceed.
I've done a little experimenting with grit break down in my vibe unit.
When I am in the pre-polish stage and am using 1000 grit I let it run for 24 hrs and then add Tripoli and let run for another 24 hrs.
The results are just amazing and in most cases I don't have to use a polish stage at all.
My point is that your grit is breaking down fast and "skipping" a step on you!
connrock
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SirRoxalot
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since October 2003
Posts: 790
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Post by SirRoxalot on Mar 21, 2008 18:35:16 GMT -5
OK, that's the answer then. I just let 'er run in coarse and didn't recharge!
I use aluminum oxide to polish, and it seems to work fine on the usual four step process.
Problem solved, thanks all.
SirRoxalot
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