Rogue Trader
freely admits to licking rocks
"Don't cry because you are leaving, smile because you were there."
Member since December 2008
Posts: 839
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Post by Rogue Trader on Nov 8, 2008 4:35:36 GMT -5
... has anyone studied the amount of wear rocks go through while in the tumbler?
Basically, what I want to do is try cutting some shapes to make into different things.
I don't have any extravagant cutting gear, or a vibe.
Hmmm, I know what I want to say but can't find a way of describing it.
I have a tile cutter / saw. and was thinking of shaping a rock (any rock) them cutting it into slices, and then tumbling the slices. I don't lap so the stuff will have to go into a tumbler. What, taking into acount the amount of wear of the stone would be an ideal thickness of slice to put into and survive the tumbling action?
Did it all make sense??
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Post by connrock on Nov 8, 2008 6:36:26 GMT -5
The rule of thumb is that you will loose about 1/3 of the original rock but in the case of slabs I would think you can just remove them when they are shaped like you want them.
You can't put too many slabs in a single load in a rotary but need a lot of smaller stones to reach the sides of the slabs.
If the slabs don't have deep grooves from cutting them on the saw it shouldn't take long at all to get them "roughed" in.
After the roughing is finished the rest of the process will not remove much material at all.Hardly noticeable in fact.
connrock
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Post by akansan on Nov 8, 2008 12:23:53 GMT -5
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Post by deb193redux on Nov 8, 2008 13:54:36 GMT -5
Lots of folks here do tumble finished pendants. All of mine are. ( s207.photobucket.com/albums/bb114/deb193/finished/) Mostly the shrinkage is manageable unless the stone has flaws that take a lot of grinding. You loose the most from the edges, and less from the thickness. More loss on softer stones unless you pull them early. It is more important to think about the type of bail and the final thickness wanted and the optimal shape and edge-rounding that might be needed. IF the material is hard and fracture-free, you can go as thin as 3/16, which might permit some types of bails. Search for CPDAD's pendants with clip-bails. If you want to groove wrap or top drill the stone, best to start slightly over 1/4 inch. For regular wire wrap, or face drilled (for pinch bails) 1/4 is OK. IF you plan to use glue-on bell caps, you want to make sure you have made a sort of rounded point on the stone. For leaf-bails, be sure to slightly round the edges, but keep fairly flat faces to glue the leaves. On larger pieces consider drilling 1/4 to 3/9 hole in face and using a donut bail. |
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Post by Michael John on Nov 8, 2008 20:33:46 GMT -5
If you decide you want to do this sort of thing on a continueing basis, you should consider buying a vibe tumbler. Your finished pieces will be much closer to what you started-out with, and you'll be able to keep more defined corners and edges. Also, a batch will take a couple of weeks instead of a couple of months, using a fraction of the grit you use in a rotary tumbler.
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