ejs
spending too much on rocks
Member since July 2008
Posts: 478
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Post by ejs on Feb 12, 2009 17:47:40 GMT -5
Greetings, fellow rock freaks! Last summer, I was blown away by photos of ocean jasper tumbles posted here (was it by sparkles? I can't remember for sure). So I decided to try my hand at it. I bought some OJ tumbling rough and gave it a go. It was much more challenging than I thought! The rocks were incredibly variable; can this really only be one type of rock? Much of it was deeply pitted or druzy. I remember reading that some folks were able to let the druzy pockets go by with a thorough scrubbing and still get a good shine. I am fairly particular about my finished product, so I ran many rounds of rough (60/90 SC for five days each in a 3# Lortone). Finally, after 17 rounds, with some of the rocks still not getting smooth, I said "Enough!". I had enough rocks that they required two runs of 120/200 SC for a medium tumble. I pulled them out of the medium today. I feel that this is a crucial junction in the tumbling process. I don't want to send them on to pre-polish if they are not ready. I'd rather pull out the unworthy rocks and use them for some other purpose than have them gunk up the whole batch. Some of them are coming out great, such as these (the best of the bunch, and keep in mind this is before two rounds of pre-polish and polish which will run for a total of 34 days):  Many of them have small pits. I scrubbed them carefully with a toothbrush, really rinsed them (both under running water and in a 4 hour Borax rinse), and let them move on:  But some of them are so druzy that I just couldn't see passing them through. Here are two shots of the rejects:   What do you do with OJ stones like this? Do you move them with the other, non-pitted stones? Do you pull them out all together? They are pretty cool looking, but I don't want stray grit within those pits to prevent the whole batch from getting a shine. Since this is my first time with OJ, I am sure that I can learn a lot from the experience of others. So bring it on! Thanks! |
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firstrune
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since January 2009
Posts: 156
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Post by firstrune on Feb 12, 2009 21:08:53 GMT -5
ejs, I have no advice or avenue of experience to pass on, but I did want to say I think they're all very intriguing and beautiful, even the pitted ones. I just purchased a pound of ocean jasper from the Rock Shed, I think I'll follow this thread closely before I even attempt it.
Bonnie
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MikeS
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since January 2009
Posts: 1,081
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Post by MikeS on Feb 12, 2009 21:37:11 GMT -5
I have polished material like that, the youngite I work with tends to be irregularly shaped with pits full of druzy quartz...
When I get deeply pitted or druzy material like that but I want to keep polishing them what I do is blast the pits clean with water using my kitchen sprayer, then I scrub them out with an electric toothbrush. I take my time and work the bristles into the pits well, and I rinse them several times. Even with druzy materials I haven't really had a problem with carryover. In the next finer grit, I tumble it a bit longer, to insure that any leftover grit that might escape my cleaning breaks down and any resulting scratches are removed...
Hope this helps...
Mike
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Post by frane on Feb 13, 2009 7:36:45 GMT -5
One of my early batches was ocean jasper. It seems to never wear down enough to get rid of the pits so it is really crucial to clean well at each grit change (when moving to the next phase) and run a little longer in the later stages. It needed a lot of cousioning after the first grit or I would have to go back to the first step. These are beautiful stones but there are areas that have much softer spots in them so it can be trying. Make sure you leave the cousioning in the barrel when you are doing your washing tumble with soap between your grit changes.
I really look forward to seeing the final results!
Fran
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Post by Hard Rock Cafe on Feb 13, 2009 8:27:51 GMT -5
I don't have any experience with OJ, but Lakers have a lot of pits like that. In some cases I have moved them on to later stages, pits and all. I wash well and have found that they do not affect the polish on the rest of the batch. The only drawback is that those areas do not come out shiny like the rest, so they detract from the overall effect IMO.
I have recently started setting some of the worst ones aside for trimming and grinding and then will tumble them.
Hope that helps!
Chuck
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rockdewd
has rocks in the head
Member since October 2007
Posts: 605
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Post by rockdewd on Feb 13, 2009 12:17:53 GMT -5
You forgot to mention the biggest challenge with Ocean Jasper. Finding decent OJ. It's been mined out for years and they had tons sitting on the ground ready to ship and the Chinese came in and bought it by the container load. Now that's gone. What's on the market and what's in private collections is all there is. I'm tempted to buy spheres of it that are carved in China so I can slab it up for cabs...
Rick
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carloscinco
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since July 2008
Posts: 1,639
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Post by carloscinco on Feb 13, 2009 14:21:59 GMT -5
I also purchased a 3# block of OJ online that turned to be ALL druzy. I bought it to cut up and tumble but I can't see a non-crystalized spot on it. I'd be afraid to hit it with a hammer and turn it to a pile of colored sugar crystals. I can still enjoy looking at it though. Some of your tumbled specimen are still very nice looking. Great colors.
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misguidedone
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since May 2007
Posts: 94
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Post by misguidedone on Feb 13, 2009 19:42:32 GMT -5
Bought 4 pounds of that stuff from a couple places at $10 a pound. By far the most over rated rough I ever bought! Got 10-15 nice polished stones, the rest looks like black lava rock or is too druzy.
Steve
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rollingstone
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since July 2009
Posts: 236
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Post by rollingstone on Feb 14, 2009 2:49:56 GMT -5
Ocean Jasper is probably my favourite stone and I've tumbled a few batches of it over the years, and have one on the go right now too. As many have noted, quality varies widely, and IMO the better quality stuff has faded from once being common to now being extremely rare. A few years ago you could buy tumbling rough for $5/lb from the Gem Shop, which was okay but not great, but nowadays I think it would be considered quality material at a steal of a price... here's a pic of a tumble I did in 2005 using $5/lb rough:  Anyhow, enough reminiscing, back to your problem. OJ on the market nowadays tends to have many more crystal vugs, as you've found out. If you can remove these (either by tumbling until they are gone, or by trying to remove them physically with something like a dremel tool), then I would do that. Often that is impossible though. That leaves you with a few options.... You could fill them with glue or resin, which would get rid of the grit-trapping vug, but this leaves you with obvious whitish areas on the final polished stone that are very distracting, so I recommend NOT going this route. You can remove the worst offenders from your tumble and save them for another time when you can run a bunch of "seconds" together. If you have enough stones for more than a full load in your finer stages, I would do this. It gets the worst stones out of your current batch, leaving you with a full load of better stones. Given that your final batch seems certain to contain some stones with stubborn vugs, that's okay. Obviously, grit can become inbedded. IMHO, cleaning with something like a toothbrush is a waste of time beyond coarse grind (and I don't do it with coarse grind either). I think you are far better off to do two or more, long (at least several hours or longer) cleaning runs between stages. Add a bunch of pellets to prevent things bashing around, add a cleaner (I use ivory soap, most people prefer borax), and let the tumbler do the cleaning for you. That will get rid of embedded grit if you give the soap or borax time to do its job. Your final stones will still have the vugs of course, but they should take a wonderful shine. -Don |
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Post by Jack ( Yorkshire) on Feb 14, 2009 5:26:44 GMT -5
Hi EJS,
Im always carefull in washing wher you got Druz and holes in I
I would do a 48 hour Burnish/wash in Borax and soapflakes (Ivory) this is the method I have found very helpfull to get a good gloss finish
This get's the odd lodged piece of grit out of them holes that can cause chaos in the polishing stages
Jack
yorkshire uk
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Post by johnjsgems on Feb 14, 2009 8:37:13 GMT -5
I remember thinking when I first saw OJ that $20 a pound was too much and I would wait for prices to drop. As Rick said quality went way down with the price. If you are doing small batches you might try a small ultrasonic cleaner to clean out vugs between steps. I'd move them along vugs and all after cleaning. I think the crystal pockets are an interesting feature. The carver/sphere makers fill the vugs with wax but that probably wouldn't be practical for tumbling.
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ejs
spending too much on rocks
Member since July 2008
Posts: 478
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Post by ejs on Feb 14, 2009 12:46:46 GMT -5
Thank you for all the helpful replies. I will end up trying a combinations of the suggestions posted here.
First, I pulled out the worst offenders after the medium polish. Those include the three rocks I pictured above as well as about 5 more. I'll save these 8 deeply vugged rocks for some later tumble where they won't potentially ruin other good stones.
Second, after the medium (and after each round of pre-polish) I will rinse them very well, scrub them down with a toothbrush, and then run a longish (multi-hour) cleaning stage with pellets (the ones used in that stage) and Borax and/or Ivory Soap. Hopefully that will rinse any trapped grit away.
I'm in my first of two pre-polish stages (500 SC) now. On Friday, I'll clean and then move them onto a second pre-polish (1000 AO) for ten days, before running a final polish for 2 weeks.
Jack and others: do you recommend AO or CO polish for the final stage with OJ?
Thanks again everyone! I'll be sure to post pics of the progress.
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MikeS
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since January 2009
Posts: 1,081
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Post by MikeS on Feb 14, 2009 15:17:48 GMT -5
That sounds like a good plan...and if you are throwing them in with other stones you are not so worried about, that should work...any trapped grit is going to break down on it's own, you may just have to run it a bit longer...
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Post by Jack ( Yorkshire) on Feb 15, 2009 3:29:51 GMT -5
Hi Ejs,
I use CO for most runs in the rotary as I have a mixed batch
Others ( Ihope )will give you more acurate advice for the specialist OJ only batch.
Jack
Yorkshire UK
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erbojones
has rocks in the head
Member since October 2006
Posts: 659
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Post by erbojones on Feb 15, 2009 5:57:22 GMT -5
Sparkles (Harry) is an avid OJ fan - I'm sure he'll be along soon to offer some advice!!!!!!!!
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rollingstone
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since July 2009
Posts: 236
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Post by rollingstone on Feb 15, 2009 16:42:28 GMT -5
ejs, for polish I think anything that works well on quartz-type minerals would be fine. Jack gets good results with CO so you could go with that. I use AO because it's cheap, and I've never tried polishing with anything else. The OJ in the pic I showed above was polished with AO. Here's a pic from a different batch I also polished with AO... I was happy with the results, and I think you could go with whatever you have on hand, whether AO or CO. -Don  |
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firstrune
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since January 2009
Posts: 156
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Post by firstrune on Feb 18, 2009 10:06:45 GMT -5
Wow, rollingstone, those are absolutely gorgeous!! I could stare at that pic for hours.
Bonnie
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Post by sparkles on Mar 1, 2009 15:31:28 GMT -5
Hi EJS, So sorry I missed this when it was first posted, it's been a bumpy ride for the last few weeks and I haven't been paying the attention that I'd have liked. Anyhow... OJ! Well as you may have heard - I adore this stuff. And you have some absolute corkers there - nice looking OJ's if ever I saw one. So what and why? Well... I saw my first Ocean Jasper when I re-introduced tumbling in to my daily activities. For a couple of years my tumblers were silent and upon returning - this new material had appeared. The moment I saw those fabulously coloured orbs, and the seemingly endless range of colour combinations, I was hooked. I had to try... Now I've always worked towards the perfect shine - never got it... been close! But the quest for perfection became almost all consuming, then I met OJ. From the day I started to work this stuff I knew I was going to have to change my approach. Pits, cracks and druzy pockets abound, and I was never going to be able to tumble a "perfect" example! So my first advice would be to look to the overall shape, and the surface fissures. If the surfaces are smooth and the points rounded, then it's on to the next stage. The pits and pockets are just part of the nature of the material and must be embraced. And that's the fun of it... Keep your tumbles clean, and run your batches long to break down the grit in each cycle. Then... wash those tumbles again! I wash mine by running them in a barrel almost full of water. Yes - the action is deadenned, but thats great when all you want to do is wash the stones. Tumble them clean for a couple of hours, rinse off and run again to make sure. I found the whole experience of tumbling Ocean Jasper to be quite liberating, some materials respond to extensive rough grind runs, but OJ gets as good as its going to get, quite quickly. You will struggle to get a pit free tumble so enjoy those druzy pockets and remember - this is fun! Regarding grades and such, I've never been able to lay my hands on anything like the material I see in pictures, that said I've been overjoyed by the material I've worked. Even the lowest grades of OJ are so much prettier than a bit of red jasper from my local beach! Personally - I'm convinced that there are years left in the OJ diggings - why flood the market when your sitting on a limited resource? Those folks are canny and will feed the high grade stuff gently - stretching out the market and keeping the price up... but hey - it sure is purdy!  ;D Thanks for the uplift EJS - I just love Ocean Jasper! Stick with it - those rocks look good to me, and I hope you have as much fun as I do when I tumble this particular flavour of rock! Cheers, Sparkles.   p.s. RollingStones batch of Ocean Jasper was my first look... it turned in to an addiction - thanks Don, your tumble was an inspiration! |
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