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Post by Bejewelme on Apr 6, 2010 9:36:44 GMT -5
Well several of you seemed to have success with tumbling obsidian and glass and apache tears, so here is mixed disaster that came out of the Lot-O. Obsidian looks really good when it is wet, LOL, here I thought I was having success, until I spread everything out in the sun to dry and then wanted to cry, LOL. SO I separated this into the stuff that needs to be reground, the glass that fractured and the stuff that looks OK as far as pitting, but I might try with cerium or something. All of these pieces were together, seems I wasn't too careful about moving things along, I just don't understand why some is so rough and others are so nice and smooth? Also can I use plastic pellets in the Lot-O for cushion? Chipping and breaking seems to be an on going problem with the Lot O in the pre- polish and polish stages, so here is the mess.  Bad stuff!  What is the white outline on some of these, I burnished these in borax and Ivory soap flakes, I don't know what that rough white line is around some?  Glass  small tears and scraps that were not too bad  some I thought were OK  OK ones. So the first need to go back but to what grit? The small ones I am leaving as is The bigger OK ones I might try cerium, any suggestions on water level and amount of cerium? Thanks Amber |
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Post by FrogAndBearCreations on Apr 6, 2010 10:00:54 GMT -5
I have a lortone barril tumbler and have barrils for each grit, use plastic pellets with each one on the obsidian.
Here is the method I use
Step 1:
fill tumbler to within one inch of top with stones
add water to just cover stones
add 1/3c. of plastic pellets and 2 1/2oz course grit
tumble for 24 hours a day for 3 weeks
Step 2:
add 2 1/2oz medium grit and 1/3c of plastic pellets
tumble 24 hours a day for two weeks
Step 3:
add 2oz of fine grit or pre polish and 1/3c of plastic pellets
tumble 24 hours a day for two weeks
Step 4:
add 2oz of polish - tin or cerium oxide - three tablespoons of sugar - 1/3c of plastic pellets and tumble 24 hours a day for two weeks
Step 5:
add 2 tablespoons of Spic N Span or TSP and 1/3c plastic pellets and tumble for one hour
I save all my plastic pellets in baggies marked for the grit they were used in and can be reused for that grit process again
cleaning is a big deal between each tumble step as it does not need but a tiny bit of cross contaminating to ruin the next stage.
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Post by NatureNut on Apr 6, 2010 10:33:04 GMT -5
Amber, how much and what kind of cushion are you using? The white haze and cracking look like bloody noses to me.
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Post by Bejewelme on Apr 6, 2010 10:54:36 GMT -5
I was using ceramic pellets, the Lot O holds 4 pounds of rough so I just filled it in with maybe a 1/2 quart sized baggie full, since I had the small tears to help distribute the grit. Now tony just brought me the floating plastic ones, but I don't know if they can be used in the Lot O.
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Post by frane on Apr 6, 2010 12:26:12 GMT -5
To be truthful, I have only done the tears in the rotary. Same with the slag glass because they only got beaten up in the vibe. I saw a video on the Rock Sheds site showing tears getting polished in a vibe and it looked to be half ceramic and half tears to keep them from hitting, with a little more water than you would do normally. I would think that any stage after the rough should be at least half and half in the vibe. Even in the rough, I would do about 1/4 ceramics to cut down on your fractures and splintering.
That first group, take it back to rough for a day or two. Might get rid of your bad spots and you can bring them back through. This last batch I finally got out of polish I am really happy with but there were several groups before that were almost there (or not there at all) and some got redone.
Oh, the pellets will ride up the vibe wall and travel around the edges unfortunately. Been there, done that.
The thing is Amber, you can just do it again and they can be forgiving and really surprise you the next time!
Hope that helps.
Fran
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firewalker45
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since August 2006
Posts: 929
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Post by firewalker45 on Apr 6, 2010 13:13:55 GMT -5
Hi Amber, I use the Lotto for tumbling Tears. I use ceramic pellets as it adds weight to the load. The Lotto works best when it is close to the 4.5 pound load. plastic pellets are no use in a vibe. After the rough grind put your ceramic and tears in your bowl and fill it with water to just below the top layer. Then when you are ready to polish,fill with water to just above the top layer. When tumbling softer material, some people mistakenly think their problem is with their polishing stage. This is because it does not show up until that stage. Hope this helps and good luck, Daniel
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Post by tkrueger3 on Apr 6, 2010 17:01:46 GMT -5
Hi Amber - The best obsidian batch I've done was in the vibe, with a mix of obsidian, jaspers, quartz, and about 50% of the load was ceramic fillers of 3 different sizes. Polished it with something called "M-5 polish" that I bought on eBay, but I know it also is available here myrockhound.com/toolssupplies/polishes.html and probably others as well. In fact, the M-5 seems to be the one that consistently gives me the best results. No clue why! Tom |
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