rock
having dreams about rocks
Metamorphosed Mind
Member since June 2007
Posts: 62
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Post by rock on Jun 2, 2010 14:08:40 GMT -5
Ok, here's some pics of my first batch! The pics are lousy, and there's not much shine, but I'm proud as a father!    They look nice in the hand, the resizing really took it out of the photos but we'll see if that can be improved in the future. The stones are dry in the pictures so you can see there is improvement over how I find them in the rough. This is not all of them, just a random selection. |
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller 
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,504
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Post by Sabre52 on Jun 2, 2010 18:08:43 GMT -5
Those do look pretty nice. They sure look better than the California serpentine I tried to tumble one time. Your material must be much more homogeneous in nature as apposed to the western stuff which tends to be of mixed hardness and really undercuts in the tumbler....Mel
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Post by rockrookie on Jun 2, 2010 18:58:33 GMT -5
great color !!!
i think they look great !
--paul
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Post by NatureNut on Jun 2, 2010 19:30:55 GMT -5
Yep, I agree. We have Serpentine here and I know how hard it is to get a shine on it. Those have some real pretty colors and they did very well being tumbled. Jo
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karock
has rocks in the head
Member since November 2007
Posts: 667
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Post by karock on Jun 2, 2010 23:04:20 GMT -5
There are some nice colors in there. How long did you run them at each step?
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rock
having dreams about rocks
Metamorphosed Mind
Member since June 2007
Posts: 62
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Post by rock on Jun 9, 2010 11:15:46 GMT -5
There are some nice colors in there. How long did you run them at each step? In my ray-tech TV-10 only about 12 hours each, they seemed to go very fast. I think they could go to a higher polish, but I'm still strategizing exactly how to go about it. ~Rock |
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Post by Jack ( Yorkshire) on Jun 10, 2010 2:28:45 GMT -5
My the colours are so varied a lovley batch
have you tried a Burnishing run in Ivory and Borax ?
as a final wash or before pre polish ? this on its own will get you a low polish.( before you add TO or CO)
A very very nice batch
Jack
Yorkshire uk
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rock
having dreams about rocks
Metamorphosed Mind
Member since June 2007
Posts: 62
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Post by rock on Jun 15, 2010 13:22:50 GMT -5
Ty Jack for the suggestion. I have been reading old threads and read rollingstone's disclosure that a double burnish was standard procedure in his shop. It kind of went off like a light in my head because yes it's a bit more schlepping, but it must shake loose extra bits of crud one might miss the first go, and that would be great for the final finish. His are superb. But I may not use the double burnish for the serpentine as it is so soft the double burnish might scuff the stones and I'm trying to "cut to a polish", to use a faceting term.
I'm thinking I might take the serpentines back to 500 for a few hours maybe up to twelve, for a solid base, then I think rinse and quick burnish with borax then rinse, Tripoli a few hours, rinse, burnish again, rinse, then throw in some tin oxide and see if that will bring the polish to where I think it can be by checking about every hour or two. I'm not concerned with getting them perfect, but there seems to be more potential in them for a nice shine, and if it is realized they will be very satisfactory.
Right now I have an awesome load of local silica minerals at the end of a 48hr 500g silica carbide run, and I think I'm going to double burnish, do 24 hrs in tripoli, double burnish again, and go for alumina to polish. If it doesn't work I'll try cerium and mirror facet gel. I think. Unless I change my mind. Again. But wow, they are gonna be great! I need a successful batch under my belt before fiddling with the serpentine again, and figured silica(and a few cohorts of course) would be my friend. Will definitely post pics in separate thread when they come up.
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