robboo
off to a rocking start
Member since May 2010
Posts: 5
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Post by robboo on Jun 26, 2010 21:28:13 GMT -5
My daughter loves quartz. She picked out a batch of rocks to tumble from a website. She picked amethyst, yellow aventurine, rose quartz and white quartz. I thought I remember reading that quartz wasn't an easy stone to tumble. I thought it had to do with it cracking and fracturing easy.
Does any one have some advice on tumbling quartz. We have an Thumblers AR-2 and this will be the third batch we run. We are currently running some Thumblers boxes of "beach stone and jasper" and "gem stones" which were mainly crazy lace agates.
(We have separate barrels for all 4 stages.)
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Post by susand24224 on Jun 27, 2010 19:35:43 GMT -5
Hi! The problem with *some* quartz (crystalline) is that it is brittle. This means that it shatters easily. You can tumble your aventurine and white quartz together, and your rose quartz and amethyst together, but unless you don't mind internal fractures, I wouldn't put all four together. Some people like the internal fractures and feel they add interest to the tumbled rock--it's a matter of personal choice.
Susan
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Post by 150FromFundy on Jun 28, 2010 13:09:57 GMT -5
There's a high probability that your quartz is already highly fractured internally due to the extraction and fact that it has been run through a crusher to make those small ready-to-tumble pieces. In addition to what Susan said above, use plastic pellets as a cushion in all stages after your initial 60/90 stage. Fractures aren't a problem unless they chip out at the surface. Pellets reduce chipping.
Darryl.
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Post by Jack ( Yorkshire) on Jun 29, 2010 0:34:05 GMT -5
I Have shattered a batch of Amy and it is done quite easy
If you have pellets in as above you should be able to polish ok also if you are able to run the tumbler a bit slower (if you can control the speed) this also helps. around 40RPM
Jack
Yorkshire UK
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Post by frane on Jun 29, 2010 7:50:01 GMT -5
Usually there will be internal fractures even if you don't see them at first. As they said above, use plastic pellets or tile spacers or ceramics as cushioning in your barrels. Even though you won't notice it throughout your tumble until the end, you can get some bad surface fractures without the cushion. (each grit use different cushion and save for that grit only)
Good luck!
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