Greetings "Hellyd", firstly may i welcome you to RTH as the 1st from Scotland.
You should checkout all my sticky's!
Rotary tumbling tips:A common problem with rotary tumbling is: that you followed instructions that came
with your tumbler.
It takes more than 1 cycle of grit per stage to get good polished stones that you could
make into your own jewelery.
If you have good quality Quartz (Moh's 7.0) gravel you will probally reload your barrel
around 10 times with Fixed 80 grit in order to get a reasonable rounded shape
with enough to fill a 1.36kg (3lb) or whatever size of barrel you are currently using,
after that stage a single cycle of grit per stage can be done.
Wash the barrel & stones, then do a 4 hour burnish wash then check your stones when
dry for rejects (pits, sharp points, cracks that can be felt with a fingernail, thins that
can be broken in two by just using in your fingers & thumbs), those that fail are back
in F80 (60 / 90) grit, those that pass move on to the stage or polish, usually it is only
a few stones per 1.36kg (3lb) load or whatever size of barrel you are currently using,
after at least 3 cycles in 80 (60 / 90) grit.
You will either need an unused barrel for polish or wash the barrel to clinical standards
to stop cross over grit contamination after each stage.
If you use plastic pellets, do not re-use the same pellets for all stages as they can
carry grit from one stage to the next, you can re-use pellets, but put them in a
container marked with the stage or grit grade, you should also mark the barrels too.
If you use ceramic shapes or chips your rocks don't get beat-up like they do with plastic pellets
if you use too much water & ceramic shapes or chips can be moved on to the next stage with
your rocks!
If you have bad quality Quartz (Moh's 7.0) gravel you will probally reload your barrel
over 1000 times with Fixed 80 grit in order to get a reasonable rounded shape with enough
to fill a 1.36kg (3lb) load or whatever size of barrel you are currently using.
My first tumble for a picture heavy first steps (15mb).
I just finished my 92nd charge (14.5 months) of F80 (60/90) & only got 794g (1.75lb),
but no more as i will be grinding the imperfections out with my club's diamond grinders,
when i eventually qualify as a full member, i started with about 10kg (22lb) & only have
about 3kg (6.6lb) left.
You may be interested in
Gemstones & minerals found in the United Kingdom.
Please watch & listen to my Beach tumbler XviD encoded
videos (2mb) with both plastic & rubber barrels.
My camera's codec is Quicktime with around 1000kB per second, XviD codec is around 150kB
per second with 8bit stereo sound & no loss.
If you want the XviD Codec (Freeware); it works on Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP,
Vista & most likely Win 7 too.
Koepi's XviD Codec 1.2.2 (1mb)
Note: XviD encoded movies works better in
Winamp media player than Windows Media Player (all versions).
--
I hail from (The Barony of Seabegs)
Bonnybridge,
Stirlingshire,
U.K, where
aliens (15mb) sometimes come
for a visit & about 4 miles west from this
monstrosity!
Sticky's: their contents are resource information 1#:
Vendors worldwide (2mb), 2#:
FAQS: Tags & Smilies,
3#:
How to identify rocks & minerals, 4#:
Save money on expensive grits & polishes!
