mikew
off to a rocking start
Member since March 2011
Posts: 12
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Post by mikew on May 11, 2011 18:15:36 GMT -5
Hey Guys, I just finished a batch of all tiger eye. I did 2 weeks in coarse, 1 week in medium, 1 week in pre polish and 10 days in polish. This is the regiment I followed with a previous batch of mixed rocks which gave me great results. This time though, the rock are kind of dull. I didn't get that glass like finish I was expecting. What I did do different is I added some small ceramic media in the polish stage because I didn't have enough plastic pellets to bring the volume up to 75%. They were new and never used. On a website for Little red store, the owner says you are suppose to "break in" ceramic media in a coarse stage before using it for polishing. Could this be the problem? Has anyone used fresh ceramic media in the polish stage and gotten disappointing results? I busted open a beany baby to get some more plastic pellets and am repeating the polish stage with only pellets to see what happens. I'll let you know the outcome. In the meantime if anyone has any other reasons for not so shiny rocks, let me know. Thanks
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LarryS
freely admits to licking rocks
SoCal desert rats
Member since August 2010
Posts: 781
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Post by LarryS on May 11, 2011 19:12:52 GMT -5
This happened to me too. Adding a small amount of new ceramics at the polishing stage messed up the whole batch. Had to go through the 600 grit again.
Larry
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mikew
off to a rocking start
Member since March 2011
Posts: 12
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Post by mikew on May 11, 2011 19:59:01 GMT -5
Hi Larry, So you went to back to pre polish stage? I'm hoping that only repeating the polish stage will work. The rocks looked shiny when wet so I assumed I didn't need to go back two steps. Anyway, what did you use as a filler? Did you use old ceramics or did you use plastic pellets?
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Post by Jack, lapidaryrough on May 11, 2011 22:32:01 GMT -5
course grind for small broken piece`s of tiger eye, 220 Grit. when the hematite is grind into the asbestos fibers. it is very hard to get a polish on the tube ends of the fibers.
Medium ground walnut shell is a very good polish carrier, in the polish stage.
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stefan
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2005
Posts: 14,113
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Post by stefan on May 12, 2011 7:23:58 GMT -5
Tigerseye is pretty easy to polish. I don't use Ceramic in my rotaries so I have no clue there- but I would suspect that was the problem. As for going back a couple steps- I would. You gotta remove the scratches caused by the ceramic. I stick with plastic pellets as filler.
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LarryS
freely admits to licking rocks
SoCal desert rats
Member since August 2010
Posts: 781
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Post by LarryS on May 12, 2011 8:34:25 GMT -5
Hi Mike,
Yes, I went back to 600 grit, pre polish for the rocks I tumble. I haven't tumbled tiger eye...yet. Only do jasper & agate and found out fresh ceramics will dull them. Took me a while to figure that out. Jasper & agate has hidden pits & cracks, which adds complications. I'd go all the way to pre polish and be all excited with the quality. Then add a handful of new ceramics and the whole batch would dull up. I don't like using plastic pellets and have managed to get by without. I just make sure there are different size rocks in the batch. I tend to tumble large rocks, way over the size suggested. 2" - 2 1/2" plus for a Lortone QT6 barrel. My crazy method works, "most" of the time, not all!
Larry
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