marinedad
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since December 2010
Posts: 813
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Post by marinedad on Jul 22, 2011 8:03:52 GMT -5
i recently bought all the grit and polish a friend had, for a great price. there are 6 pint tubs that are labeled t99 tp41 tumbling polish. is this tripoli or some other stuff? he bought it at a rock auction years ago, it is whiteish-light cream color, is this used as a polish or pre polish? it is also very light in weight, lighter than tin or cerium oxide. what do you experts say, thanks.
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Post by johnjsgems on Jul 22, 2011 8:26:18 GMT -5
Color sounds right. Try it after last grit step and see. Tripoli is a great, inexpensive prepolish that will shine some rocks but won't hurt any. Never heard of those numbers so it could be someone's polish blend. Only costs a few days running to try it out.
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Post by jakesrocks on Jul 22, 2011 8:51:58 GMT -5
Take it from an old metalsmith. Tripoli is used mainly for polishing metal. It was probably used for tumbling metal castings. I don't know what the Mohs hardness of that stuff is, but it should work to put a polish on softer stones like obsidian.
Don
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Jul 22, 2011 17:45:36 GMT -5
Never had any luck with tripoli as a polish but I always use it for prepolish.....Mel
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quartz
Cave Dweller
breakin' rocks in the hot sun
Member since February 2010
Posts: 3,341
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Post by quartz on Jul 22, 2011 19:21:48 GMT -5
we've used tripoli for polish for lotsa years, get compliments on the quality; don't discount it completely.
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Post by connecticutwayne on Jul 26, 2011 6:16:50 GMT -5
I use it on glass, works good for that.
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Post by rocklicker on Jul 27, 2011 17:09:07 GMT -5
I use it for a prepolish mostly. Last time I was experimenting with it and believe it would make a fine polish. For prepolish I run it 10 days to 2 weeks (I'm talking a rotary here). When the rock come out they look darn near polished. I then move onto polish and the rocks come out great.
For polish, after 600 grit I was going to try running Tripoli for 1 month and skip the final polish. The idea is that the tripoli will just continue to break down the longer the tumbler is running. Hope that helps. Steve
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