ulstergeki
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since April 2012
Posts: 111
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Post by ulstergeki on Apr 25, 2012 0:37:32 GMT -5
Cool results, i may have to try this and see how it comes out!
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Post by helens on Apr 25, 2012 0:42:59 GMT -5
Ulster, if you are testing epoxies, start with small cabbing pieces so if it doesn't work right or clouds, you aren't messing up a great slab!! I tested this on all different things before doing my favorite slabs with it.
Tell us what you end up using:)!!
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rykk
spending too much on rocks
Member since September 2011
Posts: 428
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Post by rykk on Apr 25, 2012 2:16:18 GMT -5
This stuff sounds really interesting! I've been using Zap-a-Gap in multiple layers, vibe lapped in between to try to get a shine on porous rocks like Sonora dendritic, Polychrome "Jasper", and Aussie Print Stone. Takes a *bunch* of iterations. This stuff, whatever it is, sounds like it might save a ton of time! Rick
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adrian65
Cave Dweller
Arch to golden memories and to great friends.
Member since February 2007
Posts: 10,787
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Post by adrian65 on Apr 25, 2012 6:00:49 GMT -5
When I read the post and I saw it's coming from you, I thought you found a way to combine rocks with the material you are expert at: glass. * update WOW, now I noticed that superb embedded opal - that's what I'm talking about! * Nice way to show the potential of the rocks. Besides, by the time when you'd be able to real polish them, that would be no problem. Anyway, if you ever plan to sell/trade such rocks don't forget to mention the nature of the enhancement. Not all consider it as a real polish Adrian PS. I'm in the process of sanding some petwood someone cut for me.They burned the wood or stained it!!I haven't any power equipment either.... This looks like a solution to my problem also........Thanks Fosssilman, this is exactly what made me to build my own saw. I gave a pet wood to someone to slice for me and the guy returned me two halves, awfully cut. The ditches were some 3 mm deep and the cuts were smelling like burnt meet, for some weeks at least. I think the guy simply used an angular grinder, dry cut. I am keeping those surfaces (each of them as a back of a polished slab) to remind me about the beginnings
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Post by helens on Apr 25, 2012 6:23:50 GMT -5
Adrian, I've been trying to figure out how to incorporate rocks into my glasswork. So far, I can only see using them as stands, which then hides the beauty of the stones. I can intarsia the glass with the rocks, but I can't cut the rocks. I can't make the glass WITH the rocks, because the rocks couldn't handle the temperatures.
Borosilicate Glass is molten at 1700+ degrees F. And since both glass and quartz type rocks are both mostly SiO2, they're going to melt at roughly the same temperature (or a bit lower... soda lime glass melts at 1350 F). WELL before that happens, the odds are good that the minerals in the rock will either burn out or explode. So there's no way to work most rocks onto glass. To put this into perspective, some guy decided a while ago to see what temperature diamonds slump at. Diamonds, which are super compressed coal, you would assume would slump at a much higher temperature than glass. Nope. The diamond he tested began deforming at 1100 degrees F.
So rocks and glass hot worked are out. Cold-worked is the answer, but I don't yet have the right tools or space. Right now, I'm on the forum a lot because I'm online a lot, and it takes me a couple of seconds to pop over and look at it. But I don't really have the time to devote to playing with rocks and experimenting with them and glass.
The polishing was an issue, even if I'm using them for stands, so I needed to test this first. Even if I wanted to buy all the equipment, I live in a subdivision, I'd have to get rid of some glass equipment to have room for rock equipment. So moving ahead with rocks is going to take a while.
As for selling THESE rocks, I have no intention of that. These slabs I'm planning to frame for a wall:).
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Fossilman
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2009
Posts: 20,709
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Post by Fossilman on Apr 25, 2012 10:05:57 GMT -5
To bad you couldn't make picture frames out of the slabs,than incorporate your glass work inside the frames.......I've seen rock to wood in frames....And wood to rock too...... Just a thought...
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Post by helens on Apr 26, 2012 3:22:25 GMT -5
Hi Fossilman:). I thought about a frame... but then you'd lose/cover up the middle of the slab, which is usually the prettiest part. There are glass artists who make shadowboxes with torn paper and other bits as background for their glass sculptures. Maybe I'm thinking of this the wrong way... but I want to make the rock pattern the focus of the art. I'm still thinking about it. I want to use whole slabs, so I am prepping the slabs. I still haven't figured out what I'm doing with the slabs yet:).
Adrian... I just realized what you meant by the polish being 'treated'. I read that gem people get VERY offended, rightfully, that there are unscrupulous gem dealers who practically glue together crumbly bits of say ruby, practically reassemble it, and sell it as 'star ruby'. Or use treatments, called 'stabilizing', to hide defects in precious stones. Or even heat treating/sugar treating/etc opals, to make them darker colors and more appealing.
I just wanted to point out again that these are slabs, and EVERY SINGLE cut mark still shows if you turn it in the light, which is why I sand it first:). It cannot be mistaken for a real stone polish, ever. When people sell slabs, they need to be wetted to see the color. The second you spray a stone that has been painted like this, nothing happens. It does not change colors.... there's NO WAY to miss that it's been coated.
People generally buy slabs to cut or cab, this has zero effect on that, you can grind/tumble it off. If you want to polish the slab later, you can, no problem. It's a topical treatment, not on a pore level you might say. It can be removed anytime with further sanding, hand, grinder, saw.
It's just easier to see the color without wetting/damaging your rug, your wall, your display case, your table, not to mention your paper labels, wherever you keep the unpolished slab. Also, the epoxy would help strengthen delicate stones like chrysocolla from snapping in half just in storage or rubbing against another stone (ask me how I know about that).
I did put a dot on a cab with a small crack to see what would happen... nothing. The small crack was raised up to the level of the cab, but it's still a visible crack, because of the stone. If anything, if the wet stone looks cracked, it's going to look just as cracked with this painted on, possibly MORE cracked, because it will darken the crack:P.
Please look at the last group of photos of slabs. The 2rd one down has a HOLE smack in the middle of the stone. Hole still there after painting. If I filled it, it would look like the aqua/beachy rock, 5th rock down... darker cracks:). This is not a method to enhance a stone for SALE, but to enhance an unpolished stone for display.
As a method for cheating buyers in any way, this will NOT work, because it will ENHANCE any flaws in the stone as well, including cracks and holes as you can clearly see in my photos:).
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adrian65
Cave Dweller
Arch to golden memories and to great friends.
Member since February 2007
Posts: 10,787
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Post by adrian65 on Apr 26, 2012 5:25:04 GMT -5
Yep. I fully agree with what you wrote above, Helen. What I meant in my first post is: if you sell/trade such slabs on internet and the person sees only pics and not the actual slabs, he/she might not figure out about the nature of the shine. Then he/she might expect to receive a polished slab. This is why I told you I think you'd better speciffy the nature of the shine.
Adrian
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Post by helens on Apr 26, 2012 7:33:44 GMT -5
Aha! I see what you're saying. You are right, if anyone does this for sale, they should let people know in the description.
I forgot to mention something... I did not heat the stone or experiment with any vaccume pressure to try to fill cracks... if that's done, it WOULD probably stabilize stones. I haven't tested that myself tho. This may not be the best solution for crack stabilizing anyway... there are 2 effects, and I haven't tested either for stabilizing. One is the type that will dry with zero effect on the stone (no wet colors). This will not.
You know how opals when put in water go clear if they are hydrophane (ethiopian welo)? Well this WILL clear your opal... it gives the hydrophane effect on Welo, permanently. That's what I use this for. For some welo, the fire vanishes when wet. You don't want to do this to one of those opals!!!
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kevin24018
spending too much on rocks
Member since February 2012
Posts: 284
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Post by kevin24018 on Apr 26, 2012 9:52:58 GMT -5
I found some stone that I don't think will take a polish but looks cool wet, I purchases some high gloss clear coat spray that doesn't yellow and has uv protection, now I just need to try it. I'll post some pictures when it's finished.
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Post by FrogAndBearCreations on Apr 26, 2012 11:06:55 GMT -5
the 2nd coat does give a lot more depth
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Post by helens on Apr 27, 2012 2:41:22 GMT -5
I'm definitely curious what else would work. There's a lot of different epoxy formulas out there!
Here's my criteria for UV Epoxy, it has to hit all of them or it's not worth using: The criteria: 1. NO yellowing or clouding of product, not soon after, not after UV exposure, not ever. 2. Low viscosity (it flows into cracks) 3. No shelf life - will store indefinitely (or how's it going to last indefinitely?) 4. UV protection from product breakdown
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