Mattatya
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2012
Posts: 452
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Post by Mattatya on Dec 29, 2012 23:58:35 GMT -5
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The Dad_Ohs
fully equipped rock polisher
Take me to your Labradorite!!
Member since September 2012
Posts: 1,860
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Post by The Dad_Ohs on Dec 30, 2012 1:11:06 GMT -5
I would say if you grind then they have to go back to 120/220, if you just want to clean them up some, not the heavily chipped stuff, I would go back 1 step and re roll them, then polish again. Should do the trick. I never fill my barrels completely, or more then 75-80% regardless of the step I am on and have had good results, but I am still learning too.
so I would say regrind the chipped stuff and start it from 120/220, do a good job of grinding to keep the marks small, everything else can either go in with it. should be a week to get back to pre-polish another week to get to polish, then whatever you want for polish and then burnish. should be good to go... thats my take on it anyways, other will probably be different.. or not
Good Luck!!
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herchenx
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2012
Posts: 3,360
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Post by herchenx on Dec 30, 2012 21:51:51 GMT -5
Matt, can you embed the large photos in the post instead of the thumbnails to click?
I am going to guess beads had little to do with it. I never use beads. More than likely it is a combination of mixing harndneses and having some mediocre material.
The red jasper looks like some of what I see. Sometimes it is nice and hard and shines, sometimes I get a dud batch and it is frosty. The blue-gray agates seem really great. The tigers eye looks like it is pitted and trapped the polish in the fibers. Which happens sometimes with some tigers eye.
You have a wide variety of material which makes me suspect mixed hardness may be an issue. The other thing that could be an issue is under filling the load. I think you can compensate for this by using beads, but I just always try to fill the load 3/4 or more.
Any time I grind, I go right to 120/220 in the vibe.
I don't think this is a lost cause, just try setting aside the hazy ones (in the case of the red jasper I would suspect you got duds, meaning they are more porous and won't ever take a great shine) and mix in new stuff that is hard. Keep the ones that look good as successes and don't redo them. Grind some to fill the load or use ceramic if you can get some easily.
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herchenx
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2012
Posts: 3,360
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Post by herchenx on Dec 30, 2012 22:00:30 GMT -5
Clicking through more of the pics I don't think your batch is that bad. The green jasper and gray/blue/dendritic agate all seem great. The red jasper looks porous, material would be the issue not the tumble. Blue quartz for me almost always sucks, I've only had one piece come out all shiny. The tigerseye looks like you just got unlucky with fibrous ends that pulled loose and trapped polish.
A lot of times brecciated jasper and jasp/ag can be hit or miss with pits, cracks and the like that can look great until polish gets stuck in them.
I'd set aside the ones that look nice and use everything else in a new 120/220 load, making up the volume with newly ground stuff and ceramic media if you can get it.
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Mattatya
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2012
Posts: 452
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Post by Mattatya on Jan 9, 2013 15:56:32 GMT -5
Thanks guys for looking and all your advice. I was frustrated and set them aside for a couple days. I went back to them and started separating the shines from the dulls. I was able to pull out a third for keepers. My 3 mistakes are.
1. Junk in junk out. I'm still learning what is good and bad rough. When it's in rough for it all looks bad to me but experience will give me a better eye.
2. Grinding 60/90 time. I have been on the first step with these September of 2012 and the combination of poor quality rough is leaving me 2-3 pounds of next step rock and the rest needing more time in step one. I have recently been using a grinding wheel after step one to help reduce 60/90 time and shape better.
3. This was a very mixed batch of mohs hardness and have since been sticking to 1 or 2 types of material within a .5 difference ie. Leopard Jasper and zebra or Sodalite and amazonite.
I'm glad you mentioned the tigers eye. They looked amazing when I bought 3#s of them at mammas minerals back when I first started. They have been through 3 full stages of tumbling and not one of them have taken a shine. I even did a 3# tumbler batch on their own. They just wear and wear the fibers and never feel smooth.
I love tigers eyes and hope to find 6#s to by of good quality to try and tumble again.
Thanks again for all your help. I'm going to cull out the different mohs and try the unshined ones separately.
Cheers Rockers! Matt
Sent from my SPH-D710 using proboards
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quartz
Cave Dweller
breakin' rocks in the hot sun
Member since February 2010
Posts: 3,352
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Post by quartz on Jan 10, 2013 22:26:08 GMT -5
Looks to me like you didn't do as poorly as you think, lots of nice shiny pieces. Some [ the porous red jasper in particular] probably shouldn't have been tumbled in the first place, the stuff never gets better than a smooth brick. I don't see rough, frosty edges, tells me your finishing stages are working. One thing we do that you didn't mention. We pad the 220 stage w/small pieces of innertube to about 20% of the load. This has made a noticeable reduction in cracking and breakage. My 2 cts., good luck.
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scottyh
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since November 2007
Posts: 181
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Post by scottyh on Jan 11, 2013 1:05:17 GMT -5
Hi,
Looking through the pics I see a number of issues. First up you do have some keepers... I would say about 10% of the load look great. I would also agree with previous assessments that a large chunk of the Jasper material looks a little porous. As for the rest of the material I would say that it may have been moved on a little too soon.
In my experience I would say that a lot of the problems that I see are people trying to move material on too soon, expecting highly flawed material to turn out perfect or a combination of both problems.
If it were me take out the keepers and put the rest back into a rough grind and just keep going. Take the one or two perfect stones each week and keep going that way. In my 100 lb barrel which I use for processing rough I find that there may be weeks where I don't take one single stone out as I am not happy with the results. If you get dedicated and very patient then you can get every stone coming out of the final polish perfect.
Cheers Scott
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Post by susand24224 on Jan 11, 2013 22:01:40 GMT -5
I agree with previous comments, and will add a few specifics. Tiger eye often has the issue of "shredding." How well it turns out depends as much on the quality of the rough as it does on your skills. I also have never used pellets with agates or jaspers, but often use ceramics with crystalline materials (green moss agate, crystalline quartz, amethyst, rose quartz, smoky quartz, among others). Here the problem is not hardness, it is brittleness. With the mix you have, you are bound to have some that don't turn out their best. I can also see a few in there that are known for having soft spots.
But--you did exceptionally well for such a varied batch, and you have more than a few keepers.
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deepsouth
fully equipped rock polisher
He who rocks last rocks best
Member since January 2004
Posts: 1,256
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Post by deepsouth on Jan 15, 2013 22:33:51 GMT -5
I do see some very nice polished stones in your batch. I think like others, that you need more patience and give some rocks more time to grind down properly. You can speed some up a bit by removing sharp and fractured areas with your grinding wheel, if there is just a small area to be removed. Forget about using pallets, I have done that many years ago and gave up on them as they just float to the top anyway. Be fussy with your stones, if you can feel a small crack with your fingernail, it is not yet ready to move on from 80 grit. I have 4 barrels in 80 grit and some weeks very few move on. After 220 grit I split the load in inch and under versus inch and over. Then leave them for 2 whole weeks in 400 grit, that way forgetting about 600 grit. Soap wash and then polish for 7 days and again soap wash to finish off. I still get the odd stone which does not get my best shine, so it goes out into a heap outside and let the grandchildren have them. Have a great time Jack
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,564
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Post by jamesp on Jan 16, 2013 6:39:10 GMT -5
On step one i run agate the first week at no more than 3/4 full to get chippable rocks to go ahead and chip.I tumble a lot of thin chips that are 1-3 inches x 1/8 thick .I do not want any fresh nicks on my chips going into 220 step.And like to have 3-4 weeks to smooth the nicks in the chips from the first week in the 60 grit stage. That is a tongue twister That was a dang good batch Matt.You just had red brick jsaper that won't polish
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