shovelmonkey
off to a rocking start
At one with Mother Earth!!!
Member since October 2013
Posts: 5
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florite
Oct 12, 2013 19:22:38 GMT -5
Post by shovelmonkey on Oct 12, 2013 19:22:38 GMT -5
How do i tumble florite?
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Post by Drummond Island Rocks on Oct 12, 2013 19:55:06 GMT -5
good luck to you. Fluorite is the one material that I was never able to tumble well. There are instructions on the rock shed website and I did try that method using dry corn cob and A/O but my batch still turned out horrible. Could have been bad rough to start with but I wont be trying it again to find out. here's a link to the instructions anyway therockshed.com/instructions3.htmlChuck
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SirRoxalot
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since October 2003
Posts: 790
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Post by SirRoxalot on Nov 17, 2013 8:13:02 GMT -5
Rumor has it that the finely polished tumbled fluorite you see is all polished by hand in China. No trouble polishing it with AlO on the cabbing machine, but I suspect it's just too soft to take the constant jostling of the tumbling process, unless you were tumbling a single piece in a sea of buffer material like plastic pellets, lol.
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Marie
starting to shine!
Member since March 2013
Posts: 40
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Post by Marie on Nov 20, 2013 11:47:12 GMT -5
Rumor has it that the finely polished tumbled fluorite you see is all polished by hand in China. No trouble polishing it with AlO on the cabbing machine, but I suspect it's just too soft to take the constant jostling of the tumbling process, unless you were tumbling a single piece in a sea of buffer material like plastic pellets, lol. So that's how they do it! But yes, I was going to say, the only time I (or anyone I know) had any success with flourite was by hand. However, since its pretty soft, you can use sandpaper if you lack a better set up. I'm not saying its quick, or even a partially good idea, but if you're hell bent on trying to get a single relatively flat side smooth it does work, and you can polish it using polish on a leather scrap.
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herchenx
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2012
Posts: 3,360
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florite
Nov 20, 2013 11:51:16 GMT -5
Post by herchenx on Nov 20, 2013 11:51:16 GMT -5
I tried it and got a massive fail, but I'm not a particularly gifted tumbler. I have polished it by hand though.
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