meviva
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Post by meviva on Dec 8, 2013 13:48:42 GMT -5
I am finally have enough rocks to fill a 6 lb barrel and do the final polish. How full should I fill the barrel with rocks? Should I use plastic or ceramic pellets? If yes, what percentage should be pellets? The batch is a mix of agate, jasper, petrified wood, amethyst and many others.
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Post by pghram on Dec 8, 2013 15:23:26 GMT -5
I like to fill w/ stones to 3/4 full, then add plastic, to raise the level somewhat more, but I run a polish for 2 to 3 weeks. The plastic helps to protect from fracturing & chipping, I think.
Rich
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tkvancil
fully equipped rock polisher
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Post by tkvancil on Dec 8, 2013 16:55:18 GMT -5
I have used both plastic and ceramic in my rotary polish cycle with good results. Lately ceramics or all rocks. Either way I think its important to have the total volume at 3/4. When I use plastic I generally use about 25% of the total volume. I also run my polish for two weeks. It has also been my experience that you should use a little more water in polish than you would use, say in rough grind.
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meviva
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Post by meviva on Dec 8, 2013 17:47:09 GMT -5
Ok thank you both for the information. If I use ceramic do I have to do anything to them before using them? I think I read somewhere that they need to be run in the tumbler by themselves before using but that could have been for something other than rocks.
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marinedad
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Post by marinedad on Dec 8, 2013 18:59:29 GMT -5
I would be afraid the amethyst would be chipped by the harder stones even with pellets.
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carloscinco
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Post by carloscinco on Dec 8, 2013 21:52:30 GMT -5
I would not use fresh ceramics for the final polish unless they have been through each step with the rocks. I fill to 3/4 with a combination of small rocks, big rocks and tile spacers. The bigger the big rocks the higher proportion of small rocks are required. The tile spacers come in a hard rubber X shape. They are available at home improvement stores.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Dec 8, 2013 23:12:47 GMT -5
Carlos is king of polish.
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herchenx
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Post by herchenx on Dec 8, 2013 23:14:39 GMT -5
Double true, I've never nailed a polish in a rotary, and Carlos kills it.
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meviva
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Post by meviva on Dec 9, 2013 11:40:01 GMT -5
Ok thanks for the tips. I thought your aren't supposed to reuse pellets in other steps, only the same 60/90, 120/220 etc. Is it different with ceramic pellets? I will get some tile spacers for this batch.
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herchenx
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Post by herchenx on Dec 9, 2013 12:28:43 GMT -5
Ceramic yes you move it along with the stone, it is closer to the hardness of actual stone (not quite as hard, usually) but NOT like plastic that can carry embedded SiC along from one stage to another.
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meviva
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Post by meviva on Dec 9, 2013 12:43:08 GMT -5
Ok thanks. So should the ceramic go into replace lost rock in the 60/90 stage? Or start at the 120/220 stage?
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herchenx
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Post by herchenx on Dec 9, 2013 13:00:12 GMT -5
I use a vibe, and usually only add ceramic into the 120 stage (not 90) - however when I did a load of softer stuff I used ceramic to fill it up a bit in 60/90 - the main thing (I think) for ceramic related to polish is that it keeps the load full enough to avoid hard impacts which can damage the stone.
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herchenx
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Post by herchenx on Dec 9, 2013 13:01:03 GMT -5
I need to stop talking though, carloscinco is the one who can polish in a rotary, I can't yet do this (I get a great shine, but I use a vibe for that)
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herchenx
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Post by herchenx on Dec 9, 2013 13:02:26 GMT -5
... and snuffy - and plenty of other folks... who else can help our friend with rotary polish questions?
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tkvancil
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since September 2011
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Post by tkvancil on Dec 9, 2013 13:58:59 GMT -5
This is how I've been doing it lately. I start a 220 barrel with a full 3/4 load of rock and no "filler". I run this for 10 days and rinse well. When I move them to 600 I add the ceramic to make up for volume lost in the 220 bringing the barrel back up to a full 3/4. Again running this stage for 10 days. Here I rinse and add ceramic again to bring the barrel back up to 3/4. Next I do a two step wash cycle...24 hours with ivory soap shavings and borax. Rinse well and another 24 hours with borax only. At this point the rocks and ceramics are cleaned and ready to go to polish.
If you don't have enough rock to make a 3/4 full 220 batch I think you could use the ceramic as fill. I used it to make up volume in a batch of Labradorite which started with 220 and not 60/90. The 220 is still fairly aggressive and the ceramics got all the sharp edges worn off and did not seem to harm the stones in any way. So I now have quite a few already "broken in".
I think for the rotary process correct volume and grading is most important. The 3/4 volume allows stones to tumble without crashing into each other causing chips, cracks, frosting, etc. Grading, having enough smalls to fill space between rocks as they tumble also important. I usually have at least 1/3 of any load as smalls and I think that ceramics act well as smalls.
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meviva
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Post by meviva on Dec 9, 2013 17:26:16 GMT -5
Thanks again for the tips. Just when I think I know what I'm doing I find out I'm doing it wrong or at least I could be doing something better. :\ I got the tile spacers and will use them in this batch and will begin using ceramics when I start another 120/220 batch.
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Post by victor1941 on Dec 9, 2013 22:07:57 GMT -5
I have at thumbler uv 18 and need some help in using the correct material and method for vibe tumbling agate or jasper multi shaped hand cut cabs. What grit should be used on the cab before tumbling? When tumbling can a 60/90 be used for a short period instead of directly going to 220? The material to be tumbled will all be shaped and consists of west Texas agate, morrisonite, Mexican lace, Montana agate, petrified wood and small amounts of other material. Any suggestions will be appreciated.
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herchenx
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Post by herchenx on Dec 9, 2013 22:14:37 GMT -5
I've heard exactly one story of someone using 60/90 in a vibe. Don't do it or plan on replacing barrels (well more than you will already)
60/90 is for the rotary, if you want to speed things up you can
1) try to use coarser grit in the rotary like 46/70 or less 2) grind them on a grinder (although this takes me forever, I always think "oh I'll grind a batch" and I spend hours trying to get cracks and pits out on the grinder and end up with fairly little to show for it)
Best bet is to load up a couple 12# Lortones or a big Thumler's rotary and let them do the coarse work for you. Once you get a pattern going you will start feeding weekly batches into your vibe.
If the material is already basically pit and crack free you can just skip the coarse grind. I do this with slabs sometimes, just go straight into 120/220 in the vibe and proceed as usual from there. You will get a nice shine on the faces, but the edges won't get rounded off unless they already were.
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Post by pghram on Dec 11, 2013 22:32:59 GMT -5
If you don't have a rotary for the 60/90, consider getting one if you like rounded shapes. The vibe does not round-out the stones no matter the courseness of the grit. It's a matter of taste, though.
Rich
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Sabre52
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Post by Sabre52 on Dec 11, 2013 22:45:02 GMT -5
Maybe it's just me, but I've never had much luck running crystalline quartz with agate and jasper. Always get a good polish in the vibe portion of the run, but lots of chipping or fracturing in rotary coarse grind. Just had that problem with some rose quartz I threw in a load to add some color. From now on, I'm running all crystalline quartz just as I would apache tears, fuller loads and lots and lots of pellets in all stages and nothing but crystalline quartz in the load to keep the quartz from getting beaten up.....Mel
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