Enigman
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since December 2013
Posts: 163
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Post by Enigman on Feb 6, 2014 12:32:15 GMT -5
Hi all,
My first experience with tumbling has been ... challenging ... to put it mildly. I bought a Chicago Electric, two 3 lb capacity barrel, tumbler (a clone of the Lortone tumbler). I also bought two more Lortone barrels and dedicated one barrel to each stage of grit to avoid future contamination from rubber impregnation. I bought 1-1/2 pounds of Hickoryite from an ebay seller for my first rough. I also bought HDPE plastic pellet and ceramic media and a great reference book. The hickoryite rough was too large as it came at an average of 2 inch pieces, so I cut them down with a wet saw to about 1 inch average. The tumble is now in stage four polishing. Here is the breakdown:
Stage 1: 60/90 grit, 325 hours total with reloads along the way initially without media, then using different media as the stones got smaller. Stage 2: 120/220 grit, 220 hours with mixed ceramic media. Stage 3: 500/600 grit, 185 hours with mixed ceramic media. Stage 4: Polish grit (don't know the type other than it being grayish tan), still running with mixed ceramic media. It will be three weeks on Saturday.
The first three stages went as well as can be expected for a learning experience. I used a loop to inspect the stones between stages and did not pass them until there was a consistent surface with no outstanding scratches. I thought hickoryite was supposed to be a pretty hard stone but this rough looks and behaves like a really soft stone. The initial 1-1/2 pounds of rough has tumbled down to, I would guess, less than half it's original weight. I also noticed that this particular batch of hickoryite is riddled with flaws and pinpoint bubbles or pits. Seemingly the more it tumbled the more pits were exposed. After the 500/600 grit stage they were very smooth and had no visible scratches, so I moved them on to the polish stage. That is where the wheels have somewhat come off the wagon.
In the polish stage, they would seem to be doing nothing at all. After one week there was no sign of gloss at all. After two weeks, still no sign of gloss, although the ceramic media is getting really pretty and glossy. The stones are still a dead flat finish.
I did a polish test by taking some of the mud from the barrel and wiping it on a piece of leather. I then rubbed one of the stones vigorously on the muddy leather and that produced a gloss on the stone so at least I can conjecture that the polish grit is viable. But apparently the tumbling action is not producing a gloss for some reason.
Does anyone have any insight on what might be the problem with the polish stage?
I am at 1,162 hours of tumbling (48 days) and the best I could hope for now is glossy pitted stones that cost me about $10 each. I'd like to end this on at least a slight note of success. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
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Post by Starguy on Feb 6, 2014 21:14:25 GMT -5
Don't give up too soon. Tumbling is not as easy as the manufacturers make it out to be. You need a quality tumbler, the appropriate grits, and some degree of patience. The manufacturers of tumblers and grit try to convince you that you can finish a batch in 4 weeks. That's rarely the case. You will find that you spend the most time on the coarse grit, trying to get stones ready for the fine grit. Once you have enough thru coarse grit, it is only 3 weeks till you have the final polish you want.
I use rotary tumblers, but I usually expect to spend 3 weeks getting soft rough ready for the fine grit. Agate or other hard stones can take significantly longer. I pick out the stones that are ready for the fine grit at each weekly clean out. Once you have enough for the final grinds and polish, it goes pretty quick. For perfect stones, spend the majority of your time on the rough grind. Weigh your decisions on the value/quality of the stones. Large stones that you don't think will ever make a nice tumbled stone should be tossed or processed with a hammer and chisel.
Good luck and show pictures.
Later
Brent
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marinedad
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since December 2010
Posts: 813
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Post by marinedad on Feb 6, 2014 21:19:43 GMT -5
it took me 6 months before I got a shine I was happy with. but then I saw pics. of others tumbles and kept trying. it will come to you, don't give up.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 6, 2014 22:56:45 GMT -5
Hickoryite varies greatly in amount of silicification and porosity. Generally less porous examples take a pretty good polish especially on the wheels. For me, its always been a lot tougher to polish in the tumbler. A lot of it will never seem to go beyond a satin finish in the tumbler because it's just too full of little microscopic holes.....Mel
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timloco
has rocks in the head
Member since April 2012
Posts: 545
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Post by timloco on Feb 7, 2014 9:21:05 GMT -5
Maybe set this one aside for now and work on a different material... I've done that before. Get some nice hard agate or quartz of some kind and get a good tumble under your belt before re-visiting this one... Some material is more challenging than others.
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Post by pghram on Feb 7, 2014 11:12:44 GMT -5
Ok, I did the math and your course 60/90 grind only lasted 13.54 days, less than 2 weeks. If was truly rounded & read to move on, it may be too soft to take a high polish.
Rich
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Enigman
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since December 2013
Posts: 163
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Post by Enigman on Feb 9, 2014 10:27:42 GMT -5
Ok, I did the math and your course 60/90 grind only lasted 13.54 days, less than 2 weeks. If was truly rounded & read to move on, it may be too soft to take a high polish. Rich Yes, they were not only well rounded, but significantly reduced in size. By the time it finished stage 3 some of the stones virtually disappeared to tiny little chips. So I guess that is a good indicator that this is a soft variety of Hickoryite. Yesterday was three weeks in the polishing stage. I'll open it today and if there is still no change then I'll set it aside as "Satin Finish Hickoryite" and then de-spawl my yellow aventurine and start that again, or I'll find something routine and easier to get a success under my belt. There sure is a wide range of experience regard the length of time needed to tumble stones. Thanks.
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Enigman
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since December 2013
Posts: 163
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Post by Enigman on Feb 20, 2014 15:31:31 GMT -5
Final Followup:I finally cleaned out the stage 4 polishing barrel on this hickoryite batch after 787.5 hours of polishing run time. There was no gloss whatsoever. However, the ceramic media is beautifully glossy. Does THAT count? Total run time in all stages: 1,518 hours (63.25 days). Original rough weight: 24 ounces. Final tumbled weight: 6.3 ounces. Conclusion: Obviously with only 1/4 of the original stone mass remaining, abrasion was taking place in all stages. But for whatever reason it will not get to that desired glossy state. No more work with this batch is warranted. Hickoryite is apparently a difficult material to tumble. I won't be trying hickoryite again anytime soon. I think I'll try obsidian next.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Feb 20, 2014 16:58:10 GMT -5
Obsidian isn't all that easy to tumble. There's a good recipe here somewhere by a member named TNTmom, but it requires a vibe tumbler. I've gotten pretty good at polishing, and I found obsidian to be more tricky than other rocks. As someone already suggested, try to get some agate or jasper. It's not quick to tumble, but it sure gets shiny.
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Enigman
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since December 2013
Posts: 163
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Post by Enigman on Feb 21, 2014 12:44:43 GMT -5
I probably should have been more specific, but I used the more metaphysical term "obsidian" instead of "landscape glass". There is a site I use for supplies, Rocktumbler.com, that speaks favorably about tumbling landscape glass. So I looked online and found Recycled-Rocks, a site that specializes in all kinds of chunky glass from small gravel up to huge boulders in amazing colors. I bought five colors in the 1 to 2 inch size and they are now 1 day into stage one. Rocktumbler.com claims that it tumbles beautifully with short run times in the stages. Also, the glass is easy to resize. Some pieces I got were nearly 3 inches so I used my wet saw to cut a short slit, then tapped the blade of a small screwdriver into the slit and the chunk cleaved right through from the cut. No problemo. I'll see what happens as it progresses. My goal is to find something I can tumble with modest run times that is not generally available from the wholesale tumbled stone suppliers, and then offer the finished tumbles in my stores. That goal requires easy, short, and fairly unique, to be viable. Thanks.
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tkvancil
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since September 2011
Posts: 1,547
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Post by tkvancil on Feb 21, 2014 14:01:25 GMT -5
I probably should have been more specific, but I used the more metaphysical term "obsidian" instead of "landscape glass". There is a site I use for supplies, Rocktumbler.com, that speaks favorably about tumbling landscape glass. So I looked online and found Recycled-Rocks, a site that specializes in all kinds of chunky glass from small gravel up to huge boulders in amazing colors. I bought five colors in the 1 to 2 inch size and they are now 1 day into stage one. Rocktumbler.com claims that it tumbles beautifully with short run times in the stages. Also, the glass is easy to resize. Some pieces I got were nearly 3 inches so I used my wet saw to cut a short slit, then tapped the blade of a small screwdriver into the slit and the chunk cleaved right through from the cut. No problemo. I'll see what happens as it progresses. My goal is to find something I can tumble with modest run times that is not generally available from the wholesale tumbled stone suppliers, and then offer the finished tumbles in my stores. That goal requires easy, short, and fairly unique, to be viable. Thanks. I am not trying to discourage you but, myself, I've had trouble tumbling glass. I have tried it twice and have two incomplete batches waiting to be tried again. I also have 3# barrels used in tumbling the glass. In my experience glass produces gas. Watch your barrels, if the end begins to protrude outward it will likely need to be burped. If left too long it can blow the lid off, although I personally have never had that happen. Also the gas tends to produce a foam that suspends the grit and seems to keep it from sticking to the tumbled pieces. It was suggested to me that using less water than you would use for rocks should help keep the foaming down. Other suggestions for helping keep gas down are to use water as hot as your tap will run and adding borax to your tumble. Borax note. I had a single barrel 3# Chicago Electric I bought used and ran until it became too noisy for my liking. The barrel began to disintegrate on the inside after I put borax in it. I cannot be sure if that was from the borax or just age and wear. My lortone barrels have not shown any ill effects from using borax. I hope your glass tumble goes well. Keep us posted .... maybe I can learn something and finish my glass
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 21, 2014 16:30:55 GMT -5
Yup, what tk said. Sometimes glass can be problematic and man does it tend to puff up your barrels sometimes. Funny though, I used to polish a bit of purple desert glass and it didn't seem to puff up the barrels and was easier to polish. I have no idea why at all *L*.....Mel
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Enigman
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since December 2013
Posts: 163
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Post by Enigman on Feb 22, 2014 14:10:07 GMT -5
Well ...so far so good. I haven't had any gas forming. On the plus side, the glass I am using grinds really fast. After less than 24 hours, some pieces were beautifully smooth and ready for stage 2. Very little actual mud forms in that short of a period. It is mostly silvery water. That could be because of a weird phenomena that is happening that also happened when I first started the hickoryite.
In the beginning run, I used small ceramic media in addition to the large media. Apparently, small media likes to glue tself to the bottom of the barrel and hold grit out of solution. No, no one picked up the barrel and set it down and made it settle. I started the barrel and didn't touch in until about 20 hours into the tumble. Then I opened it to check how the glass was going to react and discovered that some pieces were already able to move on. In the process I found thick mud stuck to the bottom with all the small media stuck in it. That makes sense in a way. The least amount of tumble abrasion is at the back wall during rotation, and the small media stuck in the grit mud deflected any glass from raking the mud back off the bottom, so it just built up. Regardless, the glass I have tumbles easily and VERY fast. I have decided that every day I will remove the pieces that need no more stage 1 tumbling and add new pieces to make up the level. When I have enough for a full stage 2 barrel I will start that and just keep running new stones through the stage 1 barrel.
From what I am hearing only certain glass types emit gas. Apparently the glass I have is in the "does not" column.
I have done a lot of research on the Chicago Electric tumblers, and a LOT of re-engineering on my own two 3# barrel CE tumbler. What I have discovered is that the CE tumblers appear to be REALLY "inexpensive" (to use a kind word) Chinese knock-offs of the Lortone tumblers. I didn't like the noise mine made when brand new so I pulled out my old aerospace engineer's hat and dusted it off and went to work. I hunted down every rattle, squeek and rumble and smote it with Knight's Templar'esque prejudice.
First, you must remove the silver bearing caps that cover the shaft bearings. Place a thick disk of felt in the cap, soak it in oil, and put the cap back on. That keeps the shafts from chattering by whapping the retainer clip against the bearing. Felt stick-on feet work well for that. You buy them on a card in the hardware store. Use two disks of the right diameter with the sticky parts together. Next I replaced the hard plastic feet. Get a set of four rubber chair leg covers, the kind that are black rubber cups that you shove onto a leg end. Drill a hole in the base and use the original screws through the hole to screw the rubber cup BASE to the frame. That gives you four tube shaped feet that are very soft near the bottom edge where it sets on a surface. That removes 90% of the rumble. It also lifts the frame up and provides more air flow for the motor. Next you have to replace the stupid black plastic tabs that are meant to keep the barrel from touching the end of the frame. I don't know what kind of plastic that they used, but it erodes away quickly and oddly enough, they also cut channels in the metal covers, which says a lot about the metal used for those covers. I always had to grease the plastic tabs until I replaced them with rollers. You can make great rollers using small nylon rollers meant for shower glass sliding doors. They have a nut on one side with a threaded hole. Get a small L bracket and bend it from 90 degrees down to about 80 degrees. Pass a machine screw through the top hole into the nylon roller nut with the roller on the outside of the bracket bend. Then use the original screw from the plastic tab to secure the L bracket to the frame. The nylon roller doesn't hurt the barrel covers and there is no longer a scraping noise from the plastic tab. You will have to notch or remove the motor cover to clear the roller. Presto! My tumbler is now very quiet aside from rock noises. I found that placing the tumbler on a folded bathroom rug eliminates a lot of rumble too.
Be careful with the screws from the CE tumbler. Near as I can figure China made them out of silver fudge, just like the frame. They'll take about a nano ounce of torque before they strip. And they are all metric so you cannot use US standard #6's to replace them.
Another tip is that Lortone 3 pound barrels work perfectly as CE barrel replacements. I don't doubt that the CE barrel rubber may be less than desirable rubber. I have two additional Lortone barrels for my tumbler and the rubber is MUCH different than the CE barrels.
I actually called the Chicago Electric US distributor (Harbor Freight Tools Inc) and when I mentioned the tumbler you could hear this "deer in the headlights" tone in their voice. Few if any parts are available and they don't seem to like to even talk about it. I'm guessing they have had a bad experience with it. I always wondered why no tumbler site carries or even mentions the CE tumblers. I have only ever seen them on eBay. I have mine because my wife pointed to an eBay listing and said, "That is your birthday present, go get it." So I did, without any further research at the time. If anyone is reading this and hasn't bought a CE tumbler, then don't. Buy a US made tumbler.
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tkvancil
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since September 2011
Posts: 1,547
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Post by tkvancil on Feb 22, 2014 16:00:37 GMT -5
Glad to hear your tumbling experience with the glass is going well.
If I may ask ... where was it purchased?
And yes, the CE tumbler is "inexpensive". Your too kind ;-)
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Enigman
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since December 2013
Posts: 163
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Post by Enigman on Feb 23, 2014 12:12:00 GMT -5
A few posts back I mentioned Recycled-Rocks.com. They have glass gravel and chunks from 1/8 inch up to boulder size in a huge array of colors. It is sold by the pound very reasonably. There is a 1 to 2 inch size range that is perfect for tumbling. Any pieces that are too big are easily cut down by starting a cut with a wet saw, then tap a screwdriver blade into the cut. It will shear straight across easily. They also have opaque glass in a few colors. The owner makes the glass himself by melting down glass from various sources, hence the "recycled" name. It would appear that for the small sizes he pours the molten glass into shallow cylinders and then breaks the cooled glass. Some pieces have rainbow iridescence and interesting inclusions. They ship quickly and are very responsive. Highly recommended.
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Enigman
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since December 2013
Posts: 163
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Post by Enigman on Feb 23, 2014 14:05:23 GMT -5
Okay ... here's another report on the glass tumbling. After resetting the barrel yesterday and running for another 24 hours I opened the barrel. About half the pieces were ready to move on to stage 2 and the other half stayed in stage 1. ( That could be expected when new raw glass is added to fill the barrel.) More raw glass was added to fill to a little over half full and another scoop of grit. That means that I could probably keep this up indefinitely, opening every 24 hours to grade the pieces and refill. On the upside, the glass grinds VERY fast, and that's a lot of fun. On the downside, it uses more than normal amounts of grit by refilling the barrel every day and adding grit. I only have to add grit because there is an inevitable loss of grit from pulling the stones out and rinsing them to see the condition. But I guess having 24 hour stage runs outweighs the fast grit consumption. Better than doing the same thing every two to four weeks. I almost have enough for a stage 2 run. I suspect it will also go quickly, but I think I might be able to do them all for a couple of days and then move the whole thing on to stage 3 since they enter stage 2 smooth to begin with. We'll see.
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tkvancil
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since September 2011
Posts: 1,547
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Post by tkvancil on Mar 1, 2014 1:01:50 GMT -5
A few posts back I mentioned Recycled-Rocks.com. They have glass gravel and chunks from 1/8 inch up to boulder size in a huge array of colors. It is sold by the pound very reasonably. There is a 1 to 2 inch size range that is perfect for tumbling. Any pieces that are too big are easily cut down by starting a cut with a wet saw, then tap a screwdriver blade into the cut. It will shear straight across easily. They also have opaque glass in a few colors. The owner makes the glass himself by melting down glass from various sources, hence the "recycled" name. It would appear that for the small sizes he pours the molten glass into shallow cylinders and then breaks the cooled glass. Some pieces have rainbow iridescence and interesting inclusions. They ship quickly and are very responsive. Highly recommended. Checked out the site. Got some nice colors over there ....
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