Post by Enigman on Feb 6, 2014 12:58:36 GMT -5
Hi all,
For my second tumbling experience I chose yellow aventurine. (My first experience is posted separately titled "Hickoryite Tumbling Issues". I'm not having fun yet.)
I bought the rough online and the rough is fairly chunky and large at an average of 1.5 to 1.75 inches. The stone is too hard to wet saw down smaller with my saw, so I didn't. I ran the stone in stage one for 212 hours total with small ceramic media to fill in gaps. After inspecting the stones at 212 hours there was some rounding, but most noticable was the fact that the rough was heavily spawled with an average of 4 to 6 spawls showing per stone. The spawls were very visible due to the mud intrusion into the spawls. At first I thought that the spawling was happening in the tumble. But I inspected the extra rough (that was not being tumbled) with a strong light and loop and found that the rough was already spawled when I got it. Apparently, whoever supplied the rough to the online seller created it by beating a large stone into pieces with a hammer instead of gathering naturally occuring small stones.
Okay ... unfortunate choice for rough. But now I would like to remove the spawls as much as possible and proceed since I am basically stuck with it, unless I want to sell off the pieces individually as "Natural Yellow Aventurine" for non tumbling uses, which is a possibility. I sell many types of natural stone as it is.
Anywho ... what is the best method for "chipping out" the spawls without creating more spawls in the process?
I thought of something like large stone and tile nippers, but none I have seen open wide enough. If I try using a chisel, I don't have a really good way to hold the stone while I chisel it which would most likely send the stone hurtling across my apartment and through a window, adding ... you know ... extra cost.
Any suggestions?
Thanks.
For my second tumbling experience I chose yellow aventurine. (My first experience is posted separately titled "Hickoryite Tumbling Issues". I'm not having fun yet.)
I bought the rough online and the rough is fairly chunky and large at an average of 1.5 to 1.75 inches. The stone is too hard to wet saw down smaller with my saw, so I didn't. I ran the stone in stage one for 212 hours total with small ceramic media to fill in gaps. After inspecting the stones at 212 hours there was some rounding, but most noticable was the fact that the rough was heavily spawled with an average of 4 to 6 spawls showing per stone. The spawls were very visible due to the mud intrusion into the spawls. At first I thought that the spawling was happening in the tumble. But I inspected the extra rough (that was not being tumbled) with a strong light and loop and found that the rough was already spawled when I got it. Apparently, whoever supplied the rough to the online seller created it by beating a large stone into pieces with a hammer instead of gathering naturally occuring small stones.
Okay ... unfortunate choice for rough. But now I would like to remove the spawls as much as possible and proceed since I am basically stuck with it, unless I want to sell off the pieces individually as "Natural Yellow Aventurine" for non tumbling uses, which is a possibility. I sell many types of natural stone as it is.
Anywho ... what is the best method for "chipping out" the spawls without creating more spawls in the process?
I thought of something like large stone and tile nippers, but none I have seen open wide enough. If I try using a chisel, I don't have a really good way to hold the stone while I chisel it which would most likely send the stone hurtling across my apartment and through a window, adding ... you know ... extra cost.
Any suggestions?
Thanks.