jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Sept 21, 2014 14:51:24 GMT -5
Took some of the glass media out and was in for a surprise. The blue, black and turquoise bottle glass has a dead wet shine. It is the hardest, knowing that from rough tumbling it. The clear tempered glass has pits, worse than the obsidian. It is soft, also known from tumbling it. The obsidian is soft, can tell from pre-grinding it. So worried that the hard bottle glass is having an adverse effect on the obsidian. Will start 14,000 over with all soft tempered glass. Have always heard that the hardest material in the tumbler gets the shine. In this case it may have fallen true. Starting to pre-grind next project, will polish glass separate from obsidian. Tumble in this thread was all mostly large pieces like these.:
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Sept 22, 2014 8:13:31 GMT -5
1 hour No shine 6 hours 24 hours slight shine, gas bubbles starting to show 48 hours (on right) better shine, gas bubbles more defined 96 hours Decent shine, improving daily. Gas bubbles clearly defined. Surface getting smoother, pits shallower. The AO 14,000 polish would have been better and quicker if an added step of AO 5000 was done. Changed harder bottle glass media last night and replaced it with softer tempered glass media. May end up w/a killer polish after all. Will run Linde AO 50,000 after the 14,000. Have been comfortable and passive about the obsidian with the protective measures of an over full barrel, lots of media and heavy sugar mix.
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Post by orrum on Sept 22, 2014 8:59:32 GMT -5
Twist her tail n rock James! Ya gonna get a liquid wet shine for sure!
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Post by connrock on Sept 22, 2014 9:15:22 GMT -5
Tripoli comes in powder form for rock tumbling and is mostly used a s a pre-polish,,,, The Rockshed carries it here,,,scroll down a bit,,, linkThanks for the info on the Rapid Polish! Glass: A friend from Arizona gave me about 4-5 lbs of broken slag glass she had.It was all different colors with tiny pieces and the biggest pieces of the glass were about grape size.I started it all out with 220 sc grit in the Lot-o and when I got to the pre-polish stage it was clear to see that some of the glass was harder then most of the other pieces as it started to polish and the softer pieces just looked highly frosted.I had to finish the hard and soft glass separately in order to get a wet looking shine on it. Your step-by-step photos really tell the story of what's going on.GREAT job James! Obsidian: I've had problems doing mixed types of obsidian together,,,mahogany,black,snow flake,etc,etc and have to wonder if different types are harder then others?It doesn't take much of a difference in hardness to scratch obsidian and I really think some of it scratches other types? A long time ago I read something about only tumbling obsidian that came from the same location due to the difference on how it was formed and that if obsidian was found in different locations and done together it may not shine up well.I posted it here on the RTH and got bombed with a few people saying that this was false and that they get great results no matter where the obsidian comes from.I didn't want to get into a rhubarb with them so I just bowed out gracefully and kept my mouth shut! What I have to wonder is what these people consider "great results"?Some people are happy if they get any type of shine to their rocks at all and consider them great results but,,,compared to what? In showing your obsidian with close-up/cropped photos we can all see what true, great results are and what can hamper us from getting them! Photos: I have an old Nikon Coolpix 5400,5.1 Effective Megapixels that can be focused to 1/2" of any given subject.It came with a fantastic,VERY user friendly photo editing program that had just enough features so as not to be confusing and overwhelming for an old goat like me.I took thousands of photos,cropped them,added text to them,sharpened them and did a lot of other things to my photos.I tried to download it onto m new computer and it wouldn't do it and I can't find the disc!Grrrrr! My kids bought me PaintShop Pro X4 and it's too complicated for me. Here is an example of what I did with my camera and the editing program,,,,it's VERY much like what you're doing with the obsidian,,,, Hand held photo,standing over a water lily in my pond with full sunlight,,,, Same photo,,,cropped,,,, What photo editing program are you using? connrock
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Sept 22, 2014 10:14:33 GMT -5
Well I was starting to feel like a moron Tom at this polish step. But was worried about the media being harder and stealing the shine. Looked at the blue media and it was sure shiny. It is a concern. Replaced w/hopefully softer tempered glass last night. The Arizona glass and mixed obsidian experience is just what i wanted to hear. Not worried about the 220 500 1000 part, may have cut one short. That can be remedied. But the polish is tricky. I was hoping a chine in on glass would occur. Sorry you were badgered about your thoughts. I would have been on your side on that one. I had black, baby blue, cobalt blue and clear tempered glass mixed for media. The cobalt was very shiny, the black and baby blue quite shiny, and the tempered glass had tiny pits. No doubt they polish differently. I have coarse ground all of those separately to make sea glass for my wife. She always fussed about not getting the cobalt quick enough. That stuff is like agate, it took forever to round. Maybe 4-6 times longer than the tempered. Glass complicated. Obsidian will probably be different too. Too many chemical variations. I pre-ground some mahogany yesterday and it was very soft. And a blacker obsidian with light silver streaks was dense and hard. Neither splintered like man made glass. Oh yes, you are right, there is a difference.
Yes, you used a 5 Megapixel camera to get a killer crop like that. Mine is 6 and a dinosaur by today's standards. the crops look like something out of an electron microscope ! Amazing how the crop changed the whole complexion of the photo by focusing on the butter colored parts of the flower. Texas Dawn won the Lily show back in 1991. Probably the finest hardy water lily ever hybridized. Been selling it for 18 years. It seeds out pink, orange, white/yellow, peach. It is very promiscuous. The Apple has a basic photo editor that I use. It came with it. Designed by Apple. Easy to use for me !
I looked up tripoli and wished I hadn't. It is also like glass, complicated. There are so many varieties of it. No matter. If the Rock Shed sells it, it is tested. I think originally it meant 'triple polish'. May have been a 3 polish mix. Comes in a bunch of different colors for different uses. Wished you and I invented it.
Thanks for the mention of glass/obsidian hardness/toughness. More opportunity for experimenting ha. I do want to tumble some neurotically colored glass too. And all types of obsidian.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Sept 22, 2014 10:18:13 GMT -5
Twist her tail n rock James! Ya gonna get a liquid wet shine for sure! Good ole' persitance may come in handy or rum. Gotta whip this thang
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Sept 22, 2014 11:40:22 GMT -5
Just for illustration, this 1.5 inch piece of glass was rounded for 4 days in AO 46. Then lapped on a wet rag w/ 14,000 polish for 2 minutes. Picture taken w/out macro but in the reflection. The polish shows the large pits.: Cropping turns photo into microscope:
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tkvancil
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Post by tkvancil on Sept 22, 2014 11:48:59 GMT -5
James, I tried the getting in focus and cropping. Much clearer as to what the surface looks like. No post just for my own info. Thanks for the tip.
Connrock, first time I've heard it's problematic to mix different kinds of obsidian although I see the sense of it. Guess I got lucky, my batch is a mix of snowflake, tears, glass and a little mahogany. Pulled one of each today and all looked good.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Sept 22, 2014 12:05:19 GMT -5
James, I tried the getting in focus and cropping. Much clearer as to what the surface looks like. No post just for my own info. Thanks for the tip. Connrock, first time I've heard it's problematic to mix different kinds of obsidian although I see the sense of it. Guess I got lucky, my batch is a mix of snowflake, tears, glass and a little mahogany. Pulled one of each today and all looked good. Seems like the stuff hits the fan when trying to polish tk. I will guess that the mahogany will be softest and hardest to polish. Hope not, but guessing. Dave found this sheen on 1 acre of land in Utah. Should all be the same.
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Post by connrock on Sept 23, 2014 7:47:36 GMT -5
tk, I've tumbled my share of rocks through the years and there are things that happen that completely baffle me. I had a load of agate and jasper in rough in my 15lb tumbler and needed a filler to get the right size load in it.I keep a 2lb coffee can near my trim saw for all the small pieces of "junk" I have after trimming slabs for cabs I'm cutting.The can has everything from soft marble to hard agate and jasper along with obsidian. I dumped what was in the coffee can into the 15lb barrel and off I went with the roughing. When I emptied the barrel after about 10 days most of the soft rocks were just about gone but there were still a lot of small pieces I could use as a filler in my Lot-O so I just kept using them throughout the rest of the process right through the polish stage. After the load was finished in the burnishing stage I was amazed to find that the small obsidian pieces were shining like wet glass!I even looked at them through a 10x loupe trying to convince myself that there HAD to be flaws of some sort in it.Well,,,there were no flaws and to this day I still can't figure out why! This blows the "don't mix hard and soft rocks together" theory right out of the water! I even tried doing this again a few times and the obsidian looked terrible! connrock
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Sept 23, 2014 8:21:23 GMT -5
tk, I've tumbled my share of rocks through the years and there are things that happen that completely baffle me. I had a load of agate and jasper in rough in my 15lb tumbler and needed a filler to get the right size load in it.I keep a 2lb coffee can near my trim saw for all the small pieces of "junk" I have after trimming slabs for cabs I'm cutting.The can has everything from soft marble to hard agate and jasper along with obsidian. I dumped what was in the coffee can into the 15lb barrel and off I went with the roughing. When I emptied the barrel after about 10 days most of the soft rocks were just about gone but there were still a lot of small pieces I could use as a filler in my Lot-O so I just kept using them throughout the rest of the process right through the polish stage. After the load was finished in the burnishing stage I was amazed to find that the small obsidian pieces were shining like wet glass!I even looked at them through a 10x loupe trying to convince myself that there HAD to be flaws of some sort in it.Well,,,there were no flaws and to this day I still can't figure out why! This blows the "don't mix hard and soft rocks together" theory right out of the water! I even tried doing this again a few times and the obsidian looked terrible! connrock Tom, have you had the larger obsidians in your batch get a lesser shine than the smaller ones. Or had impact pits on the larger ones? Pulled a couple this Tuesday morn at day 5 and shine is starting to not improve much. It is clearly the first day that the improvement in shine has slowed. Looks like another day and they are getting taken out. Will remove more than two tomorrow to analyze before taking them out.
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Post by connrock on Sept 23, 2014 8:34:52 GMT -5
James,,,, I can't really tell from your last photos,,,,,because the only part of the obsidian that is in focus is the flat "top" part,,,,but it looks like the sides have a smoother finish then the "top"? I do see pits on the sides but they look like they are surrounded with a smooth finish? If this is so,,,,I've had this happen to me several times when trying to do small slabs and other pieces with flat surfaces on them.I found that I didn't have enough very small pieces or enough ceramic media in the load to get a good surface contact between the rounder rocks and the flat surfaces. I bought 4-6lb chunks of different colored slag glass when we were in Arizona and mailed them to my neighbor to put in her flower bed.It was very cheap at $0.50-$1.50/lb and I wish I had sent some to myself! LOL The Tripoli I have looks lighter in color then the Tripoli in the Rockshed photo.I don't know if it's a different grade or what?I don't remember where I bought it but I do know I've had it for many years,,,,I bought it before I bought my Lot-O's and used to use a lot of it in the rotaries.I only use 1/2 teaspoon full in a load in the Lot-O now. I suspect that Tripoli does break down because I did an experiment with it years ago trying to see if I could polish rocks without using polish.The experiment was a success and the rocks(Brazillian Agate and Montana Agate) came out fantastic but it took a very long time in the Lot-O. I've had problems cabbing with different obsidian too.I can see my reflection in some of it after polishing it but other times I just can't get it right. Although this is a lousy photo, and you can't see the center which is black obsidian,I think it's a great example of trying to polish a softer material with a harder one. The outer part of this cab is mahogany obsidian and the white "frame' is a local white marble which is softer then obsidian.I had no trouble polishing the obsidian but the marble didn't shine up nearly as well as the obsidian,,,,,, I tried another cab like this using picture jasper and white marble and by the time the cab was finished the white marble was undercut to a point where I just scrapped the cab.WAY too much of a difference in hardness in the 2 different materials! I'm an old computer vegetable using Windows 8.1 and yesterday (totally by accident) found a photo editing program that comes with Windows 8.1! I set up an old photo and tried to crop it but I got sooooooooooooooooooo frustrated with it I quit trying! LOL I'll of course try again but I'm finding that the older I get the harder it is for me to learn just about anything let alone something on a computer screen! LOL connrock
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Sept 23, 2014 11:50:32 GMT -5
I think the windows photo edit program is 'Windows Live Photo Gallery'. It will do about anything. It is right there convenient. I have been told that before LOL. I think the commands are all along the top and some gizmos on the side. I learned on that one. It took a while with genius wife babysitting me. Somehow she motivates me to learn quick, probably so she will go away just kidding.
I just noticed the bigger obsidians may have more bruises from a 12 hour stretch of low filler. I figure they bump harder. I should wait till I unload. I pulled a more silver colored sheen this morn and it is slightly not as shiny and has a bit more impact bruises. this stuff is unforgiving if you tumble w/out protection any where along the way !!
That cab is a an art/skill form of great patience. I am still trying to figure out how you milled a square hole in the center. Looking for gaps, can see none. Seriously, that takes serious patience and skill. A dentist might pull it off.
They kinda cut me off of some colored chunk glass at the recycler. It is green. Someone is buying all they can get. Flea markets have heavy glass cheap like paper weights and vases. Some w/crazy patterns and swirls. Might try there.
If using glass as a media I suppose it better be softer than the stones. Glass a strange animal to polish. Anxious to pull the load out there and see what damage is done. I worry about running it too long.
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Post by connrock on Sept 24, 2014 8:46:35 GMT -5
The photo editing program I have in Windows 8.1 is called PhotoDirector3.I tried cropping again yesterday but didn't have much luck! LOL I don't spend enough time with the program and that's what's needed to be able to use it correctly.In my case,,,,my wife knows even less then me about a computer let alone a photo editing program! I think the bigger pieces of obsidian fall at a different "rate of speed" and can impact each other unless there is a LOT of small filler used or having an abnormally full barrel? Glass: If you want a real challenge try polishing chunk glass that has different colors within a single piece.The hardness of the glass differs within a single piece so some parts of it come out great while others stink! LOL The intarsia cabs are made from the inside piece being square or rectangular.Then a "frame" is epoxied to the sides.The shape of the cab is marked on the epoxied pieces,,,which now look like a single flat slab,,,and then the cab is cut as you would cut any cab. This is the first one I did and you can see the joints pretty bad here,,,,this may give you an idea of how they are made,,,,, No milling! LOL Are you going to use the tumbled glass as just a filler or a byproduct? connrock
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Sept 24, 2014 9:19:03 GMT -5
The photo editing program I have in Windows 8.1 is called PhotoDirector3.I tried cropping again yesterday but didn't have much luck! LOL I don't spend enough time with the program and that's what's needed to be able to use it correctly.In my case,,,,my wife knows even less then me about a computer let alone a photo editing program! I think the bigger pieces of obsidian fall at a different "rate of speed" and can impact each other unless there is a LOT of small filler used or having an abnormally full barrel? Glass: If you want a real challenge try polishing chunk glass that has different colors within a single piece.The hardness of the glass differs within a single piece so some parts of it come out great while others stink! LOL The intarsia cabs are made from the inside piece being square or rectangular.Then a "frame" is epoxied to the sides.The shape of the cab is marked on the epoxied pieces,,,which now look like a single flat slab,,,and then the cab is cut as you would cut any cab. This is the first one I did and you can see the joints pretty bad here,,,,this may give you an idea of how they are made,,,,, No milling! LOL Are you going to use the tumbled glass as just a filler or a byproduct? connrock Maybe this will help w/cropping in Windows 8 Tom. Straight from Youtube.:
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Sept 24, 2014 9:20:47 GMT -5
Intarsia of another world. That one sure is. I know you mill those on a Bridgeport LOL.
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Post by connrock on Sept 25, 2014 8:28:35 GMT -5
Thanks for the link James.I saw that video a while back but the tut is for Windows Paint and you can't do much with a photo with that program after you crop it. Here's a screenshot I took of the program I have in Windows 8.1 The program is put out by Cyberlink,,, linkI'm just an old man trying to deal with a modern world I guess! connrock
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Sept 25, 2014 9:20:14 GMT -5
That program has more functions Tom. I see why you need such. Like painting/drawing writing on your photos. Keep hammering, you will get it.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Sept 26, 2014 21:51:59 GMT -5
Am pleased with them. Got a decent polish. Maybe better next time, whole batch.@ 10 pounds. Learned a bunch. Had very few smalls, just 35% filler. Under clouds dry: Clouds wet: Under sun dry: Sun wet:
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2014 22:54:04 GMT -5
Obsidian seem to like to break your heart. Perhaps vibe is required for the very gentle finish and a truly wet look polish?
Still, this thread was an epic set of knowledge gathered. Thank you friend.
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