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Post by stoner on May 13, 2004 0:52:58 GMT -5
Hi all. Well, I have given up the idea of trying to make my rubies and sapphires into anything that resembles something nice. I have however, found a use for them; and a pretty good one at that. I took a bunch of them and one by one put them in a pair of channel locks and ground them up and put them in a load of quartz I was running in stage 1 along with the 60/90 that was already in there, and within 2 days, everything was ready to go into stage 2. They had already been running for 3 days in just the grit, but some pieces had bad pits and looked like they'd take another week at least.
The rubies I bought(and probably everyone else) are indeed rubies, however, they are mined for the purpose of making grinding wheels and such. According to my book, gemstone quality Rubies and Sapph's are not found in the USA.
So if your tired of trying to polish them, use them as an accelerator in stage 1.
later, Ed
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Post by cookie3rocks on May 13, 2004 18:46:14 GMT -5
Thats a great idea! I'll have to sneak them away from my husband, he;s still covinced if we tumble them long enough the will look good. I gave up on several of the long ago. I do use them in my coarse stage whole to speed things up a bit
cookie
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SirRoxalot
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since October 2003
Posts: 790
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Post by SirRoxalot on May 13, 2004 18:53:53 GMT -5
Gem quality sapphires are in fact found in Montana, absolutely gorgeous cornflower blue and other colors as well. You can still go to the mines and collect them, with good odds of getting small but decent stones.
Interesting use for corundum, I'll have to try that.
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Post by puppie96 on May 14, 2004 0:14:07 GMT -5
Nobody's mentioned these for a while, so I haven't mentioned that I'm doing an experiment and it's been under way for many weeks now. I chatted up a lot of people at the last show I attended, and found a lady who had managed to put a beautiful polish on a batch of sapphire/ruby -- it was Montana sapphire, she showed me a plastic container of it and it was beautiful -- a variety of colors and with a beautiful shine. I have actually gotten a few of mine to take a great shine using normal tumbler methods, but anyhow, she gave me complete instructions on what she'd done and I've got mine rolling along. Figured I'd wait and see my results before making any announcements and figure out how to do a photo if I get anything. So, we shall see....
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Post by stoner on May 14, 2004 0:43:53 GMT -5
Hi all. Puppie, are your rubies and sapphs anywhere near being translucent? The ones I have are all pretty much opaque. The best feature I've found is if I hold them to a light just right, I can see what looks like what might be one leg of a star(as in star sapphs), or on flat surfaces of the stones a spider web-like design. Both of these features can only be seen while they are wet.
Let us know how your experiment goes and by all means share the method you used. I still have about 1/2lb of rough that hasn't been touched yet. But in the meantime, I'll keep using the ugly ones as an accelerator in the rough grind.
later, Ed
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Post by puppie96 on May 14, 2004 1:14:32 GMT -5
Hi Ed, I have a number of them that have an iridescent quality, especially at the rounded tips, more visible when wet. Yes, I do have some that are transparent but most are small. Those have polished for me, too, using our usual tumbler stuff. I've got one great big ruby that's at least partly transparent, seems to have great color, and has taken a great shine. It had like a "rind" on it as some of them do; when there's a chip out of it you can see there's better underneath and eventually you get through to it. I've also gotten some shiny basically clear white with black inclusions like needles--I've seen pictures of this stuff in online sources but I forget what it's called. Most is opaque, though. Of course I'll share the method if it works. However, I just couldn't resist being the first pup on the block to show it off if it succeeds. We still have a long time to go.
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Post by puppie96 on May 14, 2004 1:17:49 GMT -5
More that I forgot to mention... The stones that I started using the new methods I had already worked for a long time in vibe and barrels and is the best that I've got. Also, the chunks that I've tossed in with loads of backyard rock have processed much faster than the loads that were exclusively sapphire/ruby. And also, this stuff eats Raytech Vibe bowls.
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Post by stoner on May 14, 2004 13:21:12 GMT -5
Hi Puppie. Where did you get your rough from? I got mine from Frank's Mine Tours, I think it was 12.99/lb. I know what your talking about with the layers. With mine though, once you get thru one layer, there's another layer underneath it. Almost looks like a silver metallic material. Also, I've tried hand polishing some of them, using first a grinding wheel, then alum oxide sandpaper, starting at 80, then progressing in small increments up to 2000. Then using diamond pastes with a leather wheel up to 50000, and I can only get a half-a*#ed shine. And when I look at it under a magnifing glass, I can still see tiny pits-not scratches. Maybe I should use a filler that I can tint to match the color of the stone and then polish it! Just kidding. later, Ed
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Post by cookie3rocks on May 14, 2004 19:29:59 GMT -5
Stoner, I have one big ole saphire thats on it's 3rd time through but.. at this point it has a wonderful irradesence and that spiderweb pattern when dry, it just glows when it's wet. It goes to polish in a few days. The color is not good at all (grey and trasparent) but the irradesence is awesome, so i'll keep going. I'ts also so large I don't have to worry about it grinding away any time soon. I also have some small red pink rudies that, if they hold up, look like they just may polish eventually.
cookie
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Post by stoner on May 15, 2004 1:31:35 GMT -5
Hi cookie. Sounds like you got a better quality rough than I did. Of the ones I've been tumbling, only 2 of them have gotten to the lighter side of red, but I couldn't get them to shine. BAH CORUNDUM!!
later, Ed
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Post by puppie96 on May 15, 2004 3:24:49 GMT -5
Hi Stoner and Cookie, I've gotten saph/ruby rough from a whole bunch of sources. Mostly Franks, I'd say, but several others, mainly through auctions. Some was described as star rough, other not. Right from the start I had a few very pretty loose crystals in the stuff. Looking at various rock encyclopedia websites it was cool to see pictures of the various types of rough that I had. Some of it, the layers give way and just reveal another layer underneath that doesn't look good either! The cool thing is that when transparent crystals do pop out, they polish so I've picked up a few along the way. Many pink, too. Stoner, at that last show I went to, I chatted up a guy doing demos about polishing ruby, and he told me how hard he found it to do, and he maintained that when using a wheel, you have to polish it in one direction and if you change directions, it "unpolishes" itself! Since I am only at the tumbler level, I have no idea about this.
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Post by cookie3rocks on May 15, 2004 20:10:39 GMT -5
This area has a lot of gold and gem mines and the sell thier leftovers to people who set up "Gold and gem grubbing" places. You buy a bucket of rocks, most of it worthless of course, and go through it to see what you can find. I actually found the saphire in the stuff someone eles left behind, they didn't know what they had. Thats where my rubies came from too. It's fun and sometimes you find something good. cookie
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tarylina
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since May 2004
Posts: 84
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Post by tarylina on May 15, 2004 22:48:13 GMT -5
I took the last rocks out of my first batch today and started them on the second round. Two of them were sapphires and one had a bunch of matrix on it, so just for fun my husband split one with a hammer and it was pretty cool looking with most of the matrix off.
I have two rather large sapphires that I am going to try to take the matrix off with my Dremel first, then my husband is going to shape with his angle grinder. I'm going to get him (me) a digital camera for his birthday, so I'll take pictures of the final project to show y'all how it turns out. Since I've read so much about how sapphires are such boogers anyway and I didn't pay much for mine, I may even break one into pieces and then tumble it. We'll see and I'll let you know.
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Post by cookie3rocks on May 15, 2004 23:17:18 GMT -5
"I'm going to get him (me) a digital camera " Ok subliminal woman, I know how that works. What's the comercial now where the guy gets his wife 2 cell phones "It's a mothers day miracle" ;D
cookie
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tarylina
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since May 2004
Posts: 84
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Post by tarylina on May 15, 2004 23:31:15 GMT -5
Kind of like how they give you tools/appliances for your birthday?? LOL!! Only I actually love that stuff. I'm a gadget freak!! My husband is a tile-setter/handyman and I had more tools than he did when we got married. Me getting a rock tumbler was only a matter of time.
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Post by stoner on May 15, 2004 23:38:43 GMT -5
Hi all. Puppie, you definetly got a better quality rough than me. Can you post pics? I would really like to see what a finished ruby/sapph looks like(other than from a store). Just seeing a transparent ruby would be cool. Tarylina, did you buy your husband the angle grinder for his last BD, so he can shape rocks? Just kidding. Please post some pics of your rubies/saphhs when you-he gets the camera.
Hey cookie, I thought all the gold mines were out here in Calif. I've been doing work on my sister-in-laws house up near Jackson, right in the heart of gold country, been down to the nearby creek, but no gold. Lots of quartz though, so you never know.
later,Ed
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Post by cookie3rocks on May 15, 2004 23:51:42 GMT -5
As the local story goes (and don't dare dought it aloud) gold was found here in GA in the city of Dahlonega before it was found in California. Supposed to be the first place it was found in the US. I have found small quantities of gold in quartz in the Chatahoochee River recently. They still pan for gold here. And my rutilated quartz, found localy, dosn't look like your typical RQ. it looks more like gold inclusions. Who knows? cookie
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Post by puppie96 on May 16, 2004 2:53:08 GMT -5
Hey Stoner, I'm sort of idiotic about working with pictures, which is ridiculous, I know. I just resist getting into something potentially time-consuming when I'm having trouble keeping up with life.
I'll see if I can get it worked out, though. What you'd see would be a bunch of very tiny, rounded, polished, fairly transparent stones in various hues of red and pink. I mean tiny. With only a couple exceptions. The one that's got me intrigued is about the size and shape of a largish jellybean. It has a great shine but the surface is chipped/marred on one side. Due to the thickness and darkness of it and the inclusions -- you can see some crackling in the area of the chip -- you can't really see into it. I need to try to get a really bright light under it and see what I can see. When held up to the light it is a really pretty red. Having had this experience, I have hopes for all of my bean shaped stones. I have another that did this in my very first tumbled batch, where I threw in stuff I'd picked up on trips for years, just casually. I was pretty sure I'd picked this up from Ruby Creek in British Columbia near Hope -- this creek got it's name from the presence of a lot of garnet in its headwaters -- well, we were nowhere near it's headquarters but got to it through a road cut and picked up gravel for a while. I thought this stone had possibilities--there was a little chipping-off area on the side that eventually fractured off in a tumble and polished right up to a small transparent red stone -- eventually the rest of the stone shined up too. Like the one in my rubies, it's hard to see through it. It's also about jellybean size.
Other than the tiny ones I've picked out that were obviously polished, all the other decent looking but unpolished rough that I've got went into the experiment. That would include most of the nicely colored, possibly transparent or translucent stuff. If it works, it should be a nice piece of work!
Today while working my other business at an arts&crafts show, I came across a vendor selling a lot of tumbled bead jewelry, and she had a strand of obviously tumbled rubies on one of her pieces. I studied these for a while and I don't believe they had been altered/cut in any other way. Their color was really pretty nice and they had great shine and some transparency. Also saw some ruby in zoisite beads that were really nice. Funny how this hobby makes you see a whole lot of new things.
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Post by stoner on May 16, 2004 3:58:26 GMT -5
Hey Puppie. You're right about seeing things (at least when it comes to rocks) in a wole new light after getting into this hobby. Last year I collected a bunch of rocks to build a small retainng wall in my backyard, and now as I'm watering the plants out there I'm thinking, "Wow, look at that one!" I've always liked picking up and checking out rocks, but now that I know a little more about them and the potential they have of becoming beautiful, well, you know the obsession.
Anyway, if you can get pics, cool, but taking care of business comes first. But I'm gonna hold you to revealing the results of your experiment.
later, Ed
PS. check out the website I posted on this board. Good stuff
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llanago
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since January 2004
Posts: 1,714
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Post by llanago on May 16, 2004 11:51:18 GMT -5
I have two ruby in zoisite that I bought at the rock show. They are both large - one is at least 1" diameter and thickness, the other a bit smaller. I have been trying to decide what, if anything, to do with them. I don't think I want to tumble them though and don't know how they would look cut. So, they will probably just continue to sit in my little shadowbox for me to walk by and admire on occasion. Or I might wirewrap the smaller one.
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