YEA-I solved my obsidian riddle
Jan 21, 2015 17:37:14 GMT -5
tntmom, gingerkid, and 3 more like this
Post by jamesp on Jan 21, 2015 17:37:14 GMT -5
I have spent no telling how many hours on obsidian. Even bought a vibe to help me out.
Have tortured you Forum folks with post after post.
I have solved two riddles, one of them 4 hours ago.
One was the time it takes to put 500/1000/5000/14000 finishes on it.
Two was bruises, which is a lot more complicated than I thought. And they are both closely related.
My problem or complaint was-why does it take so long to get a polished finish on a soft rock like frigging obsidian.
Always felt that obsidian was very fast to get a finish on it, whether it be 220/500/1000/5000/14,000 in the rotary.
Especially when using massive doses of sugar. Not talking grit break down, just a finish relative to the grit size.
So, I have been doing 1000 for 4 days and 14,000 for 2 days in the vibe to get a polish. Water and filler. A long time.
The 2 days on 14,000-look at that step:
I have turned my vibe down to a very slow speed to reduce/eliminate any chance of bruising.
Guess what, it was still bruising on a very micro scale, at that slow rate.
The way I know this is by speeding the vibe rate 5 times and adding a tablespoon of sugar/pound of rock 4 hours ago.
In 3 hours I am half way to polish, approximately. The sugar is the trick, because they would not polish at that fast vibe rate.
Dry, wet, rice hulls, filler, no filler, no matter what i did, the fast rate would not work, I tried it all. It maintained a matte finish.
Matte because it was micro bruising on a very microscopic scale.
Slowing down the vibe slowed the grit breakdown too. kind of a catch 22.
So got a wild hair and decided to adjust the counterweights to the faster rotational rock speed matching the Lot-O as viewed on youtube.
Added my beloved sugar at a rate of 1 tablespoon per pound of rock and filler(filler 60% glass), and see what happens.
Came back 3 hours later. Boom, that shit has a polish. Normally a 2 day deal. AO 14,000 Rock Shed polish.YEA !! IN VERY BOLD GIANT LETTERS
No need to break that stuff down, it's bloody 1 micron, that would put a shine on anything.
So I am ecstatic. I knew that rock would abrade quickly if conditions were good-I knew it.
Then came the 2nd victory. I ran 4 days with AO 500 and 2 days with AO 1000 to get my slight sheen before going to 14,000.
Was getting ready to do a clean out and start the 14,000 and said screw it. Let's go backward and try a softer 500 abrasive.
So that ground off the 6 day 500/1000 finish and I let it run 36 hours on the softer 500 abrasive.
And the 36 hour 500 finish came up 4 hours ago. It put the 'polish ready' finish down quick.
So I did 36 hours at 500(slow vibe) and 3 hours at 14,000(fast vibe) and dang near have a polish. That's it.
Had I done the soft 500 at high vibe speed with sugar it may have been ready in 12 hours-would not surprise me a bit.
I am not in a hurry. Just frustrated that a soft rock takes longer than a hard rock to polish. And 6 days for 500 and 1000 is ridiculous.
I have no idea what time it takes others to finish their obsidian, too be honest, I never wanted to know because I did not want bias in my mind.
All I knew, is that it abraded very fast in the rotary to the finish of the grit being applied to it. Took to many photos, was aware of the finishes.
All this sugar issue came up when reading the Viking instructions. They said to add 'Tumbl-Trol "C" tablets for mohs 6 or less.
I have no idea what these tablets are made of. The instructions explained clearly what they do though:
"Tumbl-trol is a unique combination of concentrated ingredients. Small amounts of the chemical are capable of making water extremely
slippery and thick. Thickened water retains longer in your unit, and in addition, abrasives are held in complete suspension in the solution,
improving tumbling action. The possibility of fracturing and chipping is drastically reduced. Improvement on the luster obtained will be noted,
being especially true on stones of 6 or less on the mohs scale."
Not trying to influence anyone. These are experiments. I know I was running my vibe on the wet side. Likely part of my issues. Others may run them dryer and have a 'batter'
like consistency and get much better results than I ever did. So I simply forced the 'batter' situation by using sugar. I am very new to vibratory tumblers.
And have little experience w/them. But do experiment, so may open new doors.
I think this is the end of my obsidian saga, other than using SiC120/220 or several runs of SiC 220 on the obsidian in the vibe, to
remove any possible bruises from the roughing process in the rotary tumbler. That schnit will bruise in a rotary, better to go to the vibe with SiC
to make sure any possible bruises are removed.
Have tortured you Forum folks with post after post.
I have solved two riddles, one of them 4 hours ago.
One was the time it takes to put 500/1000/5000/14000 finishes on it.
Two was bruises, which is a lot more complicated than I thought. And they are both closely related.
My problem or complaint was-why does it take so long to get a polished finish on a soft rock like frigging obsidian.
Always felt that obsidian was very fast to get a finish on it, whether it be 220/500/1000/5000/14,000 in the rotary.
Especially when using massive doses of sugar. Not talking grit break down, just a finish relative to the grit size.
So, I have been doing 1000 for 4 days and 14,000 for 2 days in the vibe to get a polish. Water and filler. A long time.
The 2 days on 14,000-look at that step:
I have turned my vibe down to a very slow speed to reduce/eliminate any chance of bruising.
Guess what, it was still bruising on a very micro scale, at that slow rate.
The way I know this is by speeding the vibe rate 5 times and adding a tablespoon of sugar/pound of rock 4 hours ago.
In 3 hours I am half way to polish, approximately. The sugar is the trick, because they would not polish at that fast vibe rate.
Dry, wet, rice hulls, filler, no filler, no matter what i did, the fast rate would not work, I tried it all. It maintained a matte finish.
Matte because it was micro bruising on a very microscopic scale.
Slowing down the vibe slowed the grit breakdown too. kind of a catch 22.
So got a wild hair and decided to adjust the counterweights to the faster rotational rock speed matching the Lot-O as viewed on youtube.
Added my beloved sugar at a rate of 1 tablespoon per pound of rock and filler(filler 60% glass), and see what happens.
Came back 3 hours later. Boom, that shit has a polish. Normally a 2 day deal. AO 14,000 Rock Shed polish.YEA !! IN VERY BOLD GIANT LETTERS
No need to break that stuff down, it's bloody 1 micron, that would put a shine on anything.
So I am ecstatic. I knew that rock would abrade quickly if conditions were good-I knew it.
Then came the 2nd victory. I ran 4 days with AO 500 and 2 days with AO 1000 to get my slight sheen before going to 14,000.
Was getting ready to do a clean out and start the 14,000 and said screw it. Let's go backward and try a softer 500 abrasive.
So that ground off the 6 day 500/1000 finish and I let it run 36 hours on the softer 500 abrasive.
And the 36 hour 500 finish came up 4 hours ago. It put the 'polish ready' finish down quick.
So I did 36 hours at 500(slow vibe) and 3 hours at 14,000(fast vibe) and dang near have a polish. That's it.
Had I done the soft 500 at high vibe speed with sugar it may have been ready in 12 hours-would not surprise me a bit.
I am not in a hurry. Just frustrated that a soft rock takes longer than a hard rock to polish. And 6 days for 500 and 1000 is ridiculous.
I have no idea what time it takes others to finish their obsidian, too be honest, I never wanted to know because I did not want bias in my mind.
All I knew, is that it abraded very fast in the rotary to the finish of the grit being applied to it. Took to many photos, was aware of the finishes.
All this sugar issue came up when reading the Viking instructions. They said to add 'Tumbl-Trol "C" tablets for mohs 6 or less.
I have no idea what these tablets are made of. The instructions explained clearly what they do though:
"Tumbl-trol is a unique combination of concentrated ingredients. Small amounts of the chemical are capable of making water extremely
slippery and thick. Thickened water retains longer in your unit, and in addition, abrasives are held in complete suspension in the solution,
improving tumbling action. The possibility of fracturing and chipping is drastically reduced. Improvement on the luster obtained will be noted,
being especially true on stones of 6 or less on the mohs scale."
Not trying to influence anyone. These are experiments. I know I was running my vibe on the wet side. Likely part of my issues. Others may run them dryer and have a 'batter'
like consistency and get much better results than I ever did. So I simply forced the 'batter' situation by using sugar. I am very new to vibratory tumblers.
And have little experience w/them. But do experiment, so may open new doors.
I think this is the end of my obsidian saga, other than using SiC120/220 or several runs of SiC 220 on the obsidian in the vibe, to
remove any possible bruises from the roughing process in the rotary tumbler. That schnit will bruise in a rotary, better to go to the vibe with SiC
to make sure any possible bruises are removed.