jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 24, 2015 18:52:07 GMT -5
What to expect from a 24 hour tumble. Petrified coral skin, run with garnets and water in a vibe. Chipping cool shapes is a fetish, what can I say. The reddish and some of the yellows were heat treated to enhance color and increase chip-ability. Withlacoochee River, Georgia. Hard stuff. heat treated from the chunk to the right Thanks for looking.
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Post by Pat on Feb 24, 2015 19:04:01 GMT -5
Why are you calling it "poor man's"?
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Fossilman
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Post by Fossilman on Feb 24, 2015 19:08:12 GMT -5
Totally crazy cool in a short time!!!
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Sabre52
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 24, 2015 19:15:42 GMT -5
Nice! I too was thinking garnets are pretty dang fancy pants grit though What's next emeralds and diamonds for grit?......Mel
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 24, 2015 19:30:30 GMT -5
Why are you calling it "poor man's"? No grit and only 24 hours worth of electricity Pat. Those two can sure nuff add up when doing 3 month tumbles. It is fairly expensive to tumble those jewels up.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 24, 2015 19:34:42 GMT -5
Nice! I too was thinking garnets are pretty dang fancy pants grit though What's next emeralds and diamonds for grit?......Mel They are #5 grit almandine garnets Mel. Reusable many times. They can be used 5-6 times in sand blasting, crystalline quartz once. It may take months to round them. Would be nice to have 50 pound bag of #60 synthetic diamond
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 24, 2015 19:37:27 GMT -5
Totally crazy cool in a short time!!! a twist Michael, why not. Rolling some small whole corals now, should look quite natural when done. Some of your pet wood would probably respond well to a surface shine. Darn softer rocks hard to polish, the coral is so hard and takes a polish from just looking at it.
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Post by fantastic5 on Feb 24, 2015 21:13:26 GMT -5
That's a real nice shine after just 24 hours AND no grit. Hmmm....I wonder if those Lake Chatuge garnets will perform the same way?
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Post by Drummond Island Rocks on Feb 24, 2015 21:23:53 GMT -5
Do you think 24 hours is the magic number for what you were trying to achieve or would added more time without any additional steps still continue to add shine? This type of tumble is not for me but I think plenty of folks are looking for that type of result on some specimens without major alteration. keep at it Dr. Jekyll.
Chuck
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 24, 2015 23:26:05 GMT -5
That's a real nice shine after just 24 hours AND no grit. Hmmm....I wonder if those Lake Chatuge garnets will perform the same way? I had bad luck with fractured garnets, doing fine with these glassy ones Ann. I think they have to be pretty solid. But that experience was in rotary.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 24, 2015 23:41:48 GMT -5
Do you think 24 hours is the magic number for what you were trying to achieve or would added more time without any additional steps still continue to add shine? This type of tumble is not for me but I think plenty of folks are looking for that type of result on some specimens without major alteration. keep at it Dr. Jekyll. Chuck LOL. Chuck, if you run them with SiC 220 for 24 hours they end up smoother as if tumbled some in the rotary. yes, longer is better. Today I started some rotary tumbled coral with 14,000 polish with the garnets and added sugar. It was coral that was run in SiC 30/60. Whole corals with the 'bark' still left on them. So they are like specimens. Maybe the polish will make a difference. Polish lasts a long time, so it should not break down as fast as the SiC 220. It is all new so I have not had much time to work with the garnets. Noticed some glass took a shine on the high spots too. It had a SiC 60/90 finish. So it may polish glass after 500 grit. A shine on a well tumbled base allows a better polish. I am not sure they will lay down a 1 micron finish, but should prep for it straight from coarse grind. Garnets seem to give a better finish as they wear smoother. Which is taking a long time.
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Post by iant on Feb 25, 2015 2:52:37 GMT -5
Nice, different finish on those. Very interesting experiment Jim!
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Post by snowmom on Feb 25, 2015 5:22:28 GMT -5
This is going to catch on- one of the things we all think and hear is how long it takes to tumble certain materials, jamesp, those are gorgeous, almost instant gratification in 24 hours- that's a great discovery. fantastic5, try it, try it! watching with interest
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 25, 2015 7:33:36 GMT -5
This chip was also raw material that was tumbled for 24 hours in the vibe the day before using garnets with a couple of tablespoons of SiC 220. The rough texture was much removed and had a fair polish before spending 24 hours in the garnets with no grit added. That tells me that the SiC had pretty much broken down in a half a day. And lot of surface of the rough chip removed quick. I am starting to wonder if the small media size of 5mm is breaking the grit down so fast. Does any one run small ceramic media ? Maybe smaller media is more effective. Or maybe it is the garnets, or their extreme weight. Bear in mind, I have a 14 pound hopper, but when filled with garnets it weighs 24 pounds. Specific gravity of quartz/agate = 2.6 Specific gravity of almandine garnet=4.2 Ah, researching further, Zirconia ceramic media is the cadillac of ceramic media with a specific gravity of 6 !! Burundum(pure aluminum oxide media) ceramic media with SG of 3.65 Reading from U.S. Stoneware, a ceramic media manufacturer: Cylindrical Alumina Grinding Media: "High-density, ultra-high fired Burundum is the ideal medium for wet or dry milling. High specific gravity and cylindrical shape give it greater weight per volume, more contacts per mill revolution, greater area of attrition, with each contact. Result: faster, finer grinding or dispersion, often cutting milling time in half." So all ceramic media is not created equal. And high specific gravity speeds up grind rate in the vibratory. Check out this media manufacturer, some of there media is Mohs 9 usstoneware.com/grindingmedia.htmThe chip:
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Post by snowmom on Feb 25, 2015 7:38:48 GMT -5
wow, that looks great. Good info on the ceramic media. I had no idea.. somebody has been keeping secrets from us. (Their PR promo guys aren't as good as the diamond guys).
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 25, 2015 8:00:30 GMT -5
wow, that looks great. Good info on the ceramic media. I had no idea.. somebody has been keeping secrets from us. (Their PR promo guys aren't as good as the diamond guys). Oh yes, dozens of ceramic media material. Even silicon carbide and aluminum oxide is classified as ceramics. It is the cost. Ya get what you pay for Deb. Zirconia ceramic media is not cheap. A bit over $40 per pound. So rock tumbling stores do not sell it !! So, in my 14 pound hopper assuming 100% media for instance: 2.6 SG quartz =14 pounds 4.2 SG garnet=~24 pounds 6.0 Zirconia = 34 pounds So 34 pounds of zirconia media would cost $1360 !! Just saying, not all ceramic media created the same. Used zirconia should be cheaper. By the way, zirconia is Mohs 8. But it is the high density media that is most efficient. So that must be the answer as to why my heavy garnets are efficient. Zirconia media supplier w/pricing(Ebay may have used zirconia) : www.advancedmaterials.us/zirconia.htm
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 25, 2015 8:11:17 GMT -5
Was using glass as media. Just to compare: Specific gravity of glass is 2.6, time to break down SiC 220 in vibe was a week Specific gravity of garnet is 4.2. time to break down SiC 220 in vibe was about 12 hours
Now the low Mohs hardness of glass may have contributed to the slow breakdown.
But it looks like specific gravity has an exponential effect on grind times. Slightly increasing specific gravity of media greatly increases grind times.
That was my findings when researching ceramic media. Media rules in the vibe, not sure about the rotary, but likely.
The old timers were the ones that commonly used garnet in their tumbling recipes. Now I see why.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 25, 2015 8:22:09 GMT -5
Holy cow, 100 zirconia 5mm balls for $60 on Ebay.
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spiritstone
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Post by spiritstone on Feb 25, 2015 8:35:14 GMT -5
Always like your corrals, but that ratchet-hammer caught my eye "Wicked" I have a set of pliers-crescent wrench combo like that.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 25, 2015 9:21:13 GMT -5
Always like your corrals, but that ratchet-hammer caught my eye "Wicked" I have a set of pliers-crescent wrench combo like that. Jean and Scott were giving me a hard time about a that tool so it became my avatar for a long time. They seemed mesmerized by that thing. It was made for being used at the rock saw.
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