jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jul 6, 2015 8:58:31 GMT -5
Been running granite and rose quartz with thick clay slurry in rotary for almost 3 weeks. Thinking about adding polish without clean out. Too keep the thick protective slurry. Been maintaining the thick slurry by pouring some off and adding water when too thick. captbob ? I know you did a long slow rotary batch w/obsidian. I added my clay to all stages. Thinking the clay has broken down after 3 weeks in 500. Afraid to add fresh clay because of sharp sand particles, so was thinking to just add polish to existing 500 slurry and let her go for a long roll. Opinion ?
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Post by orrum on Jul 6, 2015 9:31:14 GMT -5
Go for it James! I would think the 500 is now at 1000 or smaller most likely. Is it AO or SC? I use 500 SC in the vibe because it seems to break down and keep grinding scratches smaller and smaller. AO 500 seems to reach a point b and not progress. Tony fills huge rotary tumbler with 60 90 and let's in roll the rocks for months and then cleans out and goes straight to polish in a vibe. Wow what wonderful smooth shiny rocks he gets!
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Post by captbob on Jul 6, 2015 9:49:49 GMT -5
I often forgo a clean out and add the next step grit to a long run cycle where the present grit has had excessive time to breakdown. I will add 500 to a worn out 320 or even long run 220, or Tripoli (700-800 grit/prepolish) to 500. Have even gone with adding 1000 to 500.
What I haven't tried is adding polish to a worn down grit. So I just don't know if that will work. I don't doubt that there will be some polishing if this is done. Just not so sure that it would be the quality of polish alone. Thinking that the residual grit will impede the polish to some unknown degree.
BUT, that wouldn't keep me from trying it. Sounds like an experiment right up your alley James! You don't know what you don't know - until you try it.
Right now, I am running a Stone Canyon jasper batch and will use NOTHING except 60/90 (or 80 when my 60/90 runs out) from start to finish. I want to see if it can be done. It will be a few more months before I have results. What I end up with may probably still need to be polished, but I want to see how close I can come to regularly tumbled and polished rocks by simply allowing coarse grit to run extended amounts of time and without using polish.
- - I'm bored with just tumbling rocks, so figured I'd try this before shutting the tumblers down until they call to me again. May do a Rio batch first, but even that prospect isn't exciting me as I hoped it would.
In your case, I would run that 500 to death before adding polish and see what you get. If the load is large enough, maybe you can pull a few pieces out (keep 'em in water) and then run these culled pieces in a future proper polish load and then compare the 500/polish to the polish only rocks to see how much difference there actually is.
Experimenting is fun (also fun to watch others do) and what do you have to lose?
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jul 6, 2015 11:54:39 GMT -5
Dito ditto your thoughts captbob. Thanks for the opinion. May add more polish(a second dose) after 3 weeks.... The residual worries me too. Looking forward to your long 60/90 run. I have run 500 AO( orrum it is AO) for 3-4 weeks and switched to polish after clean-out and had a great polish in 3-4 days(i.e. fast). Liking the thick clay slurry, got zero frost specs on the sharp edges of the rose quartz. But concerned about natural abrasives in the clay.
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Post by captbob on Jul 6, 2015 12:10:48 GMT -5
You finishing in the rotary? Why not use your slurry in an instant sugar solution?
Rose quartz was my first tumble - as I had over a 55 gal barrel of it. It was a super easy tumble. I can take pieces out in the sun and read magazine print in the reflection. Kinda boring though unless pink is your favorite color I guess. Don't care for the internal fractures.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jul 6, 2015 14:50:14 GMT -5
You finishing in the rotary? Why not use your slurry in an instant sugar solution? Rose quartz was my first tumble - as I had over a 55 gal barrel of it. It was a super easy tumble. I can take pieces out in the sun and read magazine print in the reflection. Kinda boring though unless pink is your favorite color I guess. Don't care for the internal fractures. Yes. In the rotary. Thought about sugar. But like the reliability of the clay. It is slow to change thickness. Plus the sugar gets hot and losses thickness in the afternoon on these dog days. The old Hogg Mine at Lagrange GA yields plenty of fracture free tumbles around 1 inch squarish size. Used to yield 2 inch squares/rectangles. Seems picked over for those. It is a soft pink but has radiance that is hard to describe. Hogg Mine'e gravel roads used to be paved with 1-2 inch chunks of rose quartz. it is a unique massive vein. The military mined giant but highly fractured aquamarine(beryl) crystals there to make beryllium for canon linings. The rose quartz was the pegmatite for the beryl crystals. The whole area around the mine for several mines has lots of quartz crystals.
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Post by orrum on Jul 6, 2015 15:58:30 GMT -5
Hey James how hot does it get in your tumbling greenhouse now?
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riverrock
fully equipped rock polisher
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Post by riverrock on Jul 6, 2015 16:41:57 GMT -5
I remember a post from biker Randy. , he said he used to add polish in a 500 or 1000 stage. I do it some times my self in the vib. Even in the borax stage not a lot but a do add it every so offen .
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Post by captbob on Jul 6, 2015 17:09:34 GMT -5
I recall that as well riverrock, but he did so as a pre-polish I believe and still ran a normal polish stage.
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Post by orrum on Jul 6, 2015 17:48:05 GMT -5
I used to add polish in the 1000 stage, 1/4 teaspoon per Biker Randy. Now I follow Chuck and completely skip the 1000. Marginal rocks get worse in 1000. Best off two days in 500 and then a day and a half or 2 in polish with my Loto.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jul 6, 2015 19:01:27 GMT -5
I remember a post from biker Randy. , he said he used to add polish in a 500 or 1000 stage. I do it some times my self in the vib. Even in the borax stage not a lot but a do add it every so offen . Thanks riverrock
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jul 6, 2015 19:02:52 GMT -5
Hey James how hot does it get in your tumbling greenhouse now? 110-120F Bill. every bit of it.
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Post by orrum on Jul 6, 2015 20:23:52 GMT -5
Toasty n humid. Clean them sweat pores out pardner!!!
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jul 6, 2015 20:47:15 GMT -5
Toasty n humid. Clean them sweat pores out pardner!!! Walk out to 95F and it feels like AC. Greenhouses hot, add high humidity. No longer than 30 minutes.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jul 26, 2015 8:52:25 GMT -5
OK, starting to get a shine finally at the AO 1000. rotary. 35% white granite pea gravel filler
3 weeks AO 500 with thick clay slurry 3 weeks AO 1000 added with same thick clay slurry and used AO 500. No clean out.
So the AO 1000 was simply added to the clay and 3 week old AO 500. Only after 3 weeks is the AO 1000 starting to show a shine. Checked them at 2 weeks and there was no shine whatsoever. So shine improved from week 2 to week 3, a good thing.
Will add AO 14,000 polish today, yet again with no clean out.
List of rocks being tumbled: Rose quartz Dallasite Impactite Rhyolite Pink felspar Labradolite Amazonite White granite Pink granite Gneiss Conglomerate with lots of hematite
Experienced under cutting in the granite and the conglomerate starting at AO 500. It is the best shine so far with these Mohs 6ish rocks at 1000 so far. Hoping the 14,000 will put the nice shine on them. Consistency of clay slurry about like gear oil, pretty darn thick.
Shiniest rocks are #1 a few test agates, #2 rose quartz #3 quartz rich gneiss The felspars are less shiny by a fair margin. Hardest rocks often steal the shine, may end up being the case.
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tkvancil
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Post by tkvancil on Jul 28, 2015 8:42:38 GMT -5
Glad to see an update on this. Was curious on how it was going ....
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Post by captbob on Jul 28, 2015 9:09:19 GMT -5
Several of those rock types ought to show scratches well. Did you take the time to examine any of them closely?
Asking because I'm curious on how well that clay breaks down. There just has to be particles in that clay that are much coarser than 500 grit. Figure that given time anything will break down to finer, but what is your guess on the worse case at which the clay started? You figure that anything that may be in the clay is "softer" than SiC or AO so it will break down faster than the grit?
Still thinkin' you will get some polish without a clean out. Looking forward to seeing how well this works.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jul 29, 2015 6:24:19 GMT -5
Several of those rock types ought to show scratches well. Did you take the time to examine any of them closely? Asking because I'm curious on how well that clay breaks down. There just has to be particles in that clay that are much coarser than 500 grit. Figure that given time anything will break down to finer, but what is your guess on the worse case at which the clay started? You figure that anything that may be in the clay is "softer" than SiC or AO so it will break down faster than the grit? Still thinkin' you will get some polish without a clean out. Looking forward to seeing how well this works. "You figure that anything that may be in the clay is "softer" than SiC or AO so it will break down faster than the grit?" Yes, Bob, however lots of the local clay is rich in AO. But no idea of what particle size it is. Certainly some quartz sand, assuming it will be smooth too and hopefully harmless. No doubt there is a low grade polish from the AO 1000. Thought about letting it roll for a week or two longer... If the 14,000 does not put the shine on them, may redo them with AO 1000-thoughts ? Two things 1) Once the clay was wetted to the proper thick consistency a few days into the AO 500 it has stayed at that consistency for 6 weeks. Nice Added small amounts of water about every two weeks. So very low maintenance tumble. 2) These softer rocks were as well rounded in one month in coarse as 3 months for agate in coarse. So you do save time in coarse grind. Yes, I pulled some with low polish out just before adding AO 14,000. The granite had variable polishes, felspar spots less polished, quartz more polished. The conglomerate, hematite more polished, felspar ?? less polished. The conglomerate is complicated, from snowmom's turf. Some of the gneiss had bands, looked like some of the bands had a better polish than other bands. The gneiss is darn hard, more like rose quartz than felspar. The gneiss looks like granite, so it is an opportunity to cheat and claim a that it is granite with a polish and no under cutting. The aggravating part was finding the best polish on the 6-7 pieces of agate in the batch. And the rose quartz had the best polish. Maybe there is scratches, if so, very fine ones. If a good polish starts, scratches will surely become more apparent. If I feel the rose quartz and gneiss is stealing the polish i will remove them once polished and add some softer glass filler to replace their volume.
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Post by johnjsgems on Jul 30, 2015 19:17:42 GMT -5
Since you are finding the AO breaks down to a polish it would be interesting to just let it roll without adding 14K. I'm guessing it would eventually work if the AO continues to break down. I doubt it would be faster than running a regular polish stage though.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jul 30, 2015 20:00:42 GMT -5
Since you are finding the AO breaks down to a polish it would be interesting to just let it roll without adding 14K. I'm guessing it would eventually work if the AO continues to break down. I doubt it would be faster than running a regular polish stage though. I was tempted to ley it roll w/out 14K. Odd, they seemed to loose some shine after 3 days in 14K. Must be my imagination.
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