Post by Enigman on Oct 5, 2015 20:02:34 GMT -5
I would like to know what everyone's experience has been with tumbling India Sunstone.
I have a batch that started out as 2 pounds of rough sunstone. The final weight after two months of multi-stage tumbling is 1 pound 1 ounce, almost HALF the original weigh. The tumbler was a Lortone QT66 with the stones running in a 6 pound barrel. Here is what they look like after the final polish stage:
It doesn't show in the photo, but about half the surface area of each stone is glossy with a lot of grain visable, so it is not glossy like jasper gets glossy, but it flashes in the light and the orange parts are really nice. The rest of the surface, primarily the white quartz is as rough as it has always been.
I have found that this stone is very mixed in density. The iridescent orange is hard and tends to shape and polish up okay. In between is a very granular quartz almost like druze. There are black inclusions (don't know what it is) and the white crystal is even softer around the black material, so as a result, the black ends up standing out in a groove of eroded clear quartz. Each stage of grit is able to shape the overall stone easily, but the granular material keeps crumbling out faster than the harder material grinds down. So even though the stone rounds and shapes, the granular material erodes faster and the stones always have rough grooves while the rest is polished.
I don't see any point in running these stones again. I am sure the result would be the same and I would end up with 8 ounces of stone afterward.
THE BIG QUESTION:
Has anyone tumbled sunstone with better results? If so is there some trick to getting it to polish evenly?
I have had pieces of sunstone before that I bought in a tumbled pendant shape that had a consistent gloss surface, so this should be possible, although they did have obviously soft areas that tended to wear away easily.
So maybe this is just up to the batch of rough you get?
Any info would be appreciated.
I have a batch that started out as 2 pounds of rough sunstone. The final weight after two months of multi-stage tumbling is 1 pound 1 ounce, almost HALF the original weigh. The tumbler was a Lortone QT66 with the stones running in a 6 pound barrel. Here is what they look like after the final polish stage:
It doesn't show in the photo, but about half the surface area of each stone is glossy with a lot of grain visable, so it is not glossy like jasper gets glossy, but it flashes in the light and the orange parts are really nice. The rest of the surface, primarily the white quartz is as rough as it has always been.
I have found that this stone is very mixed in density. The iridescent orange is hard and tends to shape and polish up okay. In between is a very granular quartz almost like druze. There are black inclusions (don't know what it is) and the white crystal is even softer around the black material, so as a result, the black ends up standing out in a groove of eroded clear quartz. Each stage of grit is able to shape the overall stone easily, but the granular material keeps crumbling out faster than the harder material grinds down. So even though the stone rounds and shapes, the granular material erodes faster and the stones always have rough grooves while the rest is polished.
I don't see any point in running these stones again. I am sure the result would be the same and I would end up with 8 ounces of stone afterward.
THE BIG QUESTION:
Has anyone tumbled sunstone with better results? If so is there some trick to getting it to polish evenly?
I have had pieces of sunstone before that I bought in a tumbled pendant shape that had a consistent gloss surface, so this should be possible, although they did have obviously soft areas that tended to wear away easily.
So maybe this is just up to the batch of rough you get?
Any info would be appreciated.