bills
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since March 2016
Posts: 93
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Post by bills on Apr 25, 2016 21:02:54 GMT -5
I have been having problems getting a good gloss in my finish tumble. I asked a member of my club who gets a great result, " How do you do it" I asked? He told me he only does a ruff grind in his converted cement mixer than he uses baking soda. Well I cleaned out the 1200 polish in my 18# vibe and tried it 12 hrs. later well you can see the results. @ $ 3.69 for 5 lbs. it is cheap enough. He said to add 10% of the total weight of the rocks. It works believe me. IMG_20160425_184104571 by Bills stuff, on Flickr
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bills
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since March 2016
Posts: 93
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Post by bills on Apr 25, 2016 21:04:45 GMT -5
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Post by spiceman on Apr 25, 2016 21:43:53 GMT -5
They look good, I will give it a try. Just baking soda and water at 10percent of the weight, it's worth a try. Thank you
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Post by vegasjames on Apr 25, 2016 21:52:17 GMT -5
Very interesting and looks great. I have not played with tumbling much so wondering to what grit you are going before using the baking soda?
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bills
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since March 2016
Posts: 93
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Post by bills on Apr 25, 2016 22:16:49 GMT -5
I was at the 1200 grit for 48 hrs. no joy. Used the baking soda, Cleaned out the tumbler and added about 4.0 oz of soda. I than sprayed a few mists of water and let it work for a few hours. than I added another 4 oz. and gave it a mist of water until it was moving again. been running ever since,at 12 hrs I pulled some examples ( the example photos ) we will check back soon. bill
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Post by vegasjames on Apr 25, 2016 23:14:31 GMT -5
I was at the 1200 grit for 48 hrs. no joy. Used the baking soda, Cleaned out the tumbler and added about 4.0 oz of soda. I than sprayed a few mists of water and let it work for a few hours. than I added another 4 oz. and gave it a mist of water until it was moving again. been running ever since,at 12 hrs I pulled some examples ( the example photos ) we will check back soon. bill Thanks.
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Fossilman
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2009
Posts: 20,711
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Post by Fossilman on Apr 26, 2016 9:20:37 GMT -5
Great idea.........Liking the shine!
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Post by Rockoonz on Apr 26, 2016 12:50:12 GMT -5
In a rotary or vibe unit?
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peachfront
fully equipped rock polisher
Stones have begun to speak, because an ear is there to hear them.
Member since August 2010
Posts: 1,745
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Post by peachfront on Apr 26, 2016 13:00:33 GMT -5
He says vibe. I'm tempted to test it in my rotary since I have a polish barrel free at the moment. What do you think?
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bills
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since March 2016
Posts: 93
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Post by bills on Apr 26, 2016 13:20:02 GMT -5
Go for it works in a rotary as well bill
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Post by Rockoonz on Apr 26, 2016 23:18:26 GMT -5
Good, been having poor results in the lot-o vibe.
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,562
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Post by jamesp on Apr 27, 2016 6:11:02 GMT -5
Must try, thanks for the heads up. It is a salt.
Baking soda:
Naturally occurring deposits of nahcolite (NaHCO3) are found in the Eocene-age (55.8–33.9 Mya) Green River Formation, Piceance Basin in Colorado. Nahcolite was deposited as beds during periods of high evaporation in the basin. It is commercially mined using common underground mining techniques such as Bore, Drum, and longwall mining in a fashion very similar to coal mining.
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wades
starting to spend too much on rocks
Gottfried Reiche (1667-1734)
Member since February 2006
Posts: 202
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Post by wades on Apr 27, 2016 8:39:50 GMT -5
Once upon a time, years ago, there was a brief craze for polishing with just borax. But it must not have worked as well as tin/aluminum/titanium oxides, because people seem not to have stuck with it.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Member since January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2016 9:05:28 GMT -5
Why would a very soft salt do anything to the surface of much harder stones. I should add that 1200 is not polish. It's prepolish at best. Unless you are jamesp then 500 AO in his vibe is polish. Lmfao
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Post by deb193redux on Apr 27, 2016 9:32:21 GMT -5
you are doing some kind of burnish. the soda may be acting as a thickening agent, or some kind of water conditioner. with a MOHS of 2.4 is CANNOT be an abrasive.
IF you are taking rocks through course for shape and then 1200 for surface conditioning, a burnish could start to bring out polish. Sometime at 1200 on the flat lap I start to see a shine on surfaces.
Just best to calla burnish a burnish and a polish a polish so as not to confuse the science of tumbling
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,562
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Post by jamesp on Apr 27, 2016 9:34:18 GMT -5
Why would a very soft salt do anything to the surface of much harder stones. I should add that 1200 is not polish. It's prepolish at best. Unless you are jamesp then 500 AO in his vibe is polish. Lmfao Good point. Yes, a great polish can easily be achieved in a vibe with aluminum oxide 500-1000-1200 since AO breaks down so well to polish. Drummond Island Chuck will attest. And as wades mentioned Borax was/is used. I still do a 12-24 hour Borax run after the AO 500 polish run. No doubt it lays a very high luster down. Favorite vibe step. Asking what the mechanism of this luster, rocks of similar hardness can polish each other given the proper lubricant or conditions. They can scratch each other, therefore they can polish each other. Case in point, old school guy used to polish soft malachite slabs to jet wet shine with a floor buffer/high speed lap charged with malachite dust in a dry operation.
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Post by Rockoonz on Apr 27, 2016 10:02:32 GMT -5
Thanks, Daniel, totally makes sense. Might be interesting to try it as a replacement for borax. The other thought I just had is if it's not abrasive how does soda blasting work on rust?
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Post by Drummond Island Rocks on Apr 27, 2016 17:04:37 GMT -5
There are at least a dozen folks on here posting top notch loto tumbles on a regular basis. Most of us are using very similar recipes and run times. There are no tricks required to obtain a superior polish in the loto. 24-48 hours in 120/220, 48 hours in 500 AO, 48 hours in 1000 AO (pre-polish) then 48 hours in standard A/O polish from the rockshed works every time without fail. One pound of really good A/O polish for $4.75 will last a full year even if you run a batch of rocks every week. I just did this weeks 500 loto clean out 10 minutes ago and snapped these photos. I'll post again next week with the finished product. Straight out of 500 rinsed, dried no burnish at all. Chuck
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Post by Drummond Island Rocks on Apr 27, 2016 19:52:11 GMT -5
Are you starting in a rotary for stage one or just using the loto? If you are just using the loto and not getting out all the pits and imperfections in stage one then trapped grits can be an enemy to getting a good polish.
Chuck
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Post by Rockoonz on Apr 28, 2016 22:25:15 GMT -5
We use it for earrings made from thin slabs. We preform them with saw and grinder and add plenty of non flat filler but only the edges get a good polish. In our UV10 vibe units they get a mirror polish, but it takes a lot of preforms to make 10 lbs.
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