rollingstone
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since July 2009
Posts: 236
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Post by rollingstone on Jun 10, 2017 0:34:50 GMT -5
It seems many standard tumbling instructions say to run things for one week in each stage, for every stage from coarse grind to final polish. I think everyone on this board knows that you really need many runs through coarse grind to end up with top-quality tumbled stones, unless perhaps if you are starting with already very well-rounded beach stones. Similarly, I find 3 weeks in the polish stage makes for much shinier tumbles than one week in polish.
But what about fine grind (120/220) and pre-polish (500 grit)? Is the final shine better if these stages are also increased by either running them longer than one week, or better yet, running each stage twice?
It's something I've never tried, and which I've assumed would make no difference. But maybe it does make a difference? Anyone tested this?
-Don
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tkvancil
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since September 2011
Posts: 1,547
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Post by tkvancil on Jun 10, 2017 8:26:20 GMT -5
When I used to rotary tumble only I ran the fine and pre-polish for two weeks each. Then the polish ran for three weeks. This was later in my tumbling "carrier". I do think it gave better results than the standard one week for each stage. Running a vibe now for finishing stages so I get done in 14 days what used to take 7 weeks...
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Post by aDave on Jun 10, 2017 12:26:45 GMT -5
I am still in the tweaking stages, so I don't have a good answer yet.
I "was" running the standard one week for stages after coarse - until my last batch. With that one, I went to a two week 500 stage with no recharge. My thinking was to take advantage of grit breakdown over that period and to try to get results that some might see when using 1000 in-between 500 and polish. In addition, I let the polish stage go for 10 days instead of my usual seven, and I used far less polish than what Lortone has in its documentation. With this run, finished results seemed to improve, and my wife noticed a difference as well.
Problem is, what caused the improvement? For me, logic would seem to dictate that it was the extended run of 500, as I have a hard time believing that three extra days in polish would make that much of a difference by itself. But, because I changed multiple factors, I can't say for sure.
I'm currently rolling a polish stage that I'm planning for two weeks instead of 10 days. I also used the two week 500 stage. I guess I'll see if there's much difference by adding a few more days in the polish stage.
Dave
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