minaflor
off to a rocking start
Member since April 2018
Posts: 7
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Post by minaflor on May 16, 2018 19:58:31 GMT -5
Does anyone have experiences with larger batches of rocks?
I'm in Brazil, starting to polish larger quantities.
Would the steps be the same for a 100kg amount?
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Post by aDave on May 16, 2018 20:54:37 GMT -5
Does anyone have experiences with larger batches of rocks? I'm in Brazil, starting to polish larger quantities. Would the steps be the same for a 100kg amount? Wait a second. 100 kg is 220 pounds. Are your numbers wrong?
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minaflor
off to a rocking start
Member since April 2018
Posts: 7
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Post by minaflor on May 17, 2018 7:25:13 GMT -5
That's exactly 220 pounds! I have already started some trials with a vibratory and the results were encouraging. I am testing with quartz, white rose and hyaline. However, I am still working on the correct abrasives.
I would like to know if someone from the forum has tried these amounts.
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Post by aDave on May 17, 2018 12:37:13 GMT -5
That's exactly 220 pounds! I have already started some trials with a vibratory and the results were encouraging. I am testing with quartz, white rose and hyaline. However, I am still working on the correct abrasives. I would like to know if someone from the forum has tried these amounts. I can't help you, but that must be one awesome vibe tumbler.
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minaflor
off to a rocking start
Member since April 2018
Posts: 7
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Post by minaflor on May 17, 2018 12:50:00 GMT -5
That's exactly 220 pounds! I have already started some trials with a vibratory and the results were encouraging. I am testing with quartz, white rose and hyaline. However, I am still working on the correct abrasives. I would like to know if someone from the forum has tried these amounts. I can't help you, but that must be one awesome vibe tumbler. It's not that big. It has approximately 36 inches of diameters, with a 1.5 hp engine
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goatgrinder
spending too much on rocks
Make mine a man cave
Member since January 2017
Posts: 368
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Post by goatgrinder on May 18, 2018 12:57:20 GMT -5
I normally would not touch this but one of my club pals tells me that for this quantity a cement mixer is the way to go. And he uses them.
All ten cents worth.
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Post by grumpybill on May 18, 2018 13:05:04 GMT -5
100 kilos would be too small for my new tumbler.
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goatgrinder
spending too much on rocks
Make mine a man cave
Member since January 2017
Posts: 368
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Post by goatgrinder on May 19, 2018 10:32:35 GMT -5
Well they do come smaller you know.
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minaflor
off to a rocking start
Member since April 2018
Posts: 7
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Post by minaflor on May 19, 2018 15:12:52 GMT -5
I normally would not touch this but one of my club pals tells me that for this quantity a cement mixer is the way to go. And he uses them. All ten cents worth. I'm doing with an industrial vibrator to polish metal parts. We have already had reasonable results in the first batch. The cycle lasted 8 days. I am using aluminum oxide, but I followed the steps of some posts here that indicated that they did not use # 80 or # 100 because they would cause excessive wear. But now I'm going to redo with # 80 and # 100 to improve the fractures of the rock surface. I'll try to upload some photos.
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,561
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Post by jamesp on May 19, 2018 15:41:12 GMT -5
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stonemaster499
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since July 2014
Posts: 97
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Post by stonemaster499 on May 21, 2018 17:52:37 GMT -5
200kg is huge here, but not so for commercial business. minaflor , there is more than enough info here to help you !! No problems with 200kg. That size is easy to manage, just added labor... YES most here tumble upto 10-20kg drums. The numbers will still apply, but you must apply common sense - for example in your case assuming everything else is equal, your times will be x % less. (since larger tumblers tend to be more efficient, more weight, more force, more more more 200kg tumbler will likely run 1.5-2x faster - total run process. (of course too many factors play into here - like size, RPM, shape..etc). good-luck. warning- If you are not in the industry, please speak to local people that are...! If you are doing this for business, I would advise 100% vibe, or rotary only for shape and little as possible. The goal is maximize your yield with salable product. This means compromising less round shape for more goods. Material and polish must be very good. Selling price will not change. 1. material 2. polish 3. shape. For example, if we made perfectly round tumbling, we would loose 3/4 of our profit. Yes some customers prefer more round. Fortunately, they are not the ones that buy. Brazil was put of tumbling business by maintaining 1970's-style manufacturing with all rotaries (some were cement mixers, the rest were wooden barrels on home made systems. Workers in Soledad were barely surviving even in 2000. The Chinese came online and its game over (with tumbling for profit). The Chinese now are all bankrupt doing this over and over. So for business be careful. You need an angle.
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minaflor
off to a rocking start
Member since April 2018
Posts: 7
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Post by minaflor on May 21, 2018 18:44:33 GMT -5
200kg is huge here, but not so for commercial business. minaflor , there is more than enough info here to help you !! No problems with 200kg. That size is easy to manage, just added labor... YES most here tumble upto 10-20kg drums. The numbers will still apply, but you must apply common sense - for example in your case assuming everything else is equal, your times will be x % less. (since larger tumblers tend to be more efficient, more weight, more force, more more more 200kg tumbler will likely run 1.5-2x faster - total run process. (of course too many factors play into here - like size, RPM, shape..etc). good-luck. warning- If you are not in the industry, please speak to local people that are...! If you are doing this for business, I would advise 100% vibe, or rotary only for shape and little as possible. The goal is maximize your yield with salable product. This means compromising less round shape for more goods. Material and polish must be very good. Selling price will not change. 1. material 2. polish 3. shape. For example, if we made perfectly round tumbling, we would loose 3/4 of our profit. Yes some customers prefer more round. Fortunately, they are not the ones that buy. Brazil was put of tumbling business by maintaining 1970's-style manufacturing with all rotaries (some were cement mixers, the rest were wooden barrels on home made systems. Workers in Soledad were barely surviving even in 2000. The Chinese came online and its game over (with tumbling for profit). The Chinese now are all bankrupt doing this over and over. So for business be careful. You need an angle. Precious information, dear. Today we produce pebbles for gardening, but it is always wasteful the way we use our stones. In my region, diggers sell very cheaply to middlemen who ship the material to Europe and China. So we thought about making better use of the material with the polish. Our rotating mill leaves the preformed pebbles in 40 minutes. Here I see that it takes many days. As for the difficulty, things are not very good here! One gallon of fuel costs about five dollars. ... but we are Brazilian and we do not give up! hahahahaha
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stonemaster499
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since July 2014
Posts: 97
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Post by stonemaster499 on May 22, 2018 12:37:56 GMT -5
not appropriate grade for tumbling. material must be nice, if you expect someone to buy it as a gemstone that is tumbled. Seller's here in the US sell Brazilian tumbling mix - med sizes good color for as a low as $1.50/ lb if you buy 500#. Problem is it cost at least $2.20 per pound to make, then it was transported + .05 /lb. Hence, $2.25 cost landed. The reseller sells at a loss (actually a loss-leader). The producer dumped inventory to stay alive. Ouch. quickest lesson for you is to get on a plane to Vitoria in 2 weeks to the big show in Brazil and see the appropriate machines..etc. There is no gemstones being tumbled in granite and marble business. typically bigger "boulders", with "quarter-ass" polishing. Please note, this business is 100x larger than all the tumble stone market for gemstones....!!!!! so its heavy volume, low-grade, low-profit, big business. Nobody polishes garden stones with any effort. Huge machines doing tons at a time. If you have nice stone for tumbling, then you can sell the raw material easily: For example selling rough USD $1/kg FOB Brazil with customers. COlored marbles, granites, quartzites, onyxs sell $50-250/ton not $1000.... i hope you see my point. If you sell >$1000 per ton, than that means you to me you have good material! My effort here will be rewarded with some pics of your material for us all see
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