lordsorril
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since April 2020
Posts: 766
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Post by lordsorril on Sept 19, 2020 14:11:40 GMT -5
Hi All,
I finished polish of my first batch of Labradorite and some of them look awesome with the chatoyant-flash, and some of them are just boring grey.
Do you know if I re-grind those grey ones if there is the possibility that they will have the 'flash' or if the structure of the material is aligned in a way that I would be wasting my time/grit?
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Post by Bob on Sept 19, 2020 15:31:48 GMT -5
Yes. I saw this done in a shop in Labrador. When doing this the person was working in front of large window and often turned around with his back to the window when assessing the angle to go for. I tried to see if he allowed sunlight to actually be upon the rock, but I couldn't be sure about that.
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Post by Bob on Sept 21, 2020 9:39:03 GMT -5
I just now realized I may have misunderstood your question and may have misled in my answer. When you say re-grind, I now realize you may have meant just putting them back in the tumbler to see what happens.
My answer wasn't necessarily applicable to that I realize now. I actually have no idea what the answer is. What I saw wasn't a person working with tumblers, but a person working in a tourist gift shop that included rocks as gifts. There was a box of rough labradorite, and the person was working in front of what I know now is called a cab machine with multiple wheels. He was quickly picking up pieces, assessing what to do with each apparently with a skilled eye. It was going rather quickly as if this material is easy to grind and polish on a wheel. I could tell he was figuring out angles to do this or that, because of the way he would hold them against the wheel and on some take off a lot and others hardly any. Whether he had already sorted them and thrown out bad ones (if there is such a thing as a bad one) or not I don't know, but he wasn't throwing any out then. I remember being amazed and how gorgeous the finished pieces were and also how cheap. It must be very plentiful in some locations.
If your question is partially "do all pieces of labradorite reveal labradorescence if the angles are worked right?" then I too am curious as to the answer. I would also like to know at what point one can decide whether to go so far as to refer to a piece as spectrolite--it's probably relative and just based on whether the amount of labradorescence is a lot compared to normal whatever normal is. A few years ago I ended up with a small piece of labradorite tumbled and polished so amazing I thought at first it might be some kind of fire opal, but was convinced that it was not by examining under a 10x. Unfortunately, I gave it away thinking there would be lots more but you know how that goes.
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lordsorril
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since April 2020
Posts: 766
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Post by lordsorril on Sept 21, 2020 9:47:08 GMT -5
I guess I will find out. I'm going to re-tumble all of my plain grey labradorite and see if any of them improve. I know they all can't be winners...
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Post by Bob on Sept 21, 2020 10:05:05 GMT -5
I've never had one that colorful!
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Post by Bob on Sept 21, 2020 11:19:21 GMT -5
I spent over a year working a large piece of it, about 4x5x1.5" It is beautiful. After 600 or 1,000 grit, it would look great and polish ready. Then, in polish, regardless of which polish I tried, EVERY SINGLE TIME it would come out looking worse than before polish. Dings and bad spots. I would go back to 220, repair it, bring it forward again and it would happen again. 3 or 4 times! It would be well-cushioned and eventually so much that I was trying only it alone in a barrel with plastic beads to make sure no other rocks could have any impact.
Got mad and gave up.
I have it set aside somewhere to eventually try someday when I go for the dry polish recipes that have been mentioned to use when I feel like bothering with those. If you do it dry with something and you have found that indeed your recipe works, please lay it on me and maybe I'll go for it.
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lordsorril
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since April 2020
Posts: 766
|
Post by lordsorril on Sept 21, 2020 13:43:09 GMT -5
I have it set aside somewhere to eventually try someday when I go for the dry polish recipes that have been mentioned to use when I feel like bothering with those. If you do it dry with something and you have found that indeed your recipe works, please lay it on me and maybe I'll go for it. Yes, I have never succeeded getting a good piece out of polish on a rotary tumbler--there always seems to be cracks that open and grit gets trapped in the final stage. Labradorite tumbles almost identical to the blue-grey feldspar I have in my area (Photo #7 from Snakes and Stones). I have lots of practice getting good pieces out of a vibe tumbler. I would like to get my hands on some larger pieces of labradorite (mine are about the size of a quarter-finished), but, I have been spending my rock budget on other materials...
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Post by Bob on Sept 21, 2020 14:01:30 GMT -5
That one large piece I had had a rather large part of that black cruddy stuff between the feldspar, so that didn't help I'm sure. The largest and best rock shop I've so far been to is in Canon City, CO. The portions are large and the prices are very fair. They have a small mining car full of this. Last summer, being a glutton for punishment, I got another piece after really going over what they had. This one is grapefruit size and more round than flat. Next year, I'll have worked up the courage to try again. But after pre-polish I'll ask this forum for help on some dry methods. Don't want to get into vibes at all.
Man those feldspars--I've ground a lot down to nothing trying to end up with something that satisfies me. I got a large piece of common salmon-color oligoclase in Royal Gorge a year ago, and it probably weighed 5-6 lbs. Now it's probably down to 2, and still has problems. I do think I found one piece of silvery orthoclase recently about the shape and size of an egg. Am giving it a try.
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