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Post by greig on Nov 19, 2020 14:02:30 GMT -5
I get my stuffed animals at a local hospital store (4 for $1 CDN) that sells used/donated goods. I let my dog play with them until they break (she pulls off the eyes and noses) and then dump the beads before throwing into the garbage. You don't want to move the plastic beads into your polish tumble because the coarse grits can imbed themselves into the plastic and would scratch the rocks in the stage 4 tumble.
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HuntingHuron
starting to shine!
Member since October 2020
Posts: 39
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Post by HuntingHuron on Nov 19, 2020 18:15:14 GMT -5
I get my stuffed animals at a local hospital store (4 for $1 CDN) that sells used/donated goods. I let my dog play with them until they break (she pulls off the eyes and noses) and then dump the beads before throwing into the garbage. You don't want to move the plastic beads into your polish tumble because the coarse grits can imbed themselves into the plastic and would scratch the rocks in the stage 4 tumble. Yeah I saw your video on this greig. Good tip - thanks. It's obscene what they charge on Amazon here in Canada for plastic tumbling pellets. I'm too embarrassed to even mention what I paid. I was trying to figure out if I could cut up some hard plastic into small pieces for the last two tumbling stages but wasn't sure if the media had to have that round / cylindrical shape. I've heard of those using saw dust for the polish stage but I like to recover and re-use as much of the polish as possible because it too is quite expensive. Plastic pellets are a bit of a pain, but they allow me to accomplish this.
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Post by As I in does tries! on Nov 19, 2020 21:34:39 GMT -5
Question: What is the reason behind this, is it impossible to completely clean the plastic beads to a level where they could be reused at polish stage?
Answer: Because grit can become inbedded in plastic and ruin the entire batch.
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
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Post by jamesp on Nov 20, 2020 7:12:37 GMT -5
alistair The chita jasper is rounding quickly and the rose quartz/red jasper/others are rounding slowly. Harder rocks that are slow to shape like this red jasper often make the shiniest tumbles. That chita jasper sure looks soft since it has rounded so much in 5 days. Most rocks that take a brilliant polish take a month to round them well. You will likely find the chita jasper will not take a brilliant tumble polish. Hard rocks take a long time to shape, but polish very well and very quickly. Soft rocks shape quickly but can take a long time to polish if they even take a fine polish at all. The red jasper looks like a fine hard jasper. Yes, you might want to pull the chita jasper, it is beginning to look 'well done'. 'Soon to disappear !' The aventurine, tiger eye, red jasper, agate, and rose quartz look like they need about 5 more weeks(doing a clean out every week and adding fresh coarse step 1 grit).
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alistair
off to a rocking start
Member since October 2020
Posts: 23
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Post by alistair on Nov 23, 2020 8:43:37 GMT -5
alistair The chita jasper is rounding quickly and the rose quartz/red jasper/others are rounding slowly. Harder rocks that are slow to shape like this red jasper often make the shiniest tumbles. That chita jasper sure looks soft since it has rounded so much in 5 days. Most rocks that take a brilliant polish take a month to round them well. You will likely find the chita jasper will not take a brilliant tumble polish. Hard rocks take a long time to shape, but polish very well and very quickly. Soft rocks shape quickly but can take a long time to polish if they even take a fine polish at all. The red jasper looks like a fine hard jasper. Yes, you might want to pull the chita jasper, it is beginning to look 'well done'. 'Soon to disappear !' The aventurine, tiger eye, red jasper, agate, and rose quartz look like they need about 5 more weeks(doing a clean out every week and adding fresh coarse step 1 grit). Thanks, all good advice and taken on board. Unfortunately we have hit a major setback, more to follow in my next post..........
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alistair
off to a rocking start
Member since October 2020
Posts: 23
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Post by alistair on Nov 23, 2020 9:04:58 GMT -5
After 12 days in the tumbler with Grit 2, unfortunately this happened: After 7 days of tumbling grit 2, i opened the tumbler, checked the rocks, decided they could stay longer with grit 2 as i was still waiting for plastic beads to arrive anyway, and i guess at this stage i did not screw the lid on properly, or tight enough. Either way, sometime during day 8 to day 12, the lid popped off, and it was left tumbling away in this state for what i think was several days! As we live in a flat, i have the tumbler inside a small cool box, and wrapped inside a thick blanket, and tucked away in our kitchen, this really helps reduce the noise so it is not bothersome. Unfortunately with this setup, i cant see the tumbler, only hear it, i was opening it daily to check up on it, but got to comfortably and left it for several days unchecked. I did not consciously pick up on the difference in sound being emitted from the box, though in hindsight, i should have, as it was slightly quieter the final two days before i opened it to find this mess. The cleanup was an absolute nightmare, given we are in a flat, and this stuff cannot be poured down the sink. Anyway, i was unhappy with that batch of rocks in the tumbler, so i am not too disappointed to be moving on from it. My daughter received a gift for her B.Day from her Aunt, a National Geographic Refill kit with a set of Rocks from Madagascar, so we now have this set, together with some of the rocks from the first set, tumbling away with the new 80 grit i got from Manchester Minerals. Below is a photo of what went in with the new batch (after filling the barrel, i had to remove the 2 pcs Aventurine, 1 pc Hematite, and few pcs Rose Quartz as it was overfilled). Needless to say, the lid is now screwed on tighter than a gymnasts leotard..... Most of the Rose Quartz, Red Jasper are new, with just a few small pcs from the previous batch. The Yellow, Poly Chrome Jaspers, Indigo Gabbro, Labrodite's are all new and i am quite excited to see how they might turn out. They look a lot more interesting than what we started with last time. Lets see. I plan to tumble in 80 grit for considerably longer this time around, at least two weeks, maybe more, but will be checking the rocks as the tumble progresses, then decide.
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alistair
off to a rocking start
Member since October 2020
Posts: 23
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Post by alistair on Dec 1, 2020 5:51:38 GMT -5
Below is a picture showing the new rocks after 1 week tumbling with 80 grit. I was really hoping the jaspers would have rounded more, the poly chrome jasper and the 3 larger pieces of red jasper dont seem to be rounding much at all. The agate has now had 3 weeks tumble time, and has held pretty much the same shape througout. I'm wondering if the grit i am using might not be ideal, perhaps a coarser grit is required? They are back in the tumbler now. To help try and improve the rounding of the rocks on this occasion i removed a couple small pieces of red jasper and rose quartz to make a little more space inside the barrel, and i added two tablespoons of grit this time rather than just one tablespoon, and i also added a couple handfuls of some plastic pellets. I am hoping this will help speed up the rounding process. Any advice here would be appreciated.
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electrocutus
spending too much on rocks
Member since October 2020
Posts: 331
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Post by electrocutus on Dec 1, 2020 11:54:51 GMT -5
The sample rocks that came with my Dr. Cool tumbler were very similar to the ones you got with the NG tumbler. The tumblers are actually identical and just rebranded. There were a couple of rockes I threw out right aay, but I tumbled everything else.
I got some pretty good results considering I had never done this before. I would recommend doing a 12-hour borax and water only run in between the pre-polish and polish steps. It helps making sure that the rocks and barrel are completely clean going into your polishing step.
Good Luck!
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alistair
off to a rocking start
Member since October 2020
Posts: 23
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Post by alistair on Dec 1, 2020 16:49:11 GMT -5
The sample rocks that came with my Dr. Cool tumbler were very similar to the ones you got with the NG tumbler. The tumblers are actually identical and just rebranded. There were a couple of rockes I threw out right aay, but I tumbled everything else. I got some pretty good results considering I had never done this before. I would recommend doing a 12-hour borax and water only run in between the pre-polish and polish steps. It helps making sure that the rocks and barrel are completely clean going into your polishing step. Good Luck! Thanks for the tip, I have just ordered 1kg of borax now and will use it to clean rocks before final polish. I have seen videos on YouTube where some people actually add borax together with the grit, and do so not only at the Polish stage, but with the rougher grit stages also. So the borax tumbles with the rocks for the same legnth as the grits, and also with the polish. The videos I watched the results seem to be quite good with this method. If you have any photos from that first batch of rocks you tumbled, post them up if you can as I would like to see them. How long did you tumble each stage?
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alistair
off to a rocking start
Member since October 2020
Posts: 23
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Post by alistair on Dec 2, 2020 6:07:32 GMT -5
The sample rocks that came with my Dr. Cool tumbler were very similar to the ones you got with the NG tumbler. The tumblers are actually identical and just rebranded. There were a couple of rockes I threw out right aay, but I tumbled everything else. I got some pretty good results considering I had never done this before. I would recommend doing a 12-hour borax and water only run in between the pre-polish and polish steps. It helps making sure that the rocks and barrel are completely clean going into your polishing step. Good Luck! One question on the borax when used to clean the stones between grit stages. Per 1kg of rock, how many tablespoon s of borax would be required?
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electrocutus
spending too much on rocks
Member since October 2020
Posts: 331
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Post by electrocutus on Dec 3, 2020 16:18:43 GMT -5
The sample rocks that came with my Dr. Cool tumbler were very similar to the ones you got with the NG tumbler. The tumblers are actually identical and just rebranded. There were a couple of rockes I threw out right aay, but I tumbled everything else. I got some pretty good results considering I had never done this before. I would recommend doing a 12-hour borax and water only run in between the pre-polish and polish steps. It helps making sure that the rocks and barrel are completely clean going into your polishing step. Good Luck! One question on the borax when used to clean the stones between grit stages. Per 1kg of rock, how many tablespoon s of borax would be required? I'm not sure what's the best amount. I've been experimenting. It seems that 2-3 tablespons for a 2-lb barrel works well. Borax doesn't foam like soap does so it works well.
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electrocutus
spending too much on rocks
Member since October 2020
Posts: 331
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Post by electrocutus on Dec 3, 2020 16:29:14 GMT -5
I ran the first 3 stages for 1 full week each, with an overnight borax run between each. If you want very rounded stones you'll need more than a week in the first stage. I ran the polish step for 2 weeks. I checked it after one week and it still felt that it needed more. The second week added some shine. I ran the last borax run after the polish for 2 full days. I've read that many people use grated pure soap (ivory) instead of (or in addition to) the borax, but I haven't tried that yet. Good luck!
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electrocutus
spending too much on rocks
Member since October 2020
Posts: 331
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Post by electrocutus on Dec 3, 2020 16:44:40 GMT -5
FYI - If you are impatient waiting on the mail, you can get plastic beads from a used (beanbag style) stuffed animal. Thats a good idea actually, as i am still waiting for the beads/grits/polish to arrive. They were dispatched from UK two weeks ago, taking ages. Convincing my daughters to let me rip open one of their teddy bears might not be so easy! Regarding plastic beads, i have seen people say the same beads should always be used with the same classification of grit, so if i put beads in with 220, i should not use those same beads at polishing stage with cerium oxide. What is the reason behind this, is it impossible to completely clean the plastic beads to a level where they could be reused at polish stage? I I asked the same question in a post earlier this week, and yes, the reason is that it's hard to fully clean the plastic beads and there is a chance of left over grit contaminatin the next batch. My first batch of plastic beads stayed grey no matter how much I tried to clean them out, so I won't take chances. I have a big enough bag of brand new beads.
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Post by Mel on Dec 3, 2020 22:43:47 GMT -5
Not to hijack this thread but has anyone used Aluminum Oxide Blasting Abrasive as a polishing grit. I can locally get it and would save me heap. Yep, just make sure you get a really fine size to use as a polish (8600 or higher). 1200 AO makes a good pre-polish. It can be sometimes tricky to get the higher grits but it's also sold as "alumina powder" or some variation thereof.
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Post by Mel on Dec 3, 2020 22:44:50 GMT -5
I get my stuffed animals at a local hospital store (4 for $1 CDN) that sells used/donated goods. I let my dog play with them until they break (she pulls off the eyes and noses) and then dump the beads before throwing into the garbage. You don't want to move the plastic beads into your polish tumble because the coarse grits can imbed themselves into the plastic and would scratch the rocks in the stage 4 tumble. Yeah I saw your video on this greig . Good tip - thanks. It's obscene what they charge on Amazon here in Canada for plastic tumbling pellets. I'm too embarrassed to even mention what I paid. I was trying to figure out if I could cut up some hard plastic into small pieces for the last two tumbling stages but wasn't sure if the media had to have that round / cylindrical shape. I've heard of those using saw dust for the polish stage but I like to recover and re-use as much of the polish as possible because it too is quite expensive. Plastic pellets are a bit of a pain, but they allow me to accomplish this. If you're out in Ontario, there is a lady who sells them for around $2/pound; she uses them as fill in sensory blankets for her son (I can't remember the exact site but it's easily google-able). You can also find them at injection molding shops.
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alistair
off to a rocking start
Member since October 2020
Posts: 23
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Post by alistair on Dec 4, 2020 9:06:28 GMT -5
I ran the first 3 stages for 1 full week each, with an overnight borax run between each. If you want very rounded stones you'll need more than a week in the first stage. I ran the polish step for 2 weeks. I checked it after one week and it still felt that it needed more. The second week added some shine. I ran the last borax run after the polish for 2 full days. I've read that many people use grated pure soap (ivory) instead of (or in addition to) the borax, but I haven't tried that yet. Good luck! Nice rocks, thanks for posting. I purchased 1kg of Borax, and will run it between stages. I already bought 3 bars of ivory soap, and plan to use some of it to burnish, after final polishing stage. My main aim now is to try and get the rocks rounded. I am still on stage 1, 80 grit. Tomorrow will be the end of week two tumbling. I will remove the rocks to check on progress, and change the grit, but likely stay on 80 grit for at least another week. Somehow i feel i am never going to get these rocks as rounded as i would like, not in the matter of a few weeks anyway, so i expect i will have to move them onto stage 2, 220grit, sooner than i would like, probably after end of week 3 on 80 grit, but lets see. Its not that i am impatient, this is for my 8 year daughter and i cant keep her waiting forever.
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electrocutus
spending too much on rocks
Member since October 2020
Posts: 331
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Post by electrocutus on Dec 4, 2020 14:12:06 GMT -5
Don't make them too perfect alistair otherwise your daughter will expect perfection for every batch from now on :-)
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alistair
off to a rocking start
Member since October 2020
Posts: 23
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Post by alistair on Dec 21, 2020 18:45:18 GMT -5
so i ran all rocks in 80 grit for 23 days, chaning the grit weekly. I then ran them in 220 grit for 1 week. Today i started them in 400 grit. After this pre-polish stage i will run them in cerium oxide to give them their polish, then i will burnish using ivory soap.
My questions are:
1) 400 grit - how many days should i run them? - when done here i will run a few hours in borax to clean them before the final polish stage
2) Cerium oxide - final polish, how many days should i run them ?
3) Ivory soap - is 6 hours about correct?
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Prov
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2020
Posts: 116
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Post by Prov on Dec 27, 2020 1:21:11 GMT -5
I assume you are rotary tumbling.
1) a week 2) a week 3) sounds about right.
I'm not the best on rotary tumbling, but these are generally the right guidelines. Make sure your load has the right amount of smalls and/or filler material. It would be terrible if all the time you've spent up to this point ended in a poor polish.
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alistair
off to a rocking start
Member since October 2020
Posts: 23
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Post by alistair on Dec 28, 2020 6:51:12 GMT -5
I assume you are rotary tumbling. 1) a week 2) a week 3) sounds about right. I'm not the best on rotary tumbling, but these are generally the right guidelines. Make sure your load has the right amount of smalls and/or filler material. It would be terrible if all the time you've spent up to this point ended in a poor polish. Thanks Prov, yes rotary tumbler, and i'm running exactly to those times. 80 grit = 3 weeks 220 grit = 1 week 400 grit = 1 week - borax to clean = 8 hours (currently running now) Then to polish and burnish i will run as follows: Cerium Oxide (polish) = 1 week Ivory soap = 6 hours Hopefully this will result in giving a very nice shine to the rocks.
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