ndwaynep
starting to shine!
Member since March 2022
Posts: 28
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Post by ndwaynep on Apr 3, 2022 9:49:47 GMT -5
The photo I placed above is way larger than I would have liked. The original resolution is 750 x 625. I will start scaling them down to half of that. I put my tumbler on the floor under my kitchen table on a washcloth. The room is carpeted. This really absorbs the sound. About the marble chips. I can store them in sets based on the grit size I used. All that would really need to be done is to let them dry first. No rinse required. What type of container? Plastic grocery bags would be as good as anything as long as they are marked. It will be a while before I am ready for 500 grit. Something tells me I need to go back to ceramic pellets for 500 and 1,000. Opinions.
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ndwaynep
starting to shine!
Member since March 2022
Posts: 28
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Post by ndwaynep on Apr 3, 2022 12:22:16 GMT -5
I noticed my tumbler was running a lot quieter than two days ago, so I decided to check it. All the marble chips were half the size they originally were and very smooth. I checked the harness of marble on the web. Moh's scale is 2-3. This is like limestone. So, I took them out and replaced them with larger ones. I was wondering about 500 grit down the road. What I removed should be excellent for that. What I was wanting was around 7 on the Moh's scale, but I don't know what that would be.
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ndwaynep
starting to shine!
Member since March 2022
Posts: 28
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Post by ndwaynep on Apr 7, 2022 17:41:07 GMT -5
I am on day five of the 120/220 grind. I checked it this morning. The rock is really smooth. Once I stop it and let it sit for a short time, any remaining grit will drop to the bottom of the barrel. In this case, I cannot feel anything. I don't think there is anything left, but I will run it until Saturday then go to 500. The 500 grit I have is dark gray, not white. I have 1,000 grit Aluminum Oxide to use in the last step. It is white. Just in case anyone was to ask, I used 3 1/2 tbsp of 120/220. I years past, I have thrown out a lot of grit. I don't like doing that. Back in those days, I used 7 tbsp of grit, maybe 8. I was going by the Lortone manual. I have a nice black rock here on my desk which I believe has been through a 120/220 process. It has a little shine. The big pebble has no shine yet. Perhaps, I need to dump everything and repeat the 120/220 step again.
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ndwaynep
starting to shine!
Member since March 2022
Posts: 28
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Post by ndwaynep on Apr 13, 2022 12:14:29 GMT -5
I am on day five of my 500 grit run. I checked the rocks yesterday. They are extremely smooth and also quite dull. If I have made a mistake somewhere, I don't know what it may be.
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nursetumbler
Cave Dweller
Member since February 2022
Posts: 928
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Post by nursetumbler on Apr 13, 2022 17:25:07 GMT -5
I am on day five of my 500 grit run. I checked the rocks yesterday. They are extremely smooth and also quite dull. If I have made a mistake somewhere, I don't know what it may be. ndwaynepWhen I started I was told be patient. If it doesn't look the way you like it keep it in the same grit until you like it then move on. I have been tumbling pink quartz for 5 weeks now, 2 in 60/90 3 in 120/220. I am going to get them washed up tonight and get them on their way into prepolish. I think you might want to reach out to Jugglerguy and see what he recommends or any other higher starred member. I think yout pre polish should be the 1000 and polish even finer but I am not sure 🤔
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Post by Jugglerguy on Apr 14, 2022 8:37:22 GMT -5
I also think that your rock is granite. As stefan said, it will undercut in the dark areas. There's no way that I know of to prevent that. It will get worse as you use finer and finer grits. The grits I use are 46/70 silicon carbide, then either 120/220 or straight 220 silicon carbide, then 500 aluminum oxide and finally aluminum oxide polish. Make sure your polish is really fine, like 2 micron or so. I get mine from the Rock Shed. Some companies sell 1200 grit as polish, but that's not fine enough. I don't do a 1000 stage. I always use ceramic media rather than pebbles. It sounds like you might have added fresh pebbles in a later stage. If they're bought pebbles, they could scratch your rocks. If I was adding pebbles, I'd start them with the rocks in the first stage and move them right along with the rocks. In a rotary tumbler, I don't see much of a shine after 10 days in 500 aluminum oxide. In a vibratory tumbler that I use much more often, they come out of 500 very shiny. Even though they don't come out of a rotary with a shine after 500, they still shine up after the polish stage is done. I run polish for 2 weeks normally, but that will probably add to the undercutting in your granite.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Apr 14, 2022 8:38:43 GMT -5
I am on day five of my 500 grit run. I checked the rocks yesterday. They are extremely smooth and also quite dull. If I have made a mistake somewhere, I don't know what it may be. ndwaynepWhen I started I was told be patient. If it doesn't look the way you like it keep it in the same grit until you like it then move on. I have been tumbling pink quartz for 5 weeks now, 2 in 60/90 3 in 120/220. I am going to get them washed up tonight and get them on their way into prepolish. I think you might want to reach out to Jugglerguy and see what he recommends or any other higher starred member. I think yout pre polish should be the 1000 and polish even finer but I am not sure 🤔 I run the first stage until they're the way I like them. I never expect the second stage to take care of something that I didn't get out in the first stage. I never run the second stage more than once.
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ndwaynep
starting to shine!
Member since March 2022
Posts: 28
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Post by ndwaynep on Apr 14, 2022 10:40:47 GMT -5
I also think that your rock is granite. As stefan said, it will undercut in the dark areas. There's no way that I know of to prevent that. It will get worse as you use finer and finer grits. The grits I use are 46/70 silicon carbide, then either 120/220 or straight 220 silicon carbide, then 500 aluminum oxide and finally aluminum oxide polish. Make sure your polish is really fine, like 2 micron or so. I get mine from the Rock Shed. Some companies sell 1200 grit as polish, but that's not fine enough. I don't do a 1000 stage. I always use ceramic media rather than pebbles. It sounds like you might have added fresh pebbles in a later stage. If they're bought pebbles, they could scratch your rocks. If I was adding pebbles, I'd start them with the rocks in the first stage and move them right along with the rocks. In a rotary tumbler, I don't see much of a shine after 10 days in 500 aluminum oxide. In a vibratory tumbler that I use much more often, they come out of 500 very shiny. Even though they don't come out of a rotary with a shine after 500, they still shine up after the polish stage is done. I run polish for 2 weeks normally, but that will probably add to the undercutting in your granite. Thank you all for your replies. Most kind. I started this regrind on March 10th. As someone stated, this takes patience and I have that. As a general rule with anything really rough, I start with 46/70 silicon grit. It not, then I use 60/90. Silicon again. The 500 I have is SiC, not AlO2. Whether this would make any difference or not, I don't know. I would not think so. The longest stretch I have had was with 120/220 SiC. I am keeping a written record of what I start and when. If I didn't take notes, I wouldn't be able to track it. I usually check progress every four days. Another reason is to check the seal of the inner lid. There is some seepage, but not much, so far. The outer lid is very slightly out-of-round. I use a fingernail to see if it is seated properly when I put it on. It usually takes a little extra effort in a few places. It's always been this way. I have never dropped it or otherwise damaged it. When I checked it yesterday, I couldn't "feel" any grit in the bottom of the barrel. This may not be possible with 500 because it's so fine. I added another 4 tbsp. I began the 500 grind on April 8. I have no problem with it taking considerably longer. The marble chips I bought turned out to be limestone. A vinegar test indicated so. I think I only used these in the 60/90 run. They wore down really fast. After this, I went back to ceramic pellets only. About the water: I may be using too much. They slurry is always quite thin. I follow what is in the Lortone manual, but that may not be correct for what I am running now. I have read about folks here using Metamucil to thicken their slurry. Back in February, I also thought my mix was too thin, so I stopped the process and let the barrel sit upright about 12 hours. The more dense material settled to the bottom and I poured off about a third of the water. Whether this actually helped any, I do not recall.
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dshanpnw
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since December 2020
Posts: 884
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Post by dshanpnw on Apr 14, 2022 11:23:09 GMT -5
Hello ndwaynep, glad you got cloudinary working. I used to try tumbling granite like this because it had a lot of pink in it, but it never turned out that well. Good question about the power going out and having to restart the tumbler. Just like everyone says, give it a shake and start it again. I like to turn the barrel lengthwise top to bottom a few times. Thanks for posting.
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ndwaynep
starting to shine!
Member since March 2022
Posts: 28
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Post by ndwaynep on Apr 14, 2022 13:10:20 GMT -5
There is an old saying about learning something new every day. Well, I just did. To date, I have gotten everything I have from The Rock Shed. So, I went there a short time ago to browse. I had always thought 1,000 grit was the end-of-the-line. Not so. They have something they grade at 8,000. AlO2, I think it was. I am low on some of my course grits and knew I would have to reorder soon. It looks like 8,000 will be an addition. There is no rush. It may be early June before I need anything more.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Apr 14, 2022 22:06:42 GMT -5
There is an old saying about learning something new every day. Well, I just did. To date, I have gotten everything I have from The Rock Shed. So, I went there a short time ago to browse. I had always thought 1,000 grit was the end-of-the-line. Not so. They have something they grade at 8,000. AlO2, I think it was. I am low on some of my course grits and knew I would have to reorder soon. It looks like 8,000 will be an addition. There is no rush. It may be early June before I need anything more. That’s new. I didn’t know they were labeling their polish as 8,000 grit now. I knew it was 2 micron, but I thought it was actually higher than 8,000 grit. Either way, that’s the polish you want. As for silicon carbide or aluminum oxide not making a difference, I think you should watch one of my videos. I tumbled two barrels of rocks for a year, one in silicon carbide and the other in aluminum oxide. I found the results very educational.
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ndwaynep
starting to shine!
Member since March 2022
Posts: 28
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Post by ndwaynep on Apr 15, 2022 11:08:00 GMT -5
There is an old saying about learning something new every day. Well, I just did. To date, I have gotten everything I have from The Rock Shed. So, I went there a short time ago to browse. I had always thought 1,000 grit was the end-of-the-line. Not so. They have something they grade at 8,000. AlO2, I think it was. I am low on some of my course grits and knew I would have to reorder soon. It looks like 8,000 will be an addition. There is no rush. It may be early June before I need anything more. That’s new. I didn’t know they were labeling their polish as 8,000 grit now. I knew it was 2 micron, but I thought it was actually higher than 8,000 grit. Either way, that’s the polish you want. As for silicon carbide or aluminum oxide not making a difference, I think you should watch one of my videos. I tumbled two barrels of rocks for a year, one in silicon carbide and the other in aluminum oxide. I found the results very educational. You're the same fellow I chatted with on YouTube a few times. After watching your video above, I understand why the rocks in my 500 grit step are dull. Silicon Carbide. As I wrote, I don't have much 500 left, so when I recorder, I plan to switch it to Aluminum Oxide. I may end up keeping some of both types. I am on Day 7 of the 500 grind. I will check it in the next day or two to see how it looks inside. I might let it run for several days beyond that. I have had the barrel on my tumbler pull in on the bottom also. It seems to me like it would take some sort of vacuum to do that. I don't use regular tap water. I use purified water. The odor of the tap water here is rather remarkable. It's like Clorox bleach and burns my eyes. My cat drinks it, but I don't see how.
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ndwaynep
starting to shine!
Member since March 2022
Posts: 28
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Post by ndwaynep on Apr 16, 2022 12:58:31 GMT -5
I had to fight Cloudinary to get this in here. The link in the upper-right corner doesn't seem to do anything. I had to go to their site, and tell it I forgot my password, which I had written down in a little notebook, so it was correct, but Cloudinary refused to accept it. I hope I don't have to do all this every time! When I registered, it gave me a 9-character sequence which I also wrote down. What it is for, I haven't a clue. Above are the results of the 500 SiC run. Both are extremely smooth, almost like silk. Next up will be the 1,000 AlO2. I had to discard more pellets. Basically, the very small ones which stuck to the inside of the barrel when I dumped it. I have more new ones. I plan to run the AlO2 for a while. A week to 10 days, maybe longer. Note: I don't know what the black rock consists of. It is fairly heavy for its size.
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ndwaynep
starting to shine!
Member since March 2022
Posts: 28
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Post by ndwaynep on Apr 20, 2022 18:47:42 GMT -5
This is Day 4 of my AlO2 1,000 grit grind. I decided to do a check. I was surprised to find foam in the barrel when I opened it. It was like gray shaving cream. I had to feel around for the black rock and noticed the pellets were warm. There must be a little friction going on. The two rocks are actually getting shiny again. Progress!
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ndwaynep
starting to shine!
Member since March 2022
Posts: 28
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Post by ndwaynep on Apr 24, 2022 11:30:06 GMT -5
This is eight days into my 1,000 grit AlO2 step. Definite progress. I plan to let it continue for another week, at least.
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