nursetumbler
Cave Dweller
Member since February 2022
Posts: 928
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Tigers eye
Mar 28, 2022 17:20:00 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by nursetumbler on Mar 28, 2022 17:20:00 GMT -5
I know they are all gouged up (thank you blue looking one)... Since you put your photos up, I'm going to presume that you're looking for some observations/opinions/advice...
First off, despite some of the flaws, great job on your tumble! I've personally found that while it's really cool to look at, tiger's eye seems be a bit of a PITA to work with.
A thing that sticks out, is there's not a lot of size variety in your batch. One of the things that I've had banged into me is that size matters - as in variety of sizes. Lately, my barrel usually has everything from minuscule pieces to rocks up to 'hey-maybe-this-is-too-big'. I even bought a couple of pounds of what was labeled as "small" rough to have a good size assortment. (LOL I even had the seller DM me that the small rough really wasn't big enough to tumble by itself. After telling him what it was for, he said that it was perfect for that, and that I might also end up with some interesting little pieces.)
Also, what else was in the barrel with those stones? I know that you've been part of some threads about media; what are you using? Personally, I've used plastic pellets at each step with some successes over the past 8 months or so. I'm now switching over to ceramic in everything but the beginning 60/90 and final AO polish. FWIW, I've been throwing some of this (marble?) gravel that I bought from Dollar Tree in with my 60/90 steps along with the plastic.
I think because tiger's eye is crystalline in structure, there's going to be a tendency to fracture and bruise. Sadly, I don't really have an answer to that. Some on here have mentioned better "cushioning". One thing that I'm going to try now that I have some extra capacity, is reusing some of my stage-specific sledge. I'm hoping that with stones that might be a bit more fragile, making the slurry thicker from the very beginning might reduce the damage at each stage; I doubt it will hurt.
Lastly, I will admit that I have used a Dremel and a die grinder with diamond grinding wheels to take off some spots that might have caused some problems. (For instance, knowing what I know now, I probably would've preshaped that stone in the upper right corner of your first picture before even throwing it in a 60/90 stage.)
Okay, now for the disclaimer: As you know, we are both newbs. So, you should take what I say with a BIG grain of salt. There are plenty of others on here who more than qualify as experts, as their photos demonstrate.
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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 Apr 11, 2022 20:00:51 GMT -5
So this may not be the appropriate place to ask, but since I'm doing tigers eye, I figured I could ask here. Doing a load of mixed (Gold, Red, Blue) tigers eye. My first stage went well, although the slurry was very brown - Never seen that before, but didn't think much of it. I'm on stage 2 in my vibe, and same thing is going on. I'm wondering if it's a couple of things. 1. Poor quality rough, maybe a bunch of mud in the rock or something? I wouldn't expect it to follow stages though, I scrubbed down the rocks well between stage 1 and 2, and didn't really encounter anything like mud coming off. 2. Fake material? I gambled a bit on this material, buying it off etsy, but it was the right amount (poundwise) of what I was looking for. 3. My own inexepericen. Maybe this is just normal? I dunno man, never seen it happen like that in between my loads. A lot of the pieces have that brown stuff on them, and the Red/Blue pieces also sometimes have the regular gold tigers eye in them. Now given that I read that red tigers eye is heat treated, so it could be natural. No idea about the blue or if that's normal. Anyway, hope someone can clear things up for me a bit.
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lordsorril
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since April 2020
Posts: 766
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Post by lordsorril on Apr 11, 2022 20:51:43 GMT -5
Doing a load of mixed (Gold, Red, Blue) tigers eye. My first stage went well, although the slurry was very brown - Never seen that before, but didn't think much of it. I'm on stage 2 in my vibe, and same thing is going on. I'm wondering if it's a couple of things. 1. Poor quality rough, maybe a bunch of mud in the rock or something? I wouldn't expect it to follow stages though, I scrubbed down the rocks well between stage 1 and 2, and didn't really encounter anything like mud coming off. 2. Fake material? I gambled a bit on this material, buying it off etsy, but it was the right amount (poundwise) of what I was looking for. 3. My own inexepericen. Maybe this is just normal? I dunno man, never seen it happen like that in between my loads. A lot of the pieces have that brown stuff on them, and the Red/Blue pieces also sometimes have the regular gold tigers eye in them. Now given that I read that red tigers eye is heat treated, so it could be natural. No idea about the blue or if that's normal. Anyway, hope someone can clear things up for me a bit. Your tiger eye rough looks like it is in bad shape. If you are using a 3lb. barrel then-it was probably bad from the start. If you are using a 12lb-er then you might have not had enough smalls and it got beaten up by a larger stone. The pieces still look salvageable, but, you are going to lose a lot of mass to clean them up. The brown matrix you see on the tiger eye is normal--most people grind it/cut it off. Red tiger eye is heat treated. Blue and Gold and Variegated (Blue+Gold) is natural and relatively common. The brown color in the slurry is normal...I posted a video a while back where I dumped out some tiger eye after 1 week in SiC and the regular slurry color. It is at 2:53 in the linked video below.
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nursetumbler
Cave Dweller
Member since February 2022
Posts: 928
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Post by nursetumbler on Apr 11, 2022 21:00:31 GMT -5
So this may not be the appropriate place to ask, but since I'm doing tigers eye, I figured I could ask here. Doing a load of mixed (Gold, Red, Blue) tigers eye. My first stage went well, although the slurry was very brown - Never seen that before, but didn't think much of it. I'm on stage 2 in my vibe, and same thing is going on. I'm wondering if it's a couple of things. 1. Poor quality rough, maybe a bunch of mud in the rock or something? I wouldn't expect it to follow stages though, I scrubbed down the rocks well between stage 1 and 2, and didn't really encounter anything like mud coming off. 2. Fake material? I gambled a bit on this material, buying it off etsy, but it was the right amount (poundwise) of what I was looking for. 3. My own inexepericen. Maybe this is just normal? I dunno man, never seen it happen like that in between my loads. A lot of the pieces have that brown stuff on them, and the Red/Blue pieces also sometimes have the regular gold tigers eye in them. Now given that I read that red tigers eye is heat treated, so it could be natural. No idea about the blue or if that's normal. Anyway, hope someone can clear things up for me a bit. ProvThe brown is from the host rock in top and bottom. Had it in all my stages. I dont think it will polish real well but I didn't get through pre polish or polish before my blue chunked out on me gouging the entire batch so they went back through. The red as you read is heated. I was told maybe forest fire or on purpose. Blue is, I have read two different things, hawk eye and a different bird (I am exhausted and the other birds name escapes me), i think falcon but again I can't remember right now. If you want JUST the eye material tumble longer in 1st stage and second stage. I just started in January so I can only tell you what I have read. Google blue tiger eye and it will give you the names. Good luck Kelly P.S. the tiger eye has asbestos in it. Only a problem when you are cutting it, tumbling it poses no problems from what I have read. Good luck.
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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 Apr 12, 2022 19:20:21 GMT -5
Huge thanks - Yeah I had come to conclusion about not enough smalls myself after coming out of the second stage, and being like that - I started in a 6 lb, with a pretty distributed load, then moved to a partial batch in the lot-o.
I had previously done a very small batch of gold tigers eye in the Lot-O mixed with some jasper and agate, and it came out beautifully. I'll rethink my approach and work on it some more.
Appreciate the input.
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