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Post by rockds on Dec 13, 2005 16:48:12 GMT -5
Help me out here, the rocks are super smooth (10 days in AO 1,000) and I want to throw into polish to see how they will turn out but should I do a week in tripoly before moving on. The concern is from other members saying they have not nad success with leopard skin in the past. Here is a couple of pics both shown wet, one with flash one w/o flash:  w/o:  thanks for looking and help robert |
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Post by joe on Dec 13, 2005 16:53:45 GMT -5
Can you try the "Soloman" approach? Divide the load in half and try it both ways. I understand it will take longer this way but think of the knowledge gained for Tumblers everywhere! Rock on Robert!
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Post by krazydiamond on Dec 13, 2005 16:57:38 GMT -5
i've never been able to get a great shine on Leopardskin except on the grinder. some of the material seems softer than othere in the matrix and tends to undercut in the tumbler...
that looks like nice stuff, tho, Rockds, can't hurt to run it in a finer prepolish, but after 1000AO i'd be tempted to go right into Tin Oxide and hope for the best!
my 2 cents
KD
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rollingstone
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since July 2009
Posts: 236
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Post by rollingstone on Dec 13, 2005 17:05:07 GMT -5
Those are fantastic looking stones! I also had trouble with leopardskin, couldn't get a shine at all. I think it was because the stuff I had was very porous -- if you took a dry stone and put water on it, the water would quickly be absorbed into the stone instead of drying slowly like on something like an agate. That meant there were lots of tiny pores in the stones, and they just wouldn't shine.
I'd be tempted to put them straight into polish and see how they do. If it doesn't work, you can back them up to tripoli and try again. My two cents.
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Post by Alice on Dec 13, 2005 17:08:31 GMT -5
Great looking stones Robert!
do they have any shine after 1000? if not, then I'd thow them into tripoli.
If there is some sheen to them, then I'd put them straight into polish
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Post by Cher on Dec 13, 2005 17:08:50 GMT -5
Wow, those looks so cool, it would be a shame if they
didn't shine. Good luck to you, let us know what you
decide but I'd put them right into polish.
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Post by LCARS on Dec 13, 2005 17:38:34 GMT -5
I have two pieces of Leopard skin in with some beach rocks in C.O. polish right now. I just checked on the Leopard skin & the spots are not shiney yet but the surrounding rock matrix is looking good. Tonight I will move the whole batch into TO & give it about 4-5 days for the softer parts of the various stones to finish polishing. I went from AO 1000 to std grade CO to get the matrix shining up niecely but the spots are still quite dull. The spots are definaterly a softer material so the trick would be not to let the spots erode while the matrix is shining in AO/CO. I hope TO can at least shine them a bit... My five step process has been working alright on the stones of mixed & varying hardness that i've had trouble with. A lot of the rocks I posted here forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=Pictures&thread=1130576571&page=1 have variable hardness. (These are the bulk of the ones going from C.O. into T.O. tonight) When I use AO polish, only the hard parts will polish (like the veins & white patches) and the rest of the rock has a very dull gloss that doesn't look all that great for some reason... Don't be disappointed if you can't get an even shine with that Leopardskin, most of the "finished" stones I see in the rock stores looks like crap.  It just takes a bit of extra effort & attention to detail to get a better result. |
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Post by rockyraccoon on Dec 13, 2005 17:56:19 GMT -5
what kind of polishes do you have robert? i'd like to see it go through some titanium oxide polish. i can't remember which polish i used but i bet it was cerium oxide and it was a sad, sad thing to watch. yours are looking so good right now.
kim
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Post by rockds on Dec 13, 2005 22:21:32 GMT -5
Thanks for the tips Lcars. Like the idea of splitting the loads and trying both ways joe but barrels are limited and the show must go on. Don't know about shine yet, will let 'em dry tomorrow after washing and will probably decide what to do then.
Kim, I have AO and CO polish, I would like to get some titanium but only place I've found that sells it, sells in large quanities only.
tomorrow is changing day so I'll try and post lots of pics
robert
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller 
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,504
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Post by Sabre52 on Dec 13, 2005 22:33:40 GMT -5
Boy that batch looks pretty good. I had all kinds of trouble with mine but the stuff I bought did not have all that red. Mine was quite porous in areas even though it didn't look it and like someone said above, the stuff I had just seemed to suck up water in spots. Your's looks lots nicer than mine did out of that stage. I have seen some at a show with a pretty fair shine so it's doable if you have a good batch I guess. Make sure and keep us posted on your results. I'm very curious if your technique works....mel
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joanna
spending too much on rocks
Member since November 2004
Posts: 385
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Post by joanna on Dec 14, 2005 6:38:31 GMT -5
Their so beautiful,  Hope you have better luck than I did. I used Tin Oxide and most of them still had an inconsistent shine. If I remember right, it's the white areas that gave me grief. I did have a couple pieces that did take a complete shine (less than 10% of them out of a 5 pound load). Before I tumbled Leopard skin, it use to be one of my all time favorite rocks. (I seem to have lots of purchased jewelry and beads around with it in). Maybe you'll break the Leopard Skin curse. Go for the polish if they look smooth and no crumbling going on and Good Luck! |
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Post by rockds on Dec 14, 2005 12:51:15 GMT -5
After letting them dry, I have gone with tripoly for a week. Thanks for ya'lls help mostly dry:   robert |
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Post by Alice on Dec 14, 2005 13:21:45 GMT -5
it's hard to see from the picture if they have a sheen
Throw them in Tripoli ...certainly wouldn't hurt
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stefan
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2005
Posts: 14,113
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Post by stefan on Dec 14, 2005 15:21:51 GMT -5
looking good!
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Hope you have better luck than I did. I used Tin Oxide and most of them still had an inconsistent shine. 
