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Post by Starguy on Jan 21, 2014 20:01:14 GMT -5
Anyone ever attempt a sphere with star garnet? I have spheres cut by hand. They don' turn out perfectly round. With the material I have , under ideal conditions, the sphere would show 12 six-ray stars and 4 4-Ray stars. It's hard to find pieces big enough and solid enough for spheres. I understand that the Forest Service has plans to move into an area with larger garnets though. I don't think they will have as many 6-rays there though. My grandfather dug in that gulch In the 60s and 70s. I didn't think the garnets had very good stars.
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Post by Starguy on Jan 21, 2014 20:39:20 GMT -5
Never had luck tumbling garnet, but then i didn't have the volume you found either. Thanks for the pics - awesome stones. Toad Garnet likes to be tumbled with garnet. If you try to tumble it with agate you will be disappointed. You need to tumble them a long time in coarse grit, so they tend to roll down the face of the tumbled stones in the tumbler because they get pretty rounded. In a way, they are similar to obsidian, although garnet is much harder. In general, rocks need to slide in the tumbler instead of rolling. Rolling creates a lot of small chips that are visible after the polish. Plastic beads help a lot. They seem to cushion the Rolling Stones a little, (it's funny my iPad capitalized rolling stones). Aluminum oxide polish works well with garnets for polish. It's expensive, but tumbled garnets can be valuable. I haven't used it but I hear cerium oxide works well too. I use diamond for my cabs. Great polish. If you don't have a very thick paste after a week in coarse grit, you have three possible things wrong. 1). Too much water. 2). Not enough grit, 3). Not enough variation of size in the stones. #3 applies to all tumbled rocks. You need small rocks along w/the med. and large rocks to get an efficient grind. You should almost need to scoop the stones out with a spoon after a week in coarse grit. I can' t tell you how important this is. If you can pour off your course grit slurry, you're doing something wrong. Eventually you will get the results you want, but coarse grit isn't cheap, you'll spend more time and go through more coarse grit. In general for tumbling any rock, everybody needs to try to get a very thick slurry after one week of tumbling w/ coarse grit. Use plastic beads for fine grit, pre-polish, and polish. Take pride in your work, not many people can do what you do. as a PS, you can avoid some grit steps by allowing the tumbler to run longer on different grit coarseness it takes some experience and a good understanding of how you want your rocks to look when they are finally polished. You should definitely try this step when you get a little experience with the basics. Have fun. Make a thick coarse sluury later. Brent
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Post by Toad on Jan 21, 2014 22:48:38 GMT -5
Thanks Brent. I figured it was because they were in mixed batches. Never had enough to do an isolated tumble.
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Fossilman
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Post by Fossilman on Jan 21, 2014 22:50:12 GMT -5
Totally awesome!
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Post by Starguy on Jan 23, 2014 21:22:38 GMT -5
Thanks Brent. I figured it was because they were in mixed batches. Never had enough to do an isolated tumble. Toad Recently, I've been trying to make use of some of my previously unworthy pieces. In order to keep the tumbler loaded with garnet only, I've tried a couple different things. The first attempt was with polyethylene pellets. That worked OK but not great for coarse grinding. It definitely didn't work for fine grind, pre-polish and polish. I found some old polyethylene (PE) lemonade pitchers. I used tin snips to cut them up into roughly 1/8" flat square pieces. It was a real pain in the @$$ to do it but I was surprised how much better it worked. My theory is that stones that roll down the face of the tumbling mass get chipped when they hit other stones near the bottom of the mass. The stones I'm working with have been tumbled before so they are already pretty round. I think the pellets encouraged rolling while the flatter pieces encouraged sliding. The flat pieces of PE seem to develop a thicker slurry faster and the grind seems to be more efficient, (less foaming too). I'm not sure if this will help but it might be an option if you only have 1/4 to 1/3 of a barrel. Non-facet grade garnet can be found pretty cheap too. Garnets are challenging to tumble, but that's half the fun. I hope these tips help. later Brent
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gemfeller
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Post by gemfeller on Jan 23, 2014 22:32:58 GMT -5
Anyone ever attempt a sphere with star garnet? I have spheres cut by hand. They don' turn out perfectly round. With the material I have , under ideal conditions, the sphere would show 12 six-ray stars and 4 4-Ray stars. It's hard to find pieces big enough and solid enough for spheres. Dudley Stewart, founder of Stewart's Gem Shop in Boise, ID, collected star garnet heavily in the 1950s, before the location was well known. He dug some very large and fine crystals. He created a necklace of large graduated star garnet beads that used to be exhibited at shows. I imagine the store still owns it but I haven't heard anything about it in a long time. The beads displayed the star orientation described by Starguy.
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Post by Starguy on Feb 2, 2014 13:05:36 GMT -5
I have spheres cut by hand. They don' turn out perfectly round. With the material I have , under ideal conditions, the sphere would show 12 six-ray stars and 4 4-Ray stars. It's hard to find pieces big enough and solid enough for spheres. Dudley Stewart, founder of Stewart's Gem Shop in Boise, ID, collected star garnet heavily in the 1950s, before the location was well known. He dug some very large and fine crystals. He created a necklace of large graduated star garnet beads that used to be exhibited at shows. I imagine the store still owns it but I haven't heard anything about it in a long time. The beads displayed the star orientation described by Starguy. I would love to see that necklace. I might have to look into getting a bead maker. The tumbled garnets would make good beads. They almost all show stars. A large percentage have six rays, although the six rays tend to be the smaller stones. Do bead makers actually polish the bead or just form them for tumble polishing? Tumbling round garnets would be a challenge because they roll instead of slide down the face of the tumbling mass. When they hit the bottom stones, they get tiny chips in the surface that really dulls the polish. Maybe more plastic and fewer stones would help.
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bsky4463
fully equipped rock polisher
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Post by bsky4463 on Feb 4, 2014 12:58:13 GMT -5
Late to this thread but, killer garnets Starguy! We stopped at the USFS spot last year and then down to Clarkia for some fossils by the track. Should have spent more time at both but we were traveling thru. Definitely inspired to go looking for more garnets base don your tumbling success. The USFS is great for families, although we would prefer the old dig it yourself routine. Anyway - great tumble, great post - thanks for sharing. Cheers
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gemfeller
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Post by gemfeller on Feb 4, 2014 13:39:58 GMT -5
Do bead makers actually polish the bead or just form them for tumble polishing? Tumbling round garnets would be a challenge because they roll instead of slide down the face of the tumbling mass. When they hit the bottom stones, they get tiny chips in the surface that really dulls the polish. Maybe more plastic and fewer stones would help. Covington Engineering sells bead-making machines. You could call them and ask about polishing. I just visited their site and deduce that tumble-polishing is necessary from the fact they sell tumbling abrasives along with the grits for bead-grinding. I don't know what kind of tumbler you used for the garnets in your images, rotary or vibrating. I think it would be pretty easy to tumble-polish rounds in my old Vibrasonic. It has a gentle action that rotates its contents slowly while applying vibrating action to the weighted mass of stones at the same time. It's the only type of vibratory tumbler I've used so I have no idea how other designs might work. When hand-cutting star garnets I found surface spalling was a problem until I switched to wooden wheels.
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timloco
has rocks in the head
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Post by timloco on Feb 4, 2014 13:58:54 GMT -5
Wow, those are beautiful. I didn't realize garnet could refract light like that.
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Post by Starguy on Feb 4, 2014 20:26:08 GMT -5
Covington Engineering sells bead-making machines. You could call them and ask about polishing. I just visited their site and deduce that tumble-polishing is necessary from the fact they sell tumbling abrasives along with the grits for bead-grinding. I don't know what kind of tumbler you used for the garnets in your images, rotary or vibrating. I think it would be pretty easy to tumble-polish rounds in my old Vibrasonic. It has a gentle action that rotates its contents slowly while applying vibrating action to the weighted mass of stones at the same time. It's the only type of vibratory tumbler I've used so I have no idea how other designs might work. When hand-cutting star garnets I found surface spalling was a problem until I switched to wooden wheels. I always used rotary tumblers. That's a great idea to use vibratory tumblers. I'm guessing you could improve the polish. I love those hardwood Blake's polishing systems. It's such a simple system that delivers outstanding results. It's too bad nobody weighed in on how the phenolic resin versions work. I'm sure somebody is using one. My hard maple version is getting a little long in the tooth. It still works but it's getting a little out of round on the coarser grit dishes.
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Post by Starguy on Feb 4, 2014 20:36:39 GMT -5
Late to this thread but, killer garnets Starguy! We stopped at the USFS spot last year and then down to Clarkia for some fossils by the track. Should have spent more time at both but we were traveling thru. Definitely inspired to go looking for more garnets base don your tumbling success. The USFS is great for families, although we would prefer the old dig it yourself routine. Anyway - great tumble, great post - thanks for sharing. Cheers The new site is still fun, but experienced diggers now have the same chance of finding stones as a complete novice. It still matters how much dirt you can go through in a day. The only thing I've noticed to improve your take, is that the garnets tend to roll to the bottom of the pile when it's disturbed. I always try to scrape up the loose dirt at the bottom. I'm not 100% sure that it helps but I tended to get more per screen than my kids did the last time we were there. The fossil bowl is pretty fun too. Did you find some good fossils? Handle them gently. They get kind of fragile when they dry out. later Brent
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gemfeller
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Post by gemfeller on Feb 4, 2014 20:48:48 GMT -5
I bought one of the first Pixies that Diamond Pacific made. It had a phenolic resin sanding/polishing station. I never got the hang of using it. In fact it frustrated me to the point that I got another type of machine. But that's not to say the phenolics don't work well for users who know more than I did at the time. So much of lapidary work depends on the individual cutter's personal experience and methods. We all develop personal techniques that others might have difficulty using.
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Post by Starguy on Feb 9, 2014 16:00:38 GMT -5
I bought one of the first Pixies that Diamond Pacific made. It had a phenolic resin sanding/polishing station. I never got the hang of using it. In fact it frustrated me to the point that I got another type of machine. But that's not to say the phenolics don't work well for users who know more than I did at the time. So much of lapidary work depends on the individual cutter's personal experience and methods. We all develop personal techniques that others might have difficulty using. Rick. Thanks for the info on the phenolics. I think I'll try to figure a way to smooth my hard maple Blake's compact gem polisher. The biggest problem is the 325 and 600 grit. I might try some sandpaper. It seems like as long as I used sandpaper with grit finer than what I'm using on the spool, it should work and not contaminate the spool. Everything else works great on the machine. It is the best polishing system I have found for garnet or other heat sensitive stones. I don't want to ruin it but the two coarser spools are getting pretty rough.
I won't do it this winter. Let me know if you think sandpaper is a bonehead idea. If I had a good wood lathe, I might try to recreate the maple spool. I think it would be cost prohibitive to pay someone to make a new set of spools. The phenolics are inexpensive, but I'm fairly set in my ways. I don't want to mess up a bunch of garnet trying to learn a new system.
thanks again.
Brent
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gemfeller
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Post by gemfeller on Feb 9, 2014 23:20:54 GMT -5
Brent, you might email Graves Company to see if they sell replacement spools. I think they manufacture (or have a direct line to the manufacturer) of that machine. I'm told they're a little "casual" about responding to product inquiries but they're nice people -- I've met them at Tucson and they'll respond eventually. Try: www.gravescompany.com/spool.htm
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Post by gingerkid on Mar 1, 2014 14:18:57 GMT -5
Hi, starguy! Your tumbled and cabbed star garnets are gorgeous! I could roll around in the tumbles. Just kiddin,' that sounds weird. I collect garnet mineral specimens and gems. Do any of the tumbles have six-rays? I have a couple a nice specimens that rocks2dust kindly sent to me and won a pair of 4-ray cabs he listed. Do you sell them (on a website)?? I have the Graves spool attachment unit that I cleaned with sandpaper. I called and spoke with Peter of graves for instructions on how to clean it. Imagine you could clean your spool with sandpaper also.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 2, 2014 11:36:15 GMT -5
Hi, starguy! Your tumbled and cabbed star garnets are gorgeous! I could roll around in the tumbles. Just kiddin,' that sounds weird. I collect garnet mineral specimens and gems. Do any of the tumbles have six-rays? I have a couple a nice specimens that rocks2dust kindly sent to me and won a pair of 4-ray cabs he listed. Do you sell them (on a website)?? I have the Graves spool attachment unit that I cleaned with sandpaper. I called and spoke with Peter of graves for instructions on how to clean it. Imagine you could clean your spool with sandpaper also. Gingerkid A pretty high percentage of the tumbled garnets show six ray stars. The material is pretty solid, so there are some pretty good sized stones in that tumble. I have another thread going under "creating cabs" that has a few photos of some cabs I'm working on. I'm not the best photographer so they don't show up that well. Once I get a few finished, I'll put a little more effort into getting some good photos. My iPad doesn't take very good macro photos. I haven't been selling too many lately. Mostly because I haven't been cutting as much as I used to. Now that two of our three kids are out of the house, I have a little more time for lapidary work. Most of the cabs I have sold have been to local jewelers.
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Post by gingerkid on Mar 2, 2014 12:10:42 GMT -5
That's good to hear that you'll have more time for lapidary work, starguy! Thanks for pointing out your post on the star garnet cabs. I enjoyed reading it earlier. Not sure if your spool is wooden or phenolic, but I found the Graves spool instructions that I wanted to share. I think the instructions are for a wooden spool after reading the last sentence. ? I cleaned the phenolic spool attachment this way, and it has 2 grooves for diamond paste. "Clean spool with fine sandpaper with spool running and denatured alcohol. In case of accidental contamination, start the polisher and wipe the affected area with a cloth moistened with a light solvent--lighter fluid or cleaning solvent. Then, using a dopped cab of hard material (agate, jasper, etc.), apply as much pressure as possible to the contaminated area until you have driven the grit deep enough into the wood that it will no longer scratch."
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1nickthegreek
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Post by 1nickthegreek on Mar 7, 2014 7:07:00 GMT -5
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2014 18:39:52 GMT -5
wow just awesome and beautiful I came up with a few good ones out of my batch but nothing like those! mine where certainly not big enough for that amount of time im guessing
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