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Post by radio on Aug 9, 2014 19:28:12 GMT -5
I have had a 3 pound barrel of Tears tumbling in 60/90 for 5 days and it's a good thing I decided to check on them! I had no idea they would shape up so quickly and some of the marble sized ones are now pea size! All pits are gone and they are rounded nicely, so my question is this, should I skip the 220 and go directly to 600 grit? I don't want or need them to wear down any more
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Post by Starguy on Aug 9, 2014 22:02:41 GMT -5
Arlen
I would use your usual grit sequence. The finer grits won't grind / shape them much more. Pre-polish and polish are difficult because they tend to chip each other. Use a lot of plastic pellets plus something to thicken the tumble.
Karo syrup works pretty good to thicken the tumble.
Good luck. Those things are hard to get a polish on. Probably one of the most difficult tumbles.
later
Brent.
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Post by Toad on Aug 10, 2014 6:08:04 GMT -5
Maybe next time skip 60/90, but I wouldn't skip any other phase.
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Post by radio on Aug 10, 2014 17:34:29 GMT -5
Thanks guys I haven't tumbled anything for over 10 years and never tumbled Obsidian or Apache Tears before. I did a lot of searching on here for tips, but the rapid wearing of the stones took me by surprise. I only used about a tablespoon of 60/90 in the 3 pound barrel about 3/4 full. I will go to 220 with some syrup and check every couple of days. One positive is I never had an issue with outgassing
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,455
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Post by Sabre52 on Aug 10, 2014 18:12:03 GMT -5
Tears I always do by themselves, full loads with lots of plastic pellets, at least four steps and tin oxide polish. Never been able to do as well with cerium or aluminum oxide as I have with tin....Mel
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Post by radio on Aug 10, 2014 20:35:17 GMT -5
Tears I always do by themselves, full loads with lots of plastic pellets, at least four steps and tin oxide polish. Never been able to do as well with cerium or aluminum oxide as I have with tin....Mel I don't have any tin oxide I'll give 'em a go in the cerium and if I'm not happy I will order some TO The barrel is about half full now and I can't find my ceramic anywhere. I have cut up a couple of plastic clothes hangers in various lengths to add in the barrel and will thicken the slurry with syrup as Brent suggested. A guy sure can forget a lot in ten years!
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phoenix1647
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2013
Posts: 186
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Post by phoenix1647 on Aug 21, 2014 19:28:36 GMT -5
I have tumbled many loads of apache tears. I do not skip any grit steps. Make sure you have plenty of material in the barrel. I always hold off on adding plastic pellets until the 500/600 grit step. When you change grits be sure to put in clean pellets at the upper grit stages. I do 60/90 120/200 500 1000 grits and 1000 polish. I have recently been told by an oldtimer to use corn starch after the polish stage. I will be starting a new batch next week and will try that. He said to only use the corn starch for a few hours just to clean up the tears. I have used borax with very good relults as a cleaning agent before. Seems a lot of people have problems tumbling apache tears. I have had only 3 batches come out badly so I kicked them back to the 500 grit stage and ended up with some very nice tears. Some times, you can do everything right and still not get a good shine. Don' give up. Keep trying until you find what works good for you.
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Tom
fully equipped rock polisher
My dad Tom suddenly passed away yesterday, Just wanted his "rock" family to know.
Member since January 2013
Posts: 1,557
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Post by Tom on Aug 23, 2014 17:07:39 GMT -5
Someone was complaining about problems with the Tears chipping in the rough stage (about a month ago) I said I had 3 pound tumbler laying about idle and I would try using a 50/50 mix of tears and plastic pellets. I got this going over a week ago and kind of forgot about it till yesterday, well I had no problems with chipping:), hell the grit had barely started to break down, so the plastic really cushions them. So I now put them back in with the pellets but with courser 46/70 grit.
I will check in a few days to see if this makes a difference but I doubt it. I have never done tears/obsidian before but I can see taking the pellets out for the first 2 grinds.
I will keep you posted.
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Post by radio on Aug 23, 2014 17:28:22 GMT -5
I have tumbled many loads of apache tears. I do not skip any grit steps. Make sure you have plenty of material in the barrel. I always hold off on adding plastic pellets until the 500/600 grit step. When you change grits be sure to put in clean pellets at the upper grit stages. I do 60/90 120/200 500 1000 grits and 1000 polish. I have recently been told by an oldtimer to use corn starch after the polish stage. I will be starting a new batch next week and will try that. He said to only use the corn starch for a few hours just to clean up the tears. I have used borax with very good relults as a cleaning agent before. Seems a lot of people have problems tumbling apache tears. I have had only 3 batches come out badly so I kicked them back to the 500 grit stage and ended up with some very nice tears. Some times, you can do everything right and still not get a good shine. Don' give up. Keep trying until you find what works good for you. Tumbled dry or wet in the corn starch? I don't have any 1,000, so used only a small amount ( 1 tsp or so) of 600 and let them tumble for 6 days hoping the grit would break down and act like finer grit. I just pulled them, rinsed several times and put them in cerium. I'm concerned because they are dull looking and have no pre polish look to them. Probably will have to get some 1,000 and go back to that step
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Post by connrock on Aug 24, 2014 6:10:00 GMT -5
The rule of thumb for grit break down is(rotary) 7-10 days,,(vibe) 12-24 hours.This breaks the grit down in 1/2 it's original coarseness,,,,is that a word? LOL Although your 600 grit did break down I don't think you let it run long enough hence the dulness. Your tears should have somewhat of a gloss to them before they go into polish or the polish stage is fruitless. If you let the tears stay in 600 grit for 6 days it has just broken down to about 1000 grit so it would have to run for at least another week or more to really do any good.You could even let it run for 3 weeks to get a real good pre-polish. Some time ago I did a load of tears that had zillions of very,very tiny gas pockets in them throughout.This made the surface "pitted" and impossible to get a glass like shine and they looked like they had to be roughed more but no matter how much roughing would have been done,the tears were just bad rough and would not come out right. I finished the tears because I was doing a "pictorial" on how I do them and this is what 1 looked like after 1000 grit,,,, As you can see it does have a glossy finish but not that glass like look as it would have after polish. This is a photo,taken through a 10x loupe, of the surface after polish and as you can see it is full of pits,,, This is the entire batch after polish,,,, This was VERY disappointing and embarrassing for me but no one could have done any better with this rough. connrock
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phoenix1647
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2013
Posts: 186
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Post by phoenix1647 on Aug 24, 2014 17:11:10 GMT -5
Now that is a fine looking batch of tears. love that shine.
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phoenix1647
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2013
Posts: 186
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Post by phoenix1647 on Aug 24, 2014 17:15:29 GMT -5
I have tumbled many loads of apache tears. I do not skip any grit steps. Make sure you have plenty of material in the barrel. I always hold off on adding plastic pellets until the 500/600 grit step. When you change grits be sure to put in clean pellets at the upper grit stages. I do 60/90 120/200 500 1000 grits and 1000 polish. I have recently been told by an oldtimer to use corn starch after the polish stage. I will be starting a new batch next week and will try that. He said to only use the corn starch for a few hours just to clean up the tears. I have used borax with very good relults as a cleaning agent before. Seems a lot of people have problems tumbling apache tears. I have had only 3 batches come out badly so I kicked them back to the 500 grit stage and ended up with some very nice tears. Some times, you can do everything right and still not get a good shine. Don' give up. Keep trying until you find what works good for you. Tumbled dry or wet in the corn starch? I don't have any 1,000, so used only a small amount ( 1 tsp or so) of 600 and let them tumble for 6 days hoping the grit would break down and act like finer grit. I just pulled them, rinsed several times and put them in cerium. I'm concerned because they are dull looking and have no pre polish look to them. Probably will have to get some 1,000 and go back to that step As for the corn starch, that man I talked to did not say if it should be wet or dry. I will try dry first, if that does not work well I will try it wet. You can get some 1000 grit and polish from The Rock Shed. I have always used AO for the 1000 grit stage and for the polish as well and have had great results. Some people use TO and swear by it.
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Post by nowyo on Aug 24, 2014 22:46:20 GMT -5
Radio, are you doing this start to finish i rotary? Somebody posted a recipe for that on the board here a few years ago. I've used it several times and it worked fine. I have it written down out in the shop, I can't recall who posted it originally. If it would help I can try to get it posted sometime tomorrow. Here's a shot of one of my batches of obsidian. Russ
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