Post by Peruano on Oct 1, 2014 8:01:11 GMT -5
All good advice so far, but a couple of points might be worthwhile. 1. If they are appropriate to run in the vibe (size wise) you can accelerate the process ahead of time, by doing a bit of grinding on those biggest pits. You would need a friend with a lapidary cab machine (local rock club), but things polished on 100 grit can turn beautiful fast in the vibe. That would exclude the need for the rotary. 2. You can run your vibe without the top on during its initial hours, and this is a good way to make sure a large stone is moving and floating up and down as it needs to (to avoid that sticking in the bottom and wearing holes in otherwise expensive tubs). My vibe 5 splashes a bit, and tends to evaporate water a bit faster (hence needs to be monitored when run without the top), but its a way to keep track of how things are moving when I'm running dubious loads (large stones or mixed batches). I usually run for a few hours watching without top (not constant watching), and then put the top on to reduce the problems mentioned. 3. You can remove some of those pits using the flat sanding disk on your drill press with aluminum oxide paper disks AND a good respiratory mask to avoid breathing the dust. I don't like sanding stones dry, but some folks do it and done carefully its OK. Again you are just prepping the stones before going to the vibe to get off the nastiest imperfections. 5. Many folks just polish one side or face of an agate (sort of like a window into its natural form). That would be done with a grinder too and might be worth exploring for future efforts. Good luck and don't let all this advice deter you. Lovely stones. Tom
BTW I don't think they will lose 25% of their size in any vibe runs. You are just changing the surface texture. They will be wonderful if you can run them in the vibe size wise. Tom
BTW I don't think they will lose 25% of their size in any vibe runs. You are just changing the surface texture. They will be wonderful if you can run them in the vibe size wise. Tom