jamesp
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Member since October 2012
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Post by jamesp on Aug 25, 2015 15:16:16 GMT -5
The quartz has a wet shine, the felspar matte. Peculiar looking, looks like beads of water. 3 weeks AO 500 3 weeks AO 1000 3 weeks AO 14,000. Grits left in barrel, and same thick clay slurry-no clean outs. All the rose quartz that ran with this granite had a full wet shine.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Aug 25, 2015 20:50:26 GMT -5
That is weird. Do you always run your stages so long?
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jamesp
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Member since October 2012
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Post by jamesp on Aug 25, 2015 21:32:03 GMT -5
That is weird. Do you always run your stages so long? Never do Rob. This was an experiment. The slurry was kept very thick so the granite would not get chipped. The thick slurry slowed the grind.
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quartz
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breakin' rocks in the hot sun
Member since February 2010
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Post by quartz on Aug 25, 2015 23:04:25 GMT -5
Nice result with that experiment, saved a bunch of cleanout time too. How much total volume did you run?
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jamesp
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Member since October 2012
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Post by jamesp on Aug 26, 2015 5:44:08 GMT -5
Nice result with that experiment, saved a bunch of cleanout time too. How much total volume did you run? That barrel holds at least 20 pounds. It is 8" sch 40 PVC about 18 inches long. Slurry is native clay with silica sand, so I could not refresh the clay for fear the sand would scratch the polish. Guessing the sand particles polished too. The benefit of the clay is that it maintained pudding consistency with little management(water additions) for 9 weeks. Most notable effect is no particles broke at the quartz/felspar interface. But felspar did under cut. At the end of 3 weeks in AO 500 there was a slight shine, telling that AO 1000 and 14,000 were probably going to do their job. Glare angle shows where particles broke out. But less than other attempts. Dallasite Final effect allows viewing into granite though, no wet shine though
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tkvancil
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since September 2011
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Post by tkvancil on Aug 26, 2015 8:44:49 GMT -5
Granite can be so attractive.
I think that rotary is the way to go if trying to polish it. I had some of it I liked that got a decent polish in rotary. Re-ran them in a vibe and 90% of them got trashed.
Interesting experiment. thanks for sharing.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Aug 26, 2015 11:50:07 GMT -5
tkvancil, what was the difference between the results from the vibe and the rotary? I tumble a lot more granite than I should. I do it all in my Lot-O. It always comes out shiny, but the black areas (mica?) always undercut. I don't think I've ever had a piece that don't shine up on some parts and I don't think I've ever had a piece that didn't undercut on the black parts. More black, worse rock, less black, better rock. Is that your experience in the vibe? How is the rotary better?
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tkvancil
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since September 2011
Posts: 1,546
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Post by tkvancil on Aug 26, 2015 13:30:55 GMT -5
Jugglerguy , You pretty much nailed it. In the vibe the black always seems to undercut. The ones I re-ran had virtually no undercutting after a rotary polish. I wanted the liquid vibe shine but they all had lots of black so .... What I notice is that the shine on a rotary piece is less "patchy", or more even than a vibe piece. Those small areas that undercut and don't have any shine bug me.
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jamesp
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Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
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Post by jamesp on Aug 26, 2015 14:04:19 GMT -5
Interesting conversation. Thinking along the lines of not tumbling granitoids. Might as well stick to the bulletproof agateiods. Suppose tight grain hard rocks are the way to go.
Am certain that these granites are pure quartz areas next to pure felspar areas. That alone is cause for mismatched polish in a tumbler.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Aug 26, 2015 16:17:38 GMT -5
Undercutting bugs the heck out of me too. James has the best solution, no matter how special that piece of granite is, leave it where you found it. However, I might try to rotary polish some just to see the difference.
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