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Post by Jugglerguy on Mar 18, 2022 20:13:28 GMT -5
Since this question comes up fairly often, I thought I'd make a video about it. I ran an experiment to show what would happen, but I ended up being really surprised by one of the results.
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Post by greig on Mar 18, 2022 20:33:26 GMT -5
This video came up in my feed. I will watch soon. My immediate answer is I tried and was not successful with playground sand. I look forward to seeing your answer.
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hypodactylus
spending too much on rocks
Member since July 2021
Posts: 434
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Post by hypodactylus on Mar 18, 2022 20:39:36 GMT -5
I like your videos; thanks for making them!
I think your batch with only water and rock was burnishing in the truest sense. The stuff some of us do after tumbling (with soap and water for an hour or so) to remove the polish/hard water minerals is more akin to simply cleaning. I suspect that it worked so well because all the rocks were the same material; I don't think it would have worked as well with rocks of varying hardness.
Some of the little bits leftover in your sand batch after tumbling were probably from the sand itself, especially the 'larger' white pieces.
Fun video! Thanks again!
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Post by Jugglerguy on Mar 18, 2022 20:49:37 GMT -5
This video came up in my feed. I will watch soon. My immediate answer is I tried and was not successful with playground sand. I look forward to seeing your answer. I wasn't either, but there was a surprise along the way.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Mar 18, 2022 20:53:27 GMT -5
I like your videos; thanks for making them! I think your batch with only water and rock was burnishing in the truest sense. The stuff some of us do after tumbling (with soap and water for an hour or so) to remove the polish/hard water minerals is more akin to simply cleaning. I suspect that it worked so well because all the rocks were the same material; I don't think it would have worked as well with rocks of varying hardness. Some of the little bits leftover in your sand batch after tumbling were probably from the sand itself, especially the 'larger' white pieces. Fun video! Thanks again! I didn't think the pieces left over in the sand batch were from the sand when I recorded that. But I did the microscope video of the sand later and I think you're right. I hadn't realized how many larger pieces were in there. I have always felt that burnishing should just be called "washing". The thing is that in one week it didn't do too much, it took two weeks to get really shiny. I don't know of anyone who burnishes for two weeks.
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quartz
Cave Dweller
breakin' rocks in the hot sun
Member since February 2010
Posts: 3,341
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Post by quartz on Mar 18, 2022 22:15:47 GMT -5
Jugglerguy, we burnish in a thick laundry soap mix padded with leather pieces for two weeks when running pet wood, difference [improvement] is noticeable. PS We are running 30-50 pound loads, don't know how well it works in smaller barrels.
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Post by 1dave on Mar 19, 2022 14:24:52 GMT -5
Jugglerguy you always ask interesting questions and always answer true!
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Post by vegasjames on Mar 19, 2022 19:18:21 GMT -5
I have used sand in a tumbler to clean off softer surface material like calcium carbonates from the harder stones.
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waterboysh
spending too much on rocks
Member since April 2021
Posts: 369
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Post by waterboysh on Mar 21, 2022 10:23:37 GMT -5
I have always felt that burnishing should just be called "washing". The thing is that in one week it didn't do too much, it took two weeks to get really shiny. I don't know of anyone who burnishes for two weeks. As someone that has only been tumbling just a little shy of 1 year now, this really confused me when starting out. Probably because I already knew the definition of burnish. I was watching all these videos and they were like, "And now we burnish. With soap to provide cushioning, and increase lubrication so the rocks slide past each other easier, and we're only going to run it for a handful of ours, possibly just overnight at most." I would watch these and be going, "But... that's not burnishing." I've written several FAQs for the rocktumbling subreddit and also refer to this as a wash rather than burnish. Lol... anyway, very interesting video. As a Floridian with fairly easy access to very high quality sand from the Gulf of Mexico, I've always wondered how well this would work, but figured it was probably not done for a reason. If you ever make a follow-up video, I'd be really curious what happens when you use a much softer stone. Like Calcite or something. Another interesting video would be putting rough stone in the barrel, one with just water, one with just water and ceramics, and one with ceramics and polish (and water of course), let them run for like a month or two non-stop, and compare which method gives the best polished, but still rough look that some people like.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Mar 21, 2022 10:44:37 GMT -5
I have always felt that burnishing should just be called "washing". The thing is that in one week it didn't do too much, it took two weeks to get really shiny. I don't know of anyone who burnishes for two weeks. As someone that has only been tumbling just a little shy of 1 year now, this really confused me when starting out. Probably because I already knew the definition of burnish. I was watching all these videos and they were like, "And now we burnish. With soap to provide cushioning, and increase lubrication so the rocks slide past each other easier, and we're only going to run it for a handful of ours, possibly just overnight at most." I would watch these and be going, "But... that's not burnishing." I've written several FAQs for the rocktumbling subreddit and also refer to this as a wash rather than burnish. Lol... anyway, very interesting video. As a Floridian with fairly easy access to very high quality sand from the Gulf of Mexico, I've always wondered how well this would work, but figured it was probably not done for a reason. If you ever make a follow-up video, I'd be really curious what happens when you use a much softer stone. Like Calcite or something. Another interesting video would be putting rough stone in the barrel, one with just water, one with just water and ceramics, and one with ceramics and polish (and water of course), let them run for like a month or two non-stop, and compare which method gives the best polished, but still rough look that some people like. I'm almost certainly going to run some Petoskey stones in just sand since a lot of people have suggested either tumbling Petoskey Stones specifically or soft stones generally in sand. When I tumble Petoskeys in silicon carbide, I use very little grit, lots of extra water and check them every 3-4 days. They grind a lot in that time, so trying to save money on the small amount of grit doesn't make much sense to me. It's not expensive anyhow. But just out of curiosity and since a lot of people asked, I thought I'd give it a try. As for your other experiment suggestion, I'll have to think about that. I was leaning toward putting some beach rocks in the tumbler with just water to see what would happen. I have my doubts about whether they'd polish because beach rocks don't tend to be as hard as that jasper I ran in the video. Letting one barrel run for two or three weeks won't take much effete though, so I might give it a try.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 22, 2022 19:41:09 GMT -5
Jugglerguy Cool experiment Rob. I tried using garnet sand as a grit once. I ended up with kind of a dull finish on the rocks without a lot of rounding. I was recently surprised when I opened a 12 pounder. I instantly knew that I had forgotten to add grit. I was surprised how well they polished. They were already pretty well rounded. forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/thread/98359/forgot-add-grit
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Post by Jugglerguy on Mar 22, 2022 21:04:05 GMT -5
Jugglerguy Cool experiment Rob. I tried using garnet sand as a grit once. I ended up with kind of a dull finish on the rocks without a lot of rounding. I was recently surprised when I opened a 12 pounder. I instantly knew that I had forgotten to add grit. I was surprised how well they polished. They were already pretty well rounded. forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/thread/98359/forgot-add-grit I have had the same results when I have forgotten to add grit. I always thought it was the small amount of grit left in the barrel that broke down really small in the second week. Now I wonder if it was more like what happened in this video.
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