adrian65
Cave Dweller
Arch to golden memories and to great friends.
Member since February 2007
Posts: 10,777
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Post by adrian65 on Feb 24, 2007 1:52:40 GMT -5
Hi, my name is Adrian and I am new on this forum. I'm from Romania and in my country this hobby and the forums about it are almost inexistent. My hobby is cutting and polishing stones, mostly fossil wood but not only (agates, jaspers and so on). For this, I've built my own machine for cutting and polishing stones. For the moment, I do the sanding and polishing with some flexible "diamond pads" (100 mm diameter) and I am quite pleased with the results. I have also tried to polish with oxides (chrome, aluminium, cerium) but I had problems. All these oxides did not realy "mirror" polish my stones. Instead, they look lyke waxed (or painted with laque). In adition, the chrome oxide colours the stone in green and it's impossible to remove the colour, especially from the cracks. I put oxide with water on a felt rotating at about 350 rot/min. Could anybody tell me please where do I go wrong? I also wanted to put an image with the machine, but i didn't manage . Any advices in this problem? Thank you.
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181lizard
Cave Dweller
Still lurking :)
Member since December 2005
Posts: 2,171
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Post by 181lizard on Feb 24, 2007 13:11:24 GMT -5
Howdy Adrian!!! I think you may be the first member from Romania!! Very Cool! There's lots of people that will be able to give you info...unfortunately, I'm not one of them! Be patient...someone will reply to your questions soon. In the mean time, look through old post about downloading pics from a site called "photobucket". Most of us round here use that one. Again...welcome!
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Post by stoner on Feb 24, 2007 15:37:03 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum Adrian, it's great to have people from around the world who share our passion join in. We love seeing photos of others talents and equipment, especially homemade equipment. In order to post photos on this message board, they have to have a web address(URL) so you have to have a place on the web to store your photos. Many of us use www.photobucket.com It's a free photo storage/sharing site and all you have to do is sign up with them and upload your photos onto their site. They have tutorials on how to post photos to message boards but if you have trouble doing so, I will go through the process in detail for you. From what you describe, it sounds like what you are doing is cutting and polishing cabochons. That's mainly what I do these days also and I post photos of my work in the "Creating Cabochons" section of the board. I use a grinding machine with 8" diamond wheels and sanding belts up to 3000g, then I do all of my polishing work on a leather belt and diamond paste. My belt is 3" wide so I use 14,000g on one side of the belt and 50,000g on the other side. This gives my stones a mirror polish and there is no mess of mixing up some type of oxide polish and having to keep it wet or protected when not in use. I hope you stick around, I'd like to see your work. There is a member from Serbia(His screen name is Zotika, and he is very talented and creative) who also cuts and polishes stones, a lot of which he collects himself. Again, welcome to our passion for the stone, from the San Francisco Bay Area. Ed
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Zoran
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since September 2005
Posts: 880
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Post by Zoran on Feb 25, 2007 14:40:06 GMT -5
Hi, Adrian. Nice to have someone new on the RTH forum from the neighborhood. I hope that I could be of some help to you. I also built my own equipment (here is a link forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1163814115&page=1). I don't know how you equipment is looking so, yes it would be very good to post pictures of your equipment. As Ed said you need to open an photobucket.com account and upload your pics there. Then copy url link of picture you want to post here on rth forum. That link you post between image brackets. You'll get image tag when you click on 4th icon in the second row, or just type [/img]. I hope this helps. If not you can pm me. Welcome to the RTH forum, Adrien. Oh yes, Thank you Ed. Coming from you it is great compliment.
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Post by stoner on Feb 25, 2007 15:46:45 GMT -5
I call them as I see them Zotika, you are a true artist.
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adrian65
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Arch to golden memories and to great friends.
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Post by adrian65 on Feb 26, 2007 1:11:16 GMT -5
Thank you all for the answers! Finaly my message bottle reached a shore! Ed, I don't know the exact mean of caboshon, but I think it,s a small oval stone rounded on a face. I work larger stones, like slabs. Their dimension vary but they are about 10 cm diameter (of course, not perfectly round). The polishing leather must be soft, like the ones used in car wash, or hard leather (brown, about 5 mm thick)? I also like to polish stones on their natural surface and, even if I don't manage to polish all the surface (the concavities cannot be polished) the results are pretty good.
Thank you again all for the messages, I'm going now to the photobucket and try to post some pictures.
Adrian
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Post by Jack ( Yorkshire) on Feb 26, 2007 1:47:19 GMT -5
Hi Adrian,
A Welcome from the UK also.
You will get a lot of help from this board in all areas of Lapidary.
Keep at it and dont forget the photos !!
Jack Yorkshire UK
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adrian65
Cave Dweller
Arch to golden memories and to great friends.
Member since February 2007
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Post by adrian65 on Feb 26, 2007 2:00:19 GMT -5
Well, I've been to photobucket and posted some pictures. It's a short history of the construction of my machine. Initially I planned to build only a cutting machine but whyle working I decided to add the polishing device. The colour scheme is simple: blue sits, orange moves . Have a look: The "skeleton" The first functionning View from top And these are the results of the machine: I hope you like the images above. The stones are not very clear in the last picture, but you can have an ideea on what I am doing. Now, related on the polishing, how much pressure should I put on the stone? The process must be wet all the time, or the stone must heat (by friction) till dry? Thank you, Adrian
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blarneystone
spending too much on rocks
Rocks in my head
Member since March 2010
Posts: 307
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Post by blarneystone on Feb 26, 2007 12:01:10 GMT -5
Welcome to the board Adrian! That's a neat machine! Thanks for posting the pics!
Dan
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mirkaba
spending too much on rocks
Member since August 2006
Posts: 321
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Post by mirkaba on Feb 26, 2007 12:31:18 GMT -5
Holy smokes Adrian!!! What is the diameter of your blade? It looks like it won't take much engineering to add a cross-feed......When I am polishing I apply quite a lot of pressure and wet it down enough the rock doesnt get hot...just sort of warm. It seems likethe stage between wet and dry when most of the polishing takes place (as your polishing agent is drying out).
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Post by stoner on Feb 26, 2007 13:01:46 GMT -5
That's a great looking machine Adrian. Now I see what you were talking about. Your polishing unit is what we call a flat lap. So instead of using the felt disc with some type of oxide polish, try using a leather disc and the diamond paste. I'm not sure what type of leather is used in a car wash, but the correct type of leather is the type with a rough surface, like the back side of a belt or the inside of a coat. Using this method, you don't need to use any water during the polishing, just the diamond paste. You can see the results I get on my stones by checking out my work in the "Creating Cabochons" section of this message board.
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adrian65
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Post by adrian65 on Feb 27, 2007 1:09:15 GMT -5
Thank you for the appreciations. It was quite a work, it took me about three months to build it. The diameter of the blade is 300 mm. This is enough for me because it offers a 100 mm active radius (cutting depth), but but the machine can fit max 350 mm diameter of disc (thus 125 mm active radius). Ed, I would like to polish with diamond paste, but how expensive is it? I hope you noticed the size of my stones. Do you think it's affordable? Once put the paste on the leather, how often must be added again? Could you please tell me an approximative price for this diamond paste?
Thank you,
Adrian
PS. Sorry about my English knowledges, Mirkaba, but I don't know the exactly meaning of "cross-feed". Is it the transmission belt which leads to the vertical shaft? If so, now it seems simple but it didn't work from the beginning. If you are interested, tell me to give you details.
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adrian65
Cave Dweller
Arch to golden memories and to great friends.
Member since February 2007
Posts: 10,777
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Post by adrian65 on Feb 27, 2007 1:25:52 GMT -5
The ideea of making this transmission came after some internet "diggings". I luckily found some pictures which I post, not only for the crossed transmission belt, but also for the simple sphere-making technique. Maybe someone on the forum might be interested .
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Post by stoner on Feb 27, 2007 1:36:43 GMT -5
Adrian, the diamond paste is fairly inexpensive. You can get a 5gram syringe for $9.00USD. I've been using the ones I bought for almost 2 years now and there's still plenty left in the tube. Once you put it on the leather pad and work some stones on it, it gets well worked into the leather and lasts a long time. Even doing larger stones like you do, it will last a long time. You only need to use an amount the size of an orange seed. I use a silicon spray lubricant every once in a while and it makes it work like new again.
Ed
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adrian65
Cave Dweller
Arch to golden memories and to great friends.
Member since February 2007
Posts: 10,777
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Post by adrian65 on Feb 27, 2007 2:30:19 GMT -5
Thanks, Ed. That's good news. I will look for it and try it.
Adrian
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Post by Jack ( Yorkshire) on Feb 27, 2007 2:58:27 GMT -5
Hi Adrian
A great machine its the designing and working out that gives such a thrill, Thanks for sharing your Ideas.
Jack Yorkshire UK
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Post by Jack ( Yorkshire) on Sept 17, 2007 3:00:53 GMT -5
Hi I Bumped this up for you its under polishing that probaly why you missed it
Adrians Rock Saw
Jack Yorkshire UK
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Post by LCARS on Sept 17, 2007 12:15:51 GMT -5
I could never quite wrap my head around how those sphere making machines work.
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adrian65
Cave Dweller
Arch to golden memories and to great friends.
Member since February 2007
Posts: 10,777
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Post by adrian65 on Sept 18, 2007 10:41:16 GMT -5
Hey, that's my first thread on this forum! How did it come here again? It seems like yesterday when I first posted here! Oh, Jack, so you're the one! I'm glad that this thread is still useful to someone Adrian
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Post by Jack ( Yorkshire) on Sept 19, 2007 3:06:47 GMT -5
HI Adrian Yes SIR I am guilty !!! Some one was asking about how to make a saw I told him to go to Lap Tips wher you had posted yours ,but he couldnt find yours as it was under Polishing !!!!!! So that why am I forgiven Jack Yorkshire UK
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