rockhoundmn
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since November 2020
Posts: 75
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Post by rockhoundmn on Nov 13, 2020 20:22:44 GMT -5
Has anyone here used a Dremel for polishing rocks? If you'd care to share your experience, I'd really appreciate it.
Seems like it's possibly a fun way to polish the odd rock here and there?
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Post by jasoninsd on Nov 13, 2020 20:57:58 GMT -5
If you page down a bit, look for my thread "My Second Cab". All of that was done with a dremel. Look for the diamond paste talk later on in the thread...  |
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rockhoundmn
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since November 2020
Posts: 75
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Post by rockhoundmn on Nov 13, 2020 22:30:34 GMT -5
Thanks, I'm interested in taking a look. Is it definitely in this forum? I went back to January and didn't find it yet.
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Post by jasoninsd on Nov 14, 2020 9:38:13 GMT -5
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rockhoundmn
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since November 2020
Posts: 75
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Post by rockhoundmn on Nov 14, 2020 10:35:24 GMT -5
Thanks! Beautiful cab, I had no idea it could be done so well.. diamond paste sounds like it might be a game changer? Following with interest!
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Post by Bob on Jan 20, 2021 13:07:00 GMT -5
In Nanjing China, I have seen dozens of people at the same time doing this on extremely hard agates, both polishing, and carving. After observing the process and tools and bits and such, I decided to stick with letting it all happen inside a rotating barrel while I'm out rockhounding or at work or otherwise having fun. If this is useful to you and Jason etc., from what I saw some of my conclusions were:
- sitting very comfortably is key all were using comfy chairs like would be seen at an office, not hard chairs
- having extremely good lighting is important, they had good general overhead lighting plus a special movable light put at the work piece
- every now and then turning the Dremel off, laying it down, closing the eyes and taking a 5 min break to refresh--all used foot pedal or button on/offs for the Dremel
- having a clean bowl of clean water and dipping the rock frequently in it
- all work was being done toward the wall I presume to avoid distractions of people walking by behind the rock being worked
I tried to see what final polish was being used, and it would not translate from Mandarin. It looked grey. I tried to determine whether they used any grinding paste or merely various shapes of diamond burrs and wheels, etc., but never figured that out. Were I guess from all that I saw, all grinding and shaping was done with rotary tools not with any grit/paste.
The big shock to me was how fast even a hard agate could be worked with the proper diamond tool. But, from how often I saw a rock the size of a large grape dipped in the water, it might have started to get hot often.
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