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Post by Bob on Jun 9, 2022 17:24:53 GMT -5
Just saw this. Have not read others' posts.
Accidents are going to happen even if not very often. Presume you will have a barrel lid that comes off, and makes a big mess. So place your tumblers somewhere with that in mind. I have several and they are in the garage. There is an accident about once/year. Some only take an hour to clean up, but that is the exception. If the mess runs across the floor, you can ruin other things and cleanup can take much longer.
I buy very shallow plastic pans from a local farm and ranch supply that I think are called rabbit pen bottoms. I put my tumblers in those and sometimes cut them apart and reglue them together after removing some material to make them just the right size. The idea is to be able to capture the slurry from an accident instead of it running all over the floor.
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Post by 1dave on Jun 11, 2022 23:36:36 GMT -5
When you go out for a jog in a nice riverrside trail, it's hard to finish your run with rocks in your pockets :-) I learned that this weekend! So, always bring a small bag to carry found treasures :-) This is Stage 0. Calling jamesp - PLEASE chime in! |
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jamesp
Cave Dweller 
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,644
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Post by jamesp on Jun 12, 2022 7:04:19 GMT -5
My rotary methods are a bit unconventional for the general population 1dave. High rotation speeds, focus on maintaining a specific protective/sticky slurry, large silicon carbide particles, wear resistant homemade barrels, and a heavy duty homemade rotary is not the typical setup and method commonly used. Glad to share but this might not be the best place. |
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Post by 1dave on Jun 12, 2022 10:34:49 GMT -5
My rotary methods are a bit unconventional for the general population 1dave . High rotation speeds, focus on maintaining a specific protective/sticky slurry, large silicon carbide particles, wear resistant homemade barrels, and a heavy duty homemade rotary is not the typical setup and method commonly used. Glad to share but this might not be the best place. And it would help if THEY all understood those things, but your engineer mind - speed, gears, dimensions, Hard VS soft, . . . Pre-Tumbling Sawing and Grinding can save a lot of tumbling time, and give control over your final product. ROTARY  Log  Fill  DIY  Lortone  Thumbler  Glassman!         VIBRATORY LOT-O  VIKING   |
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,644
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Post by jamesp on Jun 12, 2022 11:50:09 GMT -5
Lol, that is a long span of time 1dave. Again, the final method ended up being unconventional and very different from the majority of the RTH tumbling population's techniques. |
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Post by 1dave on Jun 12, 2022 12:32:00 GMT -5
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jonk
off to a rocking start
Member since June 2022
Posts: 2
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Post by jonk on Jun 20, 2022 15:49:34 GMT -5
Pro-Tips: Ebay can have good deals on bulk lapidary grit (SiC and AOx): be wary of any seller without overwhelming positive feedback, and completely avoid any with 'poor communication'. Before you commit to a large purchase on a questionable seller: ask (or buy) a 'sample'...the quality of all grits are not created equal.
I'm totally new here and with rock tumbling, more generally. But this tip strikes close to what I'm currently trying to grapple with -- the many choices of grit. (I'm suddenly in the market, I guess.)
SiC (carborundum) is common and cheap. Al2O3 is equally so. And I have had experience with both, just recently.
Your point about being careful and that "...the quality of all grits are not created equal" causes my brain to spin. For example, my recent experience is with black SiC but I've noticed that there are also available green SiC and that the green version is somewhat more expensive. Also, I expected that some of the 60-80 grit would be recoverable after four days or so of tumbling some rocks. But by that time there was nothing left in the bottom. It was all so small that the remaining particles readily stayed in suspension in the water. So it was all gone in rather short order, I thought. (Which also taught me to observe more often and not just assume that there is any grit left to do work.)
(Again, I'm just starting out and just learning. So this is just an observation leading to an early question.)
This got me looking further. There's also boron carbide, for example, which may be recoverable since it is fairly hard. (And of course diamond dust -- which I've used when polishing high pressure plastic molds.)
But I'd like to return to SiC itself and focus exactly upon this: "...the quality of all grits are not created equal." I'd like to know more about SiC. Is it that the black variety has a greater variation in hardness than the green variety, which may be of better purity? Is the green worth the effort to find and use? Or do pros just use what's cheaper and go with that? What are the pro tips about SiC for the rougher grind stages, generally speaking? (Some decades ago, I fabricated my own telescopes -- thousands of hours of hand-grinding, down to the use of red rouge. So no rock tumbling experiences. But very long hours using grit with quartz-on-quartz!) |
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Post by 1dave on Jun 22, 2022 14:22:16 GMT -5
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Member since January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2022 21:54:19 GMT -5
jamespJames, is that you and your contraptions in the pictures posted by 1dave?
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,644
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Post by jamesp on Jun 26, 2022 8:32:41 GMT -5
jamespJames, is that you and your contraptions in the pictures posted by 1dave? Exposed ! Them crazy engineers know not what they are doing  |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Member since January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2022 8:35:54 GMT -5
jamespWow James! You have quite the mind! Also, there’s your picture post for the face behind the name thread! It’s nice to “see” you and put a face to the friend!  You should post a picture of you and your wife in the thread, it’s nice to see people. forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/thread/99091/face-name
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Post by 1dave on Jun 26, 2022 17:18:26 GMT -5
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Post by 1dave on Jun 26, 2022 17:24:54 GMT -5
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stefan
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2005
Posts: 14,113
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Post by stefan on Jul 7, 2022 6:45:57 GMT -5
Good questions jonk SiC is SiC is SiC. THe quality comes in the grading. Ungraded, or poorly graded (sifted, sorted watever you want to call it) SiC will provide inconsistent results when compared to stricter graded grit. Why we use SiC when there are better (relative term) alternatives out there comes down to cost. Years ago someone on the board used boron carbide and ended up with very similar results at a much greater cost (If I remember the Boron carbide lasted about 5 to 10% longer at 50% more cost). The same applies to the green (I believe slightly hard) green SiC. It all comes done to return on investment. As for the recoverability of grit, well that becomes a slippery slope as well. I save my slurry and reuse it as a starter. I won't bore you with my years of trial and error but suffice to say I have found the best recipe for me is 2 weeks in course (currently 60/90 SiC). I do a clean out and inspection and anything not ready goes back in. I have tried longer runs and the grinding action slows down greatly after 2 weeks. I have tried shorter runs, and found left over grit even at 10 days. My goal is to have little if any remaining grit at clean out time. 14 days is my magic number for course. Having ground your own mirrors you realize the entire grind concept and process. You also are VERY aware of the importance of complete grit breakdown before moving on. Anyone who has dedicated that much time and effort in grinding a mirror should have zero issues with rock tumbling! |
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rockchipkip14
off to a rocking start
Old geologist never die, they just petrify.
Member since August 2020
Posts: 24
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Post by rockchipkip14 on Jul 29, 2022 12:02:18 GMT -5
With permission to move into polishing stage, I *always* use a dedicated barrel (even in the vibe) and always do a pre-polish wash (actually, I often do this with every stage). Put a TBS or so of a mild laundry detergent with no additives, or shave off some ivory soap, into the barrel. For the wash, add more water--since the purpose here is to clean any leftover grit, etc. off, rather than create a proper tumbling action, it should slop around in there. Likewise, after I am satisfied with the polish, I either (a) do a final wash, (b) stick the rocks in a jewelry cleaner, or (c) both. This will avoid those annoying white streaks that lodge in the cracks you didn't know you had--until they jump up and say "hello." |
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rockchipkip14
off to a rocking start
Old geologist never die, they just petrify.
Member since August 2020
Posts: 24
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Post by rockchipkip14 on Jul 29, 2022 12:02:34 GMT -5
With permission to move into polishing stage, I *always* use a dedicated barrel (even in the vibe) and always do a pre-polish wash (actually, I often do this with every stage). Put a TBS or so of a mild laundry detergent with no additives, or shave off some ivory soap, into the barrel. For the wash, add more water--since the purpose here is to clean any leftover grit, etc. off, rather than create a proper tumbling action, it should slop around in there. Likewise, after I am satisfied with the polish, I either (a) do a final wash, (b) stick the rocks in a jewelry cleaner, or (c) both. This will avoid those annoying white streaks that lodge in the cracks you didn't know you had--until they jump up and say "hello." |
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geoff59
spending too much on rocks
Member since October 2022
Posts: 290
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Post by geoff59 on Nov 2, 2022 11:24:43 GMT -5
“Alterfied”, haha, that’s going to become a new word in my own vocabulary! 😅
ALL of my early mistakes and failures were caused by variations of not taking the proper time to learn about what I was trying to tumble/polish. For example I ran leopard skin Jasper through a complete 1-2-3-4 and polished it X2, BEFORE I read about it and learned that the stuff doesn’t really take a polish at all. So if you’re new at this and also reading this far, my advice is to slow down, and among all the rest of the advice here that isn’t necessary to repeat, “learn about the rough you’re buying before you buy/try”
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Post by littleolecatdog on Dec 16, 2022 18:41:42 GMT -5
At the end of stage 1, do your clean out and let the rocks dry. You'll see flaws when dry that would be missed if wet.
I am amazed how many rocks go back for another (and another) round in stage 1......so patience is definitely necessary!
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vance71975
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since September 2022
Posts: 760
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Post by vance71975 on Dec 16, 2022 19:50:18 GMT -5
You can use Pea Gravel from wal mart as a replacement for ceramic media with harder stones, and its far cheaper. 30lbs of Rainforest Outdoor Decorative Natural Stone on wal marts website is 43.48 VS 120 to 225 for 30 lbs of ceramic Media depending on size. For softer stones, glass marble vase fillers work well as they are the same hardness as say obsidian, my wal mart had 12 oz bags for 0.98 cents to 3.98 depending on what ones you get, so they are also pretty cheap for filler softer rocks.
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ataraktos
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since January 2020
Posts: 140
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Post by ataraktos on Dec 18, 2022 12:23:02 GMT -5
You can use Pea Gravel from wal mart as a replacement for ceramic media with harder stones, and its far cheaper. 30lbs of Rainforest Outdoor Decorative Natural Stone on wal marts website is 43.48 VS 120 to 225 for 30 lbs of ceramic Media depending on size. For softer stones, glass marble vase fillers work well as they are the same hardness as say obsidian, my wal mart had 12 oz bags for 0.98 cents to 3.98 depending on what ones you get, so they are also pretty cheap for filler softer rocks. this is currently what i'm using ... i have some ceramics still but mostly use gravel. i've used the small stuff from walmart (especially in coarse because, although i'm aware many say media is not necessary in coarse, i'll often be working out the smallest little imperfection and find a new, huge chip if i don't use it or don't use enough. even in tough stuff like jasper. my covington rotary seems on the fast side?) anyway i use the smaller stuff in coarse and i've bought some bags of bigger, rounder gravel from petco for the lot-o (per inga's obsidian instructions, though i've yet to try obsidian). i also find it more colorful and interesting - i've found lots of amazing, tiny little rocks in the pea gravel! the very best, coolest ones get promoted on through the stages, polished and kept out at the very end. |
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You should post a picture of you and your wife in the thread, it’s nice to see people. 
