Treasure Hunting

I had to add this other photo of the jasper before I leave that subject behind for awhile.  This was taken while I was cleaning the last of the residue from the stones after polishing.  

I’ve added a new item to my wish list - a Swap Top All-In Wonder.  It’s a combination trim saw/flat lap that can be used to trim stones and then polish them.  It’s actually supposed to be a complete cabbing system, but I’m not sure how many cabs I’d want to make.  Mostly, I would just like something that could polish stones (like crystals) with multiple flat sides or trim small slabs.  I’ve seen these combo units run anywhere from $300-400, and that’s not really a bad price for all that you’re getting.  Still, it’s a bit more than I want to invest right now.  Maybe I’ll mark it down as a Christmas possible.

Sometimes when polishing stones in the rock tumbler, I’ll toss some miscellaneous ones in if I don’t have a full load.  Not only does this get a few extra things polished, but it helps with the balance issues in the rock tumbler.  So it’s not really uncommon to find a stone of a different variety mixed in with the main batch I am tumbling.

I swear, though, I don’t remember tossing in this piece of unakite with the last batch of jasper that I was polishing.  And from the looks of it, I threw it in the tumbler sometime after the initial stage.  So I’m extra clueless on why I would do that because that would make the stone not polish up nicely as you can see in the picture.  It’s not a huge deal since I can toss it in the pile of things that need to be polished again, and it is just unakite which is pretty common in these parts.  It’s still bugging me though since I can’t remember anything about it!  Or maybe, just maybe, I have mischievous rock imps living somewhere in the house - probably in the laundry room behind the washer if they’re smart since I’d never think to look there.

I’ve been working on making some updates to the site, particularly on some of the static pages.  I’ve added a few links to the Mohs Hardness Scale chart, but there’s still a lot of work to be done there and things have been quite hectic lately.  I also started a new page to give a more in-depth look at crystal quartz polishing.  So far, I’ve just added information through about the cleaning process, but as I’m still in the process of tumbling the crystals, it will be an ongoing job for quite some time.

I’ve also been trying to figure out ways to make the layout of this site a bit better.  As there are some outside limitations to the the types of themes I can use, this is a lot easier said than done.  For now, this theme seems to work the best of the options I have, but I’m not crazy about it.  I keep exploring other alternatives, but nothing else fits right now.  Oh well!  I guess I’ll keep looking awhile longer.

I did remember to add a Widget listing the top Entrecard visitors to this site.  I was a little skeptical about Entrecard at first, but through that service, I have found a great many sites that I enjoy.  It’s also brought some very interesting people here.  For those two reasons, I definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn’t signed up yet.

When most people think about natural ways to polish rocks, their minds immediately jump to rock tumblers.  It actually is possible to polish stones naturally without using a rock tumbler or a lap polisher, and the technique isn’t as bad as you might think.  It does take some time and you might get some sore muscles out of the deal, but you can polish rocks by using successive grades of wet-and-dry sandpaper.  The basic instructions for this technique can be found here.

Why would you want to use wet-and-dry sandpaper rather than just plain old regular sandpaper?  Well, polishing the rocks while they’re wet has a couple of benefits.  First of all, it helps keep down the mess, especially if you’re performing this process indoors.  You don’t want rock dust flying all over your house.  If you keep dipping the rock in water as you’re sanding it, you’ll be able to keep the rock dust confined to your work area and water bucket for the most part.  Secondly, it’s safer.  Not only can rock dust make a mess, it’s also something that you don’t want to inhale or get in your eyes.  You really should wear safety glasses when you’re polishing rocks in this manner, but rock dust can linger in the air for a long time.  Plus, no matter how important safety glasses are, you’re going to be taking them off from time to time so you can inspect your work more closely.

The sanding cycle finally finished yesterday for the jasper that I have had in the rock tumbler.  Now comes the fun part!  I took the photograph here after I got all of the silicon carbide washed off of the stones.  They’re still wet in the photo so it gives something of an idea of how they’re going to turn out when complete.

It will still be about two more weeks before it’s finally polished, assuming that everything goes well.  They’re just starting the pre-polishing cycle now and that should take about a week, give or take a day.  Then the polishing cycle will take about another week. 

Depending how the stones look after that, they may need a few extra days in a burnishing cycle.  It’s really hard to give an estimate on that, though, until I actually see the results after the polishing cycle.  If I had to guess, I would say that some burnishing will be needed but probably only about three days worth.

As the stones go through the grinding and sanding stages, they lose some of their volume so it’s important to add some type of filler in the final stages.  Up until now, I have been using small plastic pellets.  I hate these stupid pellets with a passion.  They’re supposed to be reusable, but they’re so annoying that I end up just throwing them away.  Then I get even more annoyed that I’m wasting something that’s supposed to be reusable.  I finally broke down and bought some ceramic media to use as filler.  I’m trying it for the first time in this pre-polishing cycle.  I can already tell that I’m going to like it better since it’s bigger and heavier.  

I completely forgot that I had some rough carnelian that I planned on polishing. I was going through a few things today, trying to do some organizing and get a little cleaning done, and I found the carnelian sitting in a box behind another box (yes, my house is really a mess right now).

Even though I call it rough carnelian because it hasn’t been polished yet, it really does look pretty rough! It takes a beautiful polish though, so all that will change. It will just be a bit before I do get it into the rock tumbler. I have several other stones that I want to polish first. Even if that wasn’t the case, the jasper still has a good two weeks to go. I think that means its time to upgrade again and get another rock tumbler with multiple barrels.  But back on topic! Here’s a nice picture of what carnelian can look like after it has been tumbled. This photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons User jaja_1985.

A Little Postscript:  Okay, I guess when I say I’m going to do something, I mean it. Since I published this post, I’ve already gone and bought a second rock tumbler. I was just going to check out the prices on eBay to see if there were any bargains on used tumblers. In the process of doing so, I found a great deal on a brand new one that will hold a 6-pound barrel or two 3-pound barrels. Even though I was looking for something a little bigger, this was too good a deal to pass up. Depending on how long it takes for the item to ship, maybe I will get around to polishing that carnelian a little sooner than I thought.

We decided to do a little experiment with some of the crystals found at the Krystal Tips mining site.  The picture to the left shows a flat of some of the crystals that were dug there back in June.  As you can tell, they’re still pretty dirty.

The crystals in this collection don’t have very good points so we decided that we wanted to try polishing them in the rock tumbler to see how they would turn out.  But the first step is to get them clean.  So right now, they’re sitting in a bucket of soapy water on my front porch. 

Later on today, I plan on going out and rinsing them off.  I’m guessing they’ll still have some good hunks of dirt on them so they’ll probably need to soak a little more.   I’ve already noticed some purple in some of these crystals - maybe when they’re cleaned up more, some more amethyst will be seen.  But for the most part, they look to be mainly of the smoky and clear varieties.  I’m pretty curious to see how they’re going to turn out after being polished, especially the wands.