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Home » Tumbler Rough » Rough Apache Tears
Apache Tears Tumbler Rough
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Apache Tears
Apache tears are small nodules of black volcanic glass known as "obsidian".
They look opaque in the image above but when polished most of them will be translucent to
transparent if you hold them up to the light. They make beautiful black tumbled stones.
Lots of people say that Apache tears and other types of volcanic glass are a challenge to
polish. The problem that they encounter is brusing and chipping if the tears are tossed
around too vigorously in a rotary tumbler.
That problem is easy to solve!
Simply load the tears into a tumbler barrel with about 50% by volume
small ceramic cylinders. Be sure that the
barrel is close to top recommended capacity - about 3/4 full. The small ceramic pellets
cushion the Apache tears as they tumble and prevent hard impacts in the barrel.
We have successfully polished Apache tears in a rotary tumbler with
small ceramic cylinders and TXP polish but
our favorite way to polish them is described at the bottom of this page.
Here are two more tips about tumbling Apache Tears and obsidian in general.....
First, obsidian is a lot softer than the agates and jaspers
that most people tumble. They are 5.5 on the Mohs Hardness Scale while jasper and agate are 7. If you tumble
Apache Tears with agate and jasper they will wear away while the agate and jasper are still being rounded. Apache Tears
should be tumbled separately.
Second, instead of allowing them to tumble a week in coarse grit it is best to
check on them after four to five days. Apache Tears have a hardness of 5.5 but the silicon
carbide has a hardness of 9+. The tears will wear away rapidly in the hard silicon carbide.
You don't want to open your tumbler and discover that your tears have tumbled into sand grains!
The Apache Tears for sale here range from 1/4" (6 mm) to 1 1/4" (31 mm) in diameter.
They are translucent beauties when fully polished.
The rough material above was photographed wet to show full color.
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This photo is of a batch of Apache Tears that we polished. Look at that bright polish and no brusing! Here's how we did it......
Step 1:
We loaded about two pounds of Apache Tears and about two pounds of small ceramic cylinders into the barrel of a Lortone QT6 tumbler with 60/90
grit silicon carbide. We then tumbled for seven days. The Apache Tears that we tumbled were already rounded. In addition,
they are a lot softer than agates and jaspers - so seven days in coarse grit was enough to produce nice rounded shapes with
almost all of the dimples smoothed out.
Step 2:
We loaded the Apache Tears and the small ceramic cylinders into a single barrel
Lot-O-Tumbler and ran them for 48 hours in
150/220 grit, rinsing and adding new grit after
the first 24 hours.
Step 3: We then ran the Apache Tears and ceramic cylinders for 24 hours in the
Lot-O-Tumbler with 500F grit prepolish. The tears
were now showing a slight gloss.
Step 4: The final step was 48 hours in the Lot-O-Tumbler with
TXP aluminum oxide polish. We checked the tears
at the end of 24 hours and they had a bright polish but it wasn't mirror smooth throughout. So
we added one Lot-o-Tumbler cap full of water and allowed the tumbler to run another 24 hours.
Wow! They came out great! Total processing time was one week and five days.
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Large Ceramic Media:
Large ceramic pellets work great as a filler and for delivering grit or polish to difficult-to-reach surfaces. More information... |
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Small Ceramic Media:
Small ceramic pellets work great when you need small material for better tumbling action or to deliver grit or polish to difficult-to-reach surfaces. More information... |
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Plastic Media:
Use plastic pellets to cushion fragile stones when tumbling in a rotary tumbler. More information... |
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