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Home » Tumbler Rough » Mixed Jasper Rough
Mixed Jasper Tumbler Rough
A great rough for the beginning rock tumbler.
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Jasper Mix Tumbling Rough
Here is a tumbling mix that will give you many different types of jasper in a variety of patterns and colors. Every bag of this mix is different. If you order today and again in a couple months you will likely be surprised with completely different materials. Expect a range of colors but the mix will usually be rich in red, brown, cream, gray and
tan colored jasper that accepts a nice polish.
This mix is perfect for the beginner. It has a range of particle sizes from approximately 3/8" (9 mm) to 1 1/2"" (38 mm) and should require little to no preparation.
We recommend TXP polish - an aluminum oxide compound - for polishing all types of jasper.
The rough material in the photograph above is wet to show full color. The photograph below is of polished material.
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This photo is of a batch of Mixed Jasper rough that we polished.
Steps 1A, 1B, 1C: We started with a little less than four pounds of rough and loaded it into the barrel of a Lortone QT6 tumbler with 60/90 grit silicon carbide. This is very angular rough with lots of edges to round off. At the end of one week we inspected the rocks and were really impressed with the color. Most of the rocks were smooth but there were still a few sharp edges and dimples that we wanted to grind off. So we ran it a second week with a fresh charge of 60/90 grit. At the end of week two we were feeling picky so we ran it a third week in fresh grit for good measure. After three weeks we had lots of nicely rounded rocks with almost all of the sharp edges worn off and the dimples worn smooth. We cleaned it up for tumbling in medium grit. That was three weeks total in coarse (60/90) grit.
Step 2: We loaded the jaspers into a single barrel Lot-O-Tumbler and ran for 48 hours in with 150/220 grit, rinsing and adding new grit after the first 24 hours.
Step 3: We then ran the jaspers about 36 hours in the Lot-O-Tumbler with 500F prepolish. The jasper was now showing a slight gloss.
Step 4: The final step was just 24 hours in the Lot-O-Tumbler with TXP aluminum oxide polish. Wow! We were amazed at how brightly they polished in just one day.
Total processing time was three weeks, four days and 12 hours. |
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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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We highly recommend:
Modern Rock Tumbling by Steve Hart.
Learning is the fastest way to improve the quality of
rocks that you tumble. In this book you will learn from an expert with extensive
experience. You will increase your abilities, learn to save time, money and have a great reference book
that you will use again and again. |
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