Polishing Rocks with hand held Polisher/Sander - part 1
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- Опубліковано 9 вер 2024
- I take you through the steps I use to freeform polish a rock using hand held power tools, trying to keep it simple and easy. This video brought to you by the Facebook group -
"Mackay fossils and Rocks"
for another look at techniques using the variable speed sander/polisher -
Cutting and Polishing Peanut Wood
• Polishing Rocks with H...
to see my other polishing rocks with hand held polisher/sander videos, see link below ...
Lapidary Tutorials and Methods
• Lapidary Tutorials and...
I just wanted you to know that you certainly have inspired me. The finished product is gorgeous!
Ann Gabriel , thanks for watching video, yes its a low cost, easy way to polish rocks and slabs
I also love how you keep the character and enhance the natural shape. Some clubs won't even like a little flaw and you just about have to end up grinding a heck of a lot away.
hi gayedawn1 ,
thanks for watching video, i agree with you totally, some of the natural shape being retained is a great look, a rough edge left on the finished item also makes the polished part look even better. Some flaws are just that - a flaw, but a lot are things of beauty that add character to the specimen. Enjoy your lapidary work !
cheers, kev
I forgot to say many thanks for the vids. Great work.
Came back to this video after 8 months. Last winter the grit I buy tripled in price putting it out of the reach of my budget. A bit depressing to say the least. So this past summer I bought enough grit to last all winter.
And now I am ready to spend money a grinder/sander and discs to get started. Had to double check what you have. Thanks again.
good one james, good luck with it all, and enjoy the time spent,
kev
Native americans also used power tools to polish rocks. Including foot powered polishers for rocks. Recently discovered that if true change rock history beyond Elvis
Greetings from the other(frozen) side of this Big Blue Marble!
Don't know how I've managed to miss this video for this long. Good work, good info, great low cost way to start polishing.
I'm an old dog rock hound and have been rock tumbling for years, but I'm a pup regarding lapidary. Since I retired from long-haul trucking I have more time to spend cutting and polishing my "hoard", and this would work well with the size rocks that I've collected from the Mississippi River Valley in NW Illinois.
btw...
My wife loves you... Why?? She watched this video over my shoulder. Thankfully, I said that I liked the idea before she said anything. A wheel and pad set is about $2,200 usd less than the lapidary setup that I've been eyeballin'.🤣🤣👍 She "suggested" that we could put the savings into our vacation at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas this year. I said "Yes Dear" and got a kiss. Thank You... Happy Wife, Happy Life!
new sub.
Have Fun, Good Luck, and Keep on Houndin'
Steve...
thats a great story bearsfan, glad it all turned out ok, i bet you have some nice samples in your hoard, nothing better than cutting and polishing a few, cheers, kev
A Definite Blast From The Past.
hi rockinwheelers, an old method, but a goody ! its still the way i polish my rocks, very effective, thanks for watching, kev
We picked up some great ideas, thank you!
Agate Enchantment & Rock Wizardry
thanks for watching,
kev
Yes! I always thought this could be done, so happy you posted the video, thank you so much.
Deb mitchell , thanks for comment deb
Great video.... To the point and easy to pick up and do it myself! Thanks!
Michael VanDyke , thanks for comment
Thank you ! I making a memorial head stone , find your video inspiring .
good one jak, I have done several for other peoples pets, and 2 for people, but i didnt have to polish them, just had to cut out from polished granite, then engrave,
what idea are you using for yours ?
kev
@@kevinnix6531 Kia ora Kevin , once we source the rock I let u know how it goes ..
I'm so happy to have found this video. You did a great job on the tutorial. I was so close to buying a larger vibratory tumbler so I can put larger rocks in it, but I think this might be the way to go instead. And I'll also be able to use the grinder/sander for other uses. I'm looking very forward to picking up these tools. Thank you.
glad you found video helpfull chris, the trouble is that later down the track we all want the tumblers and vibro laps as well ! the hobby and enthusuasim grows, ah well, we enjoy what we do and it keeps us out of trouble, stay well, kev
@@kevinnix6531 when my husband rolls his eyes that I'm brining yet another bucket of rocks home, I tell him this is my form of meditation and to let me meditate in unjudged silence :-) . I already know that I'm still going to get a bigger tumbler sooner or later, but in the meantime, I'm going to give your process a try. Best wishes!
Chris Coppock
good attitude chris ! I have 5 tonne of rock on stock racks, good for the soul 👍
Useful info, I'm smoothing my rock myself now :D. Thanks
MrMichaelNinja
thanks for comment, and good luck with your rock finishing, hopefully you will develop your own techniques, use this video, and other youtube videos to get you there,
cheers, kev
Great tutorial!
glad you liked it that dad, its just a start for most people, to go on a develop their own unique methods, kev
Hey bro thanks for the video...thanks to this video I polished my first piece (thunder egg) almost perfect!!!
thanks for watching matt, glad you had success with polishing thunderegg, they can be nice rocks.
As I’m still learning myself, I find new techniques, so I have made part 3 to polishing videos. Should have it on youtube by about 10th july 2018.
cheers, kev
Kevin Nix Good, looking forward to it bro!!
Nice work mate. I live in Australia too and love collecting stones for my wifes collection but could never be bothered with the long process of tumblers but seeing you do this is great.
I am an old boiler maker so grinders are an extention of my arms so will look forwards to trying this on a few stones we have.
Great vid and cheers for the info. (PS this is my wifes profile hence the name....
Elysabeth Poodle , hi Mr. Poodle, thanks for comment, I agree with you, it seems to be a fairly easy process to use. Its not the only way to get things done, but works well
Elysabeth Poodle
Beautiful work Kevin! Have you thought about bolting that sander down to a plank/table. That way you wouldn't have to hold the sander and have both hands free to control the stone. You have given me some great ideas! Thanks!
David Ellis
hi david, yes, i tried that, it didnt suit my needs really, (but good idea), I do a lot if big heavy polishes, pieces like 8kg to 10kg, and i need the freefom of movement,
thanks for comment,
cheers, kev
Wow!!! Beautiful.
thanks for comment 😉
awesome Kevin, I have the tools you use and just ordered the pads and stitch sisal wheel from ebay, Can't wait untill they arrive for use on my Oxenford Jasper! I have watched most of your vids 10 times over, lol. I also follow your FB site and hope to sell some of this jasper on it in the near future. Thanks heaps Kevin
thanks for your support also, good luck !
Good ideas, but I do wish you had shown more actually using the tools.
That was awesome! Thank you.
thanks for kind comment Lynn,
kev
Excellent video - thank you for some inspiration!
Brian Moore , thanks for watching !
Thanks I have been thinking of going this way.
James Mann
thanks for commenting james 👍
kev
thanks for this vid good setup you got going there
thanks for comment james 👍
very good
abdelkrim laagad
thanks for watching !
Does it matter if i use an orbital or rotary sander or a random orbital sander?
not really josh, just as long as the wet diamond pads stay on the velcro, the direction of the action would not matter
Really helpful information!
thanks for watching
outstanding sir !!!
thanks for watching John 👍
lapis is one of the more toxic powders when inhaled , should be done wet
Cool Tats..
I have this tattoo
of a cat in a shoe,
and below it reads CAT GOT MY TONGUE.
At the time I was young, now I've grown and it's shrunk,
And that's why you don't get tattoos when you're drunk.
good one mark ! time to get another tat
Sounds like a Plan.. :-) Awesome Video !
I have a chicken with a rope around it's neck on my shin. So I tell people my cock hangs below my knee
Ive got a 50 pound piece of agatized petrified wood. Its massive and ive been trying to figure out the best way to polish it. Think I found a good start.
No real rough edges its river tumbled and beautiful just needs a tune up.
this method could suit you
It's a great way to polish any stone but you definitely need a variable speed angle grinder. I very very very rarely go above 1500 rpm on any of the grits or buffer pads. You'll cause to much heat which will shorten the life span of the pad, maybe even burn the rock...depending on what it is. but you will most definitely cause cracks and other unfixable damage to to the specimens. I couldn't imagine any reason you would need that concrete grinder wheel. In fact I couldn't imagine having to us3 a diamond pad less than 200 grit to start shaping and cleaning the specimen. You're asking for scratches that you will never get rid of and will be extremely noticeable after a final polish. Once in over a decade and thousands of rocks I've polished, I've used a 50 grit diamond pad once, a 100 grit a few times because I was being inpatient.
hi michael, thanks for watching video and commenting, concrete grinding cups are essential part of kit for me, especially when flattening ends of large petrified wood stumps, some are 30cm/12” diameter (and larger), the grinding cup brings them down to a workable shape, kev
Nah , I'm an idiot , I commented before I watched the entire video. And I was being one of those people I can't stand on UA-cam. The ones who think they got it all figured out. I humbly apologize for being a Mr know it all. But anyway, I love grinding and polishing with my angle grinder. You're not stuck in Lap. Lab with all the non portable equipment. A couple extension chords or a decent portable power station with an extra car battery and you can set up shop anywhere for the day. Lol, one time I had set up shop on the river bank, in an area this group I was in would meet. I got there early to set up . I had this idea 💡 lol, instead of carrying all these specimens home and finding out none are opals , I'll just grind at the river. It was like taking a bite out of each chocolate when nobody was around and just putting it back in the box. Well, when the group reached the sacred rock stacking grounds and saw what I did, you would think I had just scalped a small village of settlers, woman and children. 😂 oh man, they were so mad. Needless to say I was exiled, banished immediately. In hindsight I totally get it. At the time , it seemed genius.
I had to edit this is in because I haven't thought about that day in a long time and I'm laughing pretty hard about it right now. it was so awkward because I had to make two trips before I was cleared out. Upon arriving back to the site for the last of my things , the group had plenty of time to take a body count of my carnage 🙄. Which was only a couple dozen miscellaneous 2" to 4" stones that showed potential for what I was prospecting for. And just to clarify, it was an actual sacred area, with any historical significance as far as I'm aware. It was the groups meet up spot. Ohhh and this one guy , he was the coolest . I genuinely felt bad thinking I disrespected him in anyway. This guy could stack rocks like a wizard. Could stack rocks in ways that just were not replicable , absolutely amazing.
@@michaelpepper885
interesting, (and entertaining) tale ! your idea was sound though, despite upsetting others. I have a small rechargeable battery angle grinder that has a 4” diamond cutting blade on it, it is great for field trips where i can take a small edge of a rock to inspect the interior. The trick is to be alone, and enjoy your own company while performing inspections.
Omg, I need to proofread better. Just to clarify and then I'm going to be a quiet respectable subscriber, lol... it was NOT a sacred area of any sort. I'm a knucklehead not a jerk .
🤲♾️🔆
To the ancient, to the old and to the new...godspeed
you wander what the grits are... they are aluminium oxide or something, same stuff that they used to make whetting stones out of. good bloke i had some nice stones this summer and i'd deffo get them home to do that next time round.
the pads are diamond particles, suspended in a soft resin (looks and feels like plastic).
the grit size starts at 50 grit, and the finest pad is 10,000 grit.
Hi Kevin, thanks for this video. I am new to this and used a polisher similar to yours in this video. However, I can see the circular pattern of scratches in my rock. I kept the speed at 3. I also tried to move the stone and not keep it in one position (I had the polisher laying down and the rock above it). I am wondering how I can avoid seeing the circular rotation of the polisher in the rocks I polish?
hi jenny,
might need a closer inspection after the first rough pads are used, (dry rock off, and inspect closely in bright light for any scratches), any scratches left after first rough pads are used will carry on through to the end.
kev
Nice one, Kev.
Thanks.
So beautiful
sam jest , thanks for watching !
I'm looking for a way to polish some agates and corals I've self collected and looked into getting a tool to polish them that is faster than a rock tumbler and less expensive than lapidary equipment. This look like a feasible method, but lapis is much softer than agates
hi haley, yes the agates are a lot harder, more work allways needed on the lower grits to ensure scratches are eliminated
edit out or reduce the radio in back ground. Good show!
I have a smaller sander but could I use sandpaper or would that not be good for rock?
yes, you could, but dust from rock sanding is dangerous, need to wear effective mask.
Preferably use wet n’ dry sandpaper, and keep rock wet while sanding
you should mount that grinder to your bench
R. Erik Weigand , yes, thats an option, i have tried it, but if one likes that method, i suggest attaching velcro backing wheel to bench grinder instead, thanks for comment.
Kevin Nix Was thinking of going this route... where did you get your sanding pads?? Also what is the RPM limit with them.. need to find a bench grinder that will coincide with that speed.. these pads seem to work well..a LOT of people are using them lately..and your work shows how good it turns out!!
The first thing coming to my mind:
before I go and buy such tools then spend time playing with them, is a polished rock really worth it?!
hi A S, an unusual question, not really one that can be answered by anyone else,
kev
Would it be a sin to fill the large pits with clear resin so as not to take away so much of the original stone? After, of course thorough cleaning.
Suenette Edwards , yes your right, there are various techniques regarding filling, and stabalising rocks in preperation for polishing.
I am a bit of a learner myself, and not familiar with these methods though, thanks for watching video,
kev
Quick question Kevin. Do you think using cerium oxide with the sisal would be beneficial? I'm about to buy a bench grinder and I have extra cerium laying around so I might need to buy some extra wheels so I don't contaminate.
ElGatoLoco698 ,
hi, hope you are well,
I use the cerium oxide, and tin oxide, on a
4”/100mm felt disc that i fit to my sander/polisher. I run it on the lowest speed so as not to fling off the oxide. This does a great job for the final polish.
I havent been able to find Velcro attached felt discs yet, so i use angle grinder type felt wheels. To attach these to your sander/polisher you need to have angle grinder nuts that screw on to your sander/polishers spindle.
I havent tried using a bench grinder, it may be to fast, but you can only try it out and see what happens, main thing is to keep the damp oxide on the sisal wheel.
cheers, kev
There are web resources that catalog the toxicity of minerals/gems. It’s good to know what minerals like lapis or malachite dust that is highly toxic and must be kept wet when shaping and polishing.
agree, all work best done wet
Ok sorry to anyone watching it is very unsafe to wear loose clothes and gloves with rotating power tools please be safe.
G'day Kevin. I bought some disc's 80-1200 but find that even getting to the 1200 my agates are getting the sh $t scratched out of my slices. I dip the stone into water very frequently, but my grinder is not variable speed. Could the scratching come from A) speed too quick, B) not wet enough or a combination of both? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Cheers from Tassie
George Redbranch
hi george, it is most likely too fast rpm. It really is worth getting a variable speed sander, Bunnings sell them, you wont regret the investment,
cheers, kev
Is it a variable speed angle grinder or polisher?
yes tamara, a variable speed sander/polisher. These days they are available as rechargeable battery units, only half the weight, I am getting one for christmas, and will release a new video after that,
kev
Hi Kevin , love your work, I’m an expat Aussie living in Canterbury nz now, found a few agates and just seeing if this technique would work on them? Cheers J
Jay , i see you found the other video, i put a longer comment there,
thanks for watching video mate !
kev
Looks nice
Is that a variable speed grinder?
I have 3 angle grinders, and they all spin around 12,000 rpm.
Which is too much for the diamond pads.
hi Charlton Heston ,
yes, it is critical to use a variable speed grinder, or variable speed sander/polisher.
(or, if you can afford it - a wet polisher).
The fixed speed grinders are 11,500 to 12,000rpm and it is too fast.
for example, on my 6 speed sander, i use the second lowest speed.
If you go ahead and wish to get a var. speed sander, be aware of the spindle thread size, 14mm is ideal, most ebay attachments sold are 14mm.
thanks for watching video, and appreciate your comment,
cheers, kev
this probably a really stupid question but is that an angle grinder without the gaurd on it?
Tori Lewis , yes, good safety observation. I will wear all the personal protective equipment, but fail in that area. I refuse to be held back from the hobby i love. But yes ! definitely safety issue (for some)
Sir. I have a good angle grinder that I was hoping to use on my poppy jasper. You mentioned that the RPMs would be too high for the polishing stages. What would the outcome be if I went ahead and just used my grinder throughout the whole process?
you can only try, i found it too fast for the diamond pads though
Great video, Where did you buy the disk at? I don't you them on Bunning's web site.
Scott Kauffman
hi scott, the sander/polisherbis available at bunnings.
the wet diamond discs are avail on ebay,
or, from the THK diamond tools website,
kev
Love ur videos. Can u tell me what brand pads ur using? So many mixed reviews, I just want ones that work.
hi jessi, I have only used the cheap ones from ebay, i dont think they have a brand name.
The only brand name i know is THK diamond tools, they make a set that is a bit more expensive, and should work fine.
kev
Sydney Tools sells these. Diamond Resin Pad $35 each.
Nice..
Great video!
Can you please share the brand name of the velcro backed cutting discs you used. Were they bought at Bunnings?
Jeanette Lamb , good question, no, i bought them from ebay, a set of polishing pads start at about $20 AUD delivered to your door.
A set includes the velcro backing wheel that screws on to your sander (14mm thread)
:) I found myself a set on ebay the other day.
Thanks for your reply. :)
Thank you it’s - I want to ask you about the big motor, how much it's priced and where to get it. good luck.
search online for -
electric sander polisher, variable speed
Thank you very much always good luck
What solution did you put in the water sir?
hi sadam, i just add dish washing detergent to the water, make it about the same strength as when you wash your dishes,
kev
Hi Again Kevin, Sorry to spam your Video comment section but since I do not have your email it had to be done :), I found a couple of very interesting rocks on my last trip to Bulgaria but I am not entirely sure what they are, would you be interested in trying to Ident the rocks? Same goes for anyone else reading the comment. Many thanks in advance.
Joseph Silva
hi joseph, if you are a facebook user, you can join our facebook group “mackay fossils and rocks” to post photos of rocks for ID.
Or you can Messenger me “kevin nix”.
Or you can email me kevinnix60@gmail.com
cheers, kev
Awesome Kevin, thanks again, will req to join your group. Cheers
Dear Kevin, Many thanks for your video, it is very well narrated and very informative, however i am curious if the same process can be applied on harder stones with equally good results, Lapis Lazuli is a 5.5 on the M.O.H scale, so a relatively soft rock, I am wondering if it would work on Agate which is a 7 on the scale. Many thanks in anticipation.
Joseph Silva , yes, i have used that process on very hard chert, and other hard rocks, just takes a bit more care and time
Thank you for taking time to answer Kevin. will give it a go. Bought myself a 1200W silverline sander/ Polisher with Variable speed to try it out :)
im trying the same with a large agate, let me know how you go, i need to go back and spend more time on the lower grits i think
Jay , yes, your right, the lower grits do all the work, pays to do a lot of drying off and inspecting for scratches in the lower grits,
kev
Hi Jay, yes, I can confirm you can get equally good results on Agate with Kevin's method, i use it alot on Flint which is extremely hard and it works a charm.
where can I get that pva 36 grit wheel?
hi kylie, in australia at bunnings, other locations would be in a tile and stone workers supplier, or hardware shop. Also avail on Ebay.
I am interested in this because a gem club I belong to don't like you using their grinding diamond wheels on anything much bigger than a large cab, I am so not interested in cabs only free form polishing hand size specimens or just like your lapis.
gayedawn1
yes, me too, i enjoy larger cabs, but bigger is better !
kev
U need with wather to polish
ilirjan Chicago
yes, allways water, it lubricates and cools, abd preserves your diamond pads,
thanks for comment,
kev
@@kevinnix6531 I have black carbonados bro
i see the nuisance mask (useless if worn) still on the bench while youre rough grinding
yes, you are entirely right, good comment !
i need this tool,plz someone can help me to get the tool?
kevin nix thank you very much for replying
MA na ap sa ya tool khardna ha paleez kantakat karaa ap Mobil nambar sms karoo arjant
Please cut the flipping music off
R Mor , yes i hear you mate, my later videos have no music
I lov this vid. Sir please have you blood sugar tested for diabetes
thanks HF, glad you liked it, kev