Lapidaryforum.net
Rock Art => Tumbling => Topic started by: William Phillips on January 10, 2018, 02:07:55 PM
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Does anyone have any suggestions how to tumble Jade. My daughter in law brought some home for me from China. And I would like to tumble some of it.
Thank you
Bill
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Rotary may be disastrous might try a vibe.
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Are you tumbling little pieces, cabochons or???? Makes a big difference.
Most jade will tumble polish. There are a lot of tumble polished specimens for sale on e-bay with a nice finish.
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55fossil
I hope to make some earrings wire wrapped so the pieces will be 1/2 x 1/2 x 3/16 inch, and pendants 1x1x.25 inch.
Thank you
Bill
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Jade comes in a million varieties of hardness and almost all of it contains more than one zone. Tumbling is a pure crapshoot unless you know the quality is even all over. Results could be anything.
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Siberian Jade Rough for Cabbing Cabochon Wire Wrapping Tumbled Jewelry, Over 30g
Glue this into your ebay search and you can see tumbled jade. This is pretty good quality jade but even Siberian Jade has zoning and the usual jade problems. I normally hand cut and polish all jade cabochons. For someone that wants jade to wire wrap or drill: I precut and rough shape the jade on silicon carbide 100 grit, 220, 4000 grit wheels. Then into a small vibratory tumbler with 600, pre-polish then polish. I guess a rotary tumbler would work but have not tried it. Do not shape jade on a hard wheel such as Genie steel core wheels. There is a few jades that can survive a diamond hard wheel, very few. good luck neal
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". Do not shape jade on a hard wheel such as Genie steel core wheels. There is a few jades that can survive a diamond hard wheel, very few. good luck neal"
Absolutely correct! Jade is basically a "felt" stone and the vibration from metal wheels causes a lot of issues.....
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Test tumble for jade..... I tossed some jade cabs into a vibratory tumbler with 600 grit SC. Ran for 3 days and looks as expected. It has a smooth surface with some areas where you can see a change due to softer rock. After 3 days in pre-polish it is looking better but still not like hand polished. In process now of 3 days with CPP Polish powder. We shall see what it does.
This is a mixture of BC green jades with all types of normal jade issues. Some pieces have chromite, black ? spots, multiple shades of green looking like swirling water. So there will be a lot of various hardness and textures to contend with.