MattTheHat
Member
I've tuned a few different flavors of TruStone which polished up very nicely. The White Horse Jasper for one. It's considerably harder than something like Acryluster, but it's really not much more work to get a very nice and shiny polished surface.
Some of the other flavors...meh, not so much. The Red and Yellow Dino Bone, for example. But with those, there's so much texture going on that a really shiny surface doesn't really seem to do much to improve the look.
I recently did a ladies and gents set in Sumi with Black. For those unfamiliar, it's a deep, dark purple with very faint black veining. The purple is so dark that you really have to look to see the black veins, and even then they just don't show much.
I turn on a metal lathe with carbide inserts. After turning, I sand first with 400 grit Abralon, and then wet sand at 400 grit with a padded backing disc, and then at 600. From there I wet sand with MM, starting at 1500 and running through 8000. From there I polish with the three grades of MM plastic polish, and finish that of with a light wet buffing with a 12000 grit MM pad. Pretty much the same routine I use for acrylics, but each step seems to take about twice as long.
In my dimly lit garage the finish looks fine. But when I look at the pens in good light at anything closer than say, 18" or so, I'm not happy with the finish. It looks a bit dull, almost hazy. Similar to what I would expect with acrylic after using the 4000 grit MM pad.
I'm wondering if others have had this experience with the Sumi flavor (or any other) of TruStone, and what you might have done to achieve a better polished surface. I'll readily admit that it's entirely possible that I just rushed the whole process, but each pen was done on different days with near identical results.
I'd post pics (actually I did post a pic of the completed set a couple of weeks ago), but the haziness is fine enough that it just doesn't show up in photographs.
I've ordered several grades of diamond paste and will try them when they land.
The other thought I had was to try applying a CA finish to what I've got now and then polish the CA.
Any others suggestions?
-Matt
Some of the other flavors...meh, not so much. The Red and Yellow Dino Bone, for example. But with those, there's so much texture going on that a really shiny surface doesn't really seem to do much to improve the look.
I recently did a ladies and gents set in Sumi with Black. For those unfamiliar, it's a deep, dark purple with very faint black veining. The purple is so dark that you really have to look to see the black veins, and even then they just don't show much.
I turn on a metal lathe with carbide inserts. After turning, I sand first with 400 grit Abralon, and then wet sand at 400 grit with a padded backing disc, and then at 600. From there I wet sand with MM, starting at 1500 and running through 8000. From there I polish with the three grades of MM plastic polish, and finish that of with a light wet buffing with a 12000 grit MM pad. Pretty much the same routine I use for acrylics, but each step seems to take about twice as long.
In my dimly lit garage the finish looks fine. But when I look at the pens in good light at anything closer than say, 18" or so, I'm not happy with the finish. It looks a bit dull, almost hazy. Similar to what I would expect with acrylic after using the 4000 grit MM pad.
I'm wondering if others have had this experience with the Sumi flavor (or any other) of TruStone, and what you might have done to achieve a better polished surface. I'll readily admit that it's entirely possible that I just rushed the whole process, but each pen was done on different days with near identical results.
I'd post pics (actually I did post a pic of the completed set a couple of weeks ago), but the haziness is fine enough that it just doesn't show up in photographs.
I've ordered several grades of diamond paste and will try them when they land.
The other thought I had was to try applying a CA finish to what I've got now and then polish the CA.
Any others suggestions?
-Matt
beat-up
