Thread: Chromium Oxide for Lapidary Polishing

Just take a tissue or old t-shirt and lightly rub go over your balsa paddle. Just make sure not to use to much pressure as balsa is very fragile. I had the same thing happen once. It will take forever for it to dry if you don't remove the excess wetness. Just rub back and forth. Do it again the next day if it still feels moist.

Thanks. I'll do that. Now I kind of feel silly for complaining. Of course it should still be moist.

Pure should not be wet? That stuff is made for tumblers so it has to have something in it to help it spread through the media.

But will it being "wet" effect the use of the chromium oxide?

Well, I don't polish rocks or anything, but I think the type of tumbler used is the rotary type, not the vibrating type. The rotary type works just like a smaller slower version of a laundry dryer, as I've seen. Now, if you put some media in a rotary tumbler, and a few spoons of dry chromium oxide, I don't think it would have any problem resulting in an even coating after a few tumbles.

Heck, the dry chromium oxide doesn't have any problem giving my kitchen counters an even coating all by itself if I'm not careful when applying it! I don't see the need for it being wet, and if it did have anything else in it, it wouldn't be pure chromium oxide, would it? It'd be chromium oxide AND whatever else.

I have both the hand american dry chromium oxide and the liquid based, and I've never had anything that wouldn't take the dry just fine.

I'm not sure I understand.

Was the oxide wet out of the bag? Or is it wet because you added strop conditioner to it? Maybe the balsa doesn't absorb the strop conditioner, it's not made to treat wood. Some contain animal fats, wool fat, etc.
The stuff is meant not to dry out.

Regards,

McKie

Balsa in my experience is an odd wood. It doesn't absorb oils like an oak, basswood, etc.

I don't know about "wet", but I've mixed dry chrome ox with Norton honing oil and applied that to balsa. It does take some time for the mixture to "dry" out. Meaning, what is essentially oil based paint at that point coats the spine and edge of a razor for quite some time (maybe a week or two) necessitating the need to wipe the razor before putting it to a nice leather strop. It does dry though, and then all is good for a long time.

Chris L