i know right those youtubers suck if you use some 400 grit sand paper on whatever you need to sand and then do the stonewash it will take all the marks away, unless you got like really deep marks.. i hade a pocket tool that was on the UG 1000 member GAW, that one was stonewashed, when i finished "profiling it" i stonewashed it and all the sharp edges became smooth
as for the media well, here it is, explained nicely
Ceramic media is recommended for general purpose polishing, light and heavy deburring, fast and extra fast deburring and ultra aggressive metal removal. Ceramic media is best for heavy cutting and hard metals. When a small media is required (under 3/4"), ceramics offer the best selection. Ceramic media supports very heavy parts better than plastic media.
Advantages of Ceramic Tumbling Media
Durable, inexpensive and highly versatile, ceramic finishing media is the most common media used in mass finishing. It can be manufactured in a wide variety of precise shapes, which assists in separation and elimination of lodging problems. Ceramic finishing media is made of silica and other minerals and abrasives that are combined, formed and fired at a high temperature, producing a very hard, cement-like product. Most ceramic preformed shapes, such as triangles, stars and ellipses, are extruded and cut to the desired length.
The density of ceramic preformed shapes is usually determined by the amount of abrasive incorporated into the mix prior to firing - the more abrasive, the higher the density. This is important because the higher the density, the more "aggressive" the ceramic media will be (faster cutting, rougher surface) and the quicker it will wear. Therefore, dense media is only practical where the objectives cannot be achieved any other way or where the reduction in cycle time brings a greater value than the extra cost in media consumption. The type and quantity of abrasive grain can be varied to accomplish particular tasks, depending on the bond selected.
This thread is dedicated to cover all there is about stonewashing
i know Johnny was planning on making that thread, but i'm currently really bored so
Why stonewashing ? well first of all because it looks cool (that's the main reason people do it i guess) but besides from looking cool if you use your knives and other tools the stonewashed finish does a great job at covering scratch marks, it is also very good for smoothing any sharp edges on the tool, like corners and stuff
Stonewashing is very easy, because you can do it even without any machines or anything The machines used to stonewash are called Tumblers, and we got 2 different types of tumblers, vibratory and rotary but, we'll get to that later. If you can't get your hands on a tumbler there's a simple way to do it without it, just by using a plastic jar or bottle. One method is to put your tool in the bottle together with the media and shake it for some time (actually that takes pretty long) the other method you can put your stuff in a plastic jar, wrap it in a towel and put in the washing machine. The time depends on you and on how much of an aggressive finish you want to achieve.
Here are two videos on how to stonewash because i'm too lazy to type down everything
method 1 this is the so called POOR MAN'S stonewashing or the DIY method
method 2 this is using a tumbler, he uses a rotary one
there's also the acid wash. I wanted to post the video for that too but the guy talking was too annoying and probably nobody would wanna listen to that
The tumblers so as said there are two different types of tumblers, rotary and vibratory. Which one to choose ? I would recommend the vibratory one, al though it is more expensive the vibratory tumbler gets the job done much quicker, the only bad thing about the vibratory is that it's loud and annoying and it moves all around while working. Rotary tumblers are much slower and sometimes they tend to leak, and we don't want that
The media the media is basically the thing that makes it all happen, withouth it, there's no stonewash obviously There are many different types of media I'd recommend using the ceraminc one though. The best thing is if you mix your media, you could use just one kind of media but the mixed one gives you the best results. here's a site that explains ceramic media very nicely link If you live near the sea, you can go to the beach and pick up some rocks i found out that works out very well too, jut make sure to wash the stones first before you do that
I am by no means an expert in stonewashing so you all feel free to add all you want here but, i hope it's gonna be at least a little bit helpful also excuse me if my spelling might suck, you all know where i live
Last Edit: May 10, 2014 2:08:42 GMT -8 by MarkoPhony
I have spent hours in paint trying to remove a background from a single picture and it still come out like crap.... And he only posted that picture less than half an hour ago.
made this in like one minute i did it in photoshop though