Old Miser Grit Carrier, 12 oz.

Description

Covington’s Old Miser (R) comes in a 12 oz bag. Covington recommends 4-teaspoons of Old Miser(R) per 1 pound of grit. (Note: Do not use Old Miser (R) during the polishing stage.) Detailed instructions from Covington are included in your sample order of Old Miser Grit Carrier stating, Old Miser(R) is great for faster lapping, tumbling, and sphere cutting. It holds grit to your work so that it isn’t thrown off by centrifugal force or washed away by the small amount of water used in your work.  Assists by quickly making a slurry and holding grit to stone thereby speeding up the process and saving grit.  However, it is water-soluble and washes off the specimen easily. Old Miser(R) pays for its cost many times over in grit and time saved. During the tumbling process, it holds the grit in suspension so that all the rocks are always covered with the grit for faster grinding.  Old Miser(R) doesn’t allow the water to wash the grit to the bottom  of the tumbler, etc.

Robert Ritchie, ME, a sphere cutter, was kind enough to send more info on “Old Grit Miser”, or GM abbreviation. “GM is a powder that looks like cocoa. It’s purpose is to maintain the grit in a thick suspension especially when the stone being worked doesn’t make mud of its own. Hard stuff like agate doesn’t and since it cuts more slowly, the stone flour is washed away with the grit. With marble, dolomite, serpentine and the like, none is needed since it cuts so quickly it makes its own goop. Particles of 90 grit are dense enough that they gravitate down and off the spinning stone to be lost. The GM makes the surface goopy enough to hold the grit for a while. It doesn’t take much GM to do the job. I make up a separate commercial squeeze-bottle with a ready-to-use GM slurry for immediate use when needed. When I make up a slurry of grit #90 to #600, I add about +/- a teaspoon of GM to a half bottle of grit and water. That’s an 8 ounce bottle of the kind you can get at any Wal-Mart or grocery store. I buy a package of 10 when I do. A feature of GM is that it retains a huge amount of water for its weight. I suspect it is Bentonite. So when a bottle of slurry is being made up, add enough grit for a half bottles worth of slurry (more than a half-bottle gets messy on delivery) and then add the GM. Then add the water to half full and let it sit for at least an hour. The reason being that the first addition of water is sucked into the GM to form a paste like peanut butter so when it has drunk its fill, more water has to be added.” We appreciate your comments on “Old Miser” Grit Carrier, Bob and thank you very much!