Re: Buy Flourite, but DO NOT BUY FLOURITE RED!--A bags are not created equal

["S. Hieber" <shieber at yahoo_com>]

David Brown said "Buy Flourite, but DO NOT BUY FLOURITE
RED!" because the bags of red that he bought took much
longer to rinse than the regular Flourite he used.  Alas,
some bags of Flourite are dustier, and contain more fines,
than other bags

Having recently gone through a dozen bags, some of each
type, I can say that I didn't notice much of a difference. 
But any differences might have been hidden by my modified 
technique for rinsing Flourite:  I don't rinse it so much
anymore -- I just overflow water into a bucket about 3/4s
full of the stuff until the water is clear.  This removes
much less material than using a screen and rinsing small
amounts at a time.  I don't handle the stuff any more than
necesary after rinsing. I lay the flourite in the tank
gently.  Fill the tank using a pot or plate to spread out
the water flow.

I only try to remove the lightest dust material that likes
to float or remain suspended in water.  Other than that,
even the really fine material settles out quickly and makes
for good substrate.

Every time a bag is handled, the pieces rub against each
other and create more dust.  Very little handline can
dramatically increase the amount of dust -- or so it has
seemed to me.  By the time you get then, some bags surely
will have been handled more than others.   But I wouldn't
suspect the material that has a higher percentage of red
and lower percentage of black bits, viv-a-vis regular
Flourite, to be especially more prone to dust.

I imagine that, when the material is fired (calcined), the
blacker parts were closer to the heat, the same way
"flashed" bricks are "colored."  But I would not expect
that to make a prounounced difference in how easily the
stuff breaks up in the bag.

imo,
Scott H.

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