Post by surreality on Feb 9, 2012 10:56:39 GMT -5
Heya folks!
Pretty much like the title says... I'm yet another totally clueless newbie, but the supplies are finally in the mail after years of 'I'm gonna do that someday'. I'm Dee, and in Delaware. I've always been drawn to shiny things, and I'm a texture/pattern addict. Combine the two, and... well, that I've always been fascinated by rocks of nearly every kind is probably pretty natural. I've picked up rocks constantly through life in addition to buying a few beautiful finished pieces here and there, and usually end up unloading them into the garden when it gets too ridiculous now and then, but more always find their way back into the house and, well... here we are.
The pieces I have assembled now are all beach stones -- which I suspect might involve some special handling from time to time. We're lucky to be within driving distance of a beach (Sunset Beach in Cape May -- definitely worth a visit if you're in the area) that I love for the simple meditative quality that comes from picking through and finding interesting bits and pieces. I'm not terribly athletic or even particularly outdoorsy, but if even I can find interesting bits and pieces there, it must be a great spot.
There's a lot of quartz! I have a bucket of it that's assembled over the months behind me in the hall, waiting to become substantially more shiny. There's two buckets of 'and then there's everything else', much of which I've been lurking around and trying to identify from the photos here for a little while now. Sometimes, it's a bit hard to tell for someone as inexperienced as I am, so I might end up posting a few 'Uhm... does anyone know what this is?' pictures sooner or later. There's definitely some fossil coral (though not as impressive as the images I've seen here) and probably jasper of some kind, at a guess.
Since I'm still not entirely sure what I'm looking at when gathering up pieces, and as a result, not entirely sure what I should be looking for, there's a fairly broad range of 'stuff'. Some is a bit translucent and has a glassy quality to it, and tends toward being very knobbly and bubbly in appearance, generally pretty homely on the outside, but the interesting shapes prompted me to bring some home because the shape suggests something potentially more interesting under their crusty exteriors. (I could be dead wrong and wasting my time, but considering how many I stumble across there, it seemed worth checking a few of them out since the protrusions from the chalkier part seem more translucent.) I don't even pretend to know what it is, but I'm incredibly curious to find out. I'll be trying -- with a lot of guesswork -- to sort it into types later in the week to try and pick a 'first batch'.
Some of them are gorgeous as they are, and I wouldn't alter them beyond trying to find a way to give them a 'wet look' to preserve their textures and shapes while showing off their color behind the surface cracking and wear that seems to turn them all a vaguely uniform bland grey (and I'm still looking for the best way to do that, I suspect it's more likely 'ways' depending on the stone in question), but there's a whole lot more that are destined for the tumbler.
Ideally, since so many of these are pre-smoothed to some extent, I'm hoping to purchase a vibratory tumbler in the future. The lower supply and electrical cost has some serious appeal -- as does the speed! That said, I decided on a rotary first, since there are also some that will definitely require shaping. It's also a little less massive an investment to start with, since I might be completely hopeless at this. (OK, OK... it also would have meant cleaning out part of the garage, and... no. Not in winter!)
Wow, that's a lot of rambling. Uhm, hi!
Pretty much like the title says... I'm yet another totally clueless newbie, but the supplies are finally in the mail after years of 'I'm gonna do that someday'. I'm Dee, and in Delaware. I've always been drawn to shiny things, and I'm a texture/pattern addict. Combine the two, and... well, that I've always been fascinated by rocks of nearly every kind is probably pretty natural. I've picked up rocks constantly through life in addition to buying a few beautiful finished pieces here and there, and usually end up unloading them into the garden when it gets too ridiculous now and then, but more always find their way back into the house and, well... here we are.
The pieces I have assembled now are all beach stones -- which I suspect might involve some special handling from time to time. We're lucky to be within driving distance of a beach (Sunset Beach in Cape May -- definitely worth a visit if you're in the area) that I love for the simple meditative quality that comes from picking through and finding interesting bits and pieces. I'm not terribly athletic or even particularly outdoorsy, but if even I can find interesting bits and pieces there, it must be a great spot.
There's a lot of quartz! I have a bucket of it that's assembled over the months behind me in the hall, waiting to become substantially more shiny. There's two buckets of 'and then there's everything else', much of which I've been lurking around and trying to identify from the photos here for a little while now. Sometimes, it's a bit hard to tell for someone as inexperienced as I am, so I might end up posting a few 'Uhm... does anyone know what this is?' pictures sooner or later. There's definitely some fossil coral (though not as impressive as the images I've seen here) and probably jasper of some kind, at a guess.
Since I'm still not entirely sure what I'm looking at when gathering up pieces, and as a result, not entirely sure what I should be looking for, there's a fairly broad range of 'stuff'. Some is a bit translucent and has a glassy quality to it, and tends toward being very knobbly and bubbly in appearance, generally pretty homely on the outside, but the interesting shapes prompted me to bring some home because the shape suggests something potentially more interesting under their crusty exteriors. (I could be dead wrong and wasting my time, but considering how many I stumble across there, it seemed worth checking a few of them out since the protrusions from the chalkier part seem more translucent.) I don't even pretend to know what it is, but I'm incredibly curious to find out. I'll be trying -- with a lot of guesswork -- to sort it into types later in the week to try and pick a 'first batch'.
Some of them are gorgeous as they are, and I wouldn't alter them beyond trying to find a way to give them a 'wet look' to preserve their textures and shapes while showing off their color behind the surface cracking and wear that seems to turn them all a vaguely uniform bland grey (and I'm still looking for the best way to do that, I suspect it's more likely 'ways' depending on the stone in question), but there's a whole lot more that are destined for the tumbler.
Ideally, since so many of these are pre-smoothed to some extent, I'm hoping to purchase a vibratory tumbler in the future. The lower supply and electrical cost has some serious appeal -- as does the speed! That said, I decided on a rotary first, since there are also some that will definitely require shaping. It's also a little less massive an investment to start with, since I might be completely hopeless at this. (OK, OK... it also would have meant cleaning out part of the garage, and... no. Not in winter!)
Wow, that's a lot of rambling. Uhm, hi!