jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,169
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Post by jamesp on Jan 24, 2016 19:23:06 GMT -5
Organizing the tumbles and found a couple of stashes of gang sawed Rio Grande River agate pebbles. You can mix pebbles in grout and pour them into a milk carton. Then saw them into slabs with a slab saw. Makes great slabettes for cabs or tumbling. Saw is efficient at splitting rocks into tumbles. Check them out. The pebbles were coarse tumbled before casting in the tile grout. Just to see what grade of agate was under the surface patina. Wet: closer, sections of same batch Used this wood form to pour three 'blocks' to fill the cut of an 18 inch slab saw. Can pour 20 pounds of pebbles each time. Used Mapei sand-less grout from Lowes. They don't take long in coarse.
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indiana
spending too much on rocks
Member since October 2015
Posts: 285
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Post by indiana on Jan 25, 2016 10:46:04 GMT -5
Very nice James, I have some projects I want to use local river stones in and your idea makes part of that a lot easier!
Thanks for taking the time to post.
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,169
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Post by jamesp on Jan 25, 2016 11:21:49 GMT -5
Very nice James, I have some projects I want to use local river stones in and your idea makes part of that a lot easier! Thanks for taking the time to post. The ole saw blade is ruthless. Stones held in grout readily give in. Takes time to cast and saw, but time savings and quality of cut far exceeds anything I could figure out.
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Post by pauls on Jan 25, 2016 18:21:57 GMT -5
Nice idea jamesp, that way you don't get a tit on each tiny slab. How thick do you make your slabettes for tumbling? I have noticed that slabs tend to slide on their flats and consequently get thinner and yet still have very little coming off the edges, I try to make them thick and chunky so they roll, still a lot of thinner slabs that I have cut for cabbing but get rejected go in, I clean up the edges with the grinder so they can get moved on before they get wafer thin.
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