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Post by captbob on Mar 10, 2017 9:36:06 GMT -5
Never tire of watching Viking vibe videos!
Just curious, and figure you have an entertaining reason, but why aren't you just dividing the trough in half?
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 11, 2017 3:54:44 GMT -5
Never tire of watching Viking vibe videos! Just curious, and figure you have an entertaining reason, but why aren't you just dividing the trough in half? Simply because this divider is too small for the middle and right side of hopper. The hopper is wider at center and on right side, this first divider was to loose to jam in at center or right side. No biggy, I will cut more dividers slightly bigger now that I have a pattern. This just a trail run to see if this divider setup would stay in place. The big rock polishes faster than the media go figure. Side note: If you try to remove a big rock after turning vibe off you have to pry it out of the media. It is totally wedged in. If it is running it is easy to remove the big rock. There is a lot of force in a vibe being that rocks are compressed together. No wonder they break grit down so fast. Analogy: Jetting a dock post into Florida sand 3 feet deep using a water pump. The water causes the sand to stack well. Essentially concreting the post in the sand. So well that an 8 inch wood post will snap off at sand level if pulled sideways(with hydraulic equipment for instance) at top of post.
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Post by orrum on Mar 11, 2017 7:27:12 GMT -5
It's working real good Jim! Could do 3 sections maybe?
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 11, 2017 17:03:22 GMT -5
It's working real good Jim! Could do 3 sections maybe? yezzir, even 4. 2.5 inches and bigger often hit each other enough to put tiny divots.
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Post by captbob on Mar 11, 2017 17:10:23 GMT -5
Jim, got a question.
Just picked up a truck load of specimen type coral. Yea! And while there filled a bucket with fragments to tumble. My question was about all those coral bots you have tumbled. They seemed very colorful, reds etc... Were those all heat treated?
Any coral tumbling threads I should try to find or special tricks you would care to pass on?
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jamesp
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Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,182
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Post by jamesp on Mar 11, 2017 17:19:59 GMT -5
Jim, got a question. Just picked up a truck load of specimen type coral. Yea! And while there filled a bucket with fragments to tumble. My question was about all those coral bots you have tumbled. They seemed very colorful, reds etc... Were those all heat treated? Any coral tumbling threads I should try to find or special tricks you would care to pass on? Only ever heated 3-4 bots. I can give you a link of natural colors. Congrats on the find. You said something about this collection 5 minutes away ? The black one towards the end is black, it was heated. www.flickr.com/photos/67205364@N06/sets/72157632305351962Tumble bots for 1 -2 weeks in coarse, best to pull them as being shaped. Then finish them like any other agate. They are equal in hardness to snakeskin, take a polish faster than hard coral. The bots are the very chalcedony that filled the coral. Dissolved diatoms, hardest of silicas. And they are darn tough, have tumbled them with quite big rocks. Easy fast tumble. worst thing to do is over tumble in coarse.
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Post by captbob on Mar 11, 2017 17:51:48 GMT -5
Thank you. Nice photos. I got similar plus blacks and blues for tumbling. Should be some tumbling fun. Thinking you mentioned that they make one heck of a slurry as the outer skin wears off? Need to keep a close eye on the slurry getting too thick?
Yes, coral hoard very close to home. Literally tons. Got a bucket of scrap/broken bot type pieces to play with in tumblers. I picked up all sizes of specimen pieces, from hand sized up to way bigger than a basketball.
Will do photos soon. Nice specimens, bed of truck wall to wall coral. Thinking I may wait until Monday to unload - when the wife unit is away.
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Post by captbob on Mar 11, 2017 17:59:55 GMT -5
Got home an hour ago to ringing phone. Friend from last 30 years, another boat captain, had heart attack (?) and fell off boat this morning. With a parasail in the air. Mate landed chute & tourists safely, - amazing! Friend drown by the time boat got back to him. F'ed up ...
*sigh* RIP Captain Tom
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 11, 2017 19:29:56 GMT -5
Got home an hour ago to ringing phone. Friend from last 30 years, another boat captain, had heart attack (?) and fell off boat this morning. With a parasail in the air. Mate landed chute & tourists safely, - amazing! Friend drown by the time boat got back to him. F'ed up ... *sigh* RIP Captain Tom Man am I sorry. What a terrible arrangement. Save the parasail, loose the Captain. An extra mate may have saved him. Blacking out or hitting your head and falling in is easier to do than many realize. Add rough seas and it's a recipe.
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Post by captbob on Mar 12, 2017 12:01:04 GMT -5
coral = excessive slurry?
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 12, 2017 15:48:27 GMT -5
coral = excessive slurry? Conservative: Put in the tumbler to your normal 3/4 fill and normal water level and roll it with out abrasive for 2-3 days. May do a clean out and roll it more. Liberal: Or be more aggressive and roll it at 60% and less water. You can't hardly hurt coral if they are less than 2 inch chunks. The coating pads it a lot. Less water and 60% really removes the white crud. I would not waste abrasive until you roll some of the crud off it. You will probably be surprised how much mud it makes w/out abrasive. The white crud turns very white as you expose it. I used to roll it with broken up cheap aluminum oxide grinding wheels. That removed it fast.
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Post by captbob on Mar 13, 2017 8:16:51 GMT -5
Again, thanks for that information.
'nuther (important) question. Grinding the rind offa these corals isn't gas producing - or is it?
Off to unload truck of corals. Will take some pictures.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 13, 2017 8:56:40 GMT -5
Again, thanks for that information. 'nuther (important) question. Grinding the rind offa these corals isn't gas producing - or is it? Off to unload truck of corals. Will take some pictures. Nope, not even with my acidic water. You probably have more alkaline water which should avoid the baking soda + vinegar reaction. Photos please How much does your rock pile weigh ?
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Post by captbob on Mar 13, 2017 9:29:58 GMT -5
Thanks again, no gas is a good thing!
How much does what rock pile weigh? What I brought home this weekend? Maybe 400ish pounds? Never thought about it. Took about 5 hours and cherry picked the best pieces, but there are still a couple tons or more there. May go back for more in the future once I figure out what to do with all this.
Space for rocks in bulk became an issue quite some time ago. Need to borrow your back 40 for storage!
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Post by captbob on Mar 13, 2017 10:33:14 GMT -5
preview - starting to rain, more pics once I get unloaded. bucket of tumbler food Doesn't look all that exciting, but many pieces are "good" side down for my drive home. back to work ...
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Post by wigglinrocks on Mar 13, 2017 11:11:30 GMT -5
Nice haul of some nice material
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 13, 2017 14:16:47 GMT -5
Looks to be all old stock high grade Withlacoochee stuff captbob. You might find 2-3 of those on a good day, perhaps none on bad day with a strong effort in either case. Lest you find a colony, then you may get 10 to 60. You now have more hollow coral than I. Fun to cut that stuff. Engineering the best way to cut it is another issue. It is any where from art form to luck cutting those hollows to bey optimum cross section. You can stick a stiff copper wire and feel around in some to find cavity to assist sawing in best place. Some cavities will be packed with blue clay tightly. The virgin unopened/unbreached ones will all be packed with clay. A tiny breach will let the clay out. When the clay leaves the tannic water stains the Bots. That load represents a lot of trips. Well done. And those are big ones. More valuable.
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Post by captbob on Mar 13, 2017 14:28:47 GMT -5
Mostly Withlacoochee Jim, the vast majority of it is. But a few nice Tampa bay corals as well. Big for Tampa Bay specimens. A couple blue ones in this pic and the black & blue top right and another black very top left all look like Tampa Bay coral to me. Better pictures coming when rain goes.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 14, 2017 3:27:20 GMT -5
Well captbob those Tampa's are almost unrecognizable being so big. You have some old stock. Makes sense being you live close to the source. And the govt. is strict about collecting it around Tampa. Hard to get material. And the bots you can tumble are in high demand with jewelers. Economically, the thinner hollows are worth way more broken and tumbled into pendant size pieces.
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Post by captbob on Mar 14, 2017 11:51:04 GMT -5
Well captbob those Tampa's are almost unrecognizable being so big. You have some old stock. Makes sense being you live close to the source. And the govt. is strict about collecting it around Tampa. Hard to get material. And the bots you can tumble are in high demand with jewelers. Economically, the thinner hollows are worth way more broken and tumbled into pendant size pieces. Not that I would part with them (as you said, big 'uns hard to get!) but kinda figure that those 4 Tampa Bay corals would cover what I paid for the entire truck load. I'll take pics of the back sides, full on Tampa Bay. I gotta quit watching eBay... just picked up a barely used (by the looks of it) Thumler's Model B. That will make seven 15 lb tumblers in the stable. Hope it shows up while wife unit is at work! *snicker* Gonna have 3 barrels running corals in the next few days. Figure something different will keep me interested for awhile. Thinking that I will need to run at least 4 barrels of as is to end up with 2 barrels of ready to move on to grit tumbling material. Need to build me one of them @shotgunner purple contraptions so I can just run all barrels on one machine! (adding to The List)
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