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Post by Jugglerguy on Aug 17, 2017 18:42:45 GMT -5
The rock in my avatar is a Petoskey stone. It's a fossil coral from Michigan. It's very soft. That one was hand polished with automotive sandpaper, but normally I do them on a flat lap or I tumble them.
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Post by captbob on Aug 17, 2017 18:43:25 GMT -5
Another stupid question. What would happen if you use what mother nature uses for the first stage, some kind of sand? Not a stupid question at all. It has been discussed here before. Sand is too "soft" to substitute for grit. Will have little to no effect on your rocks when tumbling. Works for Mother Nature because she has way more time than we do. By the way, your nonstandard type color selection(s) make it very hard to read your posts. Many of us use the light blue background as our logged in background color, and your color choice (whatever it is) doesn't show up against it. Just thought you might like to know.
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rockcat11
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since August 2017
Posts: 176
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Post by rockcat11 on Aug 17, 2017 19:50:24 GMT -5
I have a nat geo tumbler. I think taht it is a good starting place, and it is so much better than my plastic one that i had when i was little.
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Post by grandpapatrick on Aug 18, 2017 7:29:41 GMT -5
Hi Fernwood, The example of a cabochons in Wikipedia looks like a tiger's eye in the shape of a button with no holes. Beautiful! Why do you make cabochons? Do you make them in heart shapes? I will find the forum on cabochons. That looks like a beautiful art form. Probably very challenging and time consuming but worthwhile. Thanks for the information.
Captbob, That is so beautiful! What is a "lap?" I have a dark blue background but I did not choose it. To me the light blue against the very dark blue is pleasing. Thank you for telling me that you don't see the same thing. How do I go about changing the background color? I will try logging out and logging in again and see if I can find it. Thanks a lot!
Rockcat, I'm glad I got a good starter. I didn't think that Nat. Geo. would let me down not knowing anything about the art. I noticed that you can buy pretumbled rocks. I suppose they use some large industrial tumbler to produce mass amounts of rocks. I bet they are not near as pretty as what you guys produce.
Thanks again all!
Grandpa Patrick
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Post by Pat on Aug 18, 2017 9:27:48 GMT -5
grandpapatrick If you put @ in front of someone's name (the name by their avatar), they will get a note saying they were tagged. Their name will show up like yours does on the first line of my post. The @ sign will not show, but the name will. Good luck with your adventures!
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Post by captbob on Aug 18, 2017 10:54:21 GMT -5
Captbob, That is so beautiful! What is a "lap?" Think you are talking about Rob's Petoskey stone in his avatar and how he polished it. Jugglerguy
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Post by Jugglerguy on Aug 18, 2017 12:11:13 GMT -5
A flat lap is a machine that spins a disc with sandpaper on it. Water drips on it to wash away the dust and to keep it cool. You can use it to make cabochons or just polish rocks, like I do with Petoskey stones. You start with coarse paper and progress to finer and finer grits until the rock is shiny. Here's a picture of my really old, probably homemade flat lap:
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lookatthat
Cave Dweller
Whatever there is to be found.
Member since May 2017
Posts: 1,360
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Post by lookatthat on Aug 18, 2017 12:34:54 GMT -5
Some people have been known to use sand. Downside is, it takes 10,000 years (give or take a century).
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Post by grandpapatrick on Aug 19, 2017 6:35:58 GMT -5
I know it is pretty pretentions of me but is the diamond dust idea not practical? Do the diamonds break down to be too small or are they too small to begin with or do you think that there is not way to separate them out from the rock dust? Or all three?
Has anyone tried it. It's only a $12 experiment after all.
Grandpa Patrick
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Post by Jugglerguy on Aug 19, 2017 7:46:08 GMT -5
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Wooferhound
Cave Dweller
Lortone QT66 and 3A
Member since December 2016
Posts: 1,423
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Post by Wooferhound on Aug 19, 2017 16:35:29 GMT -5
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