blaavinge
off to a rocking start
Member since February 2018
Posts: 3
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Post by blaavinge on Feb 28, 2018 17:01:22 GMT -5
I have lurked on these forums for a couple of days, but finally decided to register and say hello.
For as long as I can remember I have been interested in rocks and minerals. When I was younger, I used to collect interesting rocks and always brought home a rock or two as souvenirs from my vacations. Tumbling rocks seemed fun, but I never got the opportunity to pursue this hobby back then. Later, school and work meant I had less free time, but I finally bought a rotary tumbler a couple of months ago. Part of what made me decide on this is that there is plenty of rocks in the local mountains(mostly quartz in different varieties, along with granite), and I wanted to find out what these looked like with a nice polish. Since quartz is supposed to be one of the easiest rocks to tumble, I tried it out after reading about it online and followed the steps in my Lortone tumbler manual. So far the results isn't quite what I hoped for, it seems I have spent too short time on each step. I found these forums in my search of how to improve my tumbling skills and have gotten a lot of helpful tips about tumbling already.
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Post by Pat on Feb 28, 2018 17:41:08 GMT -5
Welcome from California. Where you are?
I'm not a tumbler, but there are many tumbling experts here.
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blaavinge
off to a rocking start
Member since February 2018
Posts: 3
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Post by blaavinge on Feb 28, 2018 18:03:19 GMT -5
I live in western Norway.
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Post by MsAli on Feb 28, 2018 18:27:51 GMT -5
Hi and welcome from Fresno Ca
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goatgrinder
spending too much on rocks
Make mine a man cave
Member since January 2017
Posts: 368
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Post by goatgrinder on Feb 28, 2018 19:07:41 GMT -5
Hello blaavinge, from Atlanta, Georgia. Your mountains sound like mine, only, you know, there are no trolls here.
I hope that you persevere with this hobby and write to tell and show us all how your skills improve.
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Post by gmitch067 on Feb 28, 2018 21:46:00 GMT -5
Welcome to the Forum from Northern California!
The Lortone tumbler manual is a good start but I found the recommended quantity of grit for each stage was way too much. I found that using a tablespoon of grit per the pound rating of the drum was more than sufficient (3A drum - use 3 TBS grit for the 80/220/600 stages, and 2 TBS for polish. 6 TBS for the QT-6 tumbler drum, and 12 TBS for the QT-12 drum). Use a TBS or two of kitty litter to thicken the slurry in (only) the 80-grit stage - the added thickness helps pick up and transport the heavy grit between the rocks as they tumble - the grind is more efficient (try to buy the basic clay kitty litter... not the stink pretty type - the sweet smelling crystals might contribute to some gas build-up in the tumbler drum. If the drum begins to blow-up like a balloon, just pop the top and "burp" it... easy).
Quartz is a hard stone (around 7 Mohs). It will take a LOT longer to shape the stone in the first stage... so you will have to extend that stage out many weeks until you get the shape you like. Every 7-10 days you will need to refresh the grit... It might be harder than the quartz (Silicon Carbide grit is 9 Mohs in hardness) but it will still break down and need to be replaced to continue the initial grind. You will soon realize that you will have to purchase the coarse grit used for the first stage in much larger quantity.
I hope this helps you.
Glenn
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Post by vegasjames on Mar 1, 2018 4:13:42 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum.
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blaavinge
off to a rocking start
Member since February 2018
Posts: 3
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Post by blaavinge on Mar 1, 2018 11:34:07 GMT -5
Thank you gmitch067 for the tips, I will try using longer time in each stage with cat litter as a slurry thickener and see how it goes. My tumbler is a Lortone 3A rotary tumbler and I use 80-220-400-600 grit.
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Post by TheRock on Mar 1, 2018 13:23:48 GMT -5
to RTH Forum blaavinge from ~Duke in SW Michigan
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