jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
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Post by jamesp on Oct 25, 2018 2:21:39 GMT -5
Wishing you well with this endeavor. Amazing project. Sometime consider using a smaller barrel with one large rock and the balance smaller rocks say 1" to 1.5" in size. I ended going with David instead of Goliath and had great success on 1 to 3 pound rocks and a smaller barrel to fit. I worked up some (barrel):(single big rock) size ratios johnw: For a single 4" X 4.5" inch rock in a 6 inch inside diameter by ~8 inches long barrel if running 1" to 1 1/4" rocks for bedding. For a single 5" X 5.5" inch rock in an 8 inch inside diameter by ~12 inch long barrel if running 1" to 1 1/4" rocks for bedding. Looking at the 8" I.D. barrel it was made out of HDPE fittings. 4 were fabricated, 12-13-15 and 16 inches long. The 13" barrel did fine rolling a 5" X 6" rock with 1" to 1 1/4" rocks in a one week test roll. A chunk of(softer) granite with small 1" agate bedding with a mixture of #1-#4-#8-#16-#30 silicon carbide at a fast 60 RPM with clay thickened slurry and 80+% barrel fill. No jams. Basically an end cap and an 8" to 6" reducer bushing welded to each other allowing 5 inch rocks to be placed in the barrel. Most likely up to a 6" X 6" rock could be rolled in it with 1" bedding rocks but probably asking for a jam. Similar HDPE fittings can be purchased in 10" to 8" reducer or 12" to 10" reduction for yet larger rocks. The only reason I ever ran big rocks singularly with small rocks was due to impact damage that was not clearly visible until later when attempting finish operations. Mostly half moon impact fractures and frosting from bedding rocks bigger than a golf ball impacting the big rock. The big rock created tremendous grinding forces against the small hard bedding rocks. At 80+% fill there was no clanking rocks, just a smooth grinding sound. Grind rate was quick and abrasive could be added daily because it was crushed to nothing every 12 to 24 hours. Even most of the 3/8" silicon carbide was crushed to nothing. And the grind rate of the big rock was closely related to the abrasive break down. fast A large vibe was used from 220 to polish and again with one big rock and smaller bedding rocks since micro-impact bruising is a big problem at finishing be it in rotary or vibe. The 8 X 13 barrel is the one in the center in the front of the tumbler: Being a small less heavy barrel with an easy access lid the needed task of adding abrasive daily required little effort. Some 1 to 3 pounders. Never attempted larger than. With a 35 pound Vibrasonic hopper for finishing larger would have been attempted. www.flickr.com/photos/67205364@N06/23565692652/in/album-72157662746031090/lightbox/
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Post by johnw on Oct 25, 2018 11:39:28 GMT -5
Wishing you well with this endeavor. Amazing project. Sometime consider using a smaller barrel with one large rock and the balance smaller rocks say 1" to 1.5" in size. I ended going with David instead of Goliath and had great success on 1 to 3 pound rocks and a smaller barrel to fit. I worked up some (barrel):(single big rock) size ratios johnw : For a single 4" X 4.5" inch rock in a 6 inch inside diameter by ~8 inches long barrel if running 1" to 1 1/4" rocks for bedding. For a single 5" X 5.5" inch rock in an 8 inch inside diameter by ~12 inch long barrel if running 1" to 1 1/4" rocks for bedding. Looking at the 8" I.D. barrel it was made out of HDPE fittings. 4 were fabricated, 12-13-15 and 16 inches long. The 13" barrel did fine rolling a 5" X 6" rock with 1" to 1 1/4" rocks in a one week test roll. A chunk of(softer) granite with small 1" agate bedding with a mixture of #1-#4-#8-#16-#30 silicon carbide at a fast 60 RPM with clay thickened slurry and 80+% barrel fill. No jams. Basically an end cap and an 8" to 6" reducer bushing welded to each other allowing 5 inch rocks to be placed in the barrel. Most likely up to a 6" X 6" rock could be rolled in it with 1" bedding rocks but probably asking for a jam. Similar HDPE fittings can be purchased in 10" to 8" reducer or 12" to 10" reduction for yet larger rocks. The only reason I ever ran big rocks singularly with small rocks was due to impact damage that was not clearly visible until later when attempting finish operations. Mostly half moon impact fractures and frosting from bedding rocks bigger than a golf ball impacting the big rock. The big rock created tremendous grinding forces against the small hard bedding rocks. At 80+% fill there was no clanking rocks, just a smooth grinding sound. Grind rate was quick and abrasive could be added daily because it was crushed to nothing every 12 to 24 hours. Even most of the 3/8" silicon carbide was crushed to nothing. And the grind rate of the big rock was closely related to the abrasive break down. fast A large vibe was used from 220 to polish and again with one big rock and smaller bedding rocks since micro-impact bruising is a big problem at finishing be it in rotary or vibe. The 8 X 13 barrel is the one in the center in the front of the tumbler: Being a small less heavy barrel with an easy access lid the needed task of adding abrasive daily required little effort. Some 1 to 3 pounders. Never attempted larger than. With a 35 pound Vibrasonic hopper for finishing larger would have been attempted. www.flickr.com/photos/67205364@N06/23565692652/in/album-72157662746031090/lightbox/jamesp, Hi, well first let me congratulate you on a great set up, its a really awesome arrangement you have there and thank you for sharing the images. Your observations about using a smaller barrel moving forward are well taken since we are in accord on that point. My plan was always to do the heavy removal in the big 65T barrel and the rest of the grits and polishing in the smaller 45T barrel. The inside dimensions of the 45T barrel are 11.5 inches deep x 9 inches wide and the mouth opening is 8 inches. So, being the case I can get most of my current Big Crazy's processed, with the exception of the 15 pounder which measures 8.5x8.5x7.5. I am salivating to get at this one, but must take little steps along the way to building up my experience processing Big Crazy's getting eventually to the Big One that started me on this mission. I do thank you for the ratios, they will be helpful in my next step, in about 20 days or so. I hear you on the vibe vs rotary and impact bruising but I am essentially locked into rotaries with Diamond Pacific having got rid of my Thumler Model UV18 and unless I have access to a huge vibe, the sizes I will be processing will not fit into the Thumler offering. I will however check out the Vibrasonic machine you talked about. Let's do keep in touch as I move forward with this project by this thread or PM. Cheers, johnw
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
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Post by jamesp on Oct 25, 2018 12:27:34 GMT -5
There was a fellow that did a 4 pound agate using glassy purple/red garnets about 1/4" in size for 220-500-1000-polish. Just the finishing steps. In a 4 or 6 pound barrel. He was my impetus for delving into larger tumbles. I forgot what he used for bedding rocks when rough shaping it. Just saying, he had a fine polish using the garnets for media(bedding stones) in a ROTARY. A cheap alternative would be quartz pea gravel.
Funny thing, I would coarse shape one of those 2 pound agates and run it only 6 days adding grit daily and thinning the slurry as needed. Then 2 days in the vibe with AO 220 and 12 hours in the vibe with AO polish. The weight of the big rock did sped up the abrasive operations in the vibe quicker also. 10 day start to finish, of course the pre-grind speeds things up a lot.
I made 5 little 8 pound barrels and was running a 1 to 2 pounders regular. Lots of work. And it was spitting out 1 to 1 1/2 inch bedding rocks like crazy.
Great way to tumble rocks. Most fun I had.
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Post by johnw on Nov 5, 2018 1:35:42 GMT -5
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Post by fernwood on Nov 5, 2018 7:30:31 GMT -5
Those are looking great. Thanks for the update.
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Post by johnw on Nov 22, 2018 20:30:41 GMT -5
Progress Update: After 13 days into a 20 day cycle I popped the lid because of a sound issue as reported last post, since there were no issues, continued the cycle but extended it by few more days. Overall tumbling time with 60-90 grit has been 46 days. Time to pop the lid, inspect and change grit to 120-200. Well, maybe, more on that later. After popping the lid the sludge was like a medium thick porridge. Yeah, all told I have dumped 20 pounds of grit into this beast and it chews grit up well. There was no gritty feeling left in the sludge. Emptying the big barrel took me two hours since I used three separate buckets of water to remove the sludge from the rocks sequentially, before dumping the sludge down the street drain. So here is an accounting, going in there was 80 pounds of Bahia nodules, 20 pounds Lace nodules, a few Mookaite pieces and the Big Crazy at 5 pounds 11 ounces. Total 106 pounds rocks. Coming out there was a total of 73 pounds of Bahia, Lace and Mookaite plus the Big Crazy at 5 pounds. Total 78 pounds, so material lost was 28 pounds or 27%. I do not know if this is reasonable or not and would like feed back on that point. If unreasonable I am thinking because of the frequent stops to check and adding more grit each time would have contributed to the loss. Thoughts on this point are welcome as well. OK so now to the stones, the Bahia's, Lace and Mookaite are definitely ready for the next level of grit but the Big Crazy has some issues. Overall it looks ok and I can see the "skin" has been removed to reveal even more spectacular results, but along a ridge there is a very rough spot that looks like quartz. Here take a look. So the issue becomes how to remove the white material? Do I sand this out or start over with a 60 grit tumble? Either way I think I am back to square one. Unless someone has another suggestion. In any event, I will be switching from the 65T to the 40T barrel that holds a rated capacity of 40 pounds but in reality the manufacturer states can run with up to 90 pounds of rock. So I can continue with the Bahia's, Lace and Mookaite nodules. The 65T was an interesting tumbling event, but lugging 135 pounds up the ramp was a pain. I will use the 65T barrel only for the large 25-30 pound special event rock when I find it. All my other specimens, even the 15-20 pounders will all fit in the 40T barrel, so that's cool. OK talking over here are the images. (11) This is what 78 pounds of Bahia, Lace, Mookaite and Big Crazy, looks like. Lace, Bahia, Mookaite samples and the Big Crazy Bahia's That's it for the Big Crazy..... Here is an image of some happy campers I found in the Bahia mix. The guy on the right looks mean and has his "eye"on you. Next task is to sort thru 73 pounds of Bahia's, Lace and Mookaite for go, no-go and toss. Cheers, johnw. Follow up After two hours of sorting, 50 pounds (68%) were go. 20 pounds (27%) no-go (re-do) and 3 pounds (4%) toss into fill bucket. Cheers,
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Post by johnw on Nov 22, 2018 22:28:56 GMT -5
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Post by Garage Rocker on Nov 22, 2018 23:00:13 GMT -5
Patience is a virtue and that rock has nothing else to do but tumble. It's spent millions of years in development, give it all the time it needs. It will be worth the wait and you'll be proud that you did everything you could to show it in it's best likeness. My philosophy, anyway.
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Post by johnw on Nov 22, 2018 23:14:05 GMT -5
Patience is a virtue and that rock has nothing else to do but tumble. It's spent millions of years in development, give it all the time it needs. It will be worth the wait and you'll be proud that you did everything you could to show it in it's best likeness. My philosophy, anyway. Thank you Garage Rocker for those words of wisdom, I appreciate your comments every time. Hope your Thanksgiving went as well you expected it to be. Cheers, johnw
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Post by Garage Rocker on Nov 22, 2018 23:26:15 GMT -5
Patience is a virtue and that rock has nothing else to do but tumble. It's spent millions of years in development, give it all the time it needs. It will be worth the wait and you'll be proud that you did everything you could to show it in it's best likeness. My philosophy, anyway. Thank you Garage Rocker for those words of wisdom, I appreciate your comments every time. Hope your Thanksgiving went as well you expected it to be. Cheers, johnw Much to be thankful for, buddy, hope your Thanksgiving was a good one too!
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quartz
Cave Dweller
breakin' rocks in the hot sun
Member since February 2010
Posts: 3,339
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Post by quartz on Nov 22, 2018 23:41:31 GMT -5
I tumble in a pair of 50lb. capacity homemade barrels, one running rough, one semi. Your 27% material loss seems very much in line with loss seen here.
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Post by stephan on Nov 22, 2018 23:53:42 GMT -5
Hi, I found this picture of what I am looking for on the web, sadly I have not been able to find the owner, so I am asking the RTH members do you have anything in your collections that comes close? This one weighs in at 44 pounds and is 15 inches wide. Please post pictures if you do and lets do a deal. Cheers johnw There is no way I would be able to bring myself to cut or do anything to that beauty. It is amazing!
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Post by johnw on Nov 23, 2018 2:51:04 GMT -5
Hi, I found this picture of what I am looking for on the web, sadly I have not been able to find the owner, so I am asking the RTH members do you have anything in your collections that comes close? This one weighs in at 44 pounds and is 15 inches wide. Please post pictures if you do and lets do a deal. Cheers johnw There is no way I would be able to bring myself to cut or do anything to that beauty. It is amazing! Hi Stephen, what you are looking at is the finished specimen after 8 weeks of progressive tumbling. This is my plan also when I find the right specimen and one of the reasons why I am working my way up the various weight ranges. The current Big Crazy is the starter so lots more to go on my journey to the special event piece being a replica, maybe, or something very close to the one shown above. Cheers, johnw
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Post by fernwood on Nov 23, 2018 5:44:35 GMT -5
Thanks for the update.
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Post by miket on Nov 23, 2018 7:55:57 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing, Big Crazy is coming along nicely! They all are, of course, but that's the one I'm watching for. Oh, and I like the one with the eye 😎
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Post by johnw on Nov 23, 2018 11:39:47 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing, Big Crazy is coming along nicely! They all are, of course, but that's the one I'm watching for. Oh, and I like the one with the eye 😎 miket, you mean this guy, the mean one, the one with one eye? The other two had "eyes" as well, so just checking." I will keep this one separate with my special critter tumble that's running concurrently and when finished its yours. Cheers, johnw So the question to ask is, can this be a Sentient Being? It certainly has a form of visual character. Now, that's heavy.
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Post by MsAli on Nov 23, 2018 11:46:53 GMT -5
Big crazy is amazing!
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Post by johnw on Nov 23, 2018 12:03:59 GMT -5
Thanks alikat218, It's an interesting tumble, but I am a bit concerned about the "scar" that is forming, does that forebode an internal flaw that will eventually break Big Crazy into two pieces? I just don't know. Does anyone have any thoughts on this or has experienced a similar event? Cheers, johnw
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Post by MsAli on Nov 23, 2018 12:41:17 GMT -5
Thanks alikat218, It's an interesting tumble, but I am a bit concerned about the "scar" that is forming, does that forebode an internal flaw that will eventually break Big Crazy into two pieces? I just don't know. Does anyone have any thoughts on this or has experienced a similar event? Cheers, johnw It could break, but it's hard to tell
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Post by johnw on Nov 23, 2018 15:18:13 GMT -5
I tumble in a pair of 50lb. capacity homemade barrels, one running rough, one semi. Your 27% material loss seems very much in line with loss seen here. Hi Larry, I really appreciate getting this information. A few questions: How long did you run the rough to get the 27% loss and how many times did you refill the grit during the tumbling cycle? Or, did you just let it run its course with one grit charge at the beginning? Oh, and what size grit did you use? Sure would like to understand and it does sound as I am not doing something really bad. Cheers, johnw
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