ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
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Post by ingawh on Oct 15, 2021 19:51:03 GMT -5
Thank you. 😊 It's fun to have the time to join in again.
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
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Post by ingawh on Oct 15, 2021 19:48:09 GMT -5
Thanks for the shout-out, Knave. Lovely to be remembered. :-)
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
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Post by ingawh on Oct 14, 2021 22:18:55 GMT -5
The stone in the second pic reminds me of Tony The Tiger. Tumbling Is Grrreat! OMG - you're right! Maybe I misnamed it ... Now if someone can tell me kind of rock it actually is - if it even has a name besides just a quartz nodule....
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
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Post by ingawh on Oct 14, 2021 19:54:15 GMT -5
Welcome to the addiction! I've got Lortones to do all the shaping: a double 3 lb., a double six lb., two 12 lb, and the 40 lb. I got everything but the 40 lb in the first few months. I finally sprang for the 40 lb, and LOVE it - though they are pretty pricy - if you can even find one these days. I'm getting my shop back up and running, and when it is, I usually have all 8 rotary barrels going at the same time (though if I don't have delicate material, the 3-pounders get a rest). Most everything then gets polished in a single Lot-O-Tumbler vibratory tumbler. Since I can slap a polish on most of my rotary output in 24 to 48 hours per 4 lb. load, it easily keeps up with the slower rotary output, and I almost always have a batch I can run to scratch that tumbler's itch! So, with the vibe, that's 9 barrels, rated for a total of 86 pounds processing at any given time. I guess that's enough! Only if I can't fit a rock into the Lot-O-Tumbler will I do a polish batch in rotary. This photo isn't the whole line-up, but you can see that the three-pounder was definitely the gateway drug, as I kept going for bigger and bigger barrels.
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
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Post by ingawh on Oct 14, 2021 14:53:50 GMT -5
I've started to tumble again ( ) while I await my results on the California Bar exam. My 40 lb. Lortone fired up (after some oiling and maintenance), as I've been dying to polish the red and gray porcellanite on the left in the top photo, and the crazy-colored cobble (from the Yellowstone River) below. (That rock actually has a name "Red Cloud.") These are all wetted to show the color. I tossed these guys in with a bunch of medium agates, jaspers, chert, petrified wood, etc., plus a generous helping of brand-new, previously untumbled aquarium gravel to cushion the weight that Red Cloud is going to throw around in there. Fingers crossed! This may take a while, but I'll post the results. (By which time I should know if I passed The Bar and can add "Esquire" after my name .) BTW - anyone knowledgeable about Yellowstone River rocks, please help with with what to call these two - Red Cloud and the kinda leopard-spotted thing. They are a common type of cobble on the river, and they range from fairly grainy (like the leopard rock), to almost translucent micro-crystalline. The grainy ones seem like fossilized fine-grain sand/mud, but the colors are all over the place. Other than just calling them quartz nodules, does anyone know a specific moniker for these things? BTW2 - Yes, I also have buckets of Montana agate, but I'm a sucker for the color and variety of the other stones, so they always seem to get tumbled first, leaving the agates that most people prize to age quietly in the garage. Glad to be back in the tumbling saddle! Cheers, ya'll!
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
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Post by ingawh on Oct 14, 2021 13:49:24 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing your process. I'm afraid I long ago abandoned burnishing altogether. Instead, I hand dry and rub each stone after polishing, and that seems to bring up the luster - probably by removing any water scale and micro particles of polish that may have remained. I was interested to read that your rotary polish is a 1000. I would actually consider that to be a pre-polish in rotary. But by the time you get to burnishing, it has likely broken down much finer (especially given your extended run times), and any tiny particles remaining after rinsing would act as a polish. Plus, of course, 7 mohs rocks will put the final polish on each other at that point, as long as there is enough cushioning that they don't smash together - which is what I think was happening to me early on, and why I abandoned burnishing - it actually reduced the shine I had after polish stage. (This was before I got a vibe, and prior to my discovery of quartz aquarium gravel filler, which was the game-changer for me.) Thanks again for the interesting post
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
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Post by ingawh on Oct 14, 2021 13:19:15 GMT -5
I think I'm the one who first posted about using "aquarium gravel," so I'll take a moment to elaborate. Both Petco and PetSmart generally carry a kind of naturally rounded, predominantly quartz/jasper gravel. I tend to presort, but you don't really have to, unless you are doing a soft stone like obsidian, then (at least after the first stage) I go for the best, rounded stuff, as shown in this photo of my "gravel" that has gone through a polish stage with obsidian. I almost always use this filler, even at stage one, and even on harder stones, because I seldom have enough smalls otherwise to balance the load, and I hate opening the barrel to a bunch of smashed-up rough. If you only have medium and smallish stones, it may not be necessary, but I often have at least one large rock, which helps to move the grinding process along more quickly. The filler maximizes the surface area of each stone coming in contact with the grit, while cushioning against heavy blows by the larger rocks. Hope that helps, and happy tumbling!
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
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Post by ingawh on Oct 6, 2021 15:12:40 GMT -5
I'm a Lortone gal for rotary tumblers, and I love my 40 lb barrel for doing the larger stuff. In fact, unless I'm working with soft or fragile rough, the 40 lb barrel is my default to start any batch. I have tumbled rocks up to the size of a large orange, and am planning my biggest one yet - close to a grapefruit. Once you start doing larger rocks, however, you'll need a LOT of smaller rocks and buffering media (I use large quartz aquarium gravel) so that they don't just smash against each other and bruise themselves. Only one large rock goes into such a batch, and the whole batch becomes mostly about getting that special rock polished. FYI - I'm not finding the 40 lb Lortone currently available, and they are a bit pricy, but I love the quality of Lortone, so that's still my recommendation. You might be able to pick up a used one, or wait until they're available again. Best wishes and happy tumbling.
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
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Post by ingawh on Oct 5, 2021 1:27:55 GMT -5
Thanks for the birthday shout-out!
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
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Post by ingawh on Oct 3, 2020 14:13:03 GMT -5
Awww - thanks, you guys! How fun to get a shout-out from my pals in the group. We're ALWAYS appropriately socially distanced aren't we?! :-D Cheerful wishes back atcha.
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
|
Post by ingawh on Jul 3, 2020 17:39:36 GMT -5
Congrats! Looking forward to the photos. Enjoy the journey. Best wishes, Inga
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
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Post by ingawh on Jul 3, 2020 17:38:02 GMT -5
I like soaps that do not foam up too much ( as it seems to inhibit the smooth rolling action of the vibe). I think laundry soaps are generally made to foam up more. I know you can get "low foam" formulas for high-efficiency washers.
I never like to inhibit experimentation, however! If you find something that you like that works for you, let us all know.
Best wishes, Inga
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
|
Post by ingawh on Jul 3, 2020 3:18:50 GMT -5
I go for elegant simplicity, also known as being lazy: I'd probably just toss it all in and see what comes out.
Like the time I had a big haul of really pretty, blue, agates from Washington State where I used to live (no, not Ellensburg stuff), but most of them were completely trapped in a really hard-baked matrix of clay and rotten rock - sounds like the "concrete" you're dealing with. I started trying to pry, grind, and chip them free, but it was really hopeless. No wonder someone just gave them to me.
So I threw the whole batch into a big rotary barrel with plenty of water but NO grit, and let the chunks of rough do all the work of removing their own matrix by just rolling around in the barrel together. No grit wasted and no more endless hours spent fighting with a relentless matrix. Poured out the resulting mud a few days later and found the newly freed gems within, ready for sorting, grading, and polishing
Not a subtle way of dealing with it, but it was very effective in my case. So, especially if the alternative is to give up on the stones, as was the case for me, then that's how I'd approach it.
Good luck and best wishes.
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
|
Post by ingawh on Jun 13, 2020 19:39:25 GMT -5
I KNOW I saw a thread where someone was polishing with Ivory slivers. I can't find it to save my life. Anyone feel like giving the challenged a hand? LOL Soap by itself (Ivory shavings, Borax, Deft) has no ability to polish. As knave mentioned, it's somewhat common to use something for a burnish/cleaning stage. Some may run a cleaning in between stages, but a burnish is usually run AFTER the polish stage to try to enhance the shine. Some folks swear by it - others, not so much. I guess I'm in the "not so much" category. I've never had much luck with burnishing stages. It seems like that's when my stones will chip or break. I use thirsty paper towels to hand-dry and burnish each rock. (My Borax has languished on the shelf for ages now )
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
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Post by ingawh on Jun 13, 2020 17:56:36 GMT -5
I tried to use Ivory shavings as a slurry, it gummed up the sides of my Lot-O. Hi Guys -- I like a soap that is liquid at room temperatures. I'm finally running out of my old favorite liquid hand-soap, Dial, and they long ago changed the formula so it's not as thick. Makes it a little trickier to balance the other ingredients. I tried using shavings from a solid soap, and found clean-up messy and filmy. If others are making ivory work, I'd be curious what they find preferable over the ease and results of hand soap. Maybe if it's their ONLY thickening agent, the denser soap helps....?
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
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Post by ingawh on May 22, 2020 19:11:56 GMT -5
I've had my lot-o for a few months and have tried, unsuccessfully, to get it to work out the TINIEST flaws with no luck what-so-ever. I don't know how anyone does a true stage 1 in it. The daily clean-outs alone get kind of tiresome. I read Jugglerguy 's thread about trying stage 1 with his agates and I think he tried for 3 weeks or so, but gave up on working out the tiny flaws. I think I only lasted a week and a half and hardly saw any difference (except the extra little dings in a lot of them) ... the vibe is a strange animal, to be sure! I'm currently trying to move toward ingawh 's methods/recipe. i'm finding the fine tuning to be pretty difficult as lots of problems can be caused by x or not-x (slurry too thick or too thin, for example). Reminds me of Goldilocks, lol. Hi ataraktos I quickly stopped asking the Lot-o to do any shaping - too labor-intensive, and just frustrating results. I started my tumbling odyssey with rotories, so I let them do all the shaping. The way I got down to 2 steps is to use a very course grit (like 17, or 25) in a big rotary barrel (for 6-7 mohs, 12 or 40 lbs) and let it run for a long time - like month, for the 12 lb. barrel. It has to run long enough that ALL the grit has worn down to maybe a 300 or 400 size. Then sort out the rocks ready to polish, and put the others back for another spin in the rotary. Then the 400 AO takes over with the polish-ready rocks and, if all went well in the rotary stage, imparts a pre-polish and polish in one step in 24 hours in the Lot-o. (48 hrs for obsidian). Yes, it takes some noodling to get the feel of the 400 AO slurry proportions, but once you get it, it becomes a low maintenance operation - check a couple times, but largely set it and forget it. After a while you figure out that some stones just don't want to take a polish, and you learn to trust when you got it right, and it was the rocks, or when you maybe didn't quite get it right and the stones deserve another shot. Best wishes on figuring out your own secret sauce. I look forward to results photos.
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
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Post by ingawh on Apr 22, 2020 23:33:36 GMT -5
Can you post some of your 2 step obsidian ingawh ? By the way you are missed ! Thank you, jamesp, for the kind shout-out. I see that my generic handout on using the Lot-o, was re-posted. (looks like pages 2 & 3 were transposed, but anyone interested will figure that out. ) Its not really geared to obsidian, though, so..... Knave - if it helps, here are the only two changes I make just for obsidian: 1) Proportionately more small agate/quartz media, and ONLY the best pieces, hand sorted to be sure there are no rough edges to scratch the obsidian. The photo that I guess you found shows the actual contents of one entire load, so you can see the proportion of media used, compared to obsidian. 2) I run the the load for 48 hours rather than the 24 used for a 7 mohs batch. That's it really. The biggest thing I had to learn was to completely give up on the instructions that came with the machine. The Lot-O is awesome, but I don't think it's inventors had actually mastered it yet. Along with throwing out the instructions, I had to violate the rock-tumbler's 1st Commandment, "Thou shalt not mix mohs in the same batch." I never got the level of shine I was looking for until I started using the highly polished quartz/agate 7 mohs media. People's eyes popped out when I said I use 7 mohs stones as my filler-media with 5 mohs obsidian, but as long as you're willing to take the time to hand-sort and select only perfectly pre-polished pieces, there is no better polishing aid. NOTE: This means you need to use them with other 7 mohs loads first so that the media stones get highly polished before they can be used to polish the obsidian. I know other people like ceramic media, but I see a difference, and never quite get the liquid shine I'm after on obsidian with the ceramics. So go to Petco (wear your mask! ) and pick up a bag of the large, round, aquarium gravel, composed largely of quartz, agate and jasper. Sort out the good stuff, and run that through from rough to polish with a 7 mohs batch before it can graduate to doing obsidian. I also strongly recommend against other buffers (like plastic pellets or denim strips or walnut shells, etc.). They make a horrible mess, get in the way of the polishing process, and really just indicate you haven't gotten the slurry consistency working right yet. It may take some practice to get the right balance of psyllium (Metamucil) to liquid soap and water, but once you get the feel for it, the process really works. I also tried lots of other thickeners, but hit the sweet-spot only with the Metamucil. The fact that it creates an ever-so-slightly doughy slurry helps it clean completely out of cracks and pits. If it does clean away easily, you likely used too much psyllium. Sadly, I must get back to studying the Rules of Evidence, and Constitutional Law. This is much for fun, but I'm just procrastinating. Good night, good luck, and best wishes, Inga
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
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Post by ingawh on Mar 15, 2020 5:00:28 GMT -5
I tried psyllium husk powder once. It almost instantly turned into dough and was a royal pain to clean out / clean up. I will not do that again. I take it the psyllium you guys have used is a lot different from the husk powder As a law student, my chances to check back in with this board are rare, so sorry this is slow, but I still wanted to respond when I read your experience with psyllium. I just use Metamucil, actually, in which psyllium is the main ingredient. It has worked so well for me, but the trick is to only use a tiny bit - like a quarter tsp or less in a Lot-O batch. Also, my slurry is more hand soap than water, which also keeps it slick and rolling. The reason I like psyllium so much is exactly BECAUSE, it makes a thin dough. What happens for me is that it captures the grit, and when I wash up, NO grit is left in any tiny cracks or pockets, because it pops out with the psyllium slurry - it would rather stay in the slurry than cling to the rock, actually making clean up much easier than without it. I remember the first time I posted to this group, I was laughed out of the forum for my ideas. So I went silent for years, then came back with photos to verify my results. Now much of what I do has become standard practice, and other others have built on it and, I'm sure, greatly developed and improved on my original ideas. If you find something better than psyllium, go for it! But if you're not getting my results, take another look at my recipe and see if you find a kernel of wisdom that you can turn in to your best batch yet.
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
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Post by ingawh on Nov 10, 2019 15:50:22 GMT -5
Welcome to the addiction, and thanks for the shout-out. :-) Glad it's been helpful. Looking forward to results photos down the line. Best wishes, Inga
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ingawh
starting to spend too much on rocks
The rock wants to shine, I just help it get there
Member since February 2011
Posts: 194
|
Post by ingawh on Oct 3, 2019 13:26:33 GMT -5
Awww - Sweet! Thanks you guys!
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