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Post by vegasjames on Sept 14, 2023 9:10:07 GMT -5
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 14, 2023 1:09:51 GMT -5
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 13, 2023 17:11:42 GMT -5
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 13, 2023 17:07:36 GMT -5
Welcome from Southern Nevada.
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 13, 2023 17:04:40 GMT -5
Destroying the land with those mines! So do roads, buildings, overgrazing by cattle........
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 13, 2023 5:01:15 GMT -5
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 13, 2023 4:56:28 GMT -5
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 12, 2023 20:11:34 GMT -5
Love how they look. I will definitely give that a try one day. Wondering if it is needed to tumble the rocks in a vibe? How about only rolling them in the rotary tumblers? The candy rhyolite I got from you are definitely pleasant to tumble - they rarely show any fracture or chip, and are relatively easy to shape. I get a pretty good polish by just tumbling them with water and the chips, but the vibe tumbler gives them a super high polish. Maybe if I ran them a few weeks longer in the rotary I may get the same high polish.
I have some really cool quartz I ran for a little while in the rotary with just water and it is staring to take a really nice polish. Took them out temporarily to run some other stones but will probably load these back up and run them some more in the rotary.
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 12, 2023 20:05:38 GMT -5
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 12, 2023 19:55:01 GMT -5
Wow you really got rough shapes and a heck of a great polish on them (you must have really hard water). Lol Wondering what the the clean out looked like did you have small rock chips and a slurry of some kind. Polished rough shapes are cool I get a lot of that with crushed onyx. Looking forward to the next water tumble. Happy tumbling I add my rock chips for "grit" as the sharp little pieces can help clean out dirt, mud, lichens, moss, etc. I end up with small polished chips that are great for crafts.
I fill he barrels pretty full so the rocks do not slam against each other, but after sealing up the barrel I shake the barrels to make sure there is free movement still inside of them. Then I check the barrels every few days and wash out all the mud inside, and add more chops if needed.
Once cleaned up some, I also check the larger stones for obvious bad areas that can be chipped off or ground off. For instance, several of the pieces of candy rhyolite I an running are all from a large piece I broke up an it had a lot of purple inside. Looking great, but there were some really rough areas on the exterior that without grit would take a long time to break down. So, I took two of the pieces so far and ground off the rough areas so that more of the beautiful pattern will show.
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 12, 2023 19:44:48 GMT -5
I have been thinking about trying to round & polish some stones without using any grit at all The rounding part would be the hardest part without grit. Works great for softer stones, as I have done this with softer copper ore and some other soft stones. The round up in a couple of days. The harder stones though like chalcedonies would take a very long time to round up unless maybe you had a humongous barrel as larger barrels speed the process.
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 12, 2023 19:39:25 GMT -5
These are the common opal versions of the green jasper before it convert in to the jasper.
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 12, 2023 19:37:32 GMT -5
vegasjames Couple of quick questions. What are these gorgeous, dark green rocks, of which there are several in the box? Also, Shelley (michaganpebbler) sent me a bag containing some local Las Vegas rock that you had sent her at some point in the past. Can you identify these three? I’m figuring some kind of Jasper, but one of them almost has purple hues to it. The dark green is jasper. I have common opal in the same color and in light green as opal converts in to some form of chalcedony (common chalcedony, agate, jasper, chert/flint) as the opal dehydrates. I will post a pic of the opal for comparison here shortly.
The other stones are Lavic jasper from Southern California.
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 12, 2023 15:40:47 GMT -5
Will all rocks do that? Get a nice polish without any grit or polish stages? Any hard stone 6-7 in hardness should work. On my other post I show pieces of common chalcedony and jaspers done this way, and they took a great polish as well. The smoother the smoother the surface of the stone to start the better.
In find the candy rhyolite does the best with this process. Probably because most of it has a smoother surface to begin with, and because it is slightly softer than the chalcedonies and so the surface can wear a bit faster.
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 12, 2023 15:34:54 GMT -5
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 12, 2023 15:31:50 GMT -5
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 12, 2023 15:29:46 GMT -5
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 12, 2023 10:19:38 GMT -5
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 12, 2023 10:17:41 GMT -5
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 12, 2023 8:07:24 GMT -5
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