pebblesky
fully equipped rock polisher
Purchased another UV mini bowl for tumbling
Member since September 2022
Posts: 1,509
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Post by pebblesky on Apr 15, 2023 11:24:15 GMT -5
Amazing job!! I am envious of you beautiful pictures and videos! Your careful documentation is great! Really enjoyed reading you post! Thanks! Since I got a Rebel 17 (and I have to take care of its blowouts every week), it is no longer possible to take all the before and after pictures. Your words encourage me to continue my documentation though!
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Post by jasoninsd on Apr 17, 2023 20:15:35 GMT -5
The pictures, videos, and tumbles are spectacular PS!! Thank you SO much for taking the time to post these like this!!
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pebblesky
fully equipped rock polisher
Purchased another UV mini bowl for tumbling
Member since September 2022
Posts: 1,509
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Post by pebblesky on Apr 20, 2023 11:23:39 GMT -5
Eventually I finished some long overdue polishes during the spring break. I would like to take pictures of them one by one when I have time, but I am slow. One of the lake Michigan rocks gifted by Son Of Beach . I also had some Unakite done
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pebblesky
fully equipped rock polisher
Purchased another UV mini bowl for tumbling
Member since September 2022
Posts: 1,509
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Post by pebblesky on Apr 20, 2023 11:34:48 GMT -5
A bunch of Montana Moss agates that was just out of the ultrasonic cleaner so they looked a bit foggy. Will take better pictures later. They are all from Tony's MFRB saw scraps and random rocks. Look quite characteristic. My favorite is no doubt the bottom-right one came as a preform.
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Post by Son Of Beach on Apr 20, 2023 14:06:43 GMT -5
Eventually I finished some long overdue polishes during the spring break. I would like to take pictures of them one by one when I have time, but I am slow. One of the lake Michigan rocks gifted by Son Of Beach . I also had some Unakite done I dig it, a lot going on in that little guy
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pebblesky
fully equipped rock polisher
Purchased another UV mini bowl for tumbling
Member since September 2022
Posts: 1,509
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Post by pebblesky on Apr 23, 2023 22:25:50 GMT -5
The box of my tumbles. I know, I know, it will not scale pretty soon...
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pebblesky
fully equipped rock polisher
Purchased another UV mini bowl for tumbling
Member since September 2022
Posts: 1,509
|
Post by pebblesky on Apr 23, 2023 22:56:04 GMT -5
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pebblesky
fully equipped rock polisher
Purchased another UV mini bowl for tumbling
Member since September 2022
Posts: 1,509
|
Post by pebblesky on Aug 13, 2023 15:33:24 GMT -5
Rebel 17 still rolling nonstop. From this week's cleanup: rocks to move on to stage 2 or set aside for further treatment due to deep holes/fractures:
Fell in love with my high-speed Rebel 17 again, since it no longer explodes any more. The key differences compared with earlier problematic batches are I always fill the barrel with hot water and no longer add sugar to the water.
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pebblesky
fully equipped rock polisher
Purchased another UV mini bowl for tumbling
Member since September 2022
Posts: 1,509
|
Post by pebblesky on Aug 13, 2023 15:37:24 GMT -5
Rocks that have been added to the current batch (all from markymark : small Moroccan agates and brown Biggs jasper):
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Post by velodromed on Aug 17, 2023 11:30:07 GMT -5
Amazing job!! I am envious of you beautiful pictures and videos! Your careful documentation is great! Really enjoyed reading you post! Thanks! Since I got a Rebel 17 (and I have to take care of its blowouts every week), it is no longer possible to take all the before and after pictures. Your words encourage me to continue my documentation though! Did you ever figure out why your rebel 17 was having blowouts? What is the thing literally blowing out or just leaking all over the place? I’ve been running mine constantly for the last five months or so and the main issue I had was bad leaking in the beginning. It would always start leaking within an hour after it would start tumbling. Finally I figured out that I had to let it sit for awhile as I was tightening it. Basically, once I thought I had it completely tight, around 15 minutes later several would be loose. So I was figuring it was decompressing or something. So now I leave it on the top of my workbench after it’s tightened and every 15 minutes I go back and tighten it more. Then, by the end of an hour, it’s no longer loosening and I’ll have zero leaks for the entire 10+ day tumble.
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pebblesky
fully equipped rock polisher
Purchased another UV mini bowl for tumbling
Member since September 2022
Posts: 1,509
|
Post by pebblesky on Aug 17, 2023 11:53:22 GMT -5
Thanks! Since I got a Rebel 17 (and I have to take care of its blowouts every week), it is no longer possible to take all the before and after pictures. Your words encourage me to continue my documentation though! Did you ever figure out why your rebel 17 was having blowouts? What is the thing literally blowing out or just leaking all over the place? I’ve been running mine constantly for the last five months or so and the main issue I had was bad leaking in the beginning. It would always start leaking within an hour after it would start tumbling. Finally I figured out that I had to let it sit for awhile as I was tightening it. Basically, once I thought I had it completely tight, around 15 minutes later several would be loose. So I was figuring it was decompressing or something. So now I leave it on the top of my workbench after it’s tightened and every 15 minutes I go back and tighten it more. Then, by the end of an hour, it’s no longer loosening and I’ll have zero leaks for the entire 10+ day tumble. It produced a lot of gas and eventually pushed the lid open slightly, and slurry started to leak, no matter how tight I screwed the nuts. Now I think I figure the issue out: it was due to adding sugar to the water (to help carrying the grit to all the rocks - it was a tip I learned from RTH). Maybe the rocks I tumbled and the water I used didn't work well with sugar. After I: 1. stopped adding sugar and 2. used hot water instead of cold water, there was no longer any leakage from Rebel 17 and I barely check it out until the weekend.
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Post by velodromed on Aug 17, 2023 12:00:47 GMT -5
Did you ever figure out why your rebel 17 was having blowouts? What is the thing literally blowing out or just leaking all over the place? I’ve been running mine constantly for the last five months or so and the main issue I had was bad leaking in the beginning. It would always start leaking within an hour after it would start tumbling. Finally I figured out that I had to let it sit for awhile as I was tightening it. Basically, once I thought I had it completely tight, around 15 minutes later several would be loose. So I was figuring it was decompressing or something. So now I leave it on the top of my workbench after it’s tightened and every 15 minutes I go back and tighten it more. Then, by the end of an hour, it’s no longer loosening and I’ll have zero leaks for the entire 10+ day tumble. It produced a lot of gas and eventually pushed the lid open slightly, and slurry started to leak, no matter how tight I screwed the nuts. Now I think I figure the issue out: it was due to adding sugar to the water (to help carrying the grit to all the rocks - it was a tip I learned from RTH). Maybe the rocks I tumbled and the water I used didn't work well with sugar. After I: 1. stopped adding sugar and 2. used hot water instead of cold water, there was no longer any leakage from Rebel 17 and I barely check it out until the weekend. That makes sense. I’ve never tried sugar. Borax or even psyllium fiber seems to work well, but I only use them in the vibe. I recycle my slurry in the rebel 17 and other tumblers. I can get a months use out of it before starting over (it gets stinky).
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pebblesky
fully equipped rock polisher
Purchased another UV mini bowl for tumbling
Member since September 2022
Posts: 1,509
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Post by pebblesky on Aug 17, 2023 12:24:51 GMT -5
It produced a lot of gas and eventually pushed the lid open slightly, and slurry started to leak, no matter how tight I screwed the nuts. Now I think I figure the issue out: it was due to adding sugar to the water (to help carrying the grit to all the rocks - it was a tip I learned from RTH). Maybe the rocks I tumbled and the water I used didn't work well with sugar. After I: 1. stopped adding sugar and 2. used hot water instead of cold water, there was no longer any leakage from Rebel 17 and I barely check it out until the weekend. That makes sense. I’ve never tried sugar. Borax or even psyllium fiber seems to work well, but I only use them in the vibe. I recycle my slurry in the rebel 17 and other tumblers. I can get a months use out of it before starting over (it gets stinky). I have never tumbled/polished with psyllium fiber. Does it effectively prevent polish residue from sticking to the faulty part of rocks? I use an ultrasonic cleaner to clean the rocks between stages, but some prepolish/polish residue is really stubborn, especially on the Green Tree / Moss Agate that I got from rockshed.
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pebblesky
fully equipped rock polisher
Purchased another UV mini bowl for tumbling
Member since September 2022
Posts: 1,509
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Post by pebblesky on Aug 21, 2023 12:38:25 GMT -5
Saw this Salina Canyon Wonderstone (from KinesavaRocks) from my stage-1 tumbler: Probably one of the nicest Wonderstone I have ever tumbled. I feel it is softer than the agates. Wondering if I should polish it with my usual agates and jaspers.
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pebblesky
fully equipped rock polisher
Purchased another UV mini bowl for tumbling
Member since September 2022
Posts: 1,509
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Post by pebblesky on Aug 21, 2023 12:54:43 GMT -5
Some of the small Moroccan Agate fillers after 1 week of stage 1, shown wet: They are so much fun to look at. I would need to be careful about tumbling progress to hopefully keep interesting feature on the surface while trying to get rid of the tiny holes. So maybe only pour them in for the last few days of one rough-tumbling cycle( which is typically about a week for me).
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pebblesky
fully equipped rock polisher
Purchased another UV mini bowl for tumbling
Member since September 2022
Posts: 1,509
|
Post by pebblesky on Sept 3, 2023 14:04:24 GMT -5
I got a Macro photography lens for my phone, so I could take some close-up photos of my rocks with (not really) minimal setup. This is the crazy lace agate from my last year's batch. It was heart shaped, vibrantly colored, and so fractured. I have tumbled it from a much bigger size, but it ended up much smaller and still fractured. The other side: The picture stones I got from rockshed never had a great shine, but they are so easily rounded, and I am never tired looking at them. I was trying to remove some dents from the back of this Salina Canyon Wonderstone from stage 1, but ended up scratching the front as well. Need to go back to stage 1 for a couple more days. This Sumatra Island Banded Agate has been through stage 1 for a while. I want to get rid of some dents and fractures, but also don't want the nice bands to be messed up. What if more crystal area shows up after staying at stage 1 for longer, which did happen to my crazy laces many times. So I preformed it a bit trying to remove the dents. This is preformed on my cabber from a small Morgan Hill Poppy Jasper slab given by stardiamond . I never owned or tumbled Morgan Hill before, so I will only tumble it for a couple of days to see what is going to happen.
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pebblesky
fully equipped rock polisher
Purchased another UV mini bowl for tumbling
Member since September 2022
Posts: 1,509
|
Post by pebblesky on Sept 3, 2023 14:09:38 GMT -5
Saw some chip on my Swazi Agate after stage 1. Trying to remove it from my cabber, and realized the chip is much deeper than I anticipated, so it will go back to stage 1 for a couple more weeks, and hopefully reveal more bands on the back side.
Small Moroccan Agates after one week of stage 1. Just wanted to see how they progress, and if I could find a perfect time to exit stage 1 for them.
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michiganpebbler
spending too much on rocks
Member since April 2023
Posts: 344
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Post by michiganpebbler on Sept 3, 2023 15:23:04 GMT -5
Saw this Salina Canyon Wonderstone (from KinesavaRocks) from my stage-1 tumbler: Probably one of the nicest Wonderstone I have ever tumbled. I feel it is softer than the agates. Wondering if I should polish it with my usual agates and jaspers. I can see where it gets it’s name, wow!
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pebblesky
fully equipped rock polisher
Purchased another UV mini bowl for tumbling
Member since September 2022
Posts: 1,509
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Post by pebblesky on Sept 20, 2023 16:48:39 GMT -5
I just finished polishing a batch and can not wait to share with you some of them. Two brecciated jaspers and one pet wood. A set of Montana Moss agates and one banded agate. A set of small Alxa (inner-Mongolian) Gobi candy agates. Most of the natural Gobi agates have cute matte/bumpy surface that we normally don't want to mess with, but the batch I purchased were low grade, and they didn't look interesting in their natural form at all, so I didn't hesitate to throw them into the tumbler. After polishing, the revealed colored "hearts" are really cute under the natural light, that my pictures couldn't do justice.
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