wolverine
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since October 2022
Posts: 129
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Post by wolverine on Oct 17, 2022 20:16:20 GMT -5
I finally started my first tumble. Actually I started my first 3. I have 2 different types of material in my twin 3 pounders and then completely different material in my 12 pounder. One of the 3's has rock I picked local of the gravel roads and the other has some beach rock from Oregon. The 12 has mostly jasper and agate that I hounded I my recent trip out west.
I will let them all go for the 7 days and report my progress. The beach and road rock are starting out fairly smooth so I expect (hope) to be able to advance to the next stage after 1 week. The 12 pound is full of stuff that will need a lot of work so I am sure multiple weeks of work in the first stage for that.
I will eventually need to get the barrels into a staggered schedule so I am able to see some progress on a batch every couple of days. Waiting a week is gonna be a drag! So after a month of binge watching videos and reading I am off and rolling.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Member since January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2022 20:40:48 GMT -5
wolverineThats awesome, looking forward to seeing the progress! Got an before shots of the rocks you put in?
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Post by jasoninsd on Oct 17, 2022 20:55:35 GMT -5
I finally started my first tumble. Actually I started my first 3. I have 2 different types of material in my twin 3 pounders and then completely different material in my 12 pounder. One of the 3's has rock I picked local of the gravel roads and the other has some beach rock from Oregon. The 12 has mostly jasper and agate that I hounded I my recent trip out west. I will let them all go for the 7 days and report my progress. The beach and road rock are starting out fairly smooth so I expect (hope) to be able to advance to the next stage after 1 week. The 12 pound is full of stuff that will need a lot of work so I am sure multiple weeks of work in the first stage for that. I will eventually need to get the barrels into a staggered schedule so I am able to see some progress on a batch every couple of days. Waiting a week is gonna be a drag! So after a month of binge watching videos and reading I am off and rolling. That's one of the reasons I took up cabbing! LOL
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wolverine
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since October 2022
Posts: 129
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Post by wolverine on Oct 17, 2022 21:18:12 GMT -5
wolverine Thats awesome, looking forward to seeing the progress! Got an before shots of the rocks you put in? I did take a few pictures before loading up but I am going to wait to post them. I want to be surprised (good or bad) when I open the barrels. On my first batches I didn't want helpful input ahead of seeing the results. I want to try to figure out on my own what is happening. I will do some studying on my own first then post the pictures and ask for insight. I hope that makes sense. After all my anticipation of getting started, I didn't want someone seeing something I put in and putting doubt in my head for the whole week. I need to see a few mistakes to learn. My biggest problem is identifying what I have. I feel somewhat sure on the jasper, agate and quartz material.....but...? The stuff I picked off the road and some of the beach stuff I definitely had questions on. It's smooth and not grainy and none of it scratches with a file so we'll see what happens. I am sure I'll be asking plenty of questions on what I am seeing after I open things up.
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nursetumbler
Cave Dweller
Member since February 2022
Posts: 981
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Post by nursetumbler on Oct 17, 2022 21:35:55 GMT -5
I finally started my first tumble. Actually I started my first 3. I have 2 different types of material in my twin 3 pounders and then completely different material in my 12 pounder. One of the 3's has rock I picked local of the gravel roads and the other has some beach rock from Oregon. The 12 has mostly jasper and agate that I hounded I my recent trip out west. I will let them all go for the 7 days and report my progress. The beach and road rock are starting out fairly smooth so I expect (hope) to be able to advance to the next stage after 1 week. The 12 pound is full of stuff that will need a lot of work so I am sure multiple weeks of work in the first stage for that. I will eventually need to get the barrels into a staggered schedule so I am able to see some progress on a batch every couple of days. Waiting a week is gonna be a drag! So after a month of binge watching videos and reading I am off and rolling. That's one of the reasons I took up cabbing! LOL jasoninsdLMBBO!!!!
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Member since January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2022 22:05:54 GMT -5
wolverine Thats awesome, looking forward to seeing the progress! Got an before shots of the rocks you put in? I did take a few pictures before loading up but I am going to wait to post them. I want to be surprised (good or bad) when I open the barrels. On my first batches I didn't want helpful input ahead of seeing the results. I want to try to figure out on my own what is happening. I will do some studying on my own first then post the pictures and ask for insight. I hope that makes sense. After all my anticipation of getting started, I didn't want someone seeing something I put in and putting doubt in my head for the whole week. I need to see a few mistakes to learn. My biggest problem is identifying what I have. I feel somewhat sure on the jasper, agate and quartz material.....but...? The stuff I picked off the road and some of the beach stuff I definitely had questions on. It's smooth and not grainy and none of it scratches with a file so we'll see what happens. I am sure I'll be asking plenty of questions on what I am seeing after I open things up. It makes sense!
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vance71975
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since September 2022
Posts: 760
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Post by vance71975 on Oct 18, 2022 2:04:56 GMT -5
I finally started my first tumble. Actually I started my first 3. I have 2 different types of material in my twin 3 pounders and then completely different material in my 12 pounder. One of the 3's has rock I picked local of the gravel roads and the other has some beach rock from Oregon. The 12 has mostly jasper and agate that I hounded I my recent trip out west. I will let them all go for the 7 days and report my progress. The beach and road rock are starting out fairly smooth so I expect (hope) to be able to advance to the next stage after 1 week. The 12 pound is full of stuff that will need a lot of work so I am sure multiple weeks of work in the first stage for that. I will eventually need to get the barrels into a staggered schedule so I am able to see some progress on a batch every couple of days. Waiting a week is gonna be a drag! So after a month of binge watching videos and reading I am off and rolling. yep the waiting will kill ya for sure lol. Welcome to the Grind, Pun Intended lol
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wolverine
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since October 2022
Posts: 129
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Post by wolverine on Oct 19, 2022 18:57:34 GMT -5
Well so much for patience! I decided to open up my 12 pounder to see the progress and to learn how the grit breaks down throughout the process. Started rolling on Sunday and this evening I would say there was minimal grit detected. Is this to be expected after just 3 full days of rolling?
I just went ahead and did a full rinse to inspect and am glad I did. I had a plenty of pieces smooth and ready to move on now and some that I don't want to lose anymore size and am satisfied with to move on. Maybe 1/3 of what I started with will continue. I also had some ceramics mixed in to fill-in and knock the edges of them for future use that I pulled out as well. I went ahead and reloaded and threw some more ceramics to smooth as well.
In the barrel was and is again jasper, agates some quartz and a few random rocks....my I.D. skills have not developed yet. The random rock definitely lost quite a bit of size but actually look good at this point. All the jasper stayed in and most of the agates as well. Half the quartz material was ready to move on.
The slury looked like a clean battleship grey and felt smooth to me. I did have 6 small rock chips in the rinse. I did have a couple rocks in there that I figured may chip as they looked suspect when I loaded them.
Would it be a quicker process with rougher material to recharge after 3 or 4 days in the first stage or is there something extra that's happening when the grit breaks down to continue to the 7 days? To me, it seems like most of the major grinding was done in my barrel...perhaps that's just a rookie observation. I definitely understand it's a marathon and not a sprint but I just don't want to roll for little gain.
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Post by pebblesky on Oct 19, 2022 19:14:17 GMT -5
Sound a good thing. How much grit did you use for your 12 pounder? Maybe due to its aggressive grinding, more grit per pound would be needed.
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Post by susand24224 on Oct 19, 2022 19:28:42 GMT -5
Here's some thoughts for you that I hope will be helpful. (1) You will never have all the rocks ready at the same time and you are definitely on the right track to pull those that are and leave the others to tumble again. (2) The larger barrels (at least for me) complete the tumble faster than the smaller barrels do. (3) your microcrystalline quart (jasper/agate) will chip your plain quartz--they are much denser so the "impact" is great on the quartz. (extra explanation: don't tumble agates, jasper, flint, etc. with amethyst, rose quartz, blue quartz, etc. unless you are fond of cracks and don't mind chips (4) Your slurry sounds perfect, and also your use of ceramic shapes. (5) When I tumbled a lot, I had some cheapo little plastic drawer sets from Walmart, and by shelf it went something like top shelf-ready for 120/220; next shelf--ready for 500; next shelf--ready for polish.
Another thing that I found is that softer rocks (if not real fragile/brittle) can be tumbled with Mohs 7 rocks in the first few stages and survive just fine but must be separated from the harder ones to polish properly.
Happy tumbling!
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wolverine
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since October 2022
Posts: 129
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Post by wolverine on Oct 19, 2022 20:01:43 GMT -5
Sound a good thing. How much grit did you use for your 12 pounder? Maybe due to its aggressive grinding, more grit per pound would be needed. I used 1 cup of 35/70 . I should have mentioned that before.
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wolverine
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since October 2022
Posts: 129
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Post by wolverine on Oct 19, 2022 20:07:53 GMT -5
Here's some thoughts for you that I hope will be helpful. (1) You will never have all the rocks ready at the same time and you are definitely on the right track to pull those that are and leave the others to tumble again. (2) The larger barrels (at least for me) complete the tumble faster than the smaller barrels do. (3) your microcrystalline quart (jasper/agate) will chip your plain quartz--they are much denser so the "impact" is great on the quartz. (extra explanation: don't tumble agates, jasper, flint, etc. with amethyst, rose quartz, blue quartz, etc. unless you are fond of cracks and don't mind chips (4) Your slurry sounds perfect, and also your use of ceramic shapes. (5) When I tumbled a lot, I had some cheapo little plastic drawer sets from Walmart, and by shelf it went something like top shelf-ready for 120/220; next shelf--ready for 500; next shelf--ready for polish. Another thing that I found is that softer rocks (if not real fragile/brittle) can be tumbled with Mohs 7 rocks in the first few stages and survive just fine but must be separated from the harder ones to polish properly. Happy tumbling! Thanks for the tips. I will definitely start separating my quartz as you suggested. It was actually the agate and jasper that I found Chips of in this batch. I am certain that was due to previous damage to a few that a notice before hand. I probably should have just tried to chip them ahead of putting them in. Thanks again
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wolverine
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since October 2022
Posts: 129
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Post by wolverine on Oct 29, 2022 21:16:58 GMT -5
I posted a few pics from my first batch in the rock tumbling photo section. I think they turned out OK for a first batch. Some of the rocks I left some imperfections because I wanted to keep the size. I did pull a few half way thru and threw them back into the rough grit with another batch because I was not happy with how they were progressing. All part of the learning process i guess.
I had a wide variety of rocks in this batch. Mostly so I could see how differently the rocks grind. I Definitely like how quick the pre-polished beach rock advance and interesting to see how tough the jasper and agates are. I have my second batch already in the vibe starting the medium grit and more in the barrels rolling in rough. The addiction is real!
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