holly
off to a rocking start
Member since September 2023
Posts: 5
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Post by holly on Sept 16, 2023 17:41:00 GMT -5
Brand new to tumbling! This forum has been a wealth of information. My first tumble was ocean smooth jasper, agates, and one piece of petrified wood I found a few weeks ago. Checked my pre-polish after 5 days and discovered, what appear to me, to be scratches. Now by my third stage I had very little rock left in the barrel. And, after read this forum, discovered that I should have added ceramic pieces. But I couldn't add them now since they were brand new and needed to be tumbled prior to adding to the pre-polish stage. All other pieces look ready for the final stage. But first I will tumble the ceramic in another batch at the second stage. So....should I just add this fossilized wood to the other rocks (plus newly smoothed ceramic to fill barrel) when I'm ready to do the polish stage, or should I take fine steel wool and try and buff out the scratches myself? Or are these not scratches at all but just the lower layers of wood revealing themselves? Thanks
Rats....looks like I can't add a photo unless I sign up for Cloudinary.
The lines are faint whitish lines, curved, on the dark brown and black stone.
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Post by velodromed on Sept 16, 2023 18:51:35 GMT -5
holly It’s really hard to tell without pictures. But petrified wood has many characteristics that look like cracks and undercutting. I’d keep tumbling the petrified wood, depending on what I ultimately want it to look like. Fully tumbled and smooth or natural shaped with satin sheen. It’s OK to add new rock, or ceramics, to the old rock that you were tumbling, in order to keep the barrel 75 to 80% full. You can add the ceramics even if new. I prefer small aquarium agate or other rock. Ceramics are boring at clean out while small agates and other rock are interesting.
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Post by velodromed on Sept 16, 2023 18:53:47 GMT -5
You can post pictures and videos to YouTube, then copy/paste the link here.
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Post by vegasjames on Sept 16, 2023 19:11:33 GMT -5
Welcome from Southern Nevada.
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dillonf
fully equipped rock polisher
Hounding and tumbling
Member since February 2022
Posts: 1,622
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Post by dillonf on Sept 16, 2023 20:03:06 GMT -5
welcome
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Post by chris1956 on Sept 16, 2023 21:43:44 GMT -5
Welcome from Missouri.
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geoff59
spending too much on rocks
Member since October 2022
Posts: 288
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Post by geoff59 on Sept 17, 2023 5:38:40 GMT -5
What Velodromed said. Petrified wood is in a league of its own, not because it’s difficult to polish (except it can be), it’s because well, it’s petrified wood.
Those pictures mentioned would help a lot! And yes, welcome to the forum!
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Post by rockjunquie on Sept 17, 2023 7:21:31 GMT -5
Welcome from Virginia!  |
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Post by jasoninsd on Sept 17, 2023 8:34:12 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum from South Dakota! |
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holly
off to a rocking start
Member since September 2023
Posts: 5
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Post by holly on Sept 17, 2023 9:28:12 GMT -5
Thanks for the welcomes!
Velo....apparently you can't upload photos to YouTube anymore.
The rock is really pretty...even with the white lines. Maybe I should just be content....as this is my first run.
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holly
off to a rocking start
Member since September 2023
Posts: 5
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Post by holly on Sept 17, 2023 9:45:47 GMT -5
So I figured out a quick way to get the photo of my rock on this forum....it's now my avatar. Can you see the white scratches? Or are they just revealed lower layers of the wood/rock?
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Post by velodromed on Sept 17, 2023 11:16:11 GMT -5
So I figured out a quick way to get the photo of my rock on this forum....it's now my avatar. Can you see the white scratches? Or are they just revealed lower layers of the wood/rock? Lol very creative of you. Looks like normal pet wood characteristics. There can be different layers of varying hardness in petrified wood so you’re good.some pet wood I’ll tumble till smooth. Others I’ll try to keep the ‘wood looking’ characteristics. |
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holly
off to a rocking start
Member since September 2023
Posts: 5
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Post by holly on Sept 17, 2023 14:58:09 GMT -5
Thank you Velo.....glad to hear it. I"ll go ahead and run all of the rocks through the last stage. Glad to have found such a helpful group of folks!
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khara
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since September 2022
Posts: 1,980
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Post by khara on Sept 17, 2023 18:50:34 GMT -5
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Fossilman
Cave Dweller 
Member since January 2009
Posts: 20,723 
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Post by Fossilman on Sept 19, 2023 15:20:04 GMT -5
Are you using a metal strainer? They streak material when you clean your rocks. Tumbling takes the streaks away but will continue till you replace the strainer with plastic.
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johnthor1963
starting to spend too much on rocks
Cattle dogs rock
Member since June 2023
Posts: 236
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Post by johnthor1963 on Sept 19, 2023 15:57:12 GMT -5
Welcome from Indiana.
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johnthor1963
starting to spend too much on rocks
Cattle dogs rock
Member since June 2023
Posts: 236
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Post by johnthor1963 on Sept 19, 2023 15:58:20 GMT -5
Welcome from Indiana
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Post by broseph82 on Sept 22, 2023 15:14:38 GMT -5
Did you get embedded ceramics? I too troubled with metallic like scratches on my tumbles and was stumped as I knew my load wasn't contaminated. Wasn't until one of the black SiC pieces was sticking out of a ceramic and it hit me that it's what's been scratching my stones from time to time for years. I think I got a bag mixed up from the shop and instead of basic ceramics I got ones impregnated with SiC.
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Post by Bob on Sept 28, 2023 10:35:10 GMT -5
I recommend not tumbling PW until you have a year or two of tumbling experience. It's touchy. Some pieces get worse not better. I'm tumbling a lot of it this year, have almost 50lbs of it in process now. It takes a lot of trimming and a critical eye that comes with experience and after making a lot of mistakes. What you have described sounds a lot like a non-silicified layer in the piece, which often curves and follows the wood grain.
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holly
off to a rocking start
Member since September 2023
Posts: 5
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Post by holly on Oct 17, 2023 11:34:22 GMT -5
Fossilman....using plastic strainer
broseph82....didn't use the ceramics from the start, so I know that I need to do that to smooth them out, so not using them for this run.
Bob....thanks for the advice...I do have some other petrified wood, so I'll wait on that until I feel more confident.
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