Feather River Competition

I still have some in stage 1. I've been tumbling them in 3lb barrels hoping that it would prevent fractures and spalls. A few pieces will never be rid of the pinholes. I am hoping to move them on to the minisonic as soon as they are finished with rough grind.
I do have a lot of nice looking stones so far, but they have lost quite a bit of size. I had 1 piece that looked like a glazed donut. Not sure if it's chalcedony, but whatever it is, wore off too fast. I wished I had a cabbing machine or grinder I could have used on these to get them ready for tumbling. I'm hoping the 5 I send in are good enough to have a chance.

After a week of rough grind months ago, I thought this is going to be easy, getting smooth quickly. That's before the pinholes and internal cracks started appearing that seemed to never stop. I have 8-9 that will come out of polish tonight, but they don't impress me very much. Will send in 5 anyway.

I still have at least 1/3 in rough. There are just too many flaws that keep popping up. I thought this stone was going to polish well and fairly quickly, but as it seems others have experienced as well, it turned out to be a tough one to get right.  You could keep trying for perfection, but....

As for the rest, I haven't even put them in the vibe yet, I had been waiting for them all to leave stage 1. That seems impractical now. Of the ones ready to go into the vibe tumbler, I don't believe there's any bigger than 1"x2"x1". We'll see how they turn out I guess.

Very curious. Would you share some of the tumbled stones of this China Hollow Jasper that are NOT submitted for contest?

I selected my rocks for submission before they went in to final polish. They are still in polish, with the 3 lb rotary drum filled almost entirely with small pellets. I will be taking them out within the next few days. I hope at least 1 of us here places within the top 3! Good luck everyone!

This China hollow rock surely is beautiful stuff, reminds me a lot of some of the better petrified wood in a lot of ways (to look at), lots of variation. Typically I don’t work a lot with brown rocks in general, unless it is really spectacular…. I will be purchasing some of this direct from the mine very soon. 

These seem to have very good shine. Best of luck!

Kind of lousy photo I know. Got them out today and so glad to be rid of them.

Well here is a group shot and closeups of a few that I didn't send in.   If you are wondering about the ones I sent in, well, I forgot to take a picture of them.  Think I was glad to get them in the mail and out of my life.     I was really hoping that the large long one would be one I sent in.  It looked great until the final polish stage when all of a sudden two soft spots appeared in the white part and kept getting bigger (see closeup).   Couldn't get rid of them without taking that end off.  I noticed a couple of these that I have had in a bag for a few weeks developed a white film on them.  I hope the ones I sent in didn't do that.  









Chris

 

I am a little late with my pictures of my competition rocks. The first show the ones I had ready in time. The second, these are my picks (-the leftmost one, and the small one one the right, my bad).
The rest are some good and bad rocks. Unfortunately, a lot of my rocks started to fracture and pit with soft spots in the final polish. I made sure to provide plenty of cushioning for them. The one that looks like wood, and the teardrop (kind of) shaped one, do not have fractures, just lighting makes it appear that they are.