wades
starting to spend too much on rocks
Gottfried Reiche (1667-1734)
Member since February 2006
Posts: 202
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Post by wades on Mar 3, 2006 13:55:50 GMT -5
My daughter was getting impatient with the batch of prarie agates that was in its 4th week in 60/90, and wanted to see what would happen if we started a batch of landscaping marble chips. (Actually, she'd been wanting to put some marble in with the agates, but I told her it would be gone in a week.) So the last time the agates were due for a recharge/picking, we dumped them all, rinsed them, and put them aside.
We made up a load of marble chips, some up to 2"x1"x1", and when we looked at them after 3 days they were almost all rounded, but the surfaces were pretty rough. Finer than orange peel, but not promising. We put them back in for a day, and when I opened the barrel again the slurry was almost like yogurt, and the batch of rocks was small enough the I could hold all of them in 1 hand.
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Rockygibraltar
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since February 2006
Posts: 1,404
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Post by Rockygibraltar on Mar 4, 2006 0:39:09 GMT -5
Wow I thought marble was harder than that. That surprizes me.
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jrtrio
has rocks in the head
With10 tumblers tumbling the sound is so delicious!Send me more of those little red fellas, please?
Member since February 2006
Posts: 535
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Post by jrtrio on Apr 4, 2006 11:27:40 GMT -5
I'd be getting impatient too if I had a load of Prairie agates in it's fourth week. Do you mind my asking a few questions? First, how full do you fill your barrel? I find I get a better result if I keep the load closer to the 2/3 mark instead of the 3/4 mark that most reccomend. Also, depending on the size of your barrel depends on how much grit you use. I've seen grit amounts anywhere from 1-1/2 to 2 Tbsp to 2 to 2 1/2Tbsp. I find the lesser amount gives better results. But, no matter what amount you use if you don't check on your load at the 3 day mark after starting it won't matter how long you tumble you won't get the results you're looking for. What I do on the third day is pour my load through a strainer into a vessel that will hold all the water easily. Then I check my barrel. Is there more grit on the bottom than in the water? Even if the slurry looks good you can still have way too much grit stuck on the bottom. And if it's there then there should also be a bunch of rocks stuck in it. If this is the case then I start doing the old bar tender shuffle with the water glass and the barrel until all the grit is off the bottom and either in the water or in the glass. If it's in the barrel then put all the rocks back in quickly and get it tumbling! But, if it's still in the glass then I put the water back in the glass, the stones back in the barrel and I stir the grit in the glass until I feel that most of it's spinning in the water. Then I pour it into the barrel while scooping the grit out of the glass into the barrel and get that sucker tumbling as quickly as I can. Doing all this has help cut down my tumbling times with most materials. And this grit problem is found in all tumblers. Whether they lie all the way on their side or are at a slight angle. I hope I've given you some help in cutting down on your tumbling times. Some people just look into their barrels and if the slurry looks good they keep tumbling not knowing if they have grit stuck on the bottom holding onto some stones keeping them from tumbling. Also, another thing I do after the first week of tumbling is I check the grit again but this time I also go through my stones and take out the very small stones and any pieces of stone that have broken off. They tend to just scratch rock and not help smooth them at all. I also take out any with pitts and cracks. I'll do this at every stage since you can never tell when a crack will show up.
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turnedstone
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since January 2006
Posts: 766
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Post by turnedstone on Apr 4, 2006 12:19:30 GMT -5
Hi Thanks Jr. will give some of your informative insights a try . I see some things here that will help me some for sure.
George
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wades
starting to spend too much on rocks
Gottfried Reiche (1667-1734)
Member since February 2006
Posts: 202
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Post by wades on Apr 5, 2006 11:08:01 GMT -5
I'd be getting impatient too if I had a load of Prairie agates in it's fourth week. Do you mind my asking a few questions? First, how full do you fill your barrel? I find I get a better result if I keep the load closer to the 2/3 mark instead of the 3/4 mark that most reccomend. Also, depending on the size of your barrel depends on how much grit you use. I've seen grit amounts anywhere from 1-1/2 to 2 Tbsp to 2 to 2 1/2Tbsp. I find the lesser amount gives better results. But, no matter what amount you use if you don't check on your load at the 3 day mark after starting it won't matter how long you tumble you won't get the results you're looking for. What I do on the third day is pour my load through a strainer into a vessel that will hold all the water easily. Then I check my barrel. Is there more grit on the bottom than in the water? Even if the slurry looks good you can still have way too much grit stuck on the bottom. And if it's there then there should also be a bunch of rocks stuck in it. If this is the case then I start doing the old bar tender shuffle with the water glass and the barrel until all the grit is off the bottom and either in the water or in the glass.
Lately I've switched to a 12# Lortone for coarse and have continued with adding grit every 4 days. Again, the old books say that a 10# tumbler will consume a # of coarse in 96 hr.{snip} I hope I've given you some help in cutting down on your tumbling times.  I loaded the 3# with about 2.25# of them, along with some of the ceramic angle-ended cylindrical pellets. After some weeks, I took out some of the bigger stones because I thought they might be causing problems. Every so often I would get a couple of smooth pebbles out to save for 120/220, and I had to keep adding ceramic pellets because they were getting worn away.Finally, last weekend, I decided to declare victory and put most of them into medium grit. I also had to discard a bunch of the ceramic pellets... they'd worn so much that they'd stopped rolling and were getting triangular in cross-section! Maybe I should have taken some pictures of that.I'm thinking of getting some .25" hardware cloth and making a sieve for this. I notice, especially in the bigger tumbler, that I'm getting a lot of little bits of stuff. It would sure make it easier to sort the rocks if the really small bits just went away. |
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Post by krazydiamond on Apr 6, 2006 14:22:05 GMT -5
indeed, that bubblegum agate is gnarly old stone and i truly believe there are some that just WILL not ever finish out properly. i had a few in a batch turn out OK, but the rest will need some preforming if they ever go near the tumbler again.
when i first started tumbling, i used to check it EVERY DAY! but i don't anymore, just load it and forget it for a week to ten days, before checking or recharging again. i've encountered problems at times with grit on the bottom if my barrel is not charged with the right proportion of stones, but have a better feel for it now and experience few problems with the coarse and medium grinds.
KD
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jrtrio
has rocks in the head
With10 tumblers tumbling the sound is so delicious!Send me more of those little red fellas, please?
Member since February 2006
Posts: 535
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Post by jrtrio on Apr 20, 2006 7:15:10 GMT -5
That's why I check my barrels after the first 3 or 4 days to make sure the grit/water/rock proportions are correct and that "mud" is not forming in the bottom and holding onto the smaller stones. If the mud is there then I empty the barrel into a sieve and the slurry into a cup. Then pour the slurry into the barrel with the "mud" and mix it up till smooth. Add the stones, seal it up and tumble on. I'm finding that more and more I'm getting better results plus using less grit to get the same results.
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