Juniper
starting to shine!
Rock hound
Member since March 2003
Posts: 40
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Post by Juniper on Feb 16, 2005 20:54:11 GMT -5
I have a thumbers tumbler model b 15lb tumbler. How big of rock can I put in every time I try to go big I have not had good results. Currently I have opalized pet wood(I think, I found it my self). I added peices a bit smaller than my fist. Frist stage great , second not great. It fractures like mad. I have add plastic pellets to help, dosen't seem to help. so I am wondering if the peices are just to big I don't want to give up, cause I have buckets of the stuff.
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Post by docone31 on Feb 16, 2005 21:45:16 GMT -5
Size does matter. Sometimes the dunnage stone is too small also. Opalized Pet Wood? Cool I would love some to facet. Drop me a line if you have some you want to spare. You might have to run it in coarse grit for a long time to make it manageable also. The broken pieces help make a great slurry.
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Post by Cher on Feb 16, 2005 22:44:13 GMT -5
How big is the piece?
Cher
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deepsouth
fully equipped rock polisher
He who rocks last rocks best
Member since January 2004
Posts: 1,256
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Post by deepsouth on Feb 17, 2005 0:03:35 GMT -5
I put the odd fist sized piece in , just make sure you have plenty smaller material with it. One big one among many small ones should work ok. I had bought some secondhand barrels . They hold 16 pound. They were steel and not lined at the time. I had fast wearing rock and many breakages after I sped up the barrels on advice of my lapidary supplier. I have gone back to the slightly slower speed and still have rocks breaking, but fewer. I get the feeling that those were the leaverites. As from the same type of rock I also get a good number of good specimens that last the distance.
Good luck with your tumbling.
Jack
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Juniper
starting to shine!
Rock hound
Member since March 2003
Posts: 40
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Post by Juniper on Feb 17, 2005 21:42:04 GMT -5
thanks for the info! I think the problem might have been too many big rocks at once and not enough smaller in with the big. RosebudMN- many peices around the size of a small-med apple(I have tiny hands, I got to thinking about after I made the post should have been more discriptive) Docone31-I have some I would part with, but I have seen no flash on any of the peices. I will post some pictures of rough as soon as I can. What is a dunnage stone? DeepSouth- How do you slow the barrel dowm thanks everyone Juniper
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Post by docone31 on Feb 17, 2005 21:54:36 GMT -5
Gee, I appreciate it. A dunnage stone is a stone that is marginal and is used to fill a load. When I tumble corundum I save the really tough ones and toss them in multiple tumbles. Sooner or later, they clean up. I bet faceting would put the flash in the Opalized Pet Wood.
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birdseed
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since September 2004
Posts: 167
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Post by birdseed on Feb 18, 2005 3:29:15 GMT -5
DOC.
SIZE ONLY MATTERS IN HORSESHOES!!
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chassroc
Cave Dweller
Rocks are abundant when you have rocktumblinghobby pals
Member since January 2005
Posts: 3,586
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Post by chassroc on Feb 18, 2005 11:48:36 GMT -5
I collected petrified last summer and my pieces fracture very easily and I have not even put them in the tumbler! :-/I have trimmed some edges square and they sometimes fracture in this process or show longitudinal fracture lines :'(In all likelyhood my material cannot be tumbled, so I am simply cutting it to expose the interior which I will eventually polish to a wonderful shine(if it doesn't fracture first)
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MichiganRocks
starting to spend too much on rocks
"I wasn't born to follow."
Member since April 2007
Posts: 154
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Post by MichiganRocks on Feb 18, 2005 13:36:54 GMT -5
I've had good luck tumbling large rocks, but you can put them all in your tumbler at once. Two or three in with a batch of smaller rocks seems to do well for me. Keep the barrel a little fuller than usual and make sure you have lots of plastic in there. I also sometimes add pieces of wood(1-2 square inches) in also. If you can slow down your barrel it will help. When I've got larger rocks polishing I often run pure corn syrup instead of water to slow the fall of the rocks. You will have to let them run a little longer though. Here's a pic of a rock with some nice Rhodonite crystals that I just took out of my Model B today. Didn't do anything special with this one. Ron
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Post by Tweetiepy on Feb 18, 2005 13:56:39 GMT -5
How much longer would you tumble big pieces? I have a 3# going and I have maybe 3 or 4 1 1/2" pieces in there with smaller stuff and I've had to recharge grit after only 5 days (I'm thinking of just adding grit, not cleaning out the barrel before I add more grit - *always learning*). But they've smoothed down a bit (some of the stuff I can tell more because it had a crust, but nothing really smooth going on yet with that. I'd hate to have to wait another week or more to get them into 220 (I'm too anxious to get them polished up) but I'll probably have to wait another 2 weeks for them to smooth out nicely
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MichiganRocks
starting to spend too much on rocks
"I wasn't born to follow."
Member since April 2007
Posts: 154
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Post by MichiganRocks on Feb 18, 2005 14:05:03 GMT -5
Hey Tweetie, don't add too many of the larger rocks. If you don't have enough of the smaller rocks, it will take a lot longer to grind. I normally run close to a month of 60/90 grind on all of my rocks. If you want good rounding, it takes time, no matter what size the rocks are. Your 1.5 inch rocks should not be more than 25% of your total rock load.
Ron
ps. It's hard for me to take a decent picture when I can't use any natural light. If I went outside, the rock would be covered with snow before I got the picture taken!
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Post by Tweetiepy on Feb 18, 2005 14:17:07 GMT -5
Michigan, I switched to 40/70 instead of 60/90 hoping it would help a bit, but unfortunately with my limited knowledge of rocks I have the feeling that I'm tumbling stuff that shouldn't go together - Please someone let me know if these can go together Here's what I can identify: Sodalite (thanks to seeing many pictures of the stuff) Green aventurine, Agates Quartz of some kind Black rocks Red rocks Bluish rocks Rocks with layers of color LMAO - this sounds so stupid (I'm giggling as I'm adding these last ones - I sound like an idiot ). I apologize for my lack of knowledge and for this post as it seems I have lost my mind. Maybe once they're polished (if they polish) maybe someone could identify some of them for me. *rolls eyes at the stupidity of my post* So basically, beyond the colorful stuff listed, can the rocks that have actual names be tumbled together?
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stefan
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Member since January 2005
Posts: 14,095
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Post by stefan on Feb 18, 2005 19:14:36 GMT -5
Tweet yank the sodalite- I made that mistake with a cab I aquired in some oddballs I bought- Thank goodness I checked it after 2 days- The other stuff (quartz and agates and jaspers) Were really beating it up- I think another couple of days would have destroyed it!
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Post by Tweetiepy on Feb 18, 2005 19:48:23 GMT -5
Tweet yank the sodalite- I made that mistake with a cab I aquired in some oddballs I bought- Thank goodness I checked it after 2 days- The other stuff (quartz and agates and jaspers) Were really beating it up- I think another couple of days would have destroyed it! I checked it yesterday and it seems to be holding up well, it's a chunky one, it looks like it can take a beating, but I might yank it out during polish - worse comes to worse, I'll toss it in my do-over pile (all mine so far are do-overs, except one, no idea what it is but she is a beauty!)
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MichiganRocks
starting to spend too much on rocks
"I wasn't born to follow."
Member since April 2007
Posts: 154
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Post by MichiganRocks on Feb 19, 2005 7:46:10 GMT -5
I have the feeling that I'm tumbling stuff that shouldn't go together - Please someone let me know if these can go together Here's what I can identify: Sodalite (thanks to seeing many pictures of the stuff) Green aventurine, Agates Quartz of some kind Black rocks Red rocks Bluish rocks Rocks with layers of color So basically, beyond the colorful stuff listed, can the rocks that have actual names be tumbled together? Hey Tweetie, LOL, yeah those are some pretty generic descriptions. Sound familiar though, I find myself using them quite often. Being very general, I would give the the following observations from running all kinds of rocks that I could find just to see what they would look like polished. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of other kinds of rocks out there, I'm just pointing out the most common ones in my area. I run all of these together up through my 600 grit. The rocks in the 6 category should be separated then as they can benefit from a run in the 1000 grit. The 6.5 to 7 rocks go on together in the polish. If you want, I can look my 100's of rock photos and show you some samples of the "color" rocks. Not sure what you mean about the layered rocks. Gneiss is layered and should run around 6.5 hardness and would have a "grainy" look. Agate/Jasper can look layered but willl not have any apparent crystal structure. I'm done rambling. Hope this helped a little anyway. Ron
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deepsouth
fully equipped rock polisher
He who rocks last rocks best
Member since January 2004
Posts: 1,256
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Post by deepsouth on Feb 19, 2005 13:51:04 GMT -5
Hi Juniper , sorry about the slow reply .
I slowed the barrel revs down by using a slightly smaller pully on the motor. In the shop where I bought my pully , they had a book with tables to work out what size I needed. all you need to know is the revs of the motor and the size of the big pully and the revs you want the barrels to spin at. If you know the mathematical system used to work out the pully sizes , that's fine too.
Good luck
Jack
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Juniper
starting to shine!
Rock hound
Member since March 2003
Posts: 40
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Post by Juniper on Feb 19, 2005 14:06:04 GMT -5
Hi DeepSouth! thanks for replying, I was wondering about that. I will have my wonderfull husband take a look, He will know just what to do ;D juniper
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stefan
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Member since January 2005
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Post by stefan on Feb 21, 2005 8:46:35 GMT -5
I think increasing the size of the drive pully (the one on the motor shaft) would also work- a couple wraps of electrical tape should do it!
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Post by guest on Feb 21, 2005 13:46:01 GMT -5
All rocks shoud be treated the same--regardless of COLOR!!
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stefan
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Member since January 2005
Posts: 14,095
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Post by stefan on Feb 22, 2005 10:16:49 GMT -5
LMAO- Yea but some are just "harder" to take than others!
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